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Saturday Night's Main Event Appreciation


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Even today they are surprisingly easy to watch. The matches are often too short to amount to anything but when you start listing them there is a surprisingly high number of very good matches coming from that show.

 

I started watching in 1990 so Obsession doesn't mean all that much to me, but I love the synth theme they used at the time.

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Jesse and Vince may be my favourite commentary duo in WWF/E history. And they really shone on this show, it was perfect commentary for the time period.

Kerwin Silfies has said that Jesse went into business for himself too often, but I think his putting himself over was part of his overall heel cred. Watch how often, during stand-ups and bumpers, he blatantly disagrees or disregards what McMahon says. If Vince was trying to get a guy or angle over a certain way, then Jesse certainly undermines that for reals. And THAT is what made hims so great. he doesn't seem like a Jerry Lawler style goofy heel or a Bobby Heenan style funny heel, he seems like a real heel, like a guy who doesn't like McMahon or any of the face wrestlers, like a guy who is proudly a rebel and not going along with the program.

 

I think he's the only heel commentator in history. The only one.

 

And that's why he's the best ever.

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I'm sure that I saw the one with HTM shoving Liz, butI don't distinctly remember watching it as a youngster. But I definitely remember the following show. Steele/Davis, Hogan/Sika (probably the earliest that I can recall the business being exposed, with that stupid spot where Hogan tries to running headlock Sika into the post, only to get pushed in himself), and Savage/Hart with Randy's big bump to the floor.

 

My grandfather would occasionally tape it, when it was on (Hogan vs Bad News) and I once watched it the next day at a neighbor's house (Brainbusters' title win). When I got a little older, my dad would let me stay up to watch starting with the Jan/Feb 1990 with the Hogan/Warrior angle. When I was nine and it moved to Fox starting at 8:00, it just wasn't the same.

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  • 2 years later...

Just watched SNME #2, from the Meadowlands, Aired October 5, '85, 2 days before my 20th birthday.

 

I'll say: It held up better than I expected. An hour plus, with a lot of camp and no real fancy-dan wrestling... but the time just flew by. Did I enjoy myself more watching this or watching the Dominion Okada vs Omega Main Event (which I think was a legit masterpiece)? I enjoyed them both about equally, which means I enjoyed this particular nostalgia trip a lot.

 

Opening match is Hogan (in all white) vs Volkoff. Pure jingoism. Among the most 1980s things possible. Crowd is so hawt for this. Are you not entertained? I unironically enjoyed all 5 minutes of this well-executed formula match. I think that I unironically hated hated hated Hogan shining his boots with the Russian flag and being all "You can't wave that flag here, this is the home of the FREE!" when I was almost 20, but today it cracked me up (perhaps ironically)

 

I had totally forgotten that part of the build for Uncle Elmer's wedding was

 

 

Elmer utterly squashing Jerry Valiant in 6 or 7 seconds, which is a forgotten record, I think...

 

 

ARNOLD is in the crowd! (if you have to ask, "which Arnold..." I don't know what to say.

 

Orndorff wedges in an awkward "skin diving for Roto Rooter" joke in his interview with Okerlund before the Piper match. They brawl very intensely (Heenan had a bounty out on #1derful). Eventually it goes out of the ring and the cameras follow them to the back. I clearly remember Piper locking himself in a room backstage and Orndorff hammering on the door. Cool moment. Like WWF's birthday present to me, back then.

 

The wedding: Mean Gene on Organ. Captain Lou in a tuxedo. Hogan in a sleeveless tuxedo shirt. Andre in his red trunks! Jesse and Piper just on fire heeling it up. Jesse's iconic "two carp" line.

 

Pigs and chickens at the reception.

 

There is no more Monster Heel-looking team of Monster Heels than Bundy & Studd. They take out Tony Atlas and start double teaming Andre. Hogan runs in for the save to set up the next SNME. I am sure that 19.9945-year-old gordi unironically hated hated hated that as well. Hogan is supposed to be the good guy! Don't the fans understand that he's pulling a heel move here? (The fans do not understand. They are really happy that Hogan is running in, wearing his sleeveless tux shirt). My memories of watching this back then add a ton to my enjoyment of it now. Also: Andre really beats on Bundy for a bit in this one. That was also hilarious, in a schadenfreude way.

 

Also also: The Meadowlands crowd was just great all night long. Really, really into everything.

 

How spoiled are we now? So spoiled! The "main event" of the 2nd Main Event? It's a title defense! WWF Tag Team Champions he Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine) (with Johnny Valiant) defending against...

 

 

Lanny Poffo & Tony Garea!!

 

 

OK, so I guess that Hogan vs Volkoff was the actual main event, but still: In the 80s that was what we got on rare special event TV shows!

