6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (25 Jan - Results & Review)

Rhea and Nia don't waste time, Sheamus strikes out, Fatu goes for mythic status.

by Scott Carlson
WWE Saturday Night's Main Event Braun Strowman
WWE

Throughout its original run, Saturday Night’s Main Event provided the then-WWF with a network television platform to present its major stars to a national audience, selling a broader base of viewers on the product rather than worrying about the best in-ring action or major developments. That’s not to say that big things didn’t happen, or there weren’t some classic matches, but the priorities were elsewhere.

The latest iteration of SNME seems to be channeling a bit of that original energy, delivering a program that could best be described as a no-filler, no-frills, and high-energy show. Saturday’s episode jumped right into the action with a Women’s World Championship match that started with a bang before ring introductions had finished. Matches for the most part did not overstay their welcome and focused on big moves and action sequences rather than nuanced mat wrestling.

Even the contract signing between Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens kept the energy levels high, while adding a familiar face to any lapsed fans in Shawn Michaels.

But does this formula work in 2025? If you accept that Saturday Night’s Main Event is likely going to be that low-calorie option to a PLE, a more broadly appealing version of the WWE product, then yes, this very well could work. If you’re hoping for a weighty, dramatic program with an intricate 20-minute world title classic, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

Let’s get to it…

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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.