Tony Schiavone Recalls How Saturday Night’s Main Event Was Produced In 1980s

On the latest episode of What Happened When with Tony Schiavone, the AEW broadcaster discussed the debut of WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On the first-ever Saturday Night’s Main Event: “This is leading right up to — if I’m right about that, or is the timing just before WrestleMania? It is WrestleMania because Mr. T is there, and Cyndi Lauper is there. And yeah, it’s about as nostalgic as you can get.”

On the production of the show: “I was working in the business of course at that time. And I was fully into doing Jim Crockett Promotions, because we had started in April of 1985 doing the TBS show. So I was excited about that, but I really loved network TV back then. Who didn’t, right? And we loved Saturday Night Live, and this was a departure from Saturday Night Live. And it found its own niche.

“And then when I started working for them four years later, we still had Saturday Night Main Event. And I got to know Dick Ebersol, I got to know the people at NBC that worked on the show. And they shot this show a little bit differently than they did the regular WWE shows back then. It was more scripted by Dick Ebersol and his people, which I thought was very, very cool. And so I got to not only see it from the beginning, but work in it.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit What Happened When with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.