Dean Ambrose still trending on Google Search following WWE SummerSlam 2026 | Column
The main event of WWE SummerSlam 2026 Night 2 had more than a few nods to The Shield, with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns both hitting moves by their former stablemate Dean Ambrose (now of course Jon Moxley in AEW).
We’re now into Monday morning following the PLE and “Dean Ambrose” is still trending on Google Search. As of 7:25 a.m. ET, Google was still classifying the cluster for the term “Dean Ambrose” as active, 11 hours after it started trending, and Google defines “Active” as searches that are continuing at a higher level than usual.
The chart from Google Trends (below) also shows an initial peak followed by another sustained rise, which is most likely fans in different time-zones now searching for the former Shield member following the references at the PLE (I can’t 100% confirm that, but is what I’ve seen in the past when it comes to trends on Google fluctuating).
Why all the Dean Ambrose references?
The story of Roman vs Seth at SummerSlam was clearly framed around wanting to finally put The Shield storyline to bed, as Rollins has been goading Reigns with references to the group during their on-again-off-again feud over the last few years.
I understand why they (as in Rollins and Reigns) wanted to include some nods to their former stablemate, but it just seems odd that so much time was seemingly spent on reminding fans of someone who A) doesn’t work in the company anymore and B) is one of the top stars in AEW. If Ambrose/Moxley was no longer active/mainly working the independents, then wanting to do this mini-tribute makes sense, but as you can see above, it’s just meant that people are now searching for Dean Ambrose. What benefit does that have for WWE?
I am absolutely sure that AEW will not mind the free publicity, because any WWE fan who is wondering where Dean Ambrose is now may well find out that he’s in All Elite Wrestling because of that Google search (which has hit volumes of up to 200,000, which isn’t a tiny amount considering the potential new eyeballs that could bring). You can’t assume that every single casual fan knows where people have gone or are doing post-WWE, you just need to look at the comments section of some former-WWE stars’ Instagram posts to see that some people genuinely aren’t aware of what AEW even is.
This could’ve been a case of Rollins and Reigns outright saying they wanted to pay tribute to Ambrose during the match, but for a company that is putting a lot into counterprogramming the place that Ambrose now works? It just seems really counterintuitive. I’m not saying that this will drive hundreds of thousands of viewers away from WWE into the arms of AEW, but it just seems odd to reference one of the bigger stars over there, even if it is subtle (which this wasn’t).
The WWE NXT Heatwave & AAA doubleheader will be running head-to-head with AEW All In later this month, but here’s WWE reminding people of someone who works in AEW and will be in a featured match at All In…? Baffling, really.
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling as Head of Media as well as working on the social channels of the company.