The Phantom Rant: The Problems with Summerslam 2026

Greetings conversationalists all across the world wide web, it is I…the one and only “Phantom Lord” Joseph Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from New York City and Saturday Night’s Main Event has just passed having occurred this past weekend at Madison Square Garden and I thought it was an all right show. It honestly could have been an episode of RAW and it would have made no difference. It set up some stuff for Summerslam (which for some reason is at the start of the month and that feels wrong) which is in two weeks believe it or not.

I say that because as of me writing this column, ticket sales have been pretty meh for the WWE. Blame the economy, the market the show is in, people burned out and so and so forth. Whatever the reason, Summerslam has only sold a little over 22 thousand tickets. @Wrestletix on Twitter/X says the show is only set up for around 29,000 tickets to be sold. If you look at the ticket sales map, an entire half of the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis will not be used. Now if they were in an arena, 22 Thousand would be a massive sell out. In a stadium that holds over 72 thousand for football games…to say that’s disappointing would be an understatement.

First off, I don’t understand why Summerslam has to be a two day event. They did it last year and last year was forgettable to be honest. I know I can’t remember anything about that show that was special without looking it up. This year’s show is shaping up to be the same way. Hell in A Cell aside, is there really anything about this show that screams “I HAVE TO SEE THAT”. I’m being generous with the HIAC match too because I really don’t see a logical reason for it. Brock Lesnar all ready got his win back against Femi…so what’s the real point of this match?

Had they held off Lesnar’s return for a few months rather than having him come back right away for that Clash in Italy show, it would have made more sense. He could have attacked Oba after he won the King of the Ring and set up all of this. The story we have for this match is Brock is undefeated in HIAC matches and Oba is looking to end him once and for all. I will say this though. On RAW on Monday Night, Paul Heyman delivered a great promo video about the match. But when does Paul Heyman ever not deliver a great promo? Heyman can sell you a match. Question is will anyone buy it?

Moving along to more problems the WWE has with Summerslam, Rhea Ripley is out with some sort of injury. Instead of stripping her of the WWE Women’s Championship, the WWE is creating an interim WWE Women’s Champion that will be decided in a ladder match at Summerslam. Every other champion that gets hurt or whatever and can’t defend their title have been stripped. Why is Rhea so damn special that she gets to keep her title till she comes back. And make no mistake, she will be keeping her title no matter who wins the ladder match to become the interim champion.

I like Rhea, I really do. So I don’t want be one of these guys on the net who bashes her. But if she’s injured…just take the title off her. It’s not like she needs the title to be over. You know me, I prefer a good chase in my championship feuds. Have her be stripped of the title and have a good heel hold that belt while she’s in the hunt.

As of my writing this, so far it’s Tiffany Stratton and Jade Cargil in the ladder match. I love Tiffy Time, but they made a huge mistake having her win over Jacy Jayne. She’s all ready the Women’s US Champion. What does she need to be in this match for? If you want a good heel to hold that title…look no further than Jacy Jayne. She did really well as NXT Women’s champion and with Fallon Henry and Lainey Reid would provide great interference for a Jayne title run while she fends off Rhea Ripley.

So yeah this “Interim” championship makes no sense to me.

One feud that does make some sense is the feud between GUNTHER and Nick Aldis. I don’t know if they needed a Summerslam match, but I’m glad Aldis is getting back into the ring. I always found him to be a really good wrestler and I think the WWE fans who live in a bubble and have never seen anything of his since it’s outside the bubble will be pleasantly surprised. Aldis should give Gunther a competitive match, but ultimately I see Gunther winning this one.

It’s funny how WWE Unreal has debuted over on Netflix and I’ve seen some comments from people saying the show proves how disorganized creatively the WWE is. Well, I’m probably being nice by saying that. As you have probably guessed by the tone of this column, the WWE is all over the place creatively. I didn’t even hit on CM Punk vs. Cody Rhodes. In last week’s column I posted a link to a report RIGHT HERE on NoDQ.com about how the USA Network wanted Punk because they see him as a top star. Honestly between Punk and Rhodes…one of them needs to turn heel. Punk is so naturally a heel, it makes sense it would be him. But if the WWE really wanted to throw things up and shake em, Cody would turn heel on Punk. I know it won’t happen because the WWE makes too much money off all that Cody merchandise. You just know there is a heel dying to come out of Cody Rhodes.

Summerslam is a real test for the booking strategy of Triple H and company. If the show falls flat, what does that say for their long term planning for the rest of the year and beyond. RAW has been pretty ho-hum lately and Smackdown isn’t that far behind. I mean things can change. They always do.

On that note I am done for this week. I need to try and write more about AEW next time because being all WWE all the time can get boring. AEW Redemption is on PPV this weekend and from a wrestling standpoint it looks like it should deliver as a top notch show. As we know, wrestling isn’t AEW’s problem.

So yeah as always you can leave feedback down below, over on Twitter or e-mail me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com