The Main Event I

Legacy Review

The Main Event I

February 5, 1988 from the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis

Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura

The Main Event is Saturday Night's Main Event, except on a Friday, and it's live. This show, headlined by Hogan/Andre II, still holds the record for the highest rated wrestling program in history.

Ahhhhh, real crowd noise. None of that canned stuff that's been used for all the taped SNMEs up to now. I've been saying for months the Thunderdome is Vince's greatest wish finally realized: the crowd will do whatever he tells it to do. We start the show with a Hulk Hogan workout video set to, oddly, an early version of what would become Jake Roberts' music.

WWF Intercontinental Championship: "Macho Man" Randy Savage (w/Elizabeth) def The Honky Tonk Man (c) (w/Jimmy Hart and Peggy Sue) by countout in 8:20- Peggy Sue is future Savage manager Sherri Martel. Honky woos Elizabeth while Savage threatens Hart. Savage chases him off and around the ring as the bell rings. After they get back in a back elbow sends Honky back out again. Savage gives Honky and Hart a double noggin knocker. Honky dodges a charge and Savage goes shoulder first into the top turnbuckle. Hart distracts again and Savage chases him around and through the ring. Hart drops the megaphone, and Honky whacks Savage in the gut with it. A Savage comeback is cut off with a knee to the gut. Usual slow Honky offense. Hart chokes Savage while Honky dances for Elizabeth again. He goes outside and he and Hart corner Elizabeth. Savage tears out and hits Honky from behind. Double ax handle off the top to the floor. Double ax handle in the ring for 2. Savage dodges and Honky takes out Hart while he's on the apron and Savage locks a sleeper in. Now Peggy Sue threatens to slap Elizabeth. Savage goes out to stop her. Honky tries to get the jump but Savage is a step ahead and Honky gets posted. Savage gets back in while Honky is counted out. Honky gets the guitar. Hart hits Savage from behind with the megaphone. Honky loads up a guitar shot but Elizabeth stops him. Savage grabs the guitar, runs the heels off, and smashes it. Unlike their SNME match, this one was almost completely controlled by Honky and is worse as a result. *3/4

 

WWF Championship: Andre the Giant (w/Ted DiBiase and Virgil) def Hulk Hogan (c) in 9:05- Hogan has the old belt on in his prematch promo, but in the arena it's the brand new greatest wrestling belt of all the times, the debuting Winged Eagle. Andre slow walks getting in the ring after the bell, then stops to confer with DiBiase and Virgil. Hogan has enough and jumps the group. Virgil and DiBiase eat big boots. Hogan punches and chops away and Andre absorbs it all. A running elbow and clothesline still can't get Andre down. Corner clothesline. Hogan goes up top and shockingly it's a mistake as Andre slams him off. Hogan dodges a falling headbutt and Andre's finally down. When Hogan gets close Andre grabs a choke. And chokes. And chokes. He stomps on Hogan's hand and slams him. Andre falls down giving Hogan a big boot. Sneaky style (copyright Rocky Romero) singlet choke. Hogan fights out of a choke and turns on the comeback. A clothesline off the second rope gets Andre down. Virgil grabs Hogan's foot. Hogan shrugs it off and hits the legdrop, but Hebner's arguing with Virgil and doesn't count. Hogan argues with Hebner. Andre grabs Hogan from behind and hits headbutts, then does that grabby half suplex thing and covers. Hogan's shoulder clearly goes up, but Hebner counts 3 anyway! New champion? Hogan is furious, but Hebner awards the belt to Andre. New champion! Andre takes the mic and says he's surrendering the title to DiBiase. Bought and paid for. He puts the belt around DiBiase's waist. As the heels go to leave, a Hebner look alike comes in! It's twin magic! In fact the run in was the "real" Dave Hebner. The match was reffed by his twin brother Earl, who had just jumped over from the NWA a couple of months prior. A confused Hogan grabs both Hebners and tries to conduct an in-ring interrogation. Neither one gives, so an even more confused Hogan gives up. One Hebner punches and kicks the other out of the ring. Hogan supposes by advanced wrestling logic that the aggressive Hebner is the evil one, scoops him up, and press slams him onto DiBiase and Virgil. Well, Hogan throws Hebner so far he damn near clears them and almost splats straight to the floor but DiBiase and Virgil manage to save him. Really good and historically significant angle, all the more effective because they would resist the temptation to ever use the Hebner twins this way again. Horrible match. 1/2*

Soon after this show on weekly TV WWF President Jack Tunney will uphold the "referee's decision is final" rule and cement Andre as the official winner and WWF Champion. However, he will also say that no one named Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo or Kevin Nash is booking this show and you can't just surrender a title to someone else. As far as he's concerned Andre vacated the title, and he sets up the 16 man tournament for the belt at WM 4.

This show, and review, is super short, so allow me to go stathead on you for a bit. This match ended Hogan's almost four year long first title reign, the last of the old school multi-year WWF title reigns. After this they'd start to modernize and move the belt around more often. In fact, from this show through the end of 2020 there have only been five other wrestlers that have had a single WWF/E world title reign of a full year or longer:

Randy Savage (371 days, '88-'89)

John Cena (380 days, '06-'07)

CM Punk (434 days, '10-'12)

AJ Styles (371 days, '17-'18)

Brock Lesnar (Universal Title, 504 days, '17-'18)

Also just missing a full year:

Hulk Hogan's second reign (364 days, '89-'90)

Diesel (358 days, '94-'95)

 

WWF Tag Team Championship: Strike Force (c) def The Hart Foundation (w/Jimmy Hart)- After this match's intros we cut back to the locker room where Mean Gene is with a distraught Hogan. "HOW MUCH DID THEY PAY FOR THE PLASTIC SURGERY?" Well, that was more complex than Tom's Rhinoplasty could do that's for sure. Hebner didn't get the David Hasslehoff. Hogan keeps ranting as we go to commercial. Coming back in, the match is going on with Martel in peril and Bret hitting a piledriver. Vince says they're out of time and have to go. The Network copy stays on long enough to see Martel cradle Bret during a backdrop attempt and get the pin. NR