OMAHA, NEBRASKA – MAY 4: Intercontinental Champion Penta makes his entrance during Monday Night RAW at CHI Health Center on May 4, 2026 in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Georgiaa Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
WWE via Getty Images
May is a busy month for WWE. Just one of the three premium live events scheduled for the month has passed. Next up is Saturday Night’s Main Event XLIV from Fort Wayne, Indiana on May 23rd, and there are already two official bouts for this card.
Raw laid some serious groundwork for the rest of the month and the Intercontinental title and men’s tag championships will be on the line in Fort Wayne.
Key facts at a glance
- Event: WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event XLIV
- Date: Saturday, May 23, 2026
- Venue: Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Indiana
- Start time: 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT / 5 p.m. PT
- US Stream: Peacock (exclusive)
- International Stream: YouTube (the official WWE channel)
- Match 1: Five (c) vs. Ethan Page — Intercontinental Championship
- Match 2: The Vision (Logan Paul & Austin Theory) (c) vs. The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins) — World Tag Team Championship
What happened on Raw to set up the Intercontinental Title match?
Ethan Page spoke about the title shot after a strategic booking week from WWE creative. The previous week, Page teamed with Rusev to defeat Penta and Je’Von Evans in a tag team match, with Page pinning the champion to plant the seed. On the May 11 episode of Raw, Rusev’s loss to Evans removed him from title contention entirely, leaving Page as the obvious next challenger.
Penta has held the Intercontinental Championship since winning it from Dominik Mysterio in early March, with the reign including a successful defense in the six-man ladder match at WrestleMania 42.
According to Wrestling Inc., this will be Penta’s seventh title defense. Page, a former NXT and North American Champion called up to the main roster after Mania, is on the fast track to a title shot at Saturday Night’s Main Event in just his first month on the main roster.
How did The Street Profits win The World Tag Team Title Shot?
Street earnings closed out the match by going over The Vision the hard way on Raw. The Profits teamed up with Joe Hendry to defeat the trio Bron BreakerLogan Paul and Austin Theory in a six-man tag, with the win coming after Angelo Dawkins delivered a pinfall on Theory for the three count. Seth Rollins played a key role in the distraction, although Montez Ford made it clear backstage that Profits was not interested in working with Rollins long-term.
This will be Paul and Theory’s first World Tag Team Championship defense since winning the titles from The Usos in March. For the Profits, it’s their first crack at the current iteration of the World Tag Team Championship, though they hold four tag titles in total across the Raw, SmackDown and WWE Tag variants.
WWE creative’s decision to give the Profits a quick shot after their return is a clear signal that the company wants the championships in the hands of the more established Act for the summer build.
What is the story behind The Vision And Seth Rollins?
The Seth Rollins layer is the most interesting aspect of the card. Rollins approached the Profits backstage with an offer to team up against The Vision, framing it as a Rollins-versus-Breakker feud that overlapped with the tag title image. Ford turned the offer down on the spot — and hopefully something bigger is in store for him as a single performer. the time has come.
The booking detail matters because Rollins-Breakker has been a slow story since Breaker’s return at Backlash 2026, and any payoff between the two could now intersect with the tag title matchup in Fort Wayne. The WWE blurb has options: a Rollins run-in to cost Profits the match, a clean sweep of Profits with Rollins watching from afar, or a Vision hold that sets up a Rollins-led faction battle for the next premium live event.
What’s next in Build To SNME XLIV?
Two more episodes of Raw (May 18) and two episodes of SmackDown (May 15 and May 22) occur between now and the show, so the card will continue to fill out over the next 12 days.
Expect the women’s title spot, a possible schedule for Oba Femi given his current push. There is a chance that an Oba Femi open challenge segment could land on the SNME card given his momentum. If that happens, his opponent will be someone with more weight to his name than previous victims Otis and Los Garza.
The full card will likely come together by SmackDown on May 22 — or before. This is the standard WWE booking pattern for a Saturday show. Two title matches in the bank with 12 days of TV still to come is a strong starting position, especially with the John Cena Classic announcement from Backlash still hanging over the entire booking landscape.
