SNME Should Be Retired, by PaperClip Mike

Watching wrestling was way more different to watch as a kid. We didn’t have much in the way of live shows, PPVs were few and far between, and you didn’t really see the big names either. As a child, if I wanted to watch guys like Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant, we got it no more than a couple of times a year. PPVs were out of the question price-wise when I was growing up, as were live shows. So, to see the big names was a big deal when we got them. So on the WWF end, we had Saturday Night’s Main Event. It was a huge deal for me. I always begged my mom to watch it when I was a kid. I had to make sure homework was done, and I was a good kid. So, to see what it has turned into, I think it needs to go away.

As I said earlier, I had to beg my mom to watch SNME. Not because she would not let me usually watch wrestling, on the contrary, she was the one who let me start watching it. I had to beg because it was late at night. Originally, it would be shown a few times a year, pre-empting Saturday Night Live. To watch wrestling at 1130 pm was nuts! But I wanted to see Hogan. I wanted to see Andre. I wanted to see Savage. Some of the biggest storylines in the 80s started here. The main event of WrestleMania V owes SNME for the build. The Mega Powers exploded on this very show. Seeing Savage blow up and attack Hogan as a kid, around 7 years old, blew my mind!

Hell, we even had a phantom title change that was rescinded. Just a year later, in 1990, during a taping, The Rockers defeated The Hart Foundation for the WWF Tag Team titles. However, during the match, one of the ropes snapped. Vince McMahon scrapped the footage, so the title change never took place, and the title never changed hands. Stories like this are why SNME had sucha great history. Not only would you get matches you normally would not see, but crazy stories like this would happen.

It then went dormant for like 15 years before resurfacing in 2008. I do respect that it tried to be a mix of its own modern tendencies and a touch of the original iteration. They did a couple of editions before quietly going away for about that long again. Before I go to the current SNME product, I want to go to something being said about the current PLE’s. Over the last couple of years, there have only been like four or five matches on each show. Now, as a concept, I do like this. Save the big story matches for those shows, make them mean more. So that if a show has these matches, there are the currently biggest storylines. I get it, I am down. What they have turned SNME into is a dumping ground. All they are doing is putting the matches that didn’t make a PLE and shoving them to the side. Also, they are making these way too often. Back in the day, we were getting these like three to four times a year, making them a big deal. Now, it seems they are coming monthly. On top of the monthly PLE’s, on top of the NXT specials, it is too much. And that doesn’t count the show for other promotions on TV. If you are not going to use the concept as it was made and just shove it full of matches you don’t want to put on a PLE, either put them on anyway and let people get their money’s worth, or don’t make the matches and use the nine hours you already have a week. I see the problem coming soon. You are causing content overload. You will throw so much wrestling at people every week that they are going to stop watching altogether, since it will be too much to keep up with. TKO is chasing the dollar so much that eventually people won't have enough money to give them, and watch what happens.