WWE Saturday Night's Main Event

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WWE Saturday Night's Main Event
Saturday Night's Main Event logo.
Genre	Sports entertainment
Running time	1 hour, 30 minutes per episode (including commercials)
Creator(s)	Vince McMahon
Starring	World Wrestling Entertainment roster
Opening theme	"Boom" by P.O.D.
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	NBC, Sky Sports 1 (UK)
Original run	May 10, 1985–Present
No. of episodes	33 (as of July 16, 2006)
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Saturday Night's Main Event is a professional wrestling television program that occasionally aired from 1985 to 1991, under the World Wrestling Federation banner on NBC in place of Saturday Night Live. It returned to the air on March 18, 2006, in an 8-10 p.m. EST timeslot.

At the time it was a rare example of professional wrestling being broadcast on an over-the-air commercial TV network after the 1950s. It coincided with and contributed to, the apogee of the most recent "golden era" of professional wrestling in the United States. It aired twice the following year (1992) on Fox before disappearing for over a decade.

When WWE's flagship show, Monday Night RAW returned to the USA Network in 2005, Saturday Night's Main Event was revived in 2006 as a special series to air on occasion on NBC as part of the new deal between WWE and NBC Universal. The RAW, SmackDown! and ECW rosters are featured on the new show.

Contents 1 Original run (1985-1992) 2 Revived run (2006) 3 Trivia 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Original run (1985-1992)

Saturday Night's Main Event debuted on May 11, 1985 in the late-night timeslot normally assigned to reruns of the NBC sketch comedy Saturday Night Live. Then-SNL executive producer Dick Ebersol had made a deal with WWF owner Vince McMahon to produce the show, after Ebersol had seen the high ratings that two WWF specials drew on MTV in 1984-85. ^[1]

SNME was a tremendous ratings success for NBC during its heyday, most notably on the March 14, 1987 show, which drew an 11.6 rating, which to this day remains the highest rating any show has ever done in that timeslot. That show was headlined by a battle royal featuring Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, who were slated to face each other two weeks later at WrestleMania III. As Hogan rarely wrestled on the WWF syndicated and cable television shows, SNME was the program on free TV where most viewers were able to see him in action.

The success of Saturday Night's Main Event led to several Friday night prime time specials, known as The Main Event. The first of these, on February 5, 1988 featured a WrestleMania III rematch between Hogan and André the Giant and drew 33 million viewers and a 15.2 rating. As of 2006, this remains the highest-rated television show in professional wrestling history.

While ratings remained strong through 1990, they began to fall shortly thereafter. With Ebersol having been promoted to head of NBC Sports and NBC losing interest in wrestling, Saturday Night's Main Event was dropped, its final NBC airing being on April 27, 1991.

FOX picked up the show, but it was only shown twice on that network, and the final Saturday Night's Main Event of the original run was broadcast on October 27, 1992.

For much of its history, Saturday Night's Main Event was hosted by McMahon and Jesse "The Body" Ventura. In 1990, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper replaced Ventura as McMahon's broadcast partner when Ventura exited the WWF. On the two episodes that aired on Fox, Bobby Heenan was McMahon's partner.

The opening theme song for the original version was "Obsession" by Animotion with the closing theme being "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins.

In 1988, both songs were replaced by generic instrumental music.

[edit] Revived run (2006)

After being dormant for 14 years, Saturday Night's Main Event returned to NBC on March 18, 2006, though in a prime-time slot. The announce team for the first show of the 2006 return consisted of Jim Ross on play-by-play, with Jerry "The King" Lawler, and Tazz as color commentators. The July 15, 2006 show had Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross (from RAW), Michael Cole and JBL (from SmackDown!), and Joey Styles and Tazz (from ECW), commentating on their respective brand's matches. The opening theme song for the new version is "Boom" by P.O.D..

As a sign of professional wrestling's decline in popularity, the second SNME of the new era received a very low 2.5 rating, even though the show featured top-name wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker and Triple H. It is not yet known whether there will be a third episode in the run.

[edit] Trivia

• Hulk Hogan has never lost a match on Saturday Night's Main Event by pinfall or submission, only by count-out, and has the best win loss record at 22-2 (with losses to The Genius and King Kong Bundy). Randy Savage has the second best at 14-2 (with losses to Ted DiBiase and Brutus Beefcake).
• Shawn Michaels was the only competitor to have had a match during both the original run of the show and the revived version in 2006. The Undertaker and Hulk Hogan have also appeared on both the new and old versions, but were not in any matches in the new editions.
• The July 15, 2006 edition garnered the lowest rating in the history of the show, scoring just a 2.6. Also this edition was the first time that an Extreme Rules match was held in the history of SNME.
• The March 18, 2006 episode featured the first time that the WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion were in the same match (Triple H & John Cena vs. Kurt Angle, Randy Orton & Rey Mysterio). It is worth noting that the World Heavyweight Champion as such did not exist during the previous run of SNME.
• The March 18, 2006 episode also featured the very first time that the RAW WrestleMania main event, and the SmackDown! WrestleMania main event faced each other. Once again, it is worth noting that the brand split had not occurred during the first run.
• While the March 18, 2006 edition was held in Detroit, the event was not shown on Detroit's NBC affiliate WDIV 4, due to a prior commitment to air the Pistons/Bobcats game. The broadcast was instead seen on the market's MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYD 20 -- was WB affiliate WDWB at the time.
• Due to NBC's placement of their peacock on a television screen, the WWE bug, usually located on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, had to be relocated to the top right-hand corner.
• The new version implements all white ring ropes and red ring posts; a first for WWE.

[edit] See also

• WWE Saturday Night's Main Event results

[edit] External links

• WWE Saturday Night's Main Event at the Internet Movie Database (1985 version)
• WWE Saturday Night's Main Event at the Internet Movie Database (2006 version)

[edit] References

1. ^ Wrestling Observer Newsletter, December 6, 2004

Current World Wrestling Entertainment programming
Primary television	RAW | Friday Night SmackDown! | Extreme Championship Wrestling
Secondary television	A.M. RAW | Afterburn | Bottom Line | The WWE Experience
Television specials	Pay-per-view | Saturday Night's Main Event
Webcasts	HEAT | Byte This!
On-Demand	24/7