WWF The Main Event (February 1988)

Original Airdate: February 5, 1988

After achieving unparalleled ratings success with their Saturday Night’s Main Event broadcasts (held a few times a year, in SNL’s usual late night slot) NBC decided to give the WWF a one-hour special – this time in primetime, and on Friday Night. And the WWF delivered – promising the highly anticipated WrestleMania III rematch between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant – drawing the largest audience ever for a wrestling television program (a ratings record that still stands today) with some 30 million people tuning in. For pro-wrestling, this is the equivalent of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

From Indianapolis, Indiana; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura.


Opening WWF Intercontinental Title Match: The Honky Tonk Man v Randy Savage: Honky tries to go for Miss Elizabeth again, setting Savage off, and he cleans house. Back in, Savage snaps Honky's neck across the top rope, and unloads with elbowsmashes. Manager Jimmy Hart gets involved, though, allowing Honky a cheap shot, and a sunset flip - but Savage counters by simply decking him. Jimmy Hart gets involved again, luring Savage into a stupid chase (he's a hothead, yeah, but Savage is smarter than that - and was a heel long enough to know better), allowing Honky to whack him with Hart's megaphone for two. Headvice, but Savage won't give, so Honky goes to the old standby: kicking him lots of times. Hangman's clothesline, but Honky goes for Elizabeth – which makes more sense than Savage chasing Hart, as Honky can afford a countout loss to retain the title. He doesn't count on Savage recovering as quickly, though, and Macho drops a flying axehandle to the outside. Inside, bodyslam, and another flying axehandle gets two. Sleeper looks to finish, but Honky's valet, Peggy Sue (Sensational Sherri in a blond wig, and shades) goes after Elizabeth, luring Savage out again. Honky makes the mistake of following, however, and gets posted, allowing Savage a countout victory at 8:20. About on par with their match on SNME a few months before, still a lot of fun - and really well paced. Rumors (though untrue) persist that Savage was due to get the title back here, but when Honky threatened to jump to the NWA, Vince changed the booking - as well as shuffling Savage into winning the WWF Title at WrestleMania IV, instead of Ted DiBiase. * ¼

WWF Title Match: Hulk Hogan v Andre the Giant: The angle here - besides the usual Hogan/Andre hate – is that Ted DiBiase wanted to buy the WWF Title from Hogan, and when he was turned down, he hired Andre to go and get it for him. In weird bit of continuity, Hogan gives an interview backstage wearing one version of the WWF Title (the one they used from '86-here - sometimes called the 'Hogan '86'), and then comes down the aisle wearing a different version (the classic 'Winged Eagle' title that they used from here-'98). Let's just pretend someone handed him the new belt on the way through the Gorilla Position. And gave him a second to change outfits. They take a long time to get going - milking that rating for all it's worth - until Hogan finally gets tired of waiting, and jumps Andre, along with Ted DiBiase and Virgil. Hogan unloads fists of fury, but Andre won't go down. Series of clotheslines fails to do it. Eye rake and a cross corner clothesline finally stagger him - but he still won't go down. This is like facing the big villain at the end of an arcade game: you shoot, and shoot, and shoot - and that bastard just won't go down. Of course, with strippers, it's the opposite - after she goes down, you shoot, and shoot, and shoot. Windmill punch, and Hogan goes to the top rope – only to get slammed off. Great bit there - a wrestling 'rope a dope' - as Andre took the beating to get Hogan tired and desperate (Hulk rarely scales the ropes), and then pounced. Andre grabs a chokehold to wear him down (and also, kill him), and starts working the back to counter any bodyslam attempts. Headbutts and chops destroy the Hulkster, and a big boot (to the chest, since Andre can't lift his leg any higher) puts Hogan on the floor. Virgil makes sure to roll him in, and Andre continues to choke away. Hogan uses the power of Hulkamania to... power... out, and a 2^nd rope flying clothesline finally gets Andre down. Hogan immediately capitalizes with the Legdrop, but the referee is distracted with Virgil - allowing Andre to hit his hiptoss/suplex thing for a clear two – but the referee decides it was three and awards the title to Andre at 9:05. Hogan is rightfully pissed - a routine he would recycle many times over the years (Royal Rumble '92, World War 3 '95 off of the top of my head) but this is probably the only one where he was actually in the right. Andre then immediately turns the title over to Ted DiBiase, with Hogan continuing to flip out, and suddenly another referee appears - an exact twin of Dave Hebner. Hogan beats them both down for good measure. The storyline here was that Dave was the assigned referee, but DiBiase had paid off his (then unknown to WWF fans) twin brother Earl to screw Hogan out of the title... and get in some good practice for a long night in Montreal. WWF President Jack Tunney would later vacate the title due to DiBiase's scheming, leading to the Title Tournament at WrestleMania IV. Match was actually a lot of fun - psychologically sound, and well paced - and the ending (a nice nod to the 'controversial two count' Andre got on Hogan at WrestleMania) remains one of the more famous in all of WWE history. A lot of observers then (and even today) thought the twin referee angle was silly, but I loved it - as DiBiase couldn't use his wealth to acquire the WWF Title directly, so even with Andre as his mercenary, he needed an insurance policy. Probably my favorite 'evil referee' bit, over Nick Patrick later and Danny Davis before - as this was so much more creative. ¾*

WWF Tag Team Title Match: Strike Force v The Hart Foundation: There's less than two minutes of airtime left, so I don't know where they're going with this. Rick Martel gets worked over by Bret Hart - taking a piledriver for two, but airtime runs out, and they cut away. What is this, Nitro? Strike Force retained, though this came off looking badly. They should have just run it as a dark match if they were running out of time, and finished with an interview roundup, especially after that main event.

BUExperience: Formatting issue at the end (likely booking the show for the standard ninety minutes, and not taking into account that they had a half hour of airtime less) aside, this is one of the highlights of the 80s. It remains the most watched wrestling television program of all time – and it’s a lot of fun, top to bottom.