Saturday Night's Main Event I

Legacy Review

Saturday Night's Main Event I

Aired May 11, 1985 (taped May 10) from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY

Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura

After seeing the success of WWF's pre-Wrestlemania I specials on MTV, NBC honcho Dick Ebersol decided he wanted a piece of WWF's new national pie. SNME was put in the same timeslot as Saturday Night Live on weeks SNL was scheduled to be in reruns, and the original concept was that it would be a mix of a traditional wrestling and more backstage segments, particularly comedy, than were normally done at the time. This suited Vince just fine, as he was always looking for ways to put the entertainment in sports entertainment.

The US Express and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat (w/Capt. Lou Albano) def WWF Tag Team Champions The Iron Shiek & Nikolai Volkoff and George "The Animal" Steele (w/Freddie Blassie) in 6:30- The faces look like a Young Lion team with their all black trunks. No black boots though. Sheik and Windham start. Windham blocks an attempted cheap shot on a rope break and hits his own. Sheik's hiptossed into the face corner and Steamboat chops him. Quick tag arm work by the faces. Vince mentions Rotunda went to Syracuse! He's turning into JR! Sheik grabs an abdominal stretch on Steamboat. Steamboat flips out and hiptosses all the heels. FACKING BULLSHIT! The heels recover on the outside. The crowd's loving it. Steamboat hits a powerslam! Not a normal move for him. Missile dropkick off the top. High crossbody off the top! Volkoff breaks the pin up. Volkoff tags in and gets whipped into Windham's boot in the corner. The Express hit a double dropkick for 2. Big legdrops from Rotunda. He gets a roll up and a backslide for 2. Windham with a BIG sunset flip for 2. Windham and Steele slug it out. Steele tries to tag out but Sheik and Volkoff drop off the apron and won't tag! Windham rolls him up and pins him. Fun stuff. Amazing what happens when you let the best workers control the match. The Express would win the tag titles back the next month on weekly TV. ***

After the match Volkoff and Sheik jump Steele! Albano, who used to manage Steele, comes in and calms him down. Mean Gene grabs Sheik to explain what happened. Blassie says Steele's nuts and they're done with him. As Steele leaves the arena floor they almost fight again. This was Steele's face turn.

Next up is Piper's Pit with guest Paul Orndorff. Piper and Orndorff argue about Orndorff taking the pin at WM and Piper and Orton dumping him after. It eventually comes to blows. Orndorff hooks Piper up for a piledriver and we see Piper's wearing blue tightie whities under his kilt instead of wrestling trunks. Orton makes the save.

 

WWF Championship: Hulk Hogan (c) (w/Mr. T) def "Cowboy" Bob Orton (w/Roddy Piper) by DQ in 6:54- Hogan and T tear each other's shirts off. Orton tries to ambush but Hogan was ready for him. Hogan throws him around while he still has his chaps on. Orton's shoulder/"injured" arm are run into the post. Hogan targets the cast. He posts the arm again. Orton counters with a jumping knee. Atomic drop for 2 (it's 1985). T and Piper get close and side eye each other. Orton rolls through slow offense until Hogan starts hulking up. Hogan clothesline. Elbow drop for 2. Mounted punches, countered by Orton with an inverted atomic drop. He mounts Hogan for the superplex. Hogan punches out and hits an elbow off the second rope. Legdrop! Piper reaches in and punches Hogan, drawing the DQ. T runs in. He and Piper brawl. Orton helps Piper take T down and they corner Hogan. Orndorff runs in to make the save! Solidifying his face turn. Match was decentish. **

 

WWF Women's Championship: Wendi Richter (c) def The Fabulous Moolah in 4:00- Moolah's used her stroke (.....her backstage stroke. POLITICAL stroke. Get your mind out of the gutter) to get Cyndi Lauper banned from ringside. During Lauper's counter promo she asks "Do you remember what happened at Wrestling Mania?". Is that before or after Summerfest? We JIP the match after commercial with Moolah in control. Moolah throws Richter out and kicks her on the apron. Richter sneaks behind Moolah while she's playing to the crowd and dropkicks her out. Moolah with a backdrop for 2. They brawl while on their knees. Moolah tries to hide in the ropes. Richter pulls her out. Richter reverses a slam attempt into a cover and gets the 3. 1/4*

 

The Junkyard Dog (w/Bertha Ritter) def Pete Doherty in 3:15- JYD's mom is here for Mother's Day. Pure jobber match. Doherty sells like a champ until JYD finishes it with a powerslam. 1/2*

We close with the first big SNME backstage skit- Cyndi Lauper's Mother's Day Bash. Sheik and Volkoff complain to Gene Mean their mothers couldn't make the trip and it's all Lauper's fault somehow. Blassie's got the arm candy/trophy girl and claims it's his mother. Albano gives the best mother's day speech on a WWF/E show until Mr. T's legendary ode to his mamma during his HOF speech. Hogan's with his mom (I assume, I haven't gone and verified it). Moolah crashes the party and insults Lauper's mom. Lauper pushes Moolah, and she and Okerlund end up crashing into the conveniently placed cake. End scene.

Just to note here, I'm not going to do a major wrapup or grade on these shows like I do PPVs because they're not really the same animal (I will still do it for Clash of the Champions because those are more mini-PPVs, SNME is more like super sized weekly TV). Suffice to say this was a decent start to what would be a very good WWF/NBC partnership that would run into the early '90s.