When the first Saturday Night’s Main Event aired on NBC in 1985, it was a very different TV, and pro wrestling, landscape from the one today, almost 40 years later.
Arriving shortly after the first Wrestlemania the same year, SNME was a network special, featuring starry matches, at a time when most programming of the then-WWF, like the syndicated WWF Superstars and Wrestling Challenge, mostly consisted of jobber squash matches.
The first run of Saturday Night’s Main Event aired as quarterly late-night specials, in lieu of Saturday Night Live re-runs, although there were also annual pre-time specials called “The Main Event,” which aired on weeknights and featured such monumental events as the Hulk Hogan twin-ref angle and Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage falling out with each other, usually to set up that year’s Wrestlemania.
The original SMNE petered out by 1992, the year before Monday Night RAW debuted, although the franchise was revived a couple of times, first on Fox in ’92, and later on NBC between 2006 and 2008. And now, Saturday Night’s Main Event has returned on NBC, with the premiere taking place this past weekend.
As advertised in advance, the show had lots of nostalgic touches, including the old logos and music, the return of wrestler-turned-announcer-turned-Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura on commentary, and also the revived “winged eagle” championship belt, once worn by Hogan and Savage, and now around the waist of champion Cody Rhodes.
Also on hand were old WWF personnel like Tito Santana, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, and Jimmy Hart, the latter of whom doesn’t look as though he’s aged much in the last three or four decades.
The two-hour show — longer than the old 90-minute versions that used to run in the SNL timeslot — was mostly successful, tying in the old touches with the WWE of today. For instance, each match began with graphics detailing how long the champion has had the belt, and how many defenses they’ve made, which the old WWF never would do. Also, I don’t think any 1980s SNME ever had more than one women’s match.
Also, because it’s a primetime show and not a late-night show, it ended with the biggest match the way most wrestling shows do, rather than holding it first like in the old days. And the new Saturday Night’s Main Event, rather than preempting Saturday Night Live, was followed by a new episode.
Structural Changes
Nevertheless, it’s hard not to notice just how different the structure of wrestling is today from how it was in the 1980s. Now, instead of the jobber-fests of the old syndicated shows, there are monthly big events (now called Premium Live Events“PLEs,” in addition to the weekly editions of Smackdown and RAW, the latter headed to Netflix in the new year.) Even the PLEs are usually held on Saturday nights now.
Saturday Night’s Main Event used to be, literally, a big event, and that’s not really the case anymore. So it has to lean on the nostalgia, which it did, mostly to success. It was also a homage to a very specific era almost 40 years ago.
Jesse Ventura’s Back
It was, of course, great to have Jesse Ventura back on WWE TV, even if he’s lost a bit of a step, and he only actually sat at ringside and announced the final match. But he brought back the rooting-for-the-heels commentary style that he pioneered in the 1980s. But considering his old broadcast partner is banished from WWE, it was sort of jarring not to hear Jesse call out to “McMahon.”
Ventura also claimed that his snakeskin jacket was made from the remains of Damien, the snake brandished by Jake “The Snake” Roberts on numerous SNME episodes, and (I think) he was kidding.
In the main event, Cody Rhodes defeated Kevin Owens to retain the championship, and the finish involved multiple knockouts of referees. But wouldn’t the most appropriate Main Event homage involve twin referees instead?:
