25 years ago Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant followed their attendance record-setting WrestleMania III clash with a rematch that smashed the US records for televised wrestling viewership. It is a record that will never be broken. John Lister looks at the match that was the pinnacle of Vince McMahon’s national TV expansion.
When television first hit it big in the United States, wrestling was a natural fit. Unlike most sports event, it was simple and cheap to film: a single camera in the right spot at a live event plus an announcer was all you needed in those low-tech days, and the nature of the business meant wrestlers could be relied upon to literally play to the cameras and to finish their “contests” at a convenient time.
By the early 1950s, two wrestling shows were making waves nationwide. Chicago promoter Fred Kohler had a weekly show on the DuMont network, which competed with NBC to be the biggest in the country. Wrestling was usually the second highest rated show on the network and among the top 20 shows nationwide, creating national exposure for stars such as Verne Gagne that even the peak of the Monday Night Wars era couldn’t match.
Meanwhile the Hollywood Wrestling show , filmed at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles was syndicated on the Paramount Television Network, which was in some ways a forerunner of today’s UPN, the network that aired Smackdown for several years.
By the mid 1950s though, several of the early networks had fallen into financial difficulties and closed down. Wrestling switched to being a locally-based TV product with most promoters recording squash matches in TV shows, the main focus being interviews to hype up the local arena.
It wasn’t until Ted Turner began using a satellite feed to beam the Atlanta-based TBS to local cable channels across the country in 1976 that once again the same wrestlers would appear on TV sets nationwide. Georgia Championship Wrestling, via its “World Championship Wrestling” show was the beneficiary with the likes of the Road Warriors and Tommy Rich becoming genuinely national stars. However, as leading members of the NWA, promoters chose not to capitalize on this exposure by running shows outside of their territory, save for trips to “unclaimed” cities in Ohio, Michigan and East Tennessee.
As Vince McMahon began aggressively expanding nationwide, actively encroaching on rival territories, several other promotions followed suit. They did so not just through cable, but through syndicated television which meant striking deals with individual local stations around the country and then using this to sell a package deal to advertisers. However, these deals were often with smaller stations and in a different timeslot in each location, making it harder to build national stars.
The real national TV expansion for the WWF actually began on cable as MTV carried two live shows from Madison Square Garden to capitalize on the involvement of Cyndi Lauper and Mr T, the latter event being the main angle setting up the first WrestleMania. While the WWF was by no means a consistent hit at the box office across the country at this point, being based in the New York market made it easier to create the illusion that wrestling was somehow becoming newly fashionable, something that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
On May 11, 1985 wrestling returned to network television (that is, over-the-air channels similar to BBC or ITV rather than cable stations) for the first time in nearly three decades. NBC decided to give WWF an occasional slot titled Saturday Night’s Main Event, promoted as much as an entertainment show as a sports broadcast: when it aired it replaced long-running late-night comedy staple Saturday Night Live for the night.
Unlike the often-topical comedy show, Saturday Night’s Main Event was pre-recorded and at times the bouts could be up to a month old. The big selling point was that, unlike the syndicated shows which were largely squash-based, SNME featured a string of “star vs star” contests and were one of the few places champion Hulk Hogan would wrestle regularly on TV. In an unusual departure from traditional scheduling, Hogan’s bout would usually air early in the show, the idea being that with a common 10pm start time it was best to expose him to the maximum possible audience.
Once the show gained a semi-regular slot, with five or six broadcasts a year, Vince McMahon and company found a creative way round the potential danger of giving away too much on free television: the shows usually featured bouts that had been built up on the weekly TV shows but had already done the rounds on the live event circuit. That meant that although the televised bouts had a backstory and were of interest to casual TV viewers, they didn’t deter the more dedicated fan from buying tickets.
In most cases, the WWF programming attracted audiences comparable to that of Saturday Night Live, with the highest episode coming when Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant clashed in a battle royale just a couple of weeks before their WrestleMania III showdown. The episode attracted an 11.6 rating; the highest ever episode of Monday Night Raw in 1999 did an 8.1.
The timing of Hogan-Andre feud meant that it encapsulated the changing face of the WWF’s television programming. The original feud began with a series of television angles across several weeks of the Pipers Pit segment on Superstars of Wrestling. It was arguably the last time the promotion centered a major main event angle on its syndicated television shows.
After the SNME battle royale angle, the iconic clash at WrestleMania III headlined the first show where it was clear pay-per-view was the future: although the show did 450,000 on closed circuit (fans paying to watch on a big screen at a local theater or venue), the event attracted a further 400,000 people paying to watch from the comfort of their own homes.
