Saturday Night's Main Event: How WWE's latest nostalgia play all traces back to Cyndi Lauper

Every fad has a chance to make a comeback under the right circumstances, but the most important aspect to reviving what once was is often a true commitment to what was lost.

WWE has had success with classic shirts and classic titles, and mostly through the NXT brand, bringing back classic events like The Great American Bash and Halloween Havoc. After the revived success of WarGames, WWE is going to the nostalgia well once more this Saturday and bringing back its 1980s TV special, Saturday Night’s Main Event. The most recent attempt at reviving the brand in the mid-aughts was done with less than ideal enthusiasm, but with the company's current creative success and demand for more live specials, WWE has a chance to reintroduce a proven staple and have another large event in which to capitalize.

'I wanna rock right now'

The Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, the fusion of MTV’s heavily stylized, in-your-face presentation of pop music and the World Wrestling Federation’s over the top characters competing in larger than life locales, proved to be a successful formula for selling tickets and closed circuit specials through the 1980s and 1990s. Captain Lou Albano, a wrestling manager who was later immortalized as the the first man to portray Super Mario on screen, met rock sensation Cyndi Lauper on a trip to Puerto Rico. Albano’s penchant for wild, curly hair adorned with rubber bands and vacation-style, short-sleeve, button-down shirts set him apart from the crowd, leading Lauper to ask him to portray her father in the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” music video.

The pair soon appeared on “Piper’s Pit,” one of WWE's early in-universe talk shows that eventually led to recurring segments like Chris Jericho’s “Highlight Reel” and Bayley’s “Ding Dong, Hello.” Albano talked down to Lauper, leading each to enlist the aid of a female wrestler to compete on their behalf in a match. MTV aired “The Brawl To End It All” on July 23, 1983, in which Lauper’s charge, Wendi Richter, defeated The Fabulous Moolah for the WWF women’s championship. With the WWF a decade or so away from episodic wrestling television, the feud was stretched out over the ensuing year, with the once more friendly Lauper and Albano being attacked by Rowdy Roddy Piper, whose on-screen frustrations were born from the real-world success of the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, which led to huge attendance numbers and an ability for spin-off programming like “Hulk Hogan’s Rock 'n' Wrestling” to exist.

Hogan came to the aid of both Lauper and Albano, ultimately agreeing to defend his WWF title against Piper in February 1985 at “The War to Settle the Score.” These two events did huge viewership for the upstart MTV network and gave NBC’s Dick Ebersol, executive producer of "Saturday Night Live," an idea: Instead of running "SNL" reruns on off-weeks, why not air wrestling specials?

So the very first SNME took place on May 10, 1985, and aired the following day.

The inaugural event featured four matches in total, with Richter, flanked once more by Lauper, successfully defending her championship against Moolah. The U.S. Express, a Hall of Fame team comprised of Mike Rotunda and Barry Windam, joined forces with Ricky Steamboat to defeat Nikolai Volkoff, The Iron Sheik and George “The Animal” Steele. Fan favorite Junkyard Dog made short work of Peter Doherty, and Hulk Hogan retained the WWF championship by disqualification against Bob Orton.

In total, the four matches lasted less than than 21 minutes, the longest being Hogan’s title defense, which clocked in at just under seven minutes. Fast and to the point, the event got over whom to cheer for, whom to sneer at, and the size and scope of WWF’s newfound success. The show ultimately pulled an 8.8 rating, making it one of the most successful non-"SNL" shows to air in the time slot.

The most viewed episode of that initial SNME run aired March 14, 1987. Heading into WrestleMania 3, the show featured a 20-man battle royal with both Hogan and Andre the Giant as dominant participants. Andre, having had enough of his “friend” Hogan’s three-year title reign, stamped his claim to the championship by eliminating Hogan before being ganged up on and eliminated by the other participants. Emanating from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, roughly a half-hour from the Pontiac Silverdome — the famed site of Wrestlemania 3 — the show drew a monster 11.6 rating.

Of the 31 shows during the event’s initial run, Hogan defended the title on 14 of them against myriad challengers, including Terry Funk, Sika, King Kong Bundy and others.

While Hogan appeared at the first and penultimate event, Rotunda, later known as Irwin R. Shyster (IRS), is the only combatant to appear at the first and last SNME of its initial iteration.

