10 Fascinating WWE SummerSlam 2003 Facts
An underwhelming show that was par for the course in WWE's dreadful 2003.
Ahh, 2003. Austin was retired, Rock bolted back to Hollywood in the spring, and the Hulk Hogan wagon train derailed by early summer. WWE went from hip and edgy a few years earlier to grasping at straws in their first full year under the "E" banner. SmackDown was still an okay show, but had diminished from its 2002 form, while Raw set standards for badness that hadn't been seen since the mid-nineties. It actually felt like the show was designed to spite.
SummerSlam 2003 wasn't the worst pay-per-view of the year, but in many other years, it might have been. When you're standing on line with the likes of Backlash, Judgment Day, Unforgiven, and Armageddon from 2003, there are plenty of bodies at the bottom of the pit for SummerSlam to land on. After WrestleMania 19, Vengeance, and maybe the Royal Rumble, the quality of 2003 takes a plunge.
What is there to say about a show where Shane McMahon wrestles Eric Bischoff, Jonathan Coachman turns heel, guys like John Cena and Christian and Rey Mysterio get left off, and the World Heavyweight Champion wrestles for 90 seconds with a leg injury? It wasn't the 2002 SummerSlam, that's for damn certain.
Here are ten facts about SummerSlam 2003 you may not have known.
10. Only 9 Of The 22 Wrestlers At The 2003 Show Took Part In The Prior Year's SummerSlam
SummerSlam and Royal Rumble essentially duke it out for the title of WWE's number two pay-per-view. Often, SummerSlam gets the nod in its role of "B+/A- WrestleMania for the end of summer", and it makes sense to load up the show with stars galore. In the 2002 edition of this list, I noted that 15 of the 18 wrestlers on that show were World Champions at some point. The 2003 show was considerably less-star studded.
Half the wrestlers from 2002 were absent due to injuries (Booker T, Edge), healthy scratches (Christian, Lance Storm, Goldust, Test), working elsewhere on the show (Rey Mysterio on the pre-show, Ric Flair as a manager), or had better things to do (The Rock).
This year did see some true stars that missed last year's show, like Goldberg (not in WWE), Kane (returning from injury in late-August 2002) and The Dudley Boyz (were split, and treading water), while others like La Resistance, A-Train, and a wrestling Eric Bischoff didn't add much to the event quality.