Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens took place at the WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event from Uniondale, New York, at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, with Rhodes having the famous Winged Eagle version of the WWE Title for one night.
The match had a controversial finish as Owens got a chair, but Rhodes stopped him. He hit the crossrhodes to Owens on the chair for the win, with the referee standing over the chair on the floor while counting.
Following the bout. Owens attacked Rhodes, hitting a piledriver. Rhodes was escorted out of the arena on a stretcher while Triple H got into a heated confrontation with Owens. The night before, WWE taped this week’s episode of SmackDown in advance of Saturday Night’s Main Event, leading to WWE not filming anything for Owens and Rhodes ahead of SNME that would give away the match finish.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select reported that the post-show attack from Owens was done to help bridge the gap for this week’s show. It was said, “The Smackdown crowd got to see Cody Rhodes and Owens in front of the live audience, so getting creative with their segments for next week’s show doesn’t leave the audience out in the cold. As of this weekend, the plan was to air the attack on Smackdown, and have Kevin Owens in a backstage segment.”
Dave Meltzer, in his Wrestling Observer Daily Update, said that the segment went exactly as planned, and it wasn’t a case of SNME going long, forcing WWE to not air the attack segment on TV.
