WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event (1-4-1986)

From the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida, it’s SATURDAY NIGHT’S MAIN EVENT!

I don’t usually do entire show reviews, of course, but I don’t NOT do them, and this is a request! There will be a couple more, too. Plus SNME runs about 60 minutes and had a breeziness, so I’m looking forward to it.

Just a reminder that if you DO want to request a full show — which is welcome! — it, like, costs more than the normal $3. Because it is long and takes up a lot of my time. And what a great treat you get in the end! Me saying shit about wrestling to read while you take a crap or dump.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Hulk Hogan vs The Genius (WWF, 11-25-1989)

WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event, Topeka, KS

A request! Hogan’s WWF title is on the line on SNME, against a challenger Vince McMahon says “indeed poses a threat … albeit the most unusual threat, I think, ever to the Hulkster.”

This actually has some similarities to the Samoa Joe vs “HOOK” match set for the AEW title in six days on Dynamite, as you have a very credible champion taking on the gimmicky lower midcard kid of a regional star from a few decades prior.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper (WCW, 12-29-1996)

WCW Starrcade, Nashville, TN

A request! This was the first pay-per-view I was ever able to order. I was 14, my grandpa had decided to start giving me a little money for Christmas, and then I gravely disappointed him, I think, by turning about 55 percent of that money into a request for a trip down to the local cable office to purchase Starrcade.

It’s easy to look back now and go, “These were two old men! Whoopty doo!” But it really was several months of compelling TV angle that had me fired up, and it felt like the return of Starrcade as a proper marquee event following Hogan arriving in ’94 and ruining the image with his terrible Brutus Beefcake and Mr. T bullshit nobody cared about, and then ’95 which was a cool idea in some ways but did not have a “Starrcade feel.” (Listen, in all reality, Starrcade was kind of a wack show more often than not overall, but it was supposed to be the big’un.)

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Hulk Hogan vs Arn Anderson (WCW, 2-12-1996)

WCW Monday Nitro, Tampa, FL

A request! George Steinbrenner hooked WCW up with a Nitro gig from the Florida State Fair. “Unseasonably cold” in Tampa that day, Eric Bischoff says at the top of the show. Weather Underground tells me the midday high was about 59, and by the time this show went on air, it was just under 50 outside.

This is the first-ever one-on-one meeting between Hogan and Arn. This is the night after SuperBrawl VI, where Ric Flair beat Randy Savage for his 13th world title when Elizabeth Macho turned on her ex-husband, Hogan beat The Giant in a cage match main event, and Arn wound up caught up with Kevin Sullivan after the famous Pillman angle.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Ultimate Warrior, Tito Santana & Hulk Hogan vs Ted DiBiase, Warlord, Power & Glory & Rick Martel (WWF, 11-22-1990)

WWF Survivor Series, Hartford, CT

A request! This is the one and only ever Grand Finale Match of Survival at Survivor Series, the first indication that Vince was losing interest in the original Survivor Series concept, as he was starting to tinker.

The concept is all the surviving good guys from good guy teams face all the surviving bad guys from bad guy teams. This is a clear thing that also plays a bit loose with logic in a way, so it’s sort of an iffy idea, but it’s neat that it was done once.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Royal Rumble Match (WWF, 1-15-1989)

WWF Royal Rumble, Houston, TX

A request! The first Royal Rumble match to air on PPV, as it became the last of the WWF’s original Big Four PPV shows following the debuts of WrestleMania (1985), Survivor Series (1987), and SummerSlam (1988). The first Rumble does pre-date the first SummerSlam, but aired on USA Network to take a further shit on Crockett’s Bunkhouse Stampede PPV.

It’s also the first 30-man Rumble, as the inaugural ’88 edition featured 20 men, and was won by Hacksaw Jim Duggan, featuring entirely midcard (however popular or whatever) wrestlers.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Undertaker vs Hulk Hogan (WWF, 12-3-1991)

WWF This Tuesday in Texas, San Antonio, TX

A request! The big rematch from the Survivor Series controversy six days prior, where Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan to win the WWF title with a little help from Ric Flair.

The PPV was an attempt to see what they might do business-wise with this sort of thing, right on the heels of some controversy, with a shorter, more budget-priced broadcast. I was far more interested in the ongoing Savage-Roberts feud than in what Hogan was doing by this point, and also wanted to see Bret Hart against Skinner for the IC title.

The live event itself also had a Ric Flair vs Roddy Piper dark match plus a pre-“Tatanka” Tatanka getting a W over JW Storm, making him just J Storm in the aftermath.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger & Sting vs Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall & nWo Sting (WCW, 9-15-1996)

WCW Fall Brawl, Winston-Salem, NC

A request! It’s WARGAMES! And for the first time in a while, this truly feels like something big. The prior year’s WarGames was Hulk Hogan and Dungeon of Doom horseshit. The year before that did fucking rock, but the year before that had the Shockmaster, and really it’s been since ’92 when something felt like, you know, THE BIG THING in the company. The ’94 WarGames was like the last gasp of The Real WCW before the Hogan parade fully took over and it ruled, but it was really just a “Hogan doesn’t work the September PPV” thing in terms of company scope and all that.

Here we’re two months into the nWo taking over. On the nWo side tonight you have Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and, apparently, Sting. On the WCW side you’ve got Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, and Lex Luger confirmed. It was going to be the Four Horsemen, but Luger and Sting wanted in, and Flair and Anderson complied. And then Sting, they think, turned traitor on them.

So the nWo are coming in with a mystery fourth man, and so is WCW, by default.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Hulk Hogan vs Bad News Brown (WWF, 9-11-1988)

WWF on MSG Network, East Rutherford, NJ

A request! This is a main event from Brendan Byrne Arena (the Meadowlands Arena) in East Rutherford, though it came mid-show as main events often did back then. It’s not the last match, but it’s the match the show sold tickets on.

Hogan isn’t WWF champion, that’s still Randy Savage, who isn’t on this show. The WWF ran another event in Guelph, Ontario, on this date, Savage wasn’t on that one either. That had the monster rundown of Powers of Pain vs Bolsheviks, Tito Santana vs King Haku, Sherri vs Rockin’ Robin, Hillbilly Jim vs Terry Taylor, Frenchy Martin vs Richard Charland, and Lanny Poffo vs DJ Peterson.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Diamond Dallas Page & Jay Leno vs Hollywood Hogan & Eric Bischoff (WCW, 8-8-1998)

WCW Road Wild, Sturgis, SD

A request! WCW’s third of four yearly events in Sturgis, Eric Bischoff’s annual jerk sesh because he loves motorcycles, and some people criticize that because they sacrificed live gate money and whatever, but to me? Fuck it. What if they’d done a live gate yearly in August instead. Would the company have survived in 2001? No. So who gives a shit? I didn’t work for Turner.

As a fan, the only criticism would come from the fact that largely the crowds did not care about wrestling, but honestly, whatever. It’s funny to watch Benoit and Malenko work an excellent technical match for half an hour while a bunch of drunk bikers become increasingly bored by their star ratings display.

I was 16 for this one, though, and I did think it was starting to wear thin already, and also wearing thin was WCW’s horniness for big celebrity things. Man, Dennis Rodman was one thing, as was Karl Malone, two professional athletes in their peak marketing periods, but Jay Leno?

Still, it’s fucking insane that WCW was running a cross-promotion with “The Tonight Show.” Actually interested to see how I look at this now with truly adult eyes, when I’m far more open to dumb shit done well, and also genuinely can’t stand Jay Leno instead of just thinking he’s a dork who isn’t as good as Letterman or Conan.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)