 

Not that I'm complaining, though. Enjoyed every second of the bout (all 210 of them).

 

Then: The reception! Sooooo much cheesy WWF humour, so much genuine sentiment. That was a real wedding. He and Joyce stayed married until his death. Tiny Tim shows up to give them a ukelele. My mind is blown. I generally don't like to enjoy things ironically or to eat too many 'memberberries... but this was just what I needed today. Next up on autoplay is SNME #4. Hogan vs Funk! Damn. Might have to watch that one, too.

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SNME #4, from the Sun Dome in Tampa, Jan. '86

 

Cold Open: Hogan and Mean Gene sharing protein shakes. Hey, I drink protein shakes too! That Hogan isn't such a bad guy after all!

Then: Piper and Jess making fun of the Hillbillies.

 

They use OBSESSION by Animotion as the theme! Oh, yeah! #2 used, I believe "Take on Me" by, I believe, Aha. This will be a night of 80s music.

 

OHMYGAWD! This is the show where Jesse gets in the ring! He makes a tremendous filthy joke in the promo for this, asking if (famous baseball announcer) would be wiling to "take a high hard one under the nose" from (Famous baseball pitcher).

 

Jesse, Roddy, & Cowboy Bob vs The 'Billies. 8 straight minutes of pure character work. You can keep your "moves." THIS is pro wrestling. A masterclass in heeling it up.

 

JYD vs Jimmy Hart in a Waterslide Challenge! That was sincerely more entertaining than the Greatest Royal Rumble. Jesse does a great heel call of

 

 

JYD beating Jimmy into the pool.

 

 

then Jesse does a poolside interview with a barking-mad Terry Funk then they cut to Gorilla narrating a video of Funk attacking Hulk with the branding iron.

 

Hogan's in light blue and red, with JYD. Funk has The Mouth in his corner, and Dog goes after Hart all match long. Mouth eventually hides under the ring. And: Holy Hell, this is a fantastic match. There's a Hulk-Up Spot, but otherwise they avoid the formula. They do one of the very best rope-running spots I have ever seen. Funk nails Hogan with the Piledriver. There is a great near-fall off of a branding iron spot. Hogan hits a sick Lariat (not an Axe Bomber). Hot Damn, brother!

 

Savage vs Steele is just a set-up for the "Animal loves Liz" angle. Macho and Liz wear a stunning matching-cape-and-dress ensemble. The ref looks just like Dean Malenko. In fact, I think it is Dean Malenko.

 

They run a 1985 highlight video set to "When the Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)" by, I wanna say, Billy Ocean? It looks like a Kyle Mooney parody production. I think that I can identify exactly where every clip in the montage is from.

 

They also play "Don't You Forget About Me" during a George Steele video clip... I wasn't kidding about the 80s music. I'm listening to Ultravox's "Vienna" as I type this up, to keep the mood going.

 

Inspired by the Reagan/Gorbachev Geneva Summit, Nikolai Volkoff (with Freddie Blassie and The Iron Sheik) meets Corporal Kirchner in a "Peace Match." I am not making any of that up. It's a good scientific match until Volkoff cheats to win. (He barely cheated. He just didn't break clean at the ropes. But, it worked). Kirchenr gets revenge with a Double Noggin Knocker :) Also, Sheiky Baby calls Okerlund "Gene Mean" which is one of my favourite little things.

 

Junkyard Dog & Ricky Steamboat vs Mr. Fuji & The Magnificent Muraco is the platonic ideal of a WWF-ified Southern Tag Match. JYD plays FiP. Steamboat gets the House Afire Hot Tag.

 

Jesse gets in another sly filthy joke, saying that in Japan they even eat "raw dog." I wonder how many of those I missed back in the day.

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The early SNME episodes where they up the camp to eleven are such a blast. The Halloween episode where they're doing all of those ridiculous games like the pumpkin pass in-between stuff like the Hogan-Andre vs. Studd-Bundy match that had such a tremendously white hot crowd is so good. And then you get Roddy Piper stealing kids' candy on Halloween. I watch that episode every October. :lol:

 

Hogan's matches on early SNME episodes are very entertaining. The Funk match is AWESOME, and so is the Nikolai match. The match with Muraco that leads to the rib injury in March 1986 was better than I remembered last time I watched it.

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Work-rate wise, would the Brainbusters/Rockers matches be the very best?

 

These were a little short and on the low end of their series.

 

The answer is probably Savage-Bret from '87. That's certainly what placed highest in the DVDVR WWF poll back in the day.

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Work-rate wise, would the Brainbusters/Rockers matches be the very best?

 

These were a little short and on the low end of their series.

 

The answer is probably Savage-Bret from '87. That's certainly what placed highest in the DVDVR WWF poll back in the day.

 

Forgot about that one, yes. That's the best match.

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