Backstage Report On Date And Location Of Next WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event

WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event is set to continue throughout the rest of this year, but fans will need to wait a couple of months until it returns.

According to “Wrestlevotes Radio on Fightful Select,” the next installment of Saturday Night’s Main Event is scheduled for May 23, which is a week before WWE’s second Premium Live Event following WrestleMania 42, Clash In Italy. At this time, a location for the next edition of the show has yet to be confirmed, but Nashville, Tennessee is reportedly the town being considered. WrestleVotes Radio added that four Saturday Night’s Main Event shows are scheduled for 2026, which is one less than last year.

So far, every Saturday Night’s Main Event has taken place on American soil outside of the episode that transpired this past January, which was held at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. In 2025, WWE also didn’t hold a Saturday Night’s Main Event between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, and similarly to this year, the next iteration of the program was in May. If WWE follows the same format as last year, a summer and winter installment of Saturday Night’s Main Event will take place.

The last two editions of Saturday Night’s Main Event have been the most well received. This past December’s show was headlined by John Cena’s final match and featured several “WWE NXT” stars, while January’s broadcast presented AJ Styles versus Shinsuke Nakamura, an incredible Women’s Tag Team Title match, and a Fatal Four Way to determine a number one contender for the Undisputed WWE Championship. 

JR Wants To See New AEW Signee In A Feud With MJF

There is a long line of wrestlers who want a piece of current AEW Men’s World Champion MJF, but a line that is becoming even longer than the one full of people gunning for the “Salt of the Earth” is the line full of new AEW signings. So far in 2026, over a dozen wrestlers from across the world have been signed to AEW contracts, either on exclusive terms or a dual contract where they still work for companies like CMLL and NJPW, but AEW commentator and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross is extremely interested in one new signing potentially getting his hands on MJF. That man is none other than former WWE Superstar Tommaso Ciampa.

“I think [Ciampa’s] going to be a great addition to AEW’s roster,” JR said on his “Grilling JR” podcast. “It’s going to give some guys a chance for some matches. I think a program with he and MJF interests me for example, not that’s the only one, but if I was booking, I somehow or another, I would work my way to that match, or systematically. I think he’s got a great future with AEW because again, there’s so many new guys that he can work with.”

JR’s co-host Conrad Thompson admitted that he was surprised to see Ciampa in AEW given how pivotal he was to the success of the “Black and Gold” era of “WWE NXT,” which in turn would have made him one of Triple H’s guys. However, JR didn’t necessarily make that connection, and regardless of how successful he was in WWE, he believes that Ciampa has a high ceiling in AEW. “He has high quality matches more often than not. As a matter of fact I can’t remember, and we all have those days, I don’t remember him having a stinker. He’s a hard worker, he shares, he’s unselfish, he’s got a unique look…Bald guys with beards, that seems to be the trend in pro wrestling right now, shaved heads and beards.”

Please credit “Grilling JR” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Tom Brady & Rob Gronkowski Continue To Tease Confrontation With WWE’s Logan Paul

Over the last month, things have gotten a bit testy between WWE’s Logan Paul and NFL legend turned Las Vegas Raiders owner Tom Brady. The fireworks began when Brady appeared to take a shot at WWE while appearing on Paul’s podcast “IMPAULSIVE,” shots that got some members of the WWE roster upset. The tension has continued since, as Paul and Brady prepare to compete against each other in the upcoming “Fanatics Flag Football Classic.”

And it was during preparation for that event that Brady and long-time teammate/former WrestleMania participant Rob Gronkowski decided to have some fun at Paul’s expense. In a video posted on Instagram, Gronkowski was talking about Paul as cordially as possible, only for Brady to sum up his “thoughts” on Paul in a much meaner way.

“That’s what Logan Paul is,” Gronkowski said. “He’s an entertainer. I mean, he has shown a lot of skills in those combat sports, but to actually have…

“Logan Paul’s a b***h,” Brady said as he ran by Gronkowski. “Just saw he’s a b***h.”

