When WWE revived the concept of Saturday Night’s Main Event late last year, there was a short-term buzz, based on the company’s hype at the time and the nostalgia for the original concept as some of the demographic that discovered the show as kids in the mid-80s could relive their childhood with a throwback event, even if they aren’t fans of the modern day product. The addition of Jesse Ventura back was fun until he rambled a little too long on a live mic and accidentally buried the product so he was regulated to a cameo spot. Don’t get me wrong, Ventura is tremendously entertaining, but he’s also an eccentric guy that probably isn’t going to gel with the most sanitized modern product.
In truth, the concept and the cache of it quickly yielded diminishing returns in as far as importance among the countless hours that the WWE machine churns out for various platforms ahead of 2026. All things considered, it was probably unrealistic that Saturday Night’s Main Event was going to be perceived as anything other than just another show on the WWE line-up so it wasn’t going to have even a fraction of the impact that the series did four decades ago. Keep in mind, there was only an hour of WWF TV a week when the original episode of SNME aired so naturally, it was going to stand out. That notion was going to be underscored when the audience would see the type of matches often advertised for house show loops, but not normally on the usual weekly television. Today, those types of bouts are the standard, and house shows have been almost completely phased out with the exception of a handful of tour dates. Furthermore, there was exponentially less media options for viewers in 1985 so it’s just as difficult to get those viewers to tune into a specific show at a specific time, especially when so much of media consumption today is based on the convenience of on-demand programming.
That’s not to say that it can’t be accomplished, the NFL does it every weekend, but the point being, the nature of WWE distribution has shifted more toward the on-demand aspect because of the amount of media muscle they’ve put behind the effort to establish their streaming partnerships.
Outside of the logistics of the media landscape and its distribution, the cards themselves directly contributed to the diminishing returned mentioned earlier.
The first SNME return was headlined by Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens, and given the skill set of both performers, most of the audience knew that while there probably wouldn’t be a title switch, you were still going to get a quality segment. Kevin Owens is a worker’s worker and he makes the best of any scenario that he’s booked for. When there was a quick turnaround for another SNME show in January, a mostly immobile Braun Strowman beat Jacob Fatu by DQ, and Gunther beat Jey Uso before the Royal Rumble win put him in a position to be in a featured spot on Wrestlemania. Uso defending against Logan Paul in May, and then the disastrous Bill Goldberg retirement bout in July didn’t exactly create anticipation for the next Saturday Night’s Main Event show.
If for no other reason than it was simply a matter of the current circumstances of the WWE, last night’s SNME broadcast had a level of anticipation. With Seth Rollins on the shelf for an extended period of time, the deck had to be shuffled with Jey Uso vs. CM Punk booked to determine a new world heavyweight champion. Taking into account that Rollins dethroned Punk mere minutes after he won the title with a Money in The Bank contract cash-in, it appeared that there was much more to be done with Punk/Rollins, but that more or less evaporated when Rollins was forced out of action. So, the selling point of this show was, how does management pivot from here?
With four title matches that comprised the entire line-, there wasn’t a weak spot on the card on paper.
The show opened with the Cody Rhodes/Drew McIntyre rematch from Wrestlepalooza. Their match in September was cleverly booked in a way to give the heel a strong excuse with for the loss, while maintaining his credibility as a contender. He got a visual pin on the champion, but the referee wasn’t in the ring because McIntyre shoved Cody toward the official. Drew lost because Rhodes moved, sending the challenger into the announce table, injuring his leg. It was less of a dominate defeat and more of a matter of circumstances that allowed Cody to retain the belt, which was completely fine, as the whole point was to leave enough meat on the bone for the rematch.
