10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE Saturday Night's Main Event

10. The How And Why

To understand the basis for Saturday Night’s Main Event and how unprecedented it was, you have to cast your mind back nearly 40 years ago, at a time when wrestling still was almost entirely a regional network of territories.

The WWF had already begun its national expansion, airing two specials on MTV and holding WrestleMania I in March 1985. Based on the success of those shows (and the high ratings of the MTV programs), Dick Ebersol, who was then the executive producer of Saturday Night Live, approached the WWF about creating a wrestling show that would broadcast in the slot that SNL occupied rather than air a rerun of the sketch comedy show. The first Saturday Night’s Main Event would air in May 1985.

The notion of putting wrestling on network television in a time slot that was reserved for one of the most popular programs of the era might have seemed impossible just a year or two earlier, but Ebersol saw enough from the two MTV programs to justify taking a chance. Had it not been for that and the success of WrestleMania I, WWF might have continued to toil away with cable TV programs.

Saturday Night’s Main Event gave the WWF a major platform to launch them into the stratosphere, but their partnership with Ebersol and NBC also reshaped their entire presentation. NBC also benefited from the arrangement, showing original programming in a slot where lower-rated reruns normally would have aired.