Wow, it’s been a long time. I think the last actual column I wrote was shortly after the death of Eddie Guerrero. I still love writing, but I found myself not being as motivated by the current state of the sport to write anything. But with the second of the new Saturday Night’s Main Event (or the 33rd if you’re counting from the first one in 1985), I felt it was time to weigh in. It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my SNME reviews. But as the Oratory’s resident SNME historian (and because it doesn’t look like anybody else has done it yet, I thought I’d put something down about the recent return of one of the WWE’s most beloved programs.
Having seen the other 32 episodes of SNME (as well as the 5 Main Event Specials between 1988 & 1992), I’m looking at these new episodes from a different perspective than most people. When it was announced that SNME would be returning, I had questioned the wisdom of bringing the show back, but I was willing to give it a chance, as it is usually a continuous cycle with internet fans that they piss all over anything that Vince McMahon plans to do, and when it turns out that he was right, they act like they knew he was right all along. In the end, I watched the first two shows, and they weren’t that bad. I mean, it wasn’t a whole lot different than watching an average RAW or Smackdown! Show and…..
Waitaminute, that’s the problem. IT WASN’T any different than watching RAW or Smackdown. And that’s why I have something of a problem with the return of SNME.
THE HISTORY LESSON
A little perspective here first, so you can understand my point. SNME kicked off back in 1985. By that time, the only PPV that the WWF had put on was the first Wrestlemania. And before you tell me that Wrestlemania I was not a PPV, but a closed circuit broadcast, WMI was indeed broadcast on PPV in select markets. Anyway, your average WWF TV show consisted of job matches, with the odd marquis match thrown in from time to time. Between 1985 & 1987, PPVs were few and far between, with maybe 2 or 3 per year. The introduction of SNME in 1985 which aired several times a year was the equivalent of what our monthly PPVs are now. SNMEs were a special occasion where you got to see matches that you wouldn’t see on regular Saturday or Sunday morning programming. SNME was something to look forward to, because this was where you saw the major feuds start or finish. Major storyline angles took place here, and even a bad SNME (and there were a few. Feel free to check out my past reviews to see which ones ranked near the top or down at the bottom) was a big event.
With a lot fewer wrestling shows on TV back in the mid-80s – early 90s, a show like SNME stood out a lot more. Today, the WWE airs RAW and Smackdown on Mondays and Fridays, with additional shows on the weekends. The Monday and Friday shows are usually full of what used to be considered marquis matches back in the 80s, with the odd job match thrown in. Major matches take place, and any of the titles are likely to change hands on any given week. Pretty much the opposite of what the WWE programming was like back in the 80s. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, so don’t think that I’m pissing on today’s programming. The point is that what we get on RAW and Smackdown every week, is exactly like the programming you got on SNME back in the day.
Added to the mix, is that unlike the past, the WWE airs PPVs every month. In the late 80s & early 90s, you generally had 4 PPVs per year: The Royal Rumble; Wrestlemania; Summerslam; & The Survivor Series. Now there isn’t a month that goes by without at least one WWE PPV. So when you add all of this together, you’d have to question the need for a show like SNME. Or at the very least, you’d need to question what impact SNME would have when there are now more WWE shows on than ever. The viewer is so saturated with WWE programming now, that for an additional show to have the impact today that SNME had back in the mid-80s, that show would have to have something that none of the other current shows have. That’s what set the old SNME apart from the WWE shows that aired back in the day. Today’s SNME is no different than anything else that’s on TV.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Now keep in mind, that I’m not necessarily objecting to the addition of a semi-regular wrestling program that airs on Saturday Nights. I’m wondering though what Vince McMahon’s motivation was in using the SNME name for that show. One could argue that the main motivation was that SNME was an extremely successful show and continuing the tradition by making the new show a continuation on that name was a no-brainer. I would counter though, that naming the new show Saturday Night’s Main Event was a mistake BECAUSE of the success of the original one.
Here’s a good comparison. Back in 1986, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard & Ole Anderson formed probably the greatest heel faction in the history of the sport in the Four Horsemen. For the next couple of years, we saw the membership change with the additions of Barry Windham and Lex Luger, but the format was still the same. With the Horsemen in the top slot, you wound up with some of the best stuff that Jim Crockett Promotions could offer. The original Horsemen era would come to a close with Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson left the NWA to go to the WWF.
