WWE Saturday Night's Main Event: January 2026

The first 'Saturday Night's Main Event' of the year emanated from Montreal, Canada, and took place just a week before the 'Royal Rumble', which would take place over in Saudi Arabia. I guess this was a good opportunity for the WWE to still hold a premium live event in North America, and, given the advertised match card, I wasn't complaining.

The show started off hot with an intense brawl between Jacob Fatu and Cody Rhodes. It was supposed to be a match, but I actually didn't mind that this was essentially just a fight around the arena instead. The Montreal crowd was electric for it, and I really liked how Rhodes and Fatu fed ofd the energy of the crowd. I'm also glad that, given the way it could have gone, WWE gave this segment time to unfold. It was very exciting. The two men went literally all around the arena, making use of their surroundings in creative and enjoyable fashion. Even better, it ended with a great and satisfyingly climactic intervention, which the crowd loved.

What ended up being the first official match of the evening was for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships, and saw the champions Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky take on Judgement Day's Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez. I knew that this was gonna be a good one, and sure enough, this was a really fun tag match. The crowd absolutely loved Ripley - no surprise - and she fed off that brilliantly, as she always does. I thought the match built very smoothly, and had a couple of really good false finishes towards the end. I honestly would have been happy with either team winning, but, on the face of it, I do think the right team won the match.

Next up, it was the renewal of a classic wrestling rivalry, as AJ Styles took on Shinsuke Nakamura, in all likely hood, for the very last time. This was a terrific one-on-one match, with lots of call-backs to their memorable matches from both NJPW and WWE. This wasn't just proof that Styles, unsurprisingly, can still go, it was proof that Nakamura can still absolutely go hard when he wants to. I wish we saw this more often from the strong style legend. I really loved how physical the two great rivals were with each other. It was very reminiscent of Nakamura's early days in NXT. I loved the action, I loved the counters, and I loved the story the two men told. This was their comfortably their best WWE match, in my opinion.

It was now main event time, which saw Randy Orton, Damian Priest, Trick Williams, and hometown hero Sami Zayn battle it out in a fatal-4-way for the right to be the number one contender for the Undisputed WWE Championship, with that opportunity coming at the 'Royal Rumble'. With respect to the men in the match, it was painfully obvious who would be winning this match, even before the bell rang. The crowd was, unsurprisingly, hugely behind Zayn, but, in fairness to them, they were more than up for everyone's big moments. Speaking of which, it wad good to see all four men get their spotlight moments in the match, particularly Williams, who, as a recent NXT call-up, needed to feel like a serious contender in his first big match. I liked a lot of the match's major spots, but I can't help but feel that the predictable nature of the outcome diminished my excitement for the match a little bit.

Overall, in terms of in-ring action, this was a really strong start to the year for WWE's special events. Having a hot crowd always helps, and Montreal always shows out - on this occasion, so did the matches. The main event may have been extremely predictable, as far as the result was concerned, but I can let that slide somewhat because of how decent the match was. Regardless, I was a big fan of the rest of the show, even the match that was never a match. It all worked, it was all entertaining, and it all helped to set up the first major event of the year. It was a really solid event.