Slammin’ Sports Media

Introduction

Last night WWE returned with its latest installment of Saturday Night’s Main Event live from Salt Lake City, Utah. With these events airing exclusively on Peacock and not being apart of WWE’s EPSN deal it was interesting to see how this event would shape up. One good thing to start was the lack of commercials due to the event streaming instead of airing on NBC. The event featured four title matches headlined by CM Punk versus Jey Uso for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship, as well as Cody Rhodes versus Drew McIntyre for the Undisputed WWE Championship, “Dirty” Dominic Mysterio versus Penta and Rusev for the Intercontinental Championship and Tiffany Stratton versus Jade Cargill for the WWE Women’s Championship. The opening video package gave a nice 80s feel featuring highlights from older SNME matches and transitioning to the current landscape of WWE.

Cody Rhodes (C) versus Drew McIntyre (Undisputed WWE Championship)

Cody Rhodes versus Drew McIntyre for the Undisputed WWE Championship was the opening match of the night. This match had a special stipulation that if Rhodes got counted out or disqualified he would lose his championship, which isn’t normal for championship matches. During the induction’s McIntyre stopped the ring announcer to force her to announce him as the “American Dream” the moniker of Rhodes father Dusty. McIntyre used this as well as other back handed tactics to attempt to lure Rhodes into a disqualification. McIntyre also lured Rhodes outside the ring a few times in attempt to gain a count out. A freeze in the stream for this match caused some major frustration amongst fans. Once the action resumed in the ring there were some good back and forth until McIntyre drove Rhodes through the announce table for a very close call. Soon after Rhodes appeared to injure his knee dodging the ref on a Cody Cutter attempt which was a scary moment. Rhodes eventually bounced back before McIntyre rammed Rhodes into the referee. For the second time in the match McIntyre brings in the WWE title but fails to hit Rhodes with it. With the referee down Rhodes hits a DDT on the title then a Cross Rhodes for the victory.

Tiffany Stratton (C) versus Jade Cargill (WWE Women’s Championship)

The next match was Tiffany Stratton versus Jade Cargill for the WWE Women’s Championship. Stratton had only suffered one loss in 2025 but, came into this match with an apparent left knee injury which made her a huge target against a hungry Cargill. This match was mostly dominated by Cargill with constant displays of power and attacks to Stratton’s injured knee. At a point in the match Cargill got too cocky and gave Stratton some brief offense which was not enough to damage Cargill. Cargill dominated Stratton for the remainder of the match before hitting a Jaded and becoming new WWE Women’s Champion. This is Cargill’s first singles title since signing with WWE in 2023.

“Dirty” Dominic Mysterio (C) versus Penta versus Rusev (WWE Intercontinental Championship)

The next match featured “Dirty” Dominic Mysterio, Penta, and Rusev in a triple threat match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. The match started with both Penta and Rusev dominating Mysterio until the match eventually turned into a true triple threat. Mysterio and Penta turned up the volume with some nice high flying moves while Rusev used his combination of power and speed to punish his opponents. There was a hilarious spot in this match where Mysterio channeled his inner Eddie Guerrero by grabbing a chair and tossing it to Rusev while falling to gain a DQ thing is, there are no DQs in triple threat matches and Rusev nailed Mysterio with the chair. The turning point in the match came when Rusev had Penta locked in the Accolade when the bell began to ring before Penta could tap out. It was none other than Mysterio, this caused a tussle over the right bell hammer. The hammer ultimately fell into the hands of Penta who nailed Rusev after Mysterio ducked. Mysterio disposed of Penta then hit a Frog Splash on Rusev to retain his Intercontinental Championship.

CM Punk versus Jey Uso (Vacant World Heavyweight Championship)

The main event featured CM Punk versus Jey Uso for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship. Seth Rollins, the former champion vacated the title due to injury. CM Punk was already number one contender for the title and Jey Uso won a battle royal on WWE Monday Night Raw to earn his spot in the match. This match started slow, but picked up pace as the match went on. Both superstars wind up hitting multiple finishers with multiple close calls. The matched looked to be over when Uso speared Punk through the barricade, but Punk recovered. At one point in the match Uso even hit a GTS on Punk before Punk ended up hitting Uso with a very awkward looking Spear. The matched concluded with Punk hitting two simultaneous GTS’ before picking up the win and becoming new World Heavyweight Champion. The show concluded with fireworks for Punk and a celebration with the fans.

Overall Grade: B

This was a solid installment of SNME with a lot of champions at stake it gave this event a more unique feel than normal. None of the matches lacked. Even though this could be compared to a good episode of Raw it delivered. The lack of commercials was a major win seeing John Cena’s last match will feature on the next SNME. It was great to see Dirty Dom find more ways to win, Jade to finally get singles gold and Punk finally get his moment in the light. It would be nice the see Cody start a fresh feud seeing he and McIntyre haven’t quite been able to create the magic fans desire. Overall it was a good night in the office. Still can’t deny my desire to see WWE take it out of cruise control.