10 Times WWE SummerSlam Was Better Than WrestleMania
Biggest Party > Grandest Stage.
WWE's formal announcement of the ThunderDome was their latest move in the slow stroll back towards the new normal by both major North American outfits.
AEW formally reintroduced small and not-really-spaced-out crowds on the August 12th edition of Dynamite weeks after peppering select folk around the Daily's Place amphitheatre, but WWE have elected to lean on this "state-of-the-art" tech as they take up residency in Orlando's Amway Center for the foreseeable.
Launching with the go-home SmackDown before SummerSlam, the company are making the move to reverse a ratings decline even steeper than usual in 2020. The Performance Center is the latest culprit apparently, despite the regular location doing almost nothing to adjust the stoic WWE formula nor their haphazard attitude to storytelling. The location change and teases of engagement with the audience should at least drive curiosity views for the product in the coming months, but the graphs only point upwards in the medium-to-long term when systemic change occurs.
Until then, WWE have at least got some novelty value to explore for this year's show, virtually ensuring it'll better the slightly sterile WrestleMania. 2020's 'Biggest Party Of The Summer' might be a first, but the phenomenon of August's event outperforming the 'Show Of Shows' is nothing new...
10. SummerSlam 1988
SummerSlam's maiden voyage was WWE's third supershow of 1988 after the inaugural Royal Rumble and WrestleMania IV, but it bettered both thanks to a couple of strong midcard moments backing up a mammoth main event.
Different in purpose and principle to what they are today, pay-per-views then were designed to pay off only a small selection of television feuds whilst merely featuring the rest of the roster. The rest of the angles on Superstars and Challenge were for the health of the house shows, meaning much of what simmered in early '88 never made it to the experimental Rumble or the tournament-driven 'Show Of Shows'.
SummerSlam offered a healthy blend of both. The Mega Powers/Mega Bucks main event was an exquisitely worked fireworks factory, with some of the biggest explosions saved for the babyface celebration at the end. Away from excellent tag matches from one of the best doubles divisions in WWE history, Ultimate Warrior's crushing of the Honky Tonk Man stole the undercard. A glorious and committed bit of booking ended the longest Intercontinental Title reign in the company history in just 31 seconds, with the Madison Square Garden faithful elated to be present for it.