WWE Sunday Night's Main Event - 9/6/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 We Loved

Main Events aren't just for Saturdays anymore. WWE brought Sunday Night's Main Event to Atlanta, GA's State Farm Arena this weekend. The show saw the return of Bronson Reed, the dethroning of WWE US Champion Baron Corbin, and the wrestling debut of rapper Lil Yachty. You can read all about the show on the Sunday Night's Main Event 9/6/2026 Results Page.

There was plenty to love, and plenty to hate, especially on a show this uneven. For every joyous title win for Trick Williams, there were lows like the non-finish between Oba Femi and Bron Breakker. As always, the Wrestling Inc. Staff has plenty of opinions, and, as always, the comments section will be open for anyone who wants to keep the conversation going.

For now, here's the best and the worst of Sunday's big show in Atlanta.

I expected to be wowed much more than I was when Oba Femi and Bron Breakker squared off for the "Future of WWE" title, but I found the match to be the slowest possible pace they could have wrestled. I also fully expected the match to be interrupted by a returning Bronson Reed, as well, so the fact that it was slow and predictable made it one of my least favorite things of the night.

The match started off at a good pace with Breakker and Femi trying to knock one another off their feet, and there wasn't anything wrong with any of the in-ring action overall, but it just felt slow compared to anything else Femi has done on the main roster so far. Even his King of the Ring finals match against Jey Uso felt like it was wrestled at a better pace, though I will admit that could be because there were much bigger stakes (or so we thought) on the line.

Maybe the suspension of disbelief part of my brain is broken after Femi was squaring off with Brock Lesnar for so long, and squashing a few guys along the way, but I just never believed that two spears, even at the speed at which Breakker runs to hit them, would keep Femi down. Breakker was going to have to throw a lot more at him, and even the assistance from the others in The Vision wasn't ever going to help. Femi put Austin Theory through the commentary desk like it was nothing. Logan Paul is still hurt, and while I liked the swerve that Maxxine Dupri was the one holding the brass knuckles, she's obviously not doing too much.

So, of course, it all had to come down to Reed's return. Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy to see him back, but it felt a little anticlimactic when he just got into the ring and smacked Femi with a chair to cause the disqualification. He did end up hitting four Tsunamis to Femi, but even so, I watched Femi take seven nearly back-to-back F5s from Lesnar in the previous months, and Reed is looking lean as heck now, so I couldn't entirely buy it.

I also would have preferred Reed to come back and beat up both Femi and Breakker, then align with Paul Heyman as the "future." He looks absolutely fantastic, and I think it would have worked really well, with the momentum of his return underneath him. We may still be getting that, as we saw Heyman watching Reed's return again in a backstage segment, but I think tonight's show could have used the surprise more than anywhere else down the line.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Whether it be a Saturday Night's Main Event, a Sunday Night's Main Event, or even just a good ol' fashioned PLE, WWE can sometimes struggle with making shows feel like a big deal, but there was a certain spice to Sunday's big show.

I'm not sure it was the most even event of all time, and I agree with my colleagues about its strengths and its weaknesses, but ultimately, something about that Atlanta crowd kept the show pulsing with electricity, even in some of the more forced moments. The main event was the kind of match that would live or die with the crowd, and Atlanta made plenty of noise for Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes. Even Quavo, who seemed like a perfunctory addition at first, was integrated into the program seamlessly, recalling the performance that opened WrestleMania X-8.

It also helped that the show was light on advertisements, and heavy on wrestling. A lot of WWE shows give fans plenty of time to get restless, but the quick clip of Sunday's show kept the show from ever faltering from a momentum standpoint. Overall, Saturday and Sunday Nights' Main Events should take a lesson from Sunday's pleasant night of grappling and rap.

Written by Ross Berman

It would be disingenuous to say that there was much expectation for the trios match pitting Jade Cargill, Michin, and B-Fab against Charlotte Flair, Tatum Paxley, and Alexa Bliss. It's not to say that Sunday Night's Main Event is really as special as "WWE SmackDown," but this match didn't feel like it belonged on the card.

Jade Cargill and company won in the end because the story is that they are the cookie-cutter dominant and underhanded heels, while Tatum Paxley is still finding her feet in the partnership with the former Women's Tag Champions, Bliss having brought her in and Flair distrusting. That's all there really was to it, and overall this contest felt like one that would be a weaker segment on "SmackDown."

The ring work was sloppy at times and clunky at others. There was a particular spot where B-Fab was tackling Paxley out of the ring in what became a game of Twister caught on the bottom rope, clearly cooperating to actually get out of the ring.

There was nothing too redeeming about it. No stakes, a very minimal subtext, and then lacking in the in-ring department. What's more annoying is that there are some significant names in there: Flair and Bliss having been well-established as veterans, Paxley a very exciting prospect, and Cargill a little clunky in the ring but making up for that with presence. But this was never going to be the format to best exemplify that talent.