The first follow-up angle came on the next edition of SNME with Bobby Heenan showing off “exclusive footage” that appeared to show referee Joey Marella counting three as Hogan collapsed under Andre’s weight after a failed bodyslam attempt in the early moments of the match. Heenan rejected Marella’s claim that the third count was merely a reflex action and that Hogan had kicked out before his hand struck the mat.
With Andre still in incredibly rough shape after back surgery, he didn’t return to the ring on TV until November when Vince McMahon launched the Survivor Series in a deliberate attempt to sabotage Jim Crockett Promotion’s first PPV event, Starrcade, held on the same evening. In a 10-man elimination main event, Hogan’s first attempt to lock up with Andre was interrupted when the referee controversially ruled that a high-five with teammates counted as a tag.When the two titans eventually clashed, Hogan was quickly pulled from the ring by Andre’s teammates and held on the floor until he was counted out. Although Andre went on to win the bout, Hogan interrupted his celebration and sent him packing.
Developments continued back on NBC with the December edition seeing King Kong Bundy snatch a countout win over Hogan, setting up a rematch airing on January 2. Although Hogan gained revenge with a pinfall win, Andre attacked him and choked him out while warding off attempted saves from Jake Roberts, Junk Yard Dog and the British Bulldogs. Only Jim Duggan’s 2 x 4 forced Andre from the ring, and even then he shrugged off the assault.
It was clear Hogan and Andre were set to wrestle again, but it turned out the rematch would not take place at WrestleMania. Instead it would air on a special NBC show simply titled “The Main Event.” Not only would it air live rather than be taped in advance, but it would take place in a prime time slot on a Friday night: roughly equivalent to going out on ITV right after Coronation Street.
Before that it was time to screw with Crockett once again. Although cable companies had made clear going head-to-head with his Bunkhouse Stampede show on PPV was a no-go, WWF managed to book a slot the same night on USA (its main cable outlet) and aired the first televised Royal Rumble show, including an official contract signing between Hogan and Andre. Perhaps unsurprisingly it wound up with Hogan’s head smashed into the table before he was buried under the furniture. What was less expected was that Ted DiBiase, built up as the “Million Dollar Man” through a classic series of introductory vignettes, was now in Andre’s corner, having unsuccessfully offered to buy the WWF title from Hogan.
When the NBC match began, Jesse Ventura’s claim on commentary that “I’ve never seen the Giant in better shape in my life” was a spectacular piece of exaggeration, but he was certainly more athletically able than at WrestleMania III. Meanwhile Hogan even threw in a clothesline off the ropes to liven up affairs. But for the most part little happened in the bout and it lacked the iconic moments and jawdropping visuals of the original.
Instead the focus was on the referee, with Ventura and McMahon expressing their relief that Dave Hebner being assigned to the contest would avoid the controversy that would have ensued if Marella had officiated again. However, that relief quickly ended when Andre landed an underwhelming belly-to-belly suplex and Hebner counted to three despite Hogan clearly getting a shoulder up after the one count. “I can’t believe he made such a stupid mistake,” McMahon exclaimed. “He’s only human,” replied Ventura before pointing out that wrestling had no instant replay rule and the result would stand.
Things took a further unexpected twist when Gene Okerlund joined Andre along with DiBiase and bodyguard Virgil who had both been at ringside for the bout. In an example of the perils of live broadcasting, a mumbling Andre said he wanted to “surrender the world tag team championship to Ted DiBiase” and presented him with the belt.
The surprises continued as a man clad in referee gear ran to the ring and began arguing with Hebner — a man who looked remarkably similar to him. Without explanation, the crowd and viewing audience were quickly able to decipher that DiBiase had used his cash for an elaborate scheme involving a bogus official. After one of the “referees” punched the other, Hogan decided the pugilist was the man who had wronged him and took revenge by holding him above his head, running across the ring and hurling him onto Andre and company.
Contrary to Hogan’s subsequent interview suggesting plastic surgery was the explanation, the imposter was in fact Dave Hebner’s twin brother Earl who had been an official for Crockett until recently; not under contract, he had accepted an approach specifically for this angle. Speaking many years later the pair explained that Earl had dropped a little weight to heighten the physical similarities and that on the day of the show he had even walked around openly backstage without other wrestlers and crew members realising he was not Dave!
Bill Apter, the face of magazines such as Pro Wrestling Illustrated, told FSM that ” Hogan vs. Andre on network TV was the best swerve I had ever seen at that time. I was shocked, as were a lot of other people. It was a very keen creative move, and really, no one saw it coming. There were many who didn’t even know there was another Hebner twin, and there was confusion about it all.
