Summer Slam (2003)

Summer Slam (2003)

SummerSlam (2003) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and presented by Stacker 2's YJ Stinger. It took place on August 24, 2003 at the America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. It was the 16th annual SummerSlam event and starred wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown! brands.

Nine professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card, which featured a supercard, a scheduling of more than one main event. The first was an Elimination Chamber match featuring wrestlers from the Raw brand fighting in a ring surrounded by a steel structure of chain and girders. World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeated Chris Jericho, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Randy Orton, and Shawn Michaels to retain his championship. The other main event featured wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand, in which defending WWE Champion Kurt Angle defeated challenger Brock Lesnar in a standard wrestling match, also known as a singles match. The other main match was a No Holds Barred match between wrestlers from the Raw brand, Kane defeated Rob Van Dam. The undercard featured a standard match involving four wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand; WWE United States Champion Eddie Guerrero defeated Chris Benoit, Rhyno, and Tajiri.

The event marked the second time the Elimination Chamber format was used by WWE; the first was at Survivor Series 2002. Including its scripted buildup, SummerSlam (2003) grossed over $715,000 ticket sales from an attendance of 16,113 and received about 415,000 pay-per-view buys, more than the following year's event. This event helped WWE increase its pay-per-view revenue by $6.2 million from the previous year.