The first night of SummerSlam is in the books, but the weekend is only half over. We still have another night of summertime wrestling ahead of us featuring another six matches, five title matches and the modern day equivalent of a body slam challenge for $15,000 with a ladder… and the money was stolen? And now they have to climb hardware to reclaim it, or I guess, re-steal the $100K? Anyway…
Night one of SummerSlam wrapped with Liv Morgan and CM Punk both retaining their world championships, the Bellas turned on Paige after their trios loss to Fatal Influence, while LA Knight, Solo Sikoa and Royce Keyes won their own trios match.
Gunther ended Nick Aldis’ comeback story, which I admittedly didn’t fully agree with but I’m hoping Aldis gets another match down the road. On second thought when looking at the bigger picture it’s the right call and if Aldis isn’t going to wrestle again immediately him winning makes little sense. Beyond that though, kudos to WWE for getting Oasis’ Morning Glory off the 1995 album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” for Aldis’ entrance. Great song, and I hold the opinion that’s a perfect album.
“All your dreams are made
When you’re chained to the mirror and the razor blade
Today’s the day that all the world will see
Another sunny afternoon
Walkin’ to the sound of my favourite tune
Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon.”
ANYWAY…
As for CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, I’m sticking with the long game Heyman prediction. I’ll probably, maybe be right eventually. For now, that title picture is looking crowded with Punk, Rhodes, Randy Orton and one if not both of Sami Zayn and Finn Balor in the mix after this weekend. Punk obviously didn’t retain clean, so I assume that means he and Orton are going to resume an old feud at some point.
Overall for the night I went 4-2 to improve the overall 2026 record to 65-21 (65/86; 75%). Now let’s take a look at night two of SummerSlam.
SummerSlam Night 2 Predictions
WWE U.S. Championship – Trick Williams (c) vs. Baron Corbin
I feel like I’ve made this prediction at least three times this weekend, but I think Williams will hold on to this entirely because they’ve done little with him as a titleholder since he won the championship at WrestleMania. He’s been active enough, however if you discard his live event defences, he has two title defences since Mania. Granted, that’s two more than Liv Morgan, but I digress. My point is there’s a lot more I think they can do with him in this spot, but they just aren’t. I just don’t see the value in him losing it, never mind to someone who’s only just returned to the company.
Baron Corbin’s insertion in the picture should indicate a good chance he wins, but I don’t know you can do that when you’ve arguably wasted several months with a Williams reign that’s been lacking. Maybe in time sure, but I think Williams retains. And in the broader view, the company needs to get its champions more active. I don’t believe it necessarily makes defences special if they’re few and far between. That only works with champions at an absolutely elite level. Winner: Trick Williams
Finn Balor vs. Sami Zayn
With the added stipulation of the winner becoming number one contender for the WWE championship, that title picture has a lot of potential fellows encircling CM Punk and his championship. With the return of Randy Orton you can either insert him right away, or you can use that to remove he and Cody Rhodes from title expectations. That opens the lanes for either Zayn or Balor to challenge. There’s also Punk’s calling out of Oba Femi after the show. Whether or not Punk would be targeted by Femi is anyone’s guess, but I think that this match is even occurring answers that Femi question.
Balor and Zayn have a few scenarios that could play out ranging from the obvious with one or the other winning, or it somehow ending in a no contest or an otherwise non-conclusive match result. Regardless at least one of them is the next challenger for Punk should Femi not enter the picture. Even if they’re only considering a single opponent, then I think Finn Balor is the winner here. I think he needs it more for his current direction and trajectory than Zayn, even if the result leaves Balor without a championship. Could Zayn win another shot? Sure. Maybe he gets his own returning star to influence the result. However I think Balor wins here. Winner: Finn Balor
Human Monies on a Pole Match — Danhausen vs. Dominik Mysterio
Match will be good, or good-adjacent. Potentially awful. It will be everything you expect it to be. I don’t think a loss here, considering what the match is, hurts Dominik Mysterio or the AAA title. Danhausen wins in what I would call the match most likely to be the funniest match on the card, or one of the dumbest things we’ll ever witness. Somewhere in there is a grey area where greatness exists; I don’t think they find it. Winner: Danhausen
WWE Intercontinental Championship – Penta (c) vs. Chad Gable
At this point I think it would be foolish to not capitalize on the year and momentum that Chad Gable has behind him. Gable’s heel trajectory, natural face turn at the back end of the El Grande Americano run, and his re-emergence as his classic Chad Gable-y self have him in a breakout position. In the other corner, defending champion Penta has been one of the more active WWE champions in 2026, which is in contrast to some of the other titleholders defending this weekend at SummerSlam. Since he won the championship in March Penta has defended the Intercontinental championship 9 times across Raws, in AAA and at WrestleMania. I could make a valid argument that Penta should retain here because he has been a consistent net positive for the WWE mid-card. Overall I think you have three options with him.
