WWE officials make massive change to prestigious SummerSlam PLE

Hunter Haas
WWE is making a massive change to its prestigious SummerSlam event

The “Biggest Party of the Summer” has just got bigger. WWE have announced from 2026 SummerSlam will mimic WrestleMania by splitting the event across two days.

WWE is heading to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2026, and the local fans are getting a treat. Rather than packing all the action into one night, it’s now a two-day event.

After being considered a favorite to host WrestleMania 41 in 2025, Minnesota narrowly missed out on the event, as WWE opted for Las Vegas, Nevada, as the host instead.

Although bringing SummerSlam to Minneapolis and turning it into an entire weekend of action doesn’t totally make up for losing ‘Mania, it gives Minnesotans the next best thing.

WWE received positive feedback after transforming WrestleMania from one long Sunday card into two, as the company made the switch in 2020 ahead of WrestleMania 36.

It’s been a two-day event ever since. Doing so allows all the matches to breathe, giving substantially more opportunities to wrestlers on the mid-card. Now, SummerSlam is doing the same.

SummerSlam — one of the “big four” premium live events alongside WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series — has always been labeled the “Biggest Party of the Summer.”

The pay-per-view event debuted in 1988 and has been a fixture in WWE programming ever since. It is best known for a laundry list of historic matches over the past 35 years.

One such match comes to mind instantly: A 2002 street fight between Triple H and Shawn Michaels, which saw the former best friends battle it out in a brutal and bloody scrum.

Another high-stakes bout synonymous with SummerSlam is a ladder match involving Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. With one of the most odd stipulations, the two men fought for custody of Rey’s son, Dominik.

More recently, Logan Paul and Roman Reigns have both posted career-defining moments at the event, including Reigns’ shocking heel turn at the 2020 SummerSlam.

Simply put, outside of WrestleMania, it’s hard to imagine a more significant event in the professional wrestling world than SummerSlam. And now that it’s a two-night function, its importance will only increase.

The 2026 SummerSlam PLE will arrive to US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Aug. 1 and 2.