10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE Saturday Night's Main Event
3. A Main Event By Any Other Name…
Some fans will swear that they saw Andre the Giant defeat Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Championship on Saturday Night’s Main Event in February 1988.
And while it’s true that Hogan’s four-year title reign ended on a nationally televised broadcast (seen by a record 33 million viewers), the program wasn’t SNME. The WWF actually launched a spinoff called The Main Event, which aired once a year (save for one year when it aired twice) on Fridays in prime time from 1988 through 1991, typically in February as a build to WrestleMania.
While it might be easy to simply combine the two programs into one because they aired on the same network and followed a very similar broadcast pattern, they were distinct programs – which makes sense considering they aired on different nights at different hours in different frequencies (SNME typically aired five times a year)
It was the initial The Main Event where Andre dethroned Hogan (with the help of Dave Hebner’s twin brother, Earl), and then immediately surrendered the title to “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. This led to the title being vacated and WWF holding a one-night tournament during WrestleMania 4.
Other episodes of The Main Event saw the Mega Powers explode when Randy Savage attacked Hogan backstage in 1989, and new boxing champion Buster Douglas serving as a guest referee for a Hogan/Savage title match in 1990.