Saturday Night's Main Event

Saturday Night's Main Event is a series of American professional wrestling television specials produced by WWE (previously the World Wrestling Federation or WWF). The series originally broadcast from 1985 to 1992, by NBC until 1991 then briefly by Fox. The specials were briefly revived on NBC from 2006 to 2008, and then again in 2024 to the present; the current iteration features performers from WWE's Raw and SmackDown brands.

The first iteration of the show replaced Saturday Night Live in its late night timeslot on an occasional basis throughout the year. At this time when weekly wrestling programs typically consisted primarily of squash matches featuring established stars dominating enhancement talent, Saturday Night's Main Event consisted almost entirely of star vs. star matches rarely seen on television, including title defenses and specialty matches. It coincided with and contributed to the apogee of the "second golden age" of professional wrestling in the United States; bolstered by regular in-ring appearances by WWF stars such as Hulk Hogan, Saturday Night's Main Event drew large audiences for much of its run, while a spin-off simply titled The Main Event aired annually on a Friday night in February beginning in 1988. After a fall in ratings, NBC dropped the specials and it was picked up by Fox, which aired two editions of the special on the network until canceling it in 1992.

In 2006, Saturday Night's Main Event was briefly revived as a series of prime time specials on NBC, as part of WWE's agreement with NBC Universal to air its weekly program Raw on USA Network. Five episodes aired as part of the revived run before it was discontinued in 2008. In April 2022, WWE repurposed the Saturday Night's Main Event title for house shows held on Saturday nights. In 2024, as part of an agreement moving WWE SmackDown from Fox to USA, WWE announced that it would revive Saturday Night's Main Event, airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock, and on YouTube outside the United States.

Saturday Night's Main Event debuted on May 11, 1985, in the late-night time slot 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: The Brawl to End It All and The War to Settle the Score. Although the show aired infrequently, it did, starting in 1986, settle into a predictable pattern of airdates: New Year's weekend, an episode in late February/early March, an episode in late April/early May, an episode in late September/early October, and Thanksgiving weekend. 1989 and 1990 both offered episodes in July promoted as "Summertime Bonus Editions", some of the Superstars would come on The Arsenio Hall Show interviewed by Arsenio Hall himself to build up/hype of the event.

Saturday Night's Main Event was a tremendous rating 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 time slot. That show was headlined by a battle royal involving Hulk Hogan and André the Giant, who were slated to face each other at WrestleMania III. As Hogan rarely wrestled on the WWF syndicated and cable television shows, Saturday Night's Main Event was the program on free television 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, included a WrestleMania III rematch between Hogan and André and drew 33 million viewers and a 15.2 rating, which is still the highest-rated television show in American professional wrestling history. While ratings remained strong through 1990, they began to fall shortly thereafter. NBC, who had just acquired the rights to broadcast NBA games nationwide, now started to lose interest in wrestling, and Saturday Night's Main Event was dropped. Its final NBC airing occurred on April 27, 1991. Fox picked up the show in 1992, but it was only shown twice on Fox; on February 8, 1992, and the final Saturday Night's Main Event of the original run was broadcast on November 14, 1992.

For much of its history, Saturday Night's Main Event was hosted by McMahon and Jesse "The Body" Ventura with the occasional use of Bobby Heenan in 1986 and 1987. In 1990, Roddy Piper replaced Ventura as McMahon's broadcast partner when Ventura left the WWF. On the two episodes that aired on Fox, Heenan served as McMahon's partner. From 1985 to 1988, the opening theme song for the NBC version was "Obsession" by Animotion with the closing theme being "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins, and also the beginning of "Take On Me" by a-ha was used for show bumpers. Steve Winwood's "Higher Love" was also used as a closing theme. Starting on the October 4, 1986 edition, each show featured a cold open of short wrestler promos set to a loop of the beginning of Lee Ritenour's "Traveling Music" from the American Flyers soundtrack. In February 1988, the songs were replaced with an original WWF-created instrumental theme. The new instrumental theme was originally used as the theme of the 1987 WWF Slammy Awards. A different opening theme song was used for the February 1992 episode.

Selected episodes were also shown in the United Kingdom on ITV in its weekly Saturday lunchtime World of Sport slot, mainly thanks to the popularity of The British Bulldogs.

When WWE's flagship show, 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 a deal between WWE and NBC Universal. The Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brand rosters appeared on the show.