3 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (Results & Review)

1. Clunking Toward The Finish Line

Who in their right mind thought giving Jey Uso versus CM Punk 20 minutes was a good idea?

On one hand, a main event for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship would have felt weird if it only went 10 minutes, but that’s more about audience conditioning than anything else.

The simple truth is that Jey is out of his depth in these types of matches, and the longer they go, the more his shortcomings are exposed. Punk is clearly not the same guy he was in his previous WWE run, or even a year ago. None of that is to say that either man is washed, but you’re playing with fire putting them out there like this.

Fans got an “uggh” moment early on when Jey over-rotated on a swinging neckbreaker and basically turned it into a cutter – although he simply landed on his knees. Punk channeled his inner Shawn Michaels and stomped Uso in the head before delivering the neckbreaker again.

The two of them went back and forth for a good while, moving at times like they were wrestling underwater. Punk nailed a GTS, but Jey fell to the floor. Uso hit a spear/splash combo for a two-count. They also did the finisher theft sequence, with Jey countering a piledriver attempt with a GTS of his own, and Punk hit a spear.

After a sleeper/Anaconda Vise exchange, Punk put Uso away with two GTSs, doing the same “stunned wrestler drapes across Punk’s shoulders after the first GTS” move we’ve now seen multiple times this year alone.

Punk winning was the right call here, given the circumstances, but this was a “read the room” situation. The match easily could have – and should have – had seven or eight minutes hacked off.