Seth Rollins Injury Silver Lining, Hot Takes from WWE Saturday Night's Main Event XL
WWE’s latest rendition of Saturday Night's Main Event was an interesting speedbump on the road to SummerSlam that wound up more interesting than it had any right to be.
Unfortunately, some of it was due to a legitimate-looking injury that could rehape the rest of 2025 at the very top of the company and some silly broadcast hiccups that disrupted an all-time legend saying farewell.
If nothing else, WWE’s effort on NBC from Atlanta will be that one to many fans years from now for a variety of reasons. That’s more than many similar efforts and even PLEs can say as the company continues to flirt with oversaturating its product with too many events and shows per month.
Headlined by the Seth Rollins injury, a few hot takes emerge exiting Saturday night’s sort-of-good-and-very-interesting event.
WWE Wasting Randy Orton
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If there’s one thing 99 percent of pro wrestling fans can agree upon, which is about as rare as it gets, it’s that WWE is throwing away the tail end of Randy Orton’s career on nonsense.
Orton is 45. Fans have seen the candid interviews about his injury recovery in recent years and uncertainty about being able to lace up the boots again. And they’ve seen his teased feuds with Cody Rhodes and the hints of a much-wished-for heel turn.
So…he’s involved with Jelly Roll.
We could just roll credits on the whole thing right there. Orton and Drew McIntyre got at it again on Saturday night, which should be great. But WWE looped in Logan Paul and a musician named after a breakfast option and it was silly and managed to showcase that Orton was going to have a shrug-worthy presence at SummerSlam, too.
And hey, maybe this is what Orton wants. But it’s hard not to think about the ticking clock on his career and what he could be doing as a top heel and around the title scene right now.
Mini-Bloodline is a Dud
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When the Bloodline saga was headlining all of WWE and making us rethink how storytelling could work in the pro wrestling medium, everything became must-see television.
The ongoing Bloodline saga, sans Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman and others, simply hasn’t been as good.
While the family saga has created some good things, like Jacob Fatu blossoming into a star (which would’ve happened regardless), it’s surely exhausting for fans to see the same story beats over and over again, just around Fatu, a smattering of Usos, and other new roster additions and Solo Sikoa.
The longer these skippable retreads continue, the more fans will have a hard time taking it seriously if and when these guys get involved in the main-event scene around Reigns again.
Corporate Push Needs to End
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It’s nice to see a legend like Goldberg say goodbye like this, especially when in the past, the sendoffs have been messy for the likes of Undertaker.
But it’s a shame the corporate push of this new era spoiled the sendoff.
It’s easy to see the long-term reaction a decade-plus from now: Goldberg far, far exceeded expectations in a lengthy retirement match against Gunther. But the fact it cut to commercial, then cut his goodbye speech for more advertisements was borderline criminal.
WWE did Goldberg dirty. And there’s no excuse about cable commitments and blah blah. For decades, fans have seen wrestling promotions run over in any timeslot when needed on weekly shows.
This was the retirement of an all-time legend who had two promotions wrapped around his finger and helped wrestling be more mainstream than it ever has been. And in a fitting nod to this weird TKO-Netflix-celebrities-ads-on-everything era, WWE managed to pack multiple advertisements into a retirement moment.
Here’s hoping they don’t do John Cena dirty soon, too.
LA Knight Hits a Ceiling
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Fans will despise it, but there are ceilings for some wrestlers.
It feels like LA Knight has hit his.
That might seem like a weird thing to say after Knight just beat Seth Rollins on Saturday night. But watching it in real-time, it was quick, weird and seemingly not planned.
As it turns out, according to PWInsider,, Knight was indeed supposed to lose that match.
Don’t expect Knight to get a mega-push from here. The reality? WWE has had bigger chances to push him than this and passed. There’s a reason for that. He’s 42 years old already and there’s plenty of value in having a guy as super-over as he is around, but not necessarily in the main event scene.
Knight was going to lose Saturday night and doesn’t have much going for him on SmackDown. On Raw, he’d merely be feuding with Rollins’ underlings and behind the likes of CM Punk and Gunther, if not Jey Uso, too.
Seth Rollins’ Injury Can lead to Huge Surprises
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There is much, much to be written about the career arc of Rollins and untimely injuries robbing him and fans of what could have been moments.
But if Rollins needs to go on the shelf for an extended amount of time, WWE can’t afford to sit on its hands and wait for him.
Instead, WWE can get creative.
A silver lining of this situation is the involvement of the Money in the Bank briefcase. Not to be overlooked is the presence of Paul Heyman, too.
If WWE needs to swerve, WWE could easily storyline its way to the briefcase going to someone else. Maybe Knight claims it after Saturday night’s win. Or perhaps we accelerate Heyman betraying Rollins and giving it to Bron Breakker.
Heck, maybe the snake-like Heyman finds a way to get it to CM Punk (who could cut one amazing injured again? blurring-lines promo on Rollins to set up another blood feud at a later date).
While unfortunate, WWE has options. And it needs them, seeing as since WrestleMania, Rollins has been front and center as the workhorse and main story beat in a world where Roman Reigns is on break, Cody Rhodes seems set to take one and John Cena is set to retire.