That being said, again taking the nature of the show into account, the narrative of this match got unintentionally repetitive. Make no mistake about it, there are two top-notch pros and everything that they did was solid. The quality of the performance was there in terms of the execution of what they were going for, it’s just that the motivation behind how this was booked might not have translated as effectively as the office hoped if they plan to continue this feud. Cody tweaked his knee at one point to set up a cutter off the ropes for an attempt at a dramatic false finish. The premise of the main event is based on an injury with the title being vacated, and playing that card to some degree in the opener (and later in the night as well) truly didn’t add anything to the segment. The way that Drew introduced the championship into the match to cause himself to lose is basically a carbon copy of when he costed himself the visual pin on Cody at Wrestlepalooza. This is just my two cents on the matter, I think you can get away with that type of spot to get out of a match once to set up the rematch, but anything after that, you risk making the heel look foolish. That’s fine if you’re finishing up the rivalry, not if you’re looking to continue it, and it appears that the office wants to get at least one more match from the Drew/Cody series. There’s a fine line with the perception of the villain in situations like this, and I could be wrong, Drew looked foolish rather than a spot that provides a reason for a third match.
Jade Cargill beat Tiffany Stratton in five minutes to win the title. Similar to the first match, the narrative of a Tiffany injury was used here, and as I said about the opening match, it got to be rather stale when injuries were used as pivotal throughout the show. The match was okay for what it was, nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either. Taking into account their previous bout, there was a reason that this was only given five minutes, and basically it wasn’t in the ring long enough for anything to go off the rails. I’m not sure that makes a great statement about the status of the new champion, given the depth of the women’s division in the WWE. That being said, Jade’s opportunity to run with the title as a heel could be what defines her level of success in the company’ We’ve seen a few starts and stops during her tenure in an effort to allow her enough time to get the experience needed to develop into a more well-rounded performer. The argument could be made that she probably still hasn’t been given enough time to truly polish her skills, but she’s worked for the company for almost two years so at some point, management has to see if she can get her in-ring work up to a level that they can truly put the marketing machine behind her.
It goes without saying that Jade Cargill looks like a total star and she’s direct from a superhero movie, which makes her marketable. But, the bell has to ring at some point, and even the most casual WWE fans are more critical toward in-ring performances today so her push will have to be more than just promotional sizzle, particularly because of the in-ring substance of the rest of the division. Obviously, it remains to be seen if she can rise to the occasion, but I’d say, at least at this point, there’s a 50-50 chance of her being successful as champion.
The triple threat match for the Intercontinental title was fun. There was entertaining action, and Dominik’s sneaky victory worked well. There’s not much else to say about this contest since the result wasn’t in doubt, and it shouldn’t have been, given that Mysterio has the top prize in AAA as well. The bigger story for him right now is while the AAA expansion is a work in progress, it makes you wonder if in the grand scheme of things, Dominik can be somewhat of a bridge between the two brands. He has popularity among the WWE, and has the name value to continue to be a force in Mexico. Granted, I don’t think the entire WWE audience will follow lucha libre, and it’s doubtful that is the goal anyway, but it will be interesting to see how far his stock rises as the AAA project gets more pieces in place under the TKO banner.
The main event was a 20-minute segment and it was fine. I might be in the minority on this given the sheer popularity of both guys, but this felt very underwhelming. With the current WWE product using more story-telling aspects as opposed pure ring work, I expected there to be some type of storyline development for this or something critical that happens to shape the direction of Raw going forward. Sure, that might be coming up relatively soon, but in a vacuum, this segment seemed a little hallow. Maybe CM Punk winning the title should’ve been a bigger moment or more dramatic? Something just seemed a little off, which underscores how much the Rollins’ injury impacts the direction of the product. Hopefully, there’s more to unfold, and I’m not exactly sure what that should be. Jey Uso doesn’t have a direction at the moment, and after his relatively brief run as champion earlier this year, I don’t know if even an eventual heel turn would rejuvenate his status in the main event scene. More than anything, and hopefully this is somewhat that will be pushed on Raw this week, CM Punk needs an opponent.
Next month, the WWE will get a major boost from the John Cena retirement bout, and they more or less ensured solid business when it was originally announced that 2025 would be his final year, but there are a lot of questions about where the product goes, and more importantly, how they are going to attempt to justify the increased cost to follow the product next year.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
