The event took place on August 19, 2018, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York for the fourth and final consecutive year.

Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer",[3] it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views (PPV), along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four".

Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, Seth Rollins, Elias, Finn Bálor, and Roman Reigns all wanted an opportunity.

In response, Angle scheduled two triple threat matches that night, with the winners facing each other the following week to determine Lesnar's challenger.

Ronda Rousey, whom she had cost a championship match at Money in the Bank and who had been suspended, came out from the crowd and attacked Bliss and Mickie James.

A rematch was scheduled for SummerSlam with a stipulation that if Owens won, even by disqualification or countout, he would win Strowman's Money in the Bank contract.

[14] During the contract signing on the August 13 episode, Dean Ambrose returned from injury, confirming he would be in Rollins' corner.

[18] On the August 13 episode of Raw, The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) retained the Raw Tag Team Championship in a triple threat tag team match against Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt and The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson) when they pinned Wyatt.

Paige fired him and saw him being kicked out of the building, when Samoa Joe attacked Styles with the "Coquina Clutch" and then signed the contract.

[19][21] The New Day (represented by Big E and Kingston) then defeated Cesaro and Sheamus in the finals to face The Bludgeon Brothers for the titles at SummerSlam.

[21] At Extreme Rules, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Jeff Hardy to capture the United States Championship after a pre-match low blow.

The Miz responded by going on a rant about Bryan being unable to return to in-ring competition due to the various injuries he had sustained throughout his WWE career.

On March 20, 2018, Bryan was medically cleared to return to in-ring competition by doctors,[26] after which he resumed his feud with The Miz.

[22] On August 11, a mixed tag team match between Rusev and Lana and Almas and Vega was scheduled for SummerSlam Kickoff pre-show.

[27] On the July 24 episode of 205 Live, Drew Gulak earned the right to challenge Cedric Alexander for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship by winning a fatal four-way match.

[30] After that, The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) defended the Raw Tag Team Championship against The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder).

[31] Next, The Bludgeon Brothers (Harper and Rowan) defended the SmackDown Tag Team Championship against The New Day's Big E and Xavier Woods, accompanied by Kofi Kingston.

The match ended when Rowan struck Woods and Big E with a mallet, thus The New Day won by disqualification, however, The Bludgeon Brothers retained the titles.

Natalya made her entrance first to be in Rousey's corner, and she wore her father Jim Neidhart's jacket to the ring, who had died a few days prior.

[31] In the main event, Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) defended the WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns.

Before the match began, Braun Strowman showed up, stating his intention to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on the winner and remaining at ringside.

Also that episode, Paul Heyman confronted General Manager Kurt Angle about Brock Lesnar's contractual rematch, wanting it to occur at Hell in a Cell.

[33] The following week, Strowman confronted Reigns and announced that he would be cashing-in at Hell in a Cell inside the namesake structure so that Ambrose and Rollins could not interfere.

This would also lead to a six-man tag team match pitting The Shield against Strowman, McIntyre, and Ziggler at Super Show-Down.

[34] A title match between the two teams was scheduled for the September 3 episode, but The B-Team were attacked backstage by Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, who went on to become the new champions.

Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston represented The New Day and defeated The Bludgeon Brothers to become three-time SmackDown Tag Team Champions.

[39] It was also announced that The Miz and Bryan would have a rematch at Super Show-Down, with the winner earning a future WWE Championship match.

[41] Becky Lynch explained her reasoning for attacking new SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair after the triple threat match.

The storyline would go all the way to the main event of WrestleMania 35 on April 8, 2019, where Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey in a winner takes all triple threat match to win the Raw and SmackDown women's championships.

[39] Drew Gulak claimed that Cedric Alexander got lucky in retaining the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and demanded a rematch, but was denied by 205 Live General Manager Drake Maverick.