Photo credit: WWE.com
Cody Rhodes defeated Kevin Owens on Saturday Night’s Main Event to retain the undisputed WWE Championship.
After Owens sent Rhodes into the official, knocking him out of the ring, he attempted to pin Rhodes, but without a referee to count it, the pinfall was invalid. A second official stepped in, but shortly after, Rhodes accidentally took out the new referee while leaping from the ropes.
With both officials down, Owens brought a chair into the match, but the plan backfired when Rhodes used it to deliver a Crossroads, driving Owens into the chair. Rhodes quickly disposed of the evidence just as a referee returned to the ring to count the pinfall.
Rhodes and Owens were once the best of friends to the point that they went to war together in an attempt to take down The Bloodline, but their dynamic changed at Bad Blood in October.
Despite his longstanding issues with Roman Reigns, Rhodes agreed to team with the Original Tribal Chief against Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu in hopes of preventing the new Bloodline from running roughshod.
The reluctant partnership worked with Rhodes and Reigns coming out on top, but The American Nightmare ultimately paid the price for aligning himself with Reigns.
After the show, Owens attacked Rhodes in the parking lot, which cemented his heel turn, although he initially wasn’t given an opportunity to explain his actions.
When KO tried to fight Cody again, Randy Orton stepped in to keep the peace since he was friends with both of them, but he got caught in the crossfire and ended up becoming a victim of a KO attack.
That led to a scheduled match between Owens and Orton at Crown Jewel that never actually happened because they brawled before the bell rang. On the subsequent episode of SmackDown, Orton and Owens mixed it up again, and Owens ended up hitting Orton with a piledriver.
That infuriated Rhodes to the point that he wanted to get a piece of Owens, and a WWE Championship match between the former friends was made official for Saturday Night’s Main Event shortly thereafter.
Owens was eventually able to give his reasoning for turning on Cody as well, noting that Rhodes sided with someone who tried to end his career on numerous occasions in Reigns, which didn’t sit well with him.
While Owens’ reasoning was sound, it can be argued that he didn’t go about handling it the right way, so the WWE Universe was still firmly in Cody’s corner.
With Rhodes retaining the WWE Championship against Owens at Saturday Night’s Main Event, he took another step toward holding the title for a full calendar year, as he won it from Reigns at WrestleMania 40 back in April.
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