Daily Update: WWE SummerSlam Night 2 news & notes

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Sunday Update

WWE SummerSlam 2026 Penta vs Chad Gable
WWE SummerSlam 2026 Penta vs Chad Gable (Image credit: WWE)

— Bryan and I will be back tonight after SummerSlam, talking about the show, as well as repercussions from the show, G-1, and a lot more. We have a show up on the site regarding last night’s show and the CMLL show, plus G-1. We did our news week in review show with Garrett on Friday with a ton of analysis of what WWE and AEW are doing right now and answering questions.

— There is a major storyline development planned in the Finn Balor vs. Sami Zayn match tonight. The current plan is that the match will be changed and there will be several twists in that match. Last night’s hype for Punk vs. Gunther was meant as a swerve and likely for the future but not right away but it was done last night for a reason that will become clear very soon.

— As was noted in the current issue, both Randy Orton and Kevin Owens are on the way back in strong positions with Orton vs. Cody Rhodes on the way.

— No update on Brie Bella past the shoulder injury. So the plan for the Bellas as a heel team ended as quickly as the plans as a face team. Paul Levesque last night said that they were fearing it was a serious injury but she hadn’t been checked out at the hospital yet.

Today’s line-up:

  • Sami Zayn vs. Finn Balor for the next shot at CM Punk (this will change at least as of yesterday)
  • Trick Williams vs. Baron Corbin for the US title
  • Charlotte Flair vs. Lash Legend vs. Jade Cargill vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Chelsea Green in a ladder match for the interim WWE women’s championship
  • Danhausen vs. Dominik Mysterio human monies on a pole match
  • Penta vs. Chad Gable for the IC title
  • Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins for the world title

— Per WrestleTix, the attendance last night as far as tickets distributed was 35,654. Today’s show was at 32,226. They didn’t announce a number last night but Michael Cole called it capacity, which is hilarious given the place holds 68,000.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on last night’s SummerSlam snow and tonight’s show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match from each show to [email protected]

— Sky, the biggest cable company in Mexico, announced they would be dropping thel Fox Sports channels at the end of this month. That is AEW’s only exposure in Mexico. It is also the station that airs Friday night Arena Mexico live and business has gone up since they started airing it. CMLL still airs the Friday shows on tape on Televisa, but more watched the live version. It does not affect WWE on Netflix or AAA on its Fox Channel that is being kept on the cable.

— SummerSlam on Netflix was No. 10 among TV shows and No. 15 among all shows on Netflix yesterday. It was No. 1 in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador and Trinidad & Tobago. It was No. 2 in Canada and Mexico. For the first day, factoring out the U.S., it did better than a usual episode of Raw but not better than the highest episodes of Raw this year.

— There is a great article on the state of boxing championships regarding the Senate’s version of the Ali Act by the Boxing Insider staff here. It compares the senate bill to the one in the house. Essentially, the house version wanted to limit championships and the Senate version will allow for the creation of all kinds of championships. I think the key to all of this is the reality of what the bills are. Neither bill in any way helps fighters and their rights. Both bills don’t help in trying to lead to real championships, although the Senate bill is worse in that regard. The writing of the bills are basic compromises between what TKO wanted but the Senate bill also allows the sanctioning bodies, which TKO at first wanted to get rid of, their voice. At the end, neither the fighters nor fans benefit from this, but whoever is left standing when the promotional wars play themselves out have bylaws that will help them greatly.

— For Google searches, SummerSlam fared better than most PPV shows with 293,000, and was No. 5 among all topics over the weekend. Besides the show itself, key searches in order were for Brock Lesnar, Nick Aldis, Cody Rhodes, Liv Morgan and Randy Orton. The UFC show yesterday in Serbia did 118,000. PFL, which never has mainstream interest, did hit 25,000 with the key topics being Usman Nurmagomedov and Dakota Ditcheva. In the case of Nurmagomedov, his contract with PFL has expired and the question is whether he’ll stay with the PFL/MVP or move to UFC as a PFL champion with an undefeated record.

— SmackDown on Friday was No. 1 for the day in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. In other key markets it was No. 3 in Australia, No. 2 in Canada, No. 8 in France, No. 3 in India, No. 4 in Italy, No. 4 in Mexico, No. 3 in New Zealand, No. 3 in Saudi Arabia and No. 2 in the U.K.

— For best matches of the weekend, I’ve been told Gabe Kidd vs. Henare, Drilla Moloney vs. Aaron Wolf, Yota Tsuji vs., Ryohei Oiwa and Konosuke Takeshita vs. Hirooki Goto were the best bouts of the best bouts of the past two days. If you like creative high flying with great heat, Mascara Dorada’s win over Komander from Friday’s Arena Mexico show is the match for you.

— From today’s show in Fukuoka:

  • Aaron Wolf b Drilla Moloney with the Angle slam
  • Zack Sabre Jr. b Oskar via submission
  • Ren Narita b Yuya Uemura with a knee lock submission
  • Gabe Kidd b Henare with a piledriver

Updated B bock standings are:

  1. Kidd 10; 2. Mononey, Henare, Callum Newman, Oskar and Narita 8; 7. Wolf and Uemura 6; 9 Sabre Jr. 4; 10. Shota Umino (injured, forfeited all his bouts) 0.

— DeWayne Bruce aka Buddy Lee Parker turns 64 today. El Hijo del Santo turns 63. Davey Boy Smith Jr. turns 41. Austin Theory turns 29. Angel Blanco, the original, was born on this day in 1936. Argentina Apollo died 42 years ago today at the age of 46. (thanks to Tony Richards)

— Kyle Fletcher will appear for House of Glory on 9/4 in Los Angeles at the Globe Theater.

— Ricky Sosa vs. KC Navarro will be on the House of Gory show on 8/7 at the NYC Arena in Jamaica, NY.

— A correction from last night’s show. The Jacques Rougeau pin of Hulk Hogan was not from a WCW show as I said. It was an independent that Jacques, PCO, Tony Mule and Cookie Lazarus promoted. WCW talent was on the show and the company was paid by the Montreal promoters a booking fee. It was unclear where the rights to the footage of the WCW talent stood. So the issue was not necessarily that WWE would own the content since they bought WCW, the issue was there was no release for the footage that AEW lawyers could verify in time to air it on the day of the show to be okay legally.

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Dave Meltzer
Dave Meltzer

Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.