SummerSlam (2016)
SummerSlam (2016) was a wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) made by WWE. It happened on August 21, 2016 at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, New York. It was the twenty-ninth time a SummerSlam PPV was held, the second year in a row that it happened at the Barclay's Center and the first WWE PPV since the WWE brand extension started up again.
Twelve matches were performed at the event. In the most important match, Brock Lesnar beat Randy Orton by technical knockout while in another important match, Finn Balor beat Seth Rollins to become the first WWE Universal Champion.
Background
changeThis match was for the WWE World Championship. SmackDown wrestler Dean Ambrose won a match for the title at Battleground on July 25 against Raw wrestlers Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. So SmackDown needed to find a challenger for Dean for SummerSlam and they had a six-pack challenge to find the challenger. The first five spots were given to John Cena, Bray Wyatt, AJ Styles, Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler. Apollo Crews took the sixth spot when he won a battle royal, but Dolph won the six-pack.
Because the WWE World Championship was on SmackDown, Raw had to create their own world championship. They called it the WWE Universal Championship. Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon felt that Seth had a chance to pin Dean Ambrose at Battleground and that would have brought the World Championship to Raw but Roman Reigns was selfish and broke up the pin. Because of that, Stephanie gave Seth the first spot in the first Universal Championship match. Then, Finn beat Cesaro, Kevin Owens and Rusev in a fatal 4-way match and Roman beat Chris Jericho, Sami Zayn and Sheamus in another fatal 4-way. Finally, Finn and Roman fought in a normal match where the winner would face Seth at SummerSlam and Finn won this match.
Matches
change- On the pre-show, American Alpha (Chad Gable and Jason Jordan), The Hype Bros (Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley), and The Usos (Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso) beat Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango), The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor), and The Vaudevillains (Simon Gotch and Aiden English) in a 12-man tag team match.
- On the pre-show, Sami Zayn and Neville beat The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley) in a tag team match.
- On the pre-show, Sheamus beat Cesaro
- Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens beat Enzo Amore and Big Cass in a tag team match.
- Charlotte beat Sasha Banks (champion) for the WWE Women's Championship.
- The Miz (champion) (with Maryse) beat Apollo Crews for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
- AJ Styles beat John Cena.
- Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson beat The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) (champions) (with Jon Stewart) by disqualification for the WWE Tag Team Championship.
- Dean Ambrose (champion) beat Dolph Ziggler for the WWE World Championship.
- Natalya, Alexa Bliss, and Nikki Bella beat Becky Lynch, Naomi, and Carmella in a six-women tag team match.
- Finn Balor beat Seth Rollins to become the first WWE Universal Champion.
- Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) beat Randy Orton.