WWE Saturday Night's Main Event 7/18/2026: Draws & Duds

This Saturday, the so-called world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, plays host to WWE Saturday Night's Main Event, a show set to feature tag team matches, grudge matches, curses, and Jalen Brunson. Despite only one title being on the line over the course of the four-match card, the stars will be out in droves, as CM Punk teams up with Cody Rhodes and honorary New York Knick Danhausen returns to his newly-adopted home city.

But which match on the card has us ready for some wrestling on a Saturday night, and which makes us want to check out a pre-taped "AEW Collision" instead? Thats what the Wrestling Inc. crew is here to find out. What are we hyped up for, and what are we going in prepared to hate? Here's WINC's biggest draw and biggest dud for WWE Saturday Night's Main Event 7/18/26!

Danhausen and JD McDonagh will be wrestling one-on-one in a No Disqualification match. It will be Danhausen's third singles match, having previously seen off Kit Wilson and The Miz after a grand total of less than five minutes of action. Both times he won those matches with the Curse, the devastating pointing gesture that has the ability to blow up entire turnbuckles – or, at the very least, create some sparky puffs – while his opponent is stood on them. 

Wilson and Miz have since been electrocuted by some of the gadgets in Danhausen's backstage laboratory. As a result, they are his loboto-minions. McDonagh was also electrocuted, but he has the power of the Judgment Day and the voice of Liv Morgan to bring him back to reality, and thus remembers that Danhausen scammed him and Mysterio out of some human monies. 

So this is a culmination of that. No Disqualification so the Judgment Day can get involved as they so often do even when the rules are in place. Maybe there will be some Mini-Danhausen shenanigans like against Wilson and Miz at Backlash, giving Michael Cole the ability to bellow his favorite word he's not supposed to say with all the giddiness of a child at Disneyland. And there will almost certainly be some pointing at turnbuckles and blowing them up – though probably just creating sparky puffs.

That is a dud, on a card full of them. A true Saturday Night's Main Event.

Written by Max Everett

There are plenty of big appearances on Saturday Night's Main Event, from Danhausen to Jalen Brunson himself, with World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns alongside him. There are no bigger matches on the card, however, than Undisputed WWE Champion CM Punk and Cody Rhodes teaming up against GUNTHER and Sami Zayn in the main event of the show.

The match is a draw due to just the sheer star power that will be housed inside Madison Square Garden to cap off the event. Punk and Rhodes are two of the biggest, if not the biggest names in WWE, and they are also set to go one-on-one for the gold at SummerSlam. If WWE was looking to sell more tickets to Saturday Night's Main Event, adding both men to the card was a smart idea.

It's also a draw due to just how interesting it actually could be, even though the bout has been set up as a "can they co-exist?" trope of a tag team match. Punk dethroned Zayn to capture the title, taking Rhodes' place in the match after he was brutalized and taken out backstage by GUNTHER. It's all messy, which is bound to lead to some hard-hitting in-ring action. "The Ring General" is also no fan of "The Last Real Good Guy," so the "can they co-exist?" question is valid for both teams. If GUNTHER isn't actually set to bring "WWE SmackDown" General Manager Nick Aldis out of retirement for SummerSlam, this is the perfect opportunity for WWE to set up GUNTHER vs. Zayn, if that's the plan.

There are also many fans of the belief that either Rhodes or Punk is headed into their match at the "Biggest Party of the Summer" as a heel. As of SNME, there will only be two weeks until their title bout, so if WWE is going to do a turn, it would make sense to happen on the grand stage at MSG, and the scene is set for it. It could happen either during the match, allowing for GUNTHER and Zayn to score the win, or after, with one man punching the other, leading to a beat down.

While a heel turn for Punk or Rhodes may be asking for too much from WWE, the match is still a draw due to its sheer star power and the fact it's going to feature some great, hard-hitting action from all involved. It's a must-see, if only to see what may happen for all four men involved going into SummerSlam.

Written by Daisy Ruth