The Horsemen would return several times over the next 10 years. First with Sting joining Ole, Flair and a returning Arn Anderson for a short babyface run before the Horsemen turned on Sting and added Sid Vicious and Barry Windham (Ole would take on a manager’s role). This was a decent version of the Horsemen, but not as good as it was in it’s original run. In 1993, the Horsemen returned, with Flair, Arn, Ole and the dubious addition of Paul Roma to round out the group. Again, working as babyfaces, this was considered to be the weakest version of the team. During the 1990s, the Horsemen would return again, and see (along with the ever present Flair and Arn) Chris Benoit, Brian Pillman and Steve “Mongo” McMichael.
The problem here was that with each new incarnation, and new members, the Horsemen were seen as diluting the original formula that worked so well back in the 1980s. Calling these new incarnations “Four Horsemen” inevitably invited the comparison to the original version, and as each version fell shorter then the one before it, it diluted the legacy of the Horsemen concept. Had the 1990s versions of this group been called something else entirely, the name would still have retained the same level of awe that it originally did. It’s now a solid fact that although the Horsemen dominated the NWA for a good 3 years, they spent more time than that being a poor imitation of itself. Because WCW kept “going back to the well” with the Horsemen concept, that there is an entire generation of wrestling fans who can only think of Flair, Arn, Benoit and Mongo when the name “Four Horsemen” is mentioned. Older fans who hear the name, come away with a sense of fond memories of what the Horsemen was in the mid 80s, and disgust at what the Horsemen eventually became.
The long and short of it, is that the 4 Horsemen name and legacy was so great, that any new group calling itself the 4 Horsemen was going to be scrutinized that much more because the fans were going to expect the same level of greatness that they got from the original versions. The same is going to happen (and is currently happening right now) with Saturday Night’s Main Event. The original 31 show run of SNME was a fantastic concept and filled a niche in the WWE that wasn’t being filled.
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
It provided PPV level matches during periods when there were no PPVs. But now that we have Raw on Monday, ECW on Tuesday, Smackdown on Friday and at least one PPV per month, all of them containing prettymuch the same matches, what niche is the new SNME filling?
From where I’m sitting, it’s not filling anything. SNME has simply become one more WWE show in a lineup that probably has too many shows already. And in the end, the question becomes a matter of whether or not the fans are going to tune into another wrestling show that doesn’t offer anything thing that the other shows don’t. I think that we can find the answer to that question in the ratings for the 2 newest SNME shows that have aired thus far. The March 2006 show (episode #32) earned a 3.2 which was not only the lowest scoring show on any of the major networks that night, but the lowest score of any SNME in the show’s history. This record however, was broken by the 7/16 show which scored an even lower 2.7. This episode also finished last for the night among the major networks, despite the fact that all of the other networks were running reruns.
The next few months will be very interesting for the future of SNME. NBC was only contracted to air 2 episodes. With those 2 episodes showing dismal ratings, will we be likely to see a 3rd ? I don’t know. Will we have lost anything if SNME doesn’t return? I don’t think so. RAW, Smackdown and the monthly PPVs provide everything that SNME did. Or more importantly, SNME doesn’t provide anything that the other shows don’t already. There may just not be any more room for another WWE show. Or maybe just not any room for a show called Saturday Night’s Main Event.
For me personally, if the only other option is to see the WWE put on a series of bad (or at best, unoriginal) SNME shows that have ratings that continue to slide into the toilet, then I’d rather simply see the show cancelled after these two new episodes, and be left with the fond memories of the great 7 year run of the original SNME. I’m getting everything I need from RAW & Smackdown and will gladly welcome a new show that brings something different to the table. Until that new show comes, anything else that doesn’t add to the current WWE product, will only succeed in weakening it.
That’s my opinion. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to drop me an email at gnagus@comcast.net or post a comment in the feedback form on the Oratory message board. Hope to hear from some of you. The feedback will help me get rid of the ‘rust’ from having not written anything in so long. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before my next column. Thanks again for reading.
-Corey
