Jelly Roll Performs — and Gets in the Ring! — at WWE SummerSlam in Cleveland, MGK Joins in Too

Of all the singers in the world to pick a fight with, you’d think anyone would know better than to try it with Jelly Roll. The guy has the voice of an angel, but let’s face it, with his size and tattoos, he does look like he can handle himself in any type of brawl.

On Saturday night at the Cleveland Browns Stadium, the fast-rising country artist not only sang for the crowd at WWE’s SummerSlam, he got in the ring with WWE superstars and got some retribution after being called out.

Towards the end of the evening, SummerSlam host The Miz was joined in the ring by his Awesome Truth tag team partner R. Truth. While the duo were talking to the 57, 000-plus audience, they were interrupted by the tag team of Austin Theory and Grayson Waller. Waller and Theory not only threw out insults to Awesome Truth and the fans — nicknamed the “WWE Universe” — they made the mistake of dissing Jelly Roll, who had a front row seat to the action.

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Theory and Waller became so enthralled with dishing out barbs that they didn’t notice the plus-sized singer getting into the ring with a steel chair, and standing behind them. With a little assistance from Miz and Truth, Jelly hit both Theory and Waller with the steel chair and delivered one of the most popular wrestling moves — the choke slam — to Theory. He grabbed Theory by the throat with his right hand and easily hoisted in the air with one arm and threw him to the ground. Roll, Miz and Truth then paid some homage to legendary grappler John Cena by performing Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture and the “Five Knuckle Shuffle,” where all three ran to the ropes and catapulted themselves to the ground where Theory lay to punch him in the face.

Lesson learned: Don’t mess with Jelly Roll!

Earlier in the evening, Jelly was in a more familiar role, kicking off the festivities with a powerful rendition of “God Bless America.” After Triple H came out to greet the audience, he also performed his new single, “Liar.”

Another star performer also got involved in the action: MGK accompanied United States Champion Logan Paul to the ring. The media personality has elevated himself into a skillful wrestler and title holder, and has embraced being one of the biggest “heels” (that’s a bad guy), receiving a heavy round of boos from the crowd.

MGK, a Cleveland native, seemingly made a match-defining assist to Paul as he fought challenger L. A. Knight. With the referee not focused on him, MGK jumped from his front-row seat over the barricade, and handed Paul the chain off his neck, which had brass knuckles attached to it to hit. Although Paul punched Knight in the face with the it, L.A. was able to recover and win the U.S. championship.

While Jelly Roll and MGK were involved in definite highlights of the night, the most stunning moments however came via the wrestling crew the Judgment Day, who turned on each other in two separate matches. Dominick Mysterio interfered and cost his Judgement Day teammate and “girlfriend” Rhea Ripley her match as she vied to take down Women’s World Championship Liv Morgan. Mysterio and Morgan kissed after the match, seemingly signaling they were in cahoots all along. This is a storyline that has been building for months right after WrestleMania in April, when Morgan injured Ripley in sneak attack.

Judgment Day member Finn Balor played the part of backstabber later in the night in another swerve. He cost a member of his stable, Damian Priest, the World Heavyweight Championship as the Priest took on the ever imposing Gunther.

The biggest headline of SummerSlam came via more outside interference. The crowd — which was fervently chanting “We Want Roman” during the main event of Cody Rhodes defending his Undisputed WWE Championship Vs Solo Sikoa — got what they wanted. Roman Reigns returned, after being on hiatus following his title loss to Rhodes in April at WrestleMania.

Roman made his much-anticipated comeback to WWE, and although he didn’t exact revenge on Rhodes, he beat down his real-life cousin Sikoa and helped Cody win.

Reigns had led the faction the Bloodline as their “Tribal Chief” for many years, during which Solo served as his Enforcer. When Reigns went ghost right after Mania, Sikoa not only started his own Bloodline group incarnation, he appointed himself as “Tribal Chief” and told everyone in the WWE to acknowledge him as so or face stern consequences. Fans knew that would not sit well with Roman and have been vocally calling for Reigns’ return ever since Solo came into his new prominence.