5 WWE SummerSlam backstage dramas: 2-time World Champion threatened to quit, altercations involving Brock Lesnar and Batista
WWE often promotes SummerSlam as The Biggest Party of the Summer, but the event has also been associated with some of the company’s biggest backstage dramas.
For example, back in the 1990s, Vince McMahon was once forced to pay $500,000 to a former WWE Champion after he threatened to no-show his main-event appearance.
In modern-day WWE, Brock Lesnar and Chris Jericho were involved in a backstage spat following the finish of SummerSlam 2016, while another Superstar has admitted that he was on the verge of quitting WWE after being booked to lose against a part-timer in quick fashion.
In this article, let’s find out the full details behind those stories as we take a look at five backstage dramas that have taken place around the time of WWE SummerSlam events.
#5 Dolph Ziggler threatened to quit at SummerSlam 2019
Two months after his disastrous match against The Undertaker at WWE Super ShowDown 2019, Goldberg returned to in-ring action against Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam.
Goldberg has made a career out of quickly defeating his opponents, usually after a spear and/or a jackhammer, and that is exactly what WWE’s decision-makers originally wanted to happen at SummerSlam in his match against Ziggler.
Speaking to talkSPORT in November 2019, Ziggler said he was told that the SummerSlam match would consist of the ring bell and a spear, followed by a pinfall victory for Goldberg.
“And they go, ‘It’s going to be a bell, spear, pin’ and I go, ‘Come on.’ I fought all day long, threatened to leave, threatened to quit, did everything I had to – ‘Give me two damn minutes!’ And I got a minute, whatever, what you going to do?”
As the two-time WWE World Champion said, after threatening to leave and demanding more time in his SummerSlam 2019 match, he ended up losing in a match that lasted one minute and 50 seconds.
The two men were also given additional time to have a segment after the match, which saw Goldberg return to the ring on two occasions to hit Ziggler with two more spears.