All 27 WWE SummerSlam Opening Matches - Ranked

The Biggest Party of the Summer (or whatever they are calling it now) is upon us, and this year's card is a pretty hefty one. The Undertaker returns to seek revenge on Brock Lesnar, John Cena will continue his run to Ric Flair's record by rolling over Seth Rollins, Cesaro and Kevin Owens will have the match of the night and Titus O'Neill will come in like a house on fire.

The opening bout of any pay-per-view is vital, as it sets the tone for what is about to come. So what of the 27 SummerSlam events of history? What matches opened these shows, and how did they fare in setting up the rest of the night? There have been some classics, there have been some duds, but they've all served a purpose.

Here are the 27 opening matches of previous SummerSlams, carefully ranked from best to Chris Benoit.

Whilst many lists including Benoit will instantly have him at the bottom due to the circumstances in which his life ended, but not so here. This is the worst SummerSlam opening match at all time, but this has nothing to do with the skill level of the two competitors. It is simply because the match itself lasted 25.5 seconds, with OJ tapping to the crossface. Jordan had been United States Champion for over five months at this point and had even bested Benoit at the previous pay-per-view. Nobody expected the comedy squash that followed.

Things went from bad to worse for Jordan, as Benoit defeated him in less time the following night on RAW. Needless to say Orlando Jordan’s career in World Wrestling Entertainment never recovered. SummerSlam 2005 was actually a decent event nonetheless, famous for Shawn Michaels and his over the top selling against Hulk Hogan.