How excited are we for Saturday Night’s Main Event (SNME)? WWE’s retro-tinged special event returns for its second outing — at least in its current run — in San Antonio this weekend. But something about the whole thing doesn’t feel so, well … special.

It’s hardly a secret that the first of the four planned SNMEs didn't exactly set the wrestling world alight when it aired on NBC in December. WWE treated the event as the equivalent to one of its Premium Live Events (PLEs) going into the weekend — including having the SNME logo at the top of the ramp — but ended up not delivering on the night.

Sure, Chelsea Green’s title win was special, but the rest of the show was made up of truncated matches with clean finishes and a complete absence of twists. What had been billed as a PLE ended up feeling more like a jazzed-up house show.

The viewing figures suggest I wasn’t the only one underwhelmed by it. The first SNME outing on NBC brought in 1.59 million viewers — only slightly more than the typical "WWE SmackDown" audience and around 1 million fewer (in terms of US viewers) than January's "WWE Raw" Netflix premiere.

You get the feeling that the WWE may have overestimated the power of the whole nostalgia angle. Bringing back Jesse “The Body” Ventura gave us some fun moments on commentary, thanks in part to Michael Cole’s professionalism, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that was going to win over casual viewers.

Involving retro names has arguably proven to be more of a curse than a blessing for WWE, given that one of the biggest discussions ahead of Saturday’s show has been whether Hulk Hogan will appear or not. Some suspect his involvement may be curtailed to avoid an embarrassing repeat of him being booed on "WWE Raw." Right now, WWE is keeping quiet on that front.

Ideally, all the speculation would be around Saturday's card lineup instead. But it doesn’t help that all three of the title matches — Gunther vs. Jey Uso, Rhea Ripley vs. Nia Jax and Bron Breakker vs. Sheamus — look like foregone conclusions in favor of the incumbents.

Let’s start with the first one. While “Main Event Jey” might be a money-spinner for WWE, does anyone seriously think he’s going to dethrone the World Heavyweight Champion without any kind of serious build-up — particularly when he’s just declared for the Royal Rumble to earn such a shot in future?

Sheamus vs. Bron Breakker is a similar story. Yes, Sheamus needs to complete that all-important Grand Slam before he retires, but what’s the case for pulling that trigger before WrestleMania? This is a 20-year veteran we’re talking about here and WWE tends to be sentimental about these kinds of things.

As for Rhea Ripley, there’s a reason WWE had her win gold on one of their biggest shows in history, and it certainly wasn’t to have her drop it again less than three weeks later. No wonder the whole angle between her and Nia Jax felt like an afterthought on Monday’s “WWE Raw.”

To be clear, this isn’t saying they won’t be good matches. But there’s a difference between an entertaining match and one that is consequential in the long run.

Thank goodness, then, that we have a non-tile match with Jacob Fatu vs. Braun Strowman to spice things up. This wasn’t a showdown on anyone’s radar at the beginning of the year, but it has become the anticipated contest as we head toward the weekend.

Indeed when WWE announced the match, I mistakenly assumed it was Fatu’s singles debut (it turns out, I’d forgotten him beating Jey Uso ahead of WarGames), but I’d argue the point almost still stands in that this feels like Fatu’s singles debut. It’s certainly the first time we've seen “The Samoan Werewolf” presented as his own man, rather than as a functionary in the wider Bloodline story. Given the continuous buzz about Fatu since he arrived in the promotion in 2024, it has the potential to be a big moment.

We’re also getting Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens, of course — just not in an actual match. Ideally, this face-to-face would help raise the stakes for their upcoming title bout at the Royal Rumble, but it seems that WWE has already played its biggest cards on that front.

We’ve already had the announcement from Nick Aldis, for example, that Rhodes vs. Owens will be a ladder match. Surely that’s the sort of thing that would have felt like an even bigger deal if it had been unveiled at SNME, rather than on a weekly episode of "SmackDown"?

It might sound like a small example in isolation, but it’s indicative of how these events have been treated in terms of their storyline importance. If WWE wants SNME to feel special, it needs to treat them that way and not just rely on retro cameos.

Let’s hope this Saturday’s episode can go some way to solving that problem.