Don’t expect this year’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view to be a marathon show on August 21st.
As noted, WWE was asked to go off the air in time so that fans that want to get to the Manny Pacquiao vs. Errol Spence Jr. fight can get there in time. The boxing pay-per-view will air at the same time as SummerSlam but the main event is not expected to start until sometime around midnight.
SummerSlam is listed as starting at 8 pm eastern time, which means that they will run approximately 3 hours for the main card. WWE typically starts their shows at 7 pm eastern time. There is no word yet on why this show is starting later than usual. However, one has to assume that WWE would be able to put some matches on the Kickoff show.
Dave Meltzer noted that there were some headaches for WWE before they locked in Allegiant Stadium. At one point, the plan was to run on Sunday but the stadium asked them to run the show on Saturday night. There was also talk of not running the show at all in Las Vegas because of the Pacquiao fight. At this point, it looks like the main card for SummerSlam will run from 8 pm eastern to just around 11 pm or perhaps slightly longer than that.
It’s expected that there will be somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000 fans in attendance for SummerSlam and John Cena vs. Roman Reigns is the rumored main event. The idea is that since they couldn’t get a full house for WrestleMania that they will do a WrestleMania-caliber show with SummerSlam in the stadium.
