10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE Saturday Night's Main Event
6. Reboot #1
As WWE prepares to relaunch Saturday Night’s Main Event, the company is leaning into the nostalgia of yesteryear, with promo packages blending footage and the iconic music from the 80s and 90s program with today’s stars.
But fans getting swept up (when they aren’t asking who Jesse “The Body” Ventura is) might not be aware that this isn’t the first time WWE has brought the iconic program back to the airwaves. And really, you can’t blame them since WWE isn’t really calling attention to SNME’s first revival.
In 2006, WWE rebooted Saturday Night’s Main Event as a special series as part of Raw’s return to USA Network, which is an NBC property. The special would air five times between March 2006 and July 2008 to diminishing returns, with ratings falling throughout the run and the show going from live (though the first episode was on a one-hour delay) to the final three episodes being taped.
Whereas the original SNME relied on televised title defenses as a major draw, the 2006 relaunch featured only one title defense across all five episodes and leaned heavily on tag team and gimmick matches to fill the cards.
After the first couple episodes, the reboot seemed to be more of an obligation for WWE (which was stretched thin with Raw, SmackDown and ECW brands) than a point of pride. One would hope that Triple H and company don’t similarly lose interest in this iteration of SNME.