Saturday Night's Main Event Results - From The Beginning

Several dark matches were taped that night involving Big John Studd, Tony Garea and Johnny Rodz. None of them aired, and none are part of the broadcast card.

Why The First SNME Mattered

WrestleMania created the stories. Saturday Night’s Main Event kept them moving.

At a time when many American homes still had no cable, NBC handed WWF periodic access to a network Saturday night. WWE describes SNME as the place fans could watch top stars actually wrestle between supercards, back when monthly pay-per-views did not exist and marquee names rarely worked serious matches on weekly television.

The 8.8 rating validated it immediately. Later episodes would clear a 10, and the franchise eventually produced the prime-time Main Event specials.

Look at how the card was built and the strategy is obvious. Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff had taken the tag titles from the U.S. Express at WrestleMania I. Bob Orton had accidentally cost Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff the WrestleMania main event with his cast. Every significant thing on this show is WrestleMania fallout.

The Family Tree Hiding In The Opening Match

The first match in Saturday Night’s Main Event history contains the best hidden lineage on the card.

Mike Rotunda, one half of the U.S. Express, is the father of Windham Rotunda, known to WWE audiences as Bray Wyatt, and of Taylor Rotunda, known as Bo Dallas. Rotunda would later become far more famous to WWF viewers as Irwin R. Schyster.

Barry Windham, his tag partner, was his real-life brother-in-law and the son of Blackjack Mulligan. Windham Rotunda was named after him.

So the opening bout featured Bray Wyatt’s father and the man Bray Wyatt was named after, working as a team. The U.S. Express won two WWF Tag Team Championships together and entered the WWE Hall of Fame as a unit in 2024, where Rotunda and Windham took part in a tribute to Wyatt, who died in 2023.

Windham had already been inducted once before, with the Four Horsemen in 2012.

The third man on that side was Ricky Steamboat, still two years away from the match most fans name first when they hear his name. His WrestleMania III classic with Randy Savage was coming in 1987.

Randy Orton’s Father Challenged Hulk Hogan

Cowboy Bob Orton got a WWF Championship match on the first SNME. He lost it the way almost everything ended in 1985, on a disqualification, when Piper punched Hogan at 6:54.

Piper and Orton attacked Mr. T afterward and had Hogan cornered before Paul Orndorff made the save. Hogan, Mr. T and Orndorff celebrated together, which tied the entire broadcast back to the WrestleMania main event.

Orton entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. That same year, two decades after this show, he returned to WWE television to help his son Randy Orton in a feud with The Undertaker, assisting in Randy’s SummerSlam win and later teaming with him.

Randy would go on to 14 recognized world championships and two Royal Rumble wins, a career considerably larger than his father’s. On this night, none of that existed.

Two Character Turns Started Here

George Steele was still a monster heel when the show began. Sheik and Volkoff refused to tag him, Windham rolled him up, and the pair attacked him afterward before Captain Lou Albano consoled him. That sequence began Steele’s turn into the beloved oddball audiences remember, the version that would eventually fixate on Miss Elizabeth and feud with Randy Savage.

Paul Orndorff turned on the same night. Piper brought him onto Piper’s Pit and blamed him for their WrestleMania loss, ignoring that Orton’s cast had caused it. Piper went for a cheap shot, Orndorff fought both men off, Orton got him with the cast anyway, and Mr. T came out. Orndorff completed the turn later in the night by saving Hogan.

He would turn on Hogan again in 1986, which became one of the biggest programs of Hogan’s run. The arc starts here.

Richter Beat Moolah Six Months Before The Screwjob

Wendi Richter retained the Women’s Championship in about four minutes, reversing a bodyslam into an inside cradle. Cyndi Lauper had been banned from ringside by Moolah and watched from the back before returning to celebrate.

The hindsight is heavy. That November, Richter’s WWF run ended in the incident known as the Original Screwjob, when Moolah wrestled under a mask as The Spider Lady and pinned her for the title in a finish Richter says she was not told about.

Six months before that, Richter beat her cleanly on network television.

It Was A Mother’s Day Show

The broadcast aired Mother’s Day weekend, and WWF committed to the theme completely.

Hulk Hogan brought his mother Ruth. Junkyard Dog brought his mother Bertha Ritter and danced with her after beating Dougherty. Cyndi Lauper brought hers. Freddie Blassie produced a supposed mother of his own. Moolah turned up angry about not being invited, which ended with her in a cake and Gene Okerlund following her into it.

Lauper’s presence was not incidental. The Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection was central to WWF’s mainstream push, and the episode even included her “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” music video featuring WWF talent. The first SNME was not presented purely as wrestling. It was wrestling blended with music, celebrity and pop culture, the same formula that had just worked at WrestleMania.

What Nobody Knew Yet

• The man challenging Hogan would return 20 years later to help his son fight The Undertaker
• The man who won the opening match would father Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas
• Bray Wyatt would be named after his father’s tag partner that night
• Ricky Steamboat’s defining WWF match was still two years away
• George Steele was beginning the character run fans would remember for the rest of his career
• Paul Orndorff turned babyface here and would turn on Hogan again within 18 months
• Wendi Richter’s WWF career would end in controversy before the year was out

Saturday Night’s Main Event I By The Numbers

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