The WWE Championship match for SummerSlam was confirmed on Monday’s episode of Raw.
In the opening segment, Randy Orton issued a challenge to McIntyre for the WWE championship, which was answered and accepted by McIntyre later in the night.
The two join the previously announced Raw tag title match between The Street Profits and Andrade & Angel Garza as the first official matches for the August pay-per-view event.
McIntyre has held the championship since defeating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 36 this past April and has been the featured star on Raw throughout the pandemic.
On Monday’s show, McIntyre defeated Dolph Ziggler in an “Extreme Rules Match”, which was the stipulation chosen by the champion. Over the weekend, the advertising for Raw was adjusted to reflect that the rematch from Extreme Rules would be a non-title affair.
After the match, McIntyre was celebrating inside the ring when Orton appeared from behind and hit the RKO and stood over the champion and stared at the title.
Orton has won the WWE Championship nine times with his last reign taking place in 2017 when he beat Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 33 and dropped it to Jinder Mahal in May that year at the Backlash event.
