Live updates from SummerSlam 2023

The WWE has set up shop in the Motor City this weekend with SummerSlam coming live tonight from Ford Field in Detroit, MI. The show will start at 8 p.m. ET and will be streamed on Peacock.

SummerSlam is the company’s second biggest show of the year behind Wrestlemania and serves as its showcase spectacle of the summer. This is the third straight year that the event has taken place at an NFL stadium with last year’s show coming from Nissan Stadium in Nashville and the 2021 show coming from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The main event of the show will feature undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns putting both his belts and the title of “Tribal Chief” on the line when facing Jey Uso in a Tribal Combat match. We’ll also get Seth Rollins defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Finn Balor, Asuka defending the WWE Women’s Championship against Bianca Belair and Charlotte Flair, and Brock Lesnar battling Cody Rhodes for a third time.

Follow along as I keep track of today’s show and offer my thoughts below.

Undisputed WWE Universal Championship – Roman Reigns (c) vs. Jey Uso (Tribal Combat)

Winner: Roman Reigns via pinfall

This was your standard Reigns main event that had all of the bells and whistles. You had plenty of drama between the two, you had plenty of violence, and you got the first signs of brief tension between Reigns and Sikoa.

And then there’s the ending. Alright look, Reigns was never going to drop the title here. I think we all knew that. But to have Jimmy Uso come back to turn on his brother is…weak. Within this Bloodline arc, we are far past the point of doing an Uso vs. Uso match. The time to do it was back in 2021 when you had a fully brainwashed Jey and a Jimmy that was still reluctant to submit to Reigns’ authority. Doing this now sets the story backwards and it feels contrived. The Bloodline storyline has been the best piece of longterm storytelling the company has done in years, but we may be hitting the point of it jumping the shark.

Rating: 3.5/5

12:10 a.m. ET: Jimmy Uso is here and he…turns on Jey. Reigns spears him through a table and retains.

12:05 a.m. ET: Roman accidentally spears Solo and then Jey spears Roman. We’re entering the end game here.

12:01 a.m. ET: And here’s Solo, who Uranage’s his older brother through a table.

12:00 a.m. ET: Violence is starting to pick up as Jey now has a leather strap. He busted Roman’s arm open with it. Now we’re talking.

11:59 p.m. ET: Just as we approach midnight on the east coast, Jey and Roman have gone crashing through a table on the outside.

11:55 p.m. ET: Jey has thrown several chairs in the ring. We’ll see how this ends..and just as I typed this, Roman powerbombed him into the chairs.

11:53 p.m. ET: We got plenty of kendo stick action.

11:20 p.m. ET: It’s Tribal Combat time in the main event. We’re going well towards midnight with this folks.

WWE Women’s Championship – Asuka (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair

Winner: Bianca Belair via pinfall

WWE Women’s Championship – Bianca Belair (c) vs. Iyo Sky

Winner: Iyo Sky via pinfall

Ok, a lot to unpack there. The women’s triple threat was a good match, but it felt like it could’ve ratcheted up into another gear for most of it. The story ended up being Belair’s knee and her overcoming that to return to the match and rolling Asuka up to become the new champ. She gave everything to fight her way back into the match and capture the belt.

But of course, the injured knee was a set up for the eventual Money in the Bank cash-in by Iyo Sky. It was seamlessly done and even if you saw it coming, it was still an exciting moment that woke the crowd up. Sky hit her moonsault and we once again have a new women’s champion. It’s a full circle moment for Sky, who debuted on the main roster with Damage CTRL one year ago at SummerSlam.

Rating: 4/5

11:10 p.m. ET: AND WE HAVE A NEW WWE WOMEN’S CHAMPION AGAIN! IYO CASHES IN!

11:09 p.m. ET: Hahaha. Belair wins the title and IYO IS HERE!

11:06 p.m. ET: Belair is back and just hit a damn 450 while Charlotte was in the Figure 8!

11:03 p.m. ET: Belair took a nasty spill outside and her knee clipped the steel steps hard. Trainers checking up on her and she’s being helped to the back. We’ll see if she comes back.

11:00 p.m. ET: This triple threat as been good, but it feels like it could hit another gear. The crowd isn’t into it as much as you’d expect.

10:41 p.m. ET: Penultimate match of the evening with the women’s triple threat up next.

World Heavyweight Championship – Seth Rollins (c) vs. Finn Balor

Winner: Seth Rollins via pinfall

A fun encounter between the two and topped their previous match at Money in the Bank last month. They did an effective job at calling back to the 2016 match and the crowd got more and more into it as the drama built. Still, similar to the MITB title match, I felt that the Judgement Day interference was a little bit too much. That’s now two straight matches where miscommunication between Priest and Balor cost the challenger the match and both instances were kind of unnecessary. As for the Judgement Day, I think there will be one less member by the time Monday Night Raw goes off the air this week.

Rating: 4.25/5

10:35 p.m. ET: Miscommunication within the Judgement Day costs Balor the match. Priest tried to help Balor on multiple occasions, only to be berated by Finn. He left the Money in the Bank briefcase in the middle of the ring and went up to the ring apron to distract the ref. As Balor went for the briefcase, Rollins stomped him into it and picked up the win.

