Oba Femi Defeats Brock Lesnar as Randy Orton Makes His WWE Return on ESPN Unlimited’s SummerSlam Night One

WWE kicked off the second ever two night SummerSlam on Saturday, streaming live on ESPN Unlimited from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Six matches filled out the card, but the night belonged to two moments that will shape WWE’s next chapter: a torch passing performance from a rising star, and a legend’s unannounced return that changed the outcome of the show’s biggest title match.

The main event saw Oba Femi face Brock Lesnar inside Hell in a Cell, the first time the structure has been used at SummerSlam since 2008 and the tenth SummerSlam main event of Lesnar’s career, a company record. The two traded heavy shots from the opening bell, with Lesnar taking Femi to Suplex City with three consecutive German suplexes before ripping up the ring mat and dropping him with a Tombstone Piledriver onto the exposed wood underneath. Femi kicked out of that and three separate F5s, eventually knocking a steel chair out of Lesnar’s hands and finishing him off with his Fall From Grace to end the match at 11:39. Afterward, Lesnar embraced the newly crowned star and called him the future of WWE.

The Undisputed WWE Championship match between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes ran even longer, closing out at 29:43 to become the night’s longest bout, with both men working an injury angle from the early minutes. Rhodes appeared to have the match won late, only for Randy Orton to make a surprise return and deliver an RKO that left him laid out. Punk capitalized with a GTS to retain the title, and Orton’s comeback is expected to headline the storylines going into this week’s Raw.

The show opened with Liv Morgan defending her Women’s World Championship against Iyo Sky in a match many are already calling one of the best women’s bouts of the year. Sky nearly overcame interference from Morgan’s Judgment Day allies before Morgan retained, quieting some of the criticism she had faced over the frequency of her televised title defenses since winning the championship at WrestleMania 42.

Elsewhere on the card, LA Knight, Solo Sikoa and Royce Keys defeated The Usos and Jacob Fatu in a six man tag pulled from the ongoing Bloodline storyline, Gunther defeated SmackDown general manager Nick Aldis in Aldis’s first match of any kind in nearly three years, and the trio of Jacy Jayne, Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid, known as Fatal Influence, defeated Paige and the Bella Twins.

SummerSlam continues with Night Two on Sunday, streaming live on ESPN Unlimited, where Finn Balor and Sami Zayn will meet to determine CM Punk’s next challenger for the Undisputed WWE Championship.