First, he can retain and continue being a staple for the title. I don’t think there’s a lot of harm in him continuing to be a consistent presence on Raw. Second, he can drop the championship and stay in the division and work toward recapturing his lost championship. Third, he can lose and move up the card because with his presentation, consistency and crossover appeal he has some value competing for the world championships. Within that third option I’d only be concerned of him getting lost in the shuffle.
Gable is at a point where it’s time to push him forward to secure his first real singles championship in WWE. This is the apex opportunity to do that with him when his popularity in WWE and AAA is at a high, and given Penta’s reign has exceeded expectations over the course of the last five months, I think he can lose and be totally fine in whatever comes next. I personally think Penta staying and competing with Gable for this spot wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for WWE TV in the back end of 2026. Winner: Chad Gable
Interim WWE Women’s Championship – Five Way Ladder Match: Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Jade Cargill vs. Chelsea Green vs. Lash Legend
I generally am not a fan of interim championships. Maybe I’m spoiled on them because of the UFC’s compulsive need to make everything an interim title match if the main champion isn’t available due to injury or general whininess. The concept of the interim titleholder hasn’t exactly been common practice in wrestling other than in the last few years. And to be fair, AEW has a much worse track record of it.
There are examples of contract or disciplinary issues leading to there being two versions of the same title, but with interim championships it tends to imply that the company needs the title present on the show and the primary champion is hurt and will not be available for the immediate future. Considering Ripley has not wrestled since early June I understand the need to do this match and brand it this way, but I also think they’re doing a disservice to the five women in the match by slapping the “interim” tag on their title win.
I also don’t think you need two women carrying two titles in order to build a future match between the winner and Ripley since that’s the natural endgame when you do this. The tone carries more meaning if the person winning it can win their first championship, regain their championship or break a record. The interim tag means nothing to history.
We’ll go offtrack here, but I’ll give you an example. In 2012 when Georges St-Pierre was UFC welterweight champion he got injured after his 7th defence in 2011 and needed to sit for the balance of 2012. In the meantime Carlos Condit — who is one of my favourite MMA fighters — defeated Nick Diaz for the interim title, and then lost to GSP later in the year in the title unifier match. His reign is not recognized as an official full reign and if you look at the title history it says as much — it carries only the interim tag as a footnote.
My point is again that whoever emerges as winner here deserves better than that. Ripley’s return and proclamation to be the real champion works without a physical championship; it’s all optics. Sorry, I’ve prattled here, I just hate interim titles.
I think the major thing we need to consider here is who is the most likely person to be opposite Ripley when she returns. We can probably eliminate Tiffany Stratton and Chelsea Green right away. I think they are central to the women’s U.S. title sphere right now, and I can see Blake Monroe rushing in at some point to take them both out of the match. Charlotte likely doesn’t win here because I think that creates a weird grey area with her title reigns, and I think as you go along with her you want definitiveness and finality with her exact count of women’s world championships.
That firstly leaves Lash Legend, who I don’t think wins this (also should be Giulia, but WHATEVER). I think this fifth spot she occupies is more of a showcase for someone WWE will want to push in the future (so you know, release Giulia) and I think she’s in a spot where she can make some noise, maximize some minutes and do cool powerhouse type spots with the other four. There’s some value in having her there, I just question having Jade and her kind of occupying the same space.
Which brings us to Ms. Cargill. She was the previous champion, and short of something else making sense I think she’s the most likely to come out of this and rekindle that Ripley feud. I think it gives Cargill something to do in the meantime, and is the best ready-made return feud for Ripley that doesn’t muddy up other ongoing narratives. I’d expect something like Flair and Jade jockeying for the ladder before Michin and B-Fab arrive to cause various disturbances. It pretty much writes itself, but I hope they have something better. Winner: Jade Cargill
World Heavyweight Championship – Roman Reigns (c) vs. Seth Rollins
I’ll try and balance out the previous section by keeping this one in line. I also don’t think there are as many interesting avenues and noteworthy points compared to the women’s match.
I think we all know and understand what this match is in terms of its place in WWE history. It dates back over a decade to the rise of the Shield, their breakup and the positions they now hold across wrestling in 2026. This is unquestionably the main event of the weekend. I think there are a lot of moving parts this weekend that are falling into place, and I don’t think it’s an accident that Lesnar and Femi closed out night one the way they did.
I’m expecting Reigns and Rollins to tear the house down as best they can with a match that is ripe with story beats and callbacks to their history, especially if this turns out to be the big Shield blow off match it should be. I fully expect Reigns to come out of this with his championship. What comes next I think is obvious. If I’m guessing correctly here, I think it’s intentional that they’re specifying Balor and Zayn as wrestling for a chance at the WWE championship as opposed to a generic world title shot. They’re specifying. Because of that I’ll hedge an imaginary bet that Reigns retains and Femi walks out to immediately challenge Reigns, or at least make his intentions clear. Either way I think night 2 ends with a Reigns-Femi staredown. Winner: Roman Reigns
