WWE SummerSlam: First Look at the Setup Inside Allegiant Stadium

WWE SummerSlam takes place tonight inside Las Vegas‘ Allegiant Stadium, home to the Las Vegas Raiders. The massive venue will house WWE‘s biggest event since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Photos of the setup inside the arena have already made their way online, revealing that the setup does not have WWE’s typical massive stage. The entrance, as you can see in the top right corner in the photo below, resembles the setup used when WWE runs baseball stadiums.

The show is headlined by a WWE Universal Championship match between Roman Reigns and John Cena. Paul Heyman helped hype up the match on The Bump earlier in the day, comparing it to some of WWE’s biggest matches in history.

“This is a match that needs to happen. This is as big as The Rock and Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania,” Heyman said. “This is as big as Austin and Shawn Michaels. This is as big as Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. This is as big as Hogan and Andre. This is what we’re looking at right here. This is as close as we’re gonna get to Brock Lesnar conquering the streak. This is John Cena, with multiple movies at No. 1, coming back and…my God, has he been welcomed back by the WWE Universe. The likes of which we’ve never seen before. And the ticket sales and the ratings and the merchandise sales, every metric dictates John Cena is a star.”

In an interview with the New York Post earlier in the week, Reigns talked about how he’s changed the role of being WWE’s “top guy” compared to how Cena portrayed the position. He explained, “I think I’ve absolutely changed up the dynamic of the top guy. Being the face of WWE, and the way I’ve displayed it and the way that we’ve betrayed it. As opposed to lying about it and being this superman, bulletproof character who’s got these flamboyant colors on. And come running out to the ring [and] everything’s happy go lucky and saying a whole bunch of stuff with this loud charisma that doesn’t really make that much sense, but sounded good because he had great energy. I did it differently and I made it very real and authentic. I’ve showcased the burden of what it’s truly like to be the face of a billion-dollar company.”