10:34 p.m. ET: Folks, we have high drama in the closing act of this match.

10:31 p.m. ET: And here’s Damian Priest with the briefcase.

10:28 p.m. ET:

10:26 p.m. ET: A lot of callbacks to their SummerSlam 2016 match so far. Finn just powerbombed Rollins into the barricade, the same move that put Balor on the shelf and forced him to relinquish the Universal title.

10:12 p.m. ET: No Judgement Day coming out with Balor. Interesting.

10:11 p.m. ET: World Heavyweight Championship up next. This show is flying by.

Intercontinental Championship – Gunther (c) vs. Drew McIntyre

Winner: Gunther via pinfall

As expected, this was a hard-hitting affair and and a rare match where Gunther was forced to dig deep and pull every tool out of his bag from splashes to lariats to win. This was a hoot, but the only thing holding it back was that it was kind of short. Still a really good showing by these two.

Rating: 4/5

10:03 p.m. ET: Gunther’s record IC title reign continues as he puts down Drew McIntyre in Detroit.

10:01 p.m. ET: Jim Ross voice Business is starting to pick up folks.

9:45 p.m. ET: IC title time baby.

Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler (MMA rules)

Winner: Shayna Baszler via TKO

I’m of two minds with this bout. For what it was as an MMA rules match, they delivered in terms of physicality and brutality. They were laying in hard strikes and really told the story of two former friends in a struggle to put the other down. However, these MMA style matches in wrestling rarely work in front of a live audience. At a big show in front of over 50,000 people, you need the action to be constantly moving and there were points during the bout where the crowd was completely dead. SummerSlam is not the show to try this out and they would’ve been better off just doing a submission match.

Rating: 3/5

9:40 p.m ET: Baszler locks in the Kirifuda Clutch and defeats Rousey by technical knockout

9:33 p.m. ET: Rousey just got roundhouse kicked straight in the temple. Goodness.

9:28 p.m. ET: MMA friends turned enemies bout up next as Shayna Baszler will face Ronda Rousey.

Slim Jim SummerSlam Battle Royal – 20 competitors

Winner: L.A. Knight

Standard battle royal here and it was pretty fun. Most of the primary stars in this match got opportunities to showcase themselves and ultimately, the right guy emerged victorious. Knight has gotten himself extremely over this summer and it was about time he got a signature win. We’ll see what’s in store for him on Smackdown in the coming weeks.

Rating: 3/5

9:22 p.m. ET: The winner of the Slim Jim Battle Royal is L….A….KNIGHT….YEEEEEEAAHHH!!!

9:19 p.m. ET: L.A. Knight is over brother. The Ford Field crowd wants him to win.

9:17 p.m. ET: We get the classic “everybody in the battle royal to eliminate the big guy” spot with Omos. Goodnight sweet prince.

9:10 p.m. ET: Slim Jim Battle Royal is underway and my God, Omos is back.

Brock Lesnar vs. Cody Rhodes

Winner: Cody Rhodes via pinfall

The story of this match was simple. Rhodes would not back down from Lesnar and had to simply survive. He was brutalized for a good 15 minutes of the bout, being put through the announce table and even fought his way out of the Kimura Lock. He was able to will himself to get the upperhand on Lesnar and picked up the win. The match was good, but wasn’t anything special. Which kind of describes this feud in a nutshell. The two shook hands out of respect afterwards and we can assume that they’ll finally be going their separate ways.

Rating: 3.5/5

9:00 p.m. ET: With three Cross Rhodes, Cody Rhodes manages to put down Brock Lesnar to take the third and final match of their trilogy.

8:51 p.m. ET: Cody gets F5’d through the announce table and once again makes it into the ring to beat the 10 count. Lesnar is pissed and his face is purple.

8:48 p.m. ET: Brock ragdolling Cody for 10 minutes straight and he won’t stay down.

8:37 p.m. ET: It always astonishes me to hear entire stadiums singing along to Cody’s theme song. Two years ago, he was getting booed at AEW shows. What a time.

8:31 p.m. ET: Lesnar vs. Rhodes next. Interesting that this is the second match on the card.

Logan Paul vs. Ricochet

Winner: Logan Paul via pinfall

This is going into the pantheon of great SummerSlam openers. The story of the match was both men trying to go viral and they spent 20 minutes trying to one-up each other with their athleticism. Left with no other recourse to win, Paul resorts to a classic heel tactic and gets one of his security entourage to hand him a pair of brass knuckles for the win. Great stuff here. Fantastic opener.

Rating: 4.5/5

8:25 p.m. ET: Ahh, the brass knuckles and Logan Paul steals the win.

8:19 p.m. ET: A top rope swinging next breaker from the top rope by Ricochet. Now we’re cooking.

8:17 p.m. ET: Excellent opener through the first 10 minutes. Still waiting for the big spot that will go viral since that’s what this match is being built around.

8:15 p.m. ET: Ricochet nearly broke his damn leg on that back body drop.

8:05 p.m. ET: Logan Paul vs. Ricochet starting off. We’ll see if they can steal the show right out the gate.

6:52 p.m. ET: The Tribal Chief is in the building.