25 Greatest WWE SummerSlam Matches EVER
CM Punk, John Cena, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels "Feel The Heat"
'The Biggest Party Of The Summer' has, for many years now, been considered WWE's second biggest event of the calendar year. Royal Rumble has WrestleMania implications, Survivor Series divides and rules the rosters based on t-shirt colour whilst Money In The Bank offers a legitimate golden opportunity, but SummerSlam is...long.
Loading up the August spectacular to look and feel like the 'Show Of Shows', the event has long been WrestleMania-lite due to the lack of a gimmick rather than need to insert one. For years providing doubles main events, (or, in 1990, 1991 and 1992, Double Main Events), SummerSlam didn't rely on the Royal Rumble's stakes or Survivor Series' gimmick to get by, merely strong cards with strong pairings promising strong matches.
At least 25 times, it got it right.
If you can get your Network to work after the most recent rebadge, there are actually more than a quarter-century of classics available from SummerSlam's rich history, but these make for some of the most mind-blowing moments of them all. A collection worthy of any WrestleMania, even if the combinations were relegated to August from April.
25. Ted Dibiase Vs Virgil (SummerSlam 1991)
"Virgil's best ever match" almost damns this clash with faint praise, but this grand payoff to the former bodyguard's three-year abuse arc with his evil employer was also one of Ted Dibiase's finest efforts too.
WWE had patiently waited not just to have Virgil turn on the Million Dollar Man, but to have Dibiase's vanity belt switch owners. The turn took place at the Royal Rumble, their first match at WrestleMania VII, and the long-awaited win here.
A red hot Madison Square Garden crowd clung on to every shred of pathos the pair inserted in to a scientifically simplistic scuffle that relied so much more on the conflict between the characters than what moves each man used on the other. Pro wrestling rather than deathly dull good wrestling, this made the impossible possible either side of the confines of kayfabe - Virgil legitimately looked like a main event star in victory.