One of the more fun debates in wrestling among fans is deciding who can carry the title of Mr. WrestleMania. While the "Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels owns that moniker for regularly delivering the best WrestleMania match, Randy "Macho Man" Savage was the original Mr. WrestleMania for having the first great matches at the event. Of course, The Undertaker has probably surpassed both of them for his incredible winning streak and historic amount of matches.
Mr. WrestleMania is a fun topic, but what about the debate for Mr. SummerSlam? The second biggest show of the year has delivered just as many legendary moments and matches as it's Springtime relative. The standout candidates for that title aren't as clear as they are for WrestleMania either, which makes it all the more fun. These five wrestlers are the best nominees for the title Mr. SummerSlam.
Bret Hart
While it's debatable who Mr. SummerSlam is now, there's no debate that the first Mr. SummerSlam was Bret Hart. The Hitman competed at the first three SummerSlams as one half of The Hart Foundation, but it was his first singles match at the event which put his solo career on the map. Hart won his first Intercontinental championship in 1991 against Mr. Perfect in arguably the first great SummerSlam match. He topped that performance the next year in one of the biggest SummerSlams of all-time, defending his Intercontinental title in the main event at Wembley Stadium against his brother-in-law, the British Bulldog.
His WWF championship match with Owen Hart in a steel cage at the 1994 event earned the extremely rare five-star rating from Dave Meltzer. His last SummerSlam match (excluding his glorified cameo in the main event of 2010) is arguably the best main event in the show's history with him and The Undertaker's WWF title match. Hart's sworn enemy, Shawn Michaels, refereed that match, and the two inevitably bickered to the point of The Hitman spitting at him. The enraged Michaels attempted to hit Hart with a chair but instead hit The Undertaker. Hart won the match and his fifth WWF Championship, sealing his legacy as one of the greatest of all-time.
Edge
Despite battling injuries throughout the years, the Rated-R Superstar still had thirteen total matches at the event with an astonishing 11-2 record. Four of those matches were in the 1999 Tag Team Turmoil tournament, where Edge and Christian fell short of winning it against The Acolytes.
Edge's SummerSlam catalog his fascinating. His debut at the show was a mixed tag team match where he teamed up with Sable. In 2000, he and Christian won the first official Tables, Ladders and Chairs match in one of the wildest matches ever. That TLC match began a six-match winning streak for Edge at SummerSlam, and it ended in 2008 in a blaze of glory against The Undertaker inside Hell in a Cell, which also main-evented. Unfortunately, Edge has had only one SummerSlam match since, but hopefully, in 2021, he'll be healthy enough to add another chapter in his Summer saga.
Brock Lesnar
Had Brock Lesnar never came back to the WWE in 2012, he still would've had two SummerSlam classics under his belt. SummerSlam 2002 is considered arguably the greatest non-WrestleMania pay-per-view in WWE history, and The Rock's hyped WWE title match with the young phenom Lesnar was a big part as to why. The wild crowd and intense battle between Rock and Lesnar became a turning point in the company as Lesnar became WWE Champion only a few months after his debut. The next year, he and Kurt Angle had a great WWE championship match where Lesnar actually tapped out to the ankle lock.
But when The Beast Incarnate came back in 2012, he began a streak of SummerSlam epics in which he main evented eight of them. Where it was breaking Triple H's arm, his phenomenal dream match with CM Punk, the stunning decimation of John Cena, or the incredibly violent beat down of Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar may be the biggest SummerSlam draw of the past decade.
Randy Orton
How many wrestlers can say their first two SummerSlam matches were in the main event? Not even Brock Lesnar could, but in 2003 a newcomer named Randy Orton participated in the Elimination Chamber main event. The next year was a huge moment for the Legend Killer as Orton defeated Chris Benoit to become the youngest World Champion in WWE history. The match isn't celebrated because of Benoit's involvement, but the achievement itself is still a highlight of Orton's career.
After that was a fifteen year stretch of the Apex Predator facing some of the biggest names in the business, including The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, John Cena and Roman Reigns. His underrated 2011 feud with Christian reached its climax with a No Holds Barred World Heavyweight championship match. He had an intense and controversial dream match with Brock Lesnar in the main event of the 2016 show. This summer, he's going to add to his SummerSlam legacy by challenging Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship. If there's anyone whose going to seal his status as Mr. SummerSlam, it's Randy Orton.
John Cena
It may have taken two years for John Cena to finally make his SummerSlam debut, but he made up for lost time quickly. Most of Cena's SummerSlam opponents are a who's who of 21st-century wrestlers: Booker T, Chris Jericho, Edge, Randy Orton, Batista, The Nexus, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins and AJ Styles. Cena main evented six total SummerSlams and the notorious "Super Cena" still put over his peers huge with clean losses including to Batista, Bryan, and the infamous beatdown to Lesnar in 2014. Once the world gets back to normal, the rising movie star may wrestle at SummerSlam again to promote a potential Summer blockbuster.