WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event 41 Possible Surprises And Returns

WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event is living up to its namesake this time around, with a PLE-worthy card featuring four major championship matches.

Earlier this month, WWE’s Crown Jewel event was largely a glorified house show, with an instant classic between John Cena and AJ Styles but little in the way of actual storyline development. In many ways, today’s edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event feels bigger and more important than Crown Jewel before it.

Jey Uso and CM Punk will face off for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship after it was vacated by an injured Seth Rollins. Meanwhile, Drew McIntyre will face Cody Rhodes in a rubber match for the WWE Championship, and Jade Cargill will challenge Tiffany Stratton for the WWE Women’s Championship.

As the last major stop en route to WWE Survivor Series: WarGames on Nov. 29, Saturday Night’s Main Event at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City is shaping up to have some significant storyline developments and, of course, perhaps more than just one or two major surprises.

ForbesWWE Saturday Night’s Main Event 41: Best And Worst Booking OptionsBy Blake Oestriecher

Austin Theory Returns at WWE SNME to Join The Vision

Prior to Seth Rollins’ injury, WWE reportedly had penciled in a plan to bring back absentee star Austin Theory as the newest member of The Vision.

Rollins’ ongoing hiatus may very well have altered those plans. Then again, maybe not. Even with Rollins out of action, WWE is reportedly still set on booking a WarGames match with The Vision on one side and the duo of Roman Reigns and CM Punk leading a crew of babyfaces on the other side.

At least given the way Raw’s roster is currently constructed, there aren’t many obvious candidates to round out The Vision’s side, which would be led by Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed. Enter Austin Theory, the talented (and still young) star who’s had a rollercoaster of a ride of the main roster that includes a WrestleMania match with John Cena but plenty of lowlights, too.

Although Theory’s WWE character may already be marred beyond saving, a return at Saturday Night’s Main Event could change his career’s trajectory as WWE continues to look for ways to bring him back into the storyline mix.

Brock Lesnar Returns, Ruins World Title Match

Those aforementioned original WWE Survivor Series: WarGames plans would have featured a returning Brock Lesnar joining The Vision’s side in that WarGames match.

Well, just because Rollins is sidelined, that definitely doesn’t mean that Lesnar isn’t coming back. In fact, the inverse may be true. Without Rollins, The Vision really doesn’t have a proven main event star for its WarGames team, and WWE undoubtedly set the stage for Lesnar to realign with The Vision when “The Beast” essentially realigned with Paul Heyman at WrestlePalooza last month.

The idea of the controversial Lesnar returning at WrestlePalooza won’t sit well with some fans, and rightfully so. However, WWE has shown no qualms about continuing to use Lesnar in a major role, and he’s a logical choice to be on Heyman’s team here. One potential scenario for Lesnar’s return would see him cost or target Jey Uso in Uso’s World Heavyweight Championship match.

Given that Uso is expected to join Reigns and Punk on the face team at WWE Survivor Series, a return for Lesnar and subsequent attack on Uso at Saturday Night’s Main Event makes a lot of sense. Then again, so would an attack on both Uso and Punk or just Punk alone that leaves Raw still without a World Heavyweight Champion.

Drew McIntyre Defeats Cody Rhodes To Win WWE Championship

The state of WWE SmackDown’s main event picture, to put it mildly, isn’t very good.

Roman Reigns and LA Knight are now on Raw, Fatu and Kevin Owens are injured, and Randy Orton is off TV. That leaves less than a handful of stars outside of Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes as viable main eventers on the show. To remedy that situation, WWE is reportedly planning on calling up some NXT stars, and though that could help, WWE’s track record of utilizing NXT standouts on the main roster has been a mixed bag.

Another solution to SmackDown’s main event woes and perhaps a more viable long-term one would see McIntyre pull off a shocker for the ages and defeat Rhodes to win the WWE Championship at Saturday Night’s Main Event. McIntyre, after all, has suffered a number of big losses over the past year, including one to Rhodes at WrestlePalooza, and could be damaged beyond repair with another loss to Rhodes.

Time and time again, WWE has shafted McIntyre with missed opportunities for the Scottish star to win gold, and another one may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Perhaps, though, WWE can avoid that with McIntyre pulling off the shocking upset and making Rhodes the challenger instead of the champion.

Jey Uso Turns Heel, Wins WWE World Heavyweight Championship

The central focus of Jey Uso vs. CM Punk for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship isn’t really the title itself. Rather, it’s Uso’s slow transformation into the same egomaniac that Roman Reigns became during his nearly four-year world title reign from 2020 to 2024.

Given the aforementioned Survivor Series: WarGames plans, Uso may very well remain a babyface and stay aligned with Reigns and Punk. There has, however, been a small pocket of resistance to Uso’s recent push, which is hard to believe given how popular he was in early 2025 and remains to a large portion of WWE’s fan base. It’s worth noting that Uso’s battle royal win on Raw two weeks ago quickly received over 60,000 dislikes on YouTube, demonstrating that perhaps a small percentage of WWE fans no longer want to see him pushed in singles action.

Of course, Uso still remains uber-popular and generates massive crowd reactions, so this isn’t necessarily a case where he absolutely has to turn heel. However, his recent character arc hints at that heel turn, and he would undoubtedly receive massive crowd heat if he cheated to beat Punk, especially given that Punk was shafted out of a title reign at SummerSlam, too.

Uso is probably better off as a face long-term, but the thought of a massive heel turn at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event is an intriguing one that could work well if executed perfectly.