It is also considered one of the company's five biggest events of the year, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank, referred to as the "Big Five".

The 1992 event was the company's first major PPV to take place outside of North America with it being held at the original Wembley Stadium in London, England; it had a reported attendance of 80,355, which as of April 2023, WWE considers this to be their seventh largest live gate in history.

Beginning with the 2021 event, SummerSlam has been held in National Football League stadiums across the United States.

WWF Chairman Vince McMahon countered Jim Crockett's successful Starrcade pay-per-view (PPV), which began airing in 1983, by creating WrestleMania in 1985.

After WrestleMania III in March 1987, the most successful professional wrestling pay-per-view event in history, McMahon created Survivor Series, which aired the same day as Starrcade in November 1987.

In retaliation, Crockett created the Clash of the Champions I event, which aired simultaneously with WrestleMania IV.

WrestleMania IV garnered higher ratings, and not long after, Crockett filed for bankruptcy and sold his company to Ted Turner, who rebranded it as World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

In addition to WrestleMania in March/April, Survivor Series in November, and Royal Rumble in January, McMahon created an event for August, which he named SummerSlam.

[18] The 2020 SummerSlam was scheduled for August 23 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, but it and the preceding night's NXT TakeOver event had to be relocated due to the pandemic.

This made SummerSlam the first major WWE event to be held outside of the Performance Center since March 2020, as well as their first pay-per-view produced from the ThunderDome.