After only airing on NBC, the final two episodes moved to the Fox in 1992, ending with the only SNME card to feature a title change — actually, two — as the 31st edition of the series saw The Ultimate Maniacs (Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior) defeat Money Inc. (IRS and “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase) for the WWF tag-team championship, and Shawn Michaels defeat The British Bulldog for the Intercontinental Championship in October 1992.

Take 2

Detroit, the host of 1987's blockbuster success, also became the location of SNME's revival.

In 2006, with WWE under the Universal umbrella, the brand was once again given life on NBC. Like many of the shows in the series' first run, SNME 32 served as a bridge to big pay-per-view matches — both WrestleMania 22 world title bouts were represented, with the duo of John Cena and Triple H taking on the trio of Randy Orton, Kurt Angle and Rey Mysterio in a 2-on-3 handicap match. In the semi-main event, Mickie James attacked her tag team partner, Trish Stratus, after a rejected attempt to kiss Stratus after the match. The WWE women’s championship, as it had in 1985's SNME debut, became a focal point of the show, with James redoubling her efforts to win the title after unsuccessfully challenging Stratus at January’s New Year’s Revolution. In one of the company’s best women’s matches to that point, James finally defeated Stratus to become champion at WrestleMania 22 the following month.

The main event of SNME 32 was Shawn Michaels taking on Shane McMahon in a street fight. At the time, Michaels was the most recent victim of Vince McMahon’s ire, with the WWE boss wanting Michaels to revert to his “degenerate” days. After failed attempts to get Michaels out of the Royal Rumble, Vince had Shane sneak in and eliminate Michaels — then as a flip of the Montreal Screwjob, he actually called Shane the winner of their SNME match after Michaels locked him in the sharpshooter.

Over the course of six events from 2006-08, John Cena became the only WWE talent to compete on every second generation SNME. Weaving in and out of ongoing storylines with the triple branding of Raw, SmackDown and the revived ECW, the WWE championship was only defended once, with Cena winning the title via disqualification against Edge in 2006’s SNME 33.

Trading celebrity for continuity, the only “outside” talent to compete a la Lauper was boxing Hall of Famer Evander Holyfield, who went to a “no contest” against Matt Hardy in a boxing match at SNME 35.

The leader, the superior

If WWE rested on its laurels during the second SNME run, it's looking to alleviate those concerns right out the gate. The first third-generation SNME, returning Saturday to NBC/Peacock with its original 1980s themes intact, features four title matches — three more than any in the second generation and more than any SNME card to date. To maximize the nostalgia, the show takes place at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, site of the brand's inaugural event.

In the same way the very first show was built on a strong women’s angle, SNME 37 sees the crowning of the very first women’s United States championship.

There’s a chance for WWE to create a new star with Michin, Tiffany Stratton or Chelsea Green, or to have a veteran establish an early proven lineage for the belt with Bayley.

Finn Balor and Damien Priest, who carried much of the plot of "Monday Night Raw" over the past two years as members of the Judgment Day, both get a shot at the world heavyweight title in a triple threat match with long-reigning champion Gunther. It’s possibly Balor’s best chance at a world title since winning the universal championship in 2016 and would solidify his new status as the Judgment Day frontman. His counterpart, women’s world champion Liv Morgan, faces her most athletic challenge in Iyo Sky, and unlike her defenses against Rhea Ripley, Sky’s Damage CTRL compatriots Dakota Kai and Kari Same can even the odds if outside forces look to intervene.

Drew McIntyre is back to his head-hater status, looking to take out Sami Zayn for siding with Roman Reigns in the Bloodline Civil War at Survivor Series.

And in the main event, Cody Rhodes looks to successfully defend the WWE championship against friend-turned-foe Kevin Owens, who not only hopes to become champion, but to wake up Rhodes from what Owens feels is a bad dream rooted in arrogance and misunderstanding.

It’s the most consequential SNME card yet — and WWE's only premium live event until the next SNME on Jan. 25, the week before the Royal Rumble. It remains to be seen just how hard WWE commits to this third revival, but SNME represents a chance to establish another big brand that it can work in at any time. The 1980s rocked, the 2000s slipped in quality and quantity; now it remains to be seen just how well the 2020s version of SNME connects with the fans and the overall feeling of large-scale WWE events.