5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (14 Dec - Results & Review)

1. The Feud Must Continue

Cody Rhodes versus Kevin Owens felt like a no-lose scenario heading into Saturday: No matter the outcome, there would be a positive direction coming out of Saturday Night’s Main Event for their feud.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what we got in the main event. Cody persevered against a more vicious and opportunistic Owens than when they last met at Bash in Berlin, but his victory was far from a clean close to the red-hot rivalry. KO actually landed a stunner and had a visual pinfall, but a ref bump cost him the victory. A second ref bump allowed Owens to retrieve a chair and try to bash Rhodes, but Cody avoided it and then managed to hit a Cross-Rhodes onto the chair for the win.

That in itself was more than enough to justify a further escalation of Owens’ rage, which we would see boil over after SNME went off the air. A title change here would have been a tremendous moment, but instead, the match simply provided more fuel for KO’s fire.

Again, WWE had engendered a lot of trust that they will get the stories correct and land the plane when it comes to major angles like this, so rather than grumble that “Owens should have won,” we can give them latitude and accept that this is part of a bigger story, and the next chapter should be even better.