Written by Max Everett

Trick Williams is your new two-time United States Champion!

I'm usually a proponent of WWE and other promotions announcing title matches ahead of time to maximize the hype you can generate with the fanbase. Still, I actually think this was a rare case where an unannounced title match worked to WWE's benefit. Not announcing that Trick Williams would be challenging Baron Corbin for the United States Championship did feel a little chaotic at first, but that chaos only amplified the surprise of Williams' title win and made it the perfect big feel-good moment to kick off this show with. I admittedly could've done without Williams kicking out when Corbin hit him with the United States Championship belt, as it felt unnecessary, but that's pretty small potatoes here, and I'm willing to overlook it for the sake of the moment that ended up happening.

I also thought that Corbin walked out of this match still looking pretty strong. WWE has been positioning Corbin as a dominant force in the mid-card scene, so it was a good decision to have Corbin be worn down by his 5-minute bout with Lil Yachty from the kendo stick shots and the interference at the hands of Yachty's two unnamed friends. It gives Corbin a reason for the rematch that WWE will inevitably schedule between the pair, and also gives him a reason for taking the loss without doing too much damage to the booking he's had during his second run in the company.

Written by Olvia Quinlan

Part of the issue with booking Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton as the continuation of a deeply personal feud and not making it a No Disqualification match is that, when the time comes to have them in the ring, it doesn't make sense to do anything but a No Disqualification match.

It can be argued that the match benefited from the idea of referee's discretion and then, eventually, the lack of a referee at all. But this argument is that there was no reason not to bill this match as such and avoid all of the general messiness this sanctioned violence brought.

Referee spots can feel a little stupid when they happen very often in the span of some months, and that is even more so the case when it happens more than once in a single match. The referee spends an inordinate amount of time rolling around like a soccer player, while backstage appears to be more than okay with this in the moment. A referee may be and was sent as a replacement. But if they get incapacitated and play dead like an opossum, the company runs out of referees.

Thus, no one can win the match until one of the catatonic officials rises at the most convenient, or inconvenient, depending on which side you're on, time to make the final count. That is what happened tonight. And it is painfully dull.

If, when this match was officially booked, Nick Aldis were to say that this was an Unsanctioned match, the type of match where this violence makes sense and the referees can actually keep their distance and watch the action. Rather than getting so close to the action, it almost seems as though they want to be hurt. Then no one would have batted an eyelid. It makes sense. These guys hate each other, and they have literally been restricted from touching one another for the past few weeks.

But they didn't. This was billed as a bog-standard singles match, and in order for it to feel justifiable to the storyline, it had to be chaotic. The referee was a plot device in the way from the beginning, a gastric band preventing this from swelling to the level it could and should be.

Instead, there was a bottleneck towards the closing stretch where everything that could ever happen did happen, and it wound up making Rhodes and the referees look all the dumber for it.

Orton getting his win was a positive. The match itself was quite fun in parts. But it had been hamstrung from the get-go, and that's just a shame.

Written by Max Everett

While I hated the pace of Bron Breakker and Oba Femi's match earlier in the night, I was impressed with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes' bout, one that kept me entertained from the beginning brawl to the bell at the end. I was hopeful that it would be good and brutal, after the war of words these two have been fighting in various promos. Orton also scored the victory here, which feels really fresh, in a world where it feels like Rhodes is always winning.

It's also nice to see Rhodes in a feud not involving the Undisputed WWE Championship. That scene is packed right now, so this blood feud obviously continuing after tonight's match is fine by me. One of the storyline beats here is that Rhodes needs to get to the level of Orton when it comes to brutality, a level Orton was on in the minutes following their WrestleMania 42 match, and in the final moments of tonight, Rhodes couldn't get there. Orton took advantage of that and got the win, which he needed for this to keep going.

This could have been a no disqualification bout, but I'm assuming WWE didn't want too many stipulations on a shorter card, especially with the Lil Yachty silliness that opened the show. A street fight, or whatever stipulation, can be booked down the line, and I'm sure it's coming. The match started with a brawl into the crowd before it officially got underway in the ring. Even when the bout was official, it didn't slow down in the way I expected, which I appreciated.

There was a referee bump in the second half, where Charles Robinson was taken out on the ring barricade, and things ramped up once again. Rhodes leaned into his darker side and hit Orton with the steps, busting him open at the ear. The "American Nightmare" then looked for Orton's punt kick back in the ring, but Orton played him for a fool and pretended to grovel at his feet. Rhodes was obviously conflicted when the second referee got in the ring, and Orton took them both out with a low blow. Robinson got back in after Orton connected with the RKO, and a bloodied "Viper" is now one-up on Rhodes.

I like the fact that Orton played into Rhodes being all conflicted, and I'm hoping that means Rhodes is only going to be more brutal in any matches that follow. I still doubt we see a full-blown Rhodes heel turn, but him leaning into his dark side is something fun and different, at least, and it's working really well alongside Orton.

Written by Daisy Ruth