6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (13 December - Results & Review)

1. Book With Some Conviction

WWE Saturday Night's Main Event Oba Femi Drew McIntyre Cody Rhodes
WWE

If WWE was going to book a disqualification in the Cody Rhodes versus Oba Femi match, why bother booking it in the first place?

One could make the case that the three undercard matches between main roster veterans and NXT superstars were merely exhibitions, so the outcome wasn’t as important as the exposure. But if that was true, why not book Femi to get a shock win? Or (more likely) have your QB1 eke out a victory and give Oba his due as a guy who is inevitable? There would have been no shame in Femi being bested by the guy who has beaten Roman Reigns, John Cena, and Brock Lesnar.

Instead, fans got a nine-minute exhibition with a DQ finish that many smelled coming a kilometer away. There’s praise for the match itself, but the ending blunted its impact. Worse, fans chanted, “Restart the match,” and instead, Cody handed Oba his title and the two celebrated, despite both clearly being able to continue. That really made the match feel more inconsequential than it already did.

WWE had a chance to do something there and make it stick. A defeated, introspective Femi returning to NXT and vowing to demolish everyone in front of him to get back to Rhodes would have meant something, rather than, “Oh look, I can chokeslam Drew McIntyre after a non-finish.”

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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.