10 Craziest Matches In WWE SummerSlam History

SummerSlam, home of the purported “biggest party of the summer” and a stage for celebrity guest performances, such as that of Cee Lo Green in 2011. Not quite the kind of blood-and-guts show that you’d associate with extreme matches, then.

But even so, since its inception in 1988, and even across the PG years, the pay-per-view has still managed to deliver us some of the craziest matches in all of WWE.

And despite not being an explicitly gimmick-themed PPV, we’ve still seen just about every match type under the sun utilised at past events. From the more common stipulations such as cage and ladder matches, to some of the less orthodox backstage brawls and ringside adornments that I'll soon be delving into.

In fact, there have been so many in SummerSlam’s history that even the likes of Ken Shamrock’s Lion’s Den matches and a Shane McMahon Greenwich Street Fight weren't quite worthy of making the cut for this top ten list. Hopefully their replacements are adequate enough though, as we count down ten of the craziest matches in SummerSlam’s history.

For the record - I won’t be including straight-up singles bouts because, as great as they may have been, they’re still not quite the same kind of crazy as some of these matches we’ll be discussing. And by crazy, I don’t necessarily mean good…

As is the case with our first entry.

Kane vs. Bray Wyatt wasn’t necessarily a classic affair, but it did have a rather unique stipulation in that this was the first-ever - and to this point only -Ring of Fire match, whereby a literal ring of fire would surround the squared circle from beneath the bottom rope, preventing any nuisances from interrupting the contest.

So, basically, an Inferno match (but not quite as exciting).

In an Inferno match, you’re actually required to set your opponent alight somehow in order to score the victory. In a Ring of Fire match, though, the fire is simply a deterrent to prevent any outside interference - in this case from the Wyatt family members.

So really the stipulation just meant that this was match would indeed remain one-on-one, but with the added consequence that nobody would be able to leave the ring on account of the wall of flames. Unless, of course, someone used a fire blanket to dampen the blaze, as Luke Harper and Erick Rowan did indeed do…

Still, while it may have been a slightly watered-down version of the old Inferno matches, having a wall of fire so close to the action certainly constitutes crazy in my book.