3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (Results & Review - 23 May)

DOWNS…

5. Just A Match

Perhaps it isn’t the best idea to have all the heels saying the quiet part out loud about Paige and Brie Bella’s reign as Women’s Tag Team Champions, calling it a nostalgia run.

After all, that’s exactly what this is. Before WrestleMania 42, Paige had last wrestled in WWE more than eight years ago. Before her recent run this year, Brie had been away for seven years, save for a turn in the 2022 Royal Rumble.

Their matches have varied from bad to serviceable, which means that nostalgia really is all there is, and when that fully fades, you’ll be left with an entrance pop… and then the bell rings.

Brie and Paige’s match against the Irresistible Forces was sloppy at times, with the wrestlers whiffing on kicks and awkwardly moving into position for their opponent. None of it was as bad as Sol Ruca’s botched Sol Snatcher earlier in the night, but it wasn’t anything that will be remembered.

Also, if you’re going to have the babyfaces resort to cheating a bit to pick up the win – even if they’re the undersized underdogs against monster heels – maybe have the heels cheat a few times to justify it as payback.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.