Gronkowski wasn’t willing to go as far as Brady did, but he did have questions regarding Paul’s ability to hang with either of them, even going as far to say that he didn’t know if Paul’s “got it.” Once again, Brady was a bit more direct a few minutes later, challenging Paul to show them something and mockingly reminding Paul that he would be avoiding usual football physicality, all while Gronkowski laughed in the background.

“Come play with the big boys,” Brady said. “You’re lucky you won’t get hit.”

The Fanatics Flag Football Classic is currently scheduled for March 21. Originally scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia, its expected the event will now take place in the United States due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Iran, the United States, and Israel.

WWE NXT Takeover Vengeance Day: Retro 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Overall, NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day is one of the most underrated “NXT” events from the “Black and Gold” era. There really isn’t a bad match on the show despite a few gripes with certain things, and everyone who was on the card gave it their all for the minimal crowd that was on hand to see it live. Which brings me on to the biggest hate of all, one that I think we can all agree with especially with a card like this, I wish this show didn’t take place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The problem that we’ve had a lot when covering TakeOver shows for this Loved and Hated series is that it’s genuinely difficult to find things to complain about. The cards are so tight and concise that you aren’t feeling burnt out by the end of them, the five match structure actually works because the shows are short and not filled with at least two weeks worth of commercials like we have today, and because it was the style at the time, the in-ring action was the focus which meant that it had to be great and most of the time it was. Vengeance Day follows that same formula, but the only thing missing is the rabid TakeOver audience we used to get at every show.

Props have to be given to those in attendance as they made their own noise, but you can just tell that a match like Kushida vs. Johnny Gargano was made to be wrestled in front of a molten hot capacity crowd. A moment like MSK winning the Dusty Rhodes Classic would have been one of the feel good moments of the “Black and Gold” era had Nash Carter and Wes Lee had people to celebrate with other than each other, and the Adam Cole heel turn at the end of the show would have probably helped him become more detestable than what he ended up being in his feud with Kyle O’Reilly. A lot of wrestlers make the claim of being the heart and soul of “NXT,” but its when the brand lost its voice that the decline really started to be noticeable.

Some people like to say that it was AEW that killed the original incarnation of the “NXT” brand, but while that company’s success didn’t necessarily help, it was far from the biggest reason why “Black and Gold” didn’t make it to the end of 2021, it was the pandemic. Forcing a brand that had such a loyal and vocal audience behind closed doors was the move that needed to be made at that time, but it was the death blow for “NXT” as a brand. “NXT” during the 2010s was the show that the fans would rant and rave about, the crowd took characters into their arms and made them superstars, and had this show happened in front of thousands it would be heralded as an all-time classic. But instead, it’s just a lot of great wrestling happening in a near-empty building.

If you’re one of the people who dipped out on wrestling during the pandemic, go and watch this show, because even a global pandemic couldn’t stop professional wrestling from being great on this night.

AEW’s Chris Jericho On Pacing Criticism: ‘Shut The F*** Up And Let Me Tell My Story’

One of Chris Jericho’s most memorable AEW feuds was his lengthy story with Maxwell Jacob Friedman, which laid seeds that only paid off months later, and according to the veteran, took a year and a day to reach it’s conclusion.

“There were people like: ‘this feud is too long’ – why go to something else? Why? What else do you got going on?” he said. “That was the thing with Shawn Michaels and I. They wanted it to be a one month thing and [we were like] ‘what do you have coming up?’ ‘Nothing?’ ‘Well, what do you have coming up, Shawn?’ ‘Nothing.’ Well, then why are we ending this in a month? Let’s keep going!”

Jericho pointed out that his storyline with Shawn Michaels ended up becoming one of the greatest rivalries in wrestling, and while the veteran could easily be speaking from bias, the sentiment is often echoed online.

“That, to me, is the brilliance of wrestling,” he mused, explaining that sometimes you need to remove a component of a story for a long time, in order to let other parts play out, before picking it up again. “Until then? Just sit back and enjoy the show! It’s a show! It’s show business; it’s not real, it’s like watching your favorite TV series.”

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “UNTAPPED” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.