“The match was a huge part of the overall national expansion. What it brought was a new dimension of controversy, where no one knew what direction that feud would head.”
Writing at the time, Wrestling Observer Newsletter editor Dave Meltzer noted the creativity had another benefit. “The slight of hand finish distracted everyone and stunned them long enough so there was no threat of a riot. And that was a stroke of genius because doing a screw-job title stealing from a babyface as over as Hulk Hogan could easily escalate into an out of control situation.”
That was not an unjustified fear given past experience in dethroning long-term babyface champions. When Ivan Koloff ended Bruno Sammartino’s first reign he did not pose with the belt on the night for fear of enraging the audience; even then there was relief when the response was a shocked silence rather than anything more hostile. Both the second Sammartino reign and that of Pedro Morales ended outside of New York City to avoid trouble among the passionate Madison Square Garden regulars; even then Morales was booked in a finish where he and challenger Stan Stasiak both appeared to have their shoulders down and the fact that Stasiak had won the match was not announced at the venue.
Not everyone was surprised by the NBC match result however: earlier in the week the WWF had sent out promotional material to advertising agencies for WrestleMania with the phrase “Hogan tries to regain his title”, news of which had leaked out in mainstream media.
Still, it didn’t seem to do too much harm. The show did a 15.2 rating and an audience of 33 million, more than three times the most successful edition of RAW. The only bouts thought to have been watched by more people are Japanese legend Rikidozan’s matches with Lou Thesz (a stunning 87.0 rating in the earliest days of Japanese TV) and the Destroyer (which did a 67.0 rating but, thanks to a growth in the number of people with TV in the country, had a larger audience.)
What’s not widely remembered is that the audience wasn’t considered particularly impressive for such a prime position on a network station. Although it was the most-watched show in its timeslot, it was only narrowly so. It was the 31st highest rated show of the week, a disappointment to both WWF and NBC who had hoped to crack the top 10. There had been debate about what WWF would do if offered a weekly prime time slot and whether it would be worth the risk of overexposure, but that quandry was now redundant.
That said, the rating was good enough that WWF was offered future live dates and in February 1989 the second instalment of “The Main Event” drew an 11.6 rating. While lower, this was still enough of an audience that the show’s main angle, the break-up of “Megapowers” Hogan and Savage, led to WrestleMania V setting a PPV record that lasted for almost a decade.
1990 saw two more “The Main Event” shows, though only the first (featuring James “Buster” Douglas as a guest referee, replacing his recent victim Mike Tyson) was live. The second show was simply a regular edition of SNME that was cut to 60 minutes, moved to Friday and renamed to fit a late scheduling change at NBC. The move proved fortunate for WWF as it meant it could drop the airing of a lengthy Hart Foundation-Rockers. The bout featured a title change which McMahon and company were already planning to erase from the record books after overturning a decision to release Jim Neidhart from the company.
By 1991 the Main Event aired on a tape delay of a few days and the rating had fallen to just 6.7, less than half that of Hogan-Andre. Although the show concluded with the announcement of Hogan getting the WrestleMania VII title shot against Iraqi sympathizer Sgt Slaughter, there was no blockbuster angle to speak of.
Instead the show was best remembered for the sleazy use of footage of Hogan visiting US troops as a promotional tool for the Mania clash. The move was particularly ill-received considering soldiers were now actively fighting in Iraq and between the poor ratings and public relations problems, NBC dropped WWF programming altogether after one more episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event. The show was picked up by Fox the following year but lasted just two more episodes.
In 2006 NBC struck a new deal with WWE and Saturday Night’s Main Event returned to network television. However, after more than a decade of Raw and later Smackdown airing star vs star matches for several hours each week, the novelty of SNME was well and truly gone. Audiences started out low and got worse, with the fifth and final show, airing in July 2008, earning just a 1.4 rating. That would have been unacceptable even for a show with a better image for advertisers than the unfashionable world of wrestling. NBC and WWE dropped the show and the contracted twice-yearly slots are now filled by Tribute to the Troops and a WrestleMania recap show.
In today’s world with hundreds of channels and the diversions of the internet and technology, it’s close to certain that no wrestling show will ever again hit the heights of the first edition of The Main Event. While today’s wrestling may set financial records, and while the likes of Steve Austin and the Rock were considered mainstream celebrities, the legend of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant will live forever thanks not only for when (a perhaps mythical) 93,173 who saw them wrestle in person, but for when almost one in seven Americans watched them clash again on TV.
