Wrestling 'Main Event' show returns home Saturday to Nassau Coliseum

For many pro wrestling aficionados, Saturday Night’s Main Event at Uniondale's Nassau Coliseum evokes childhood memories of the golden age of sports entertainment, headlined by names like Hulk Hogan, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage and Roddy Roddy Piper.

But nearly 40 years after the then-WWF launched its revolutionary program on NBC — airing in Saturday Night Live’s 11:30 p.m. time slot while the comedy show was on break — the wrestling juggernaut returns this weekend to its Long Island roots.

Saturday’ Night's Main Event's five match card, airing live from the Coliseum at 8 p.m. on NBC, is expected to be a nostalgia-infused showcase. 

In addition to returning to the site of its first ever Saturday Night's Main Event, the WWE is reviving the program's theme song — "Obsession by Animotion" — and is expected to bring back its 1980s-style screen graphics and entrances through the crowd, a departure from its pyrotechnics-infused current shows.

Then there's the homecoming of the show's original color commentator: Jesse "The Body" Ventura. 

The former Minnesota governor, who last appeared on WWE programming in 2009, said the show will be a "time machine" to 1980s wrestling.

"What's you're going to get is a throwback," Ventura, a former WWE Hall of Famer who was in the broadcast booth for the first Saturday Night's Main Event, told Newsday in an interview Friday. "They're going to get what occurred years ago in the same building we did the very first Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC. We felt it was only appropriate to go back to that same building for this new episode."

The inaugural Saturday Night's Main Event took place at the Coliseum on May 10, 1985 — months after the first WrestleMania — and aired the following night.

The main event featured Hogan, the WWF Champion, defending the title against 'Cowboy' Bob Orton while other matches included The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, George "The Animal" Steele, Junkyard Dog and Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat.

Ventura, a brash former Navy SEAL, recalls approaching NBC Executive Dick Ebersol after being handed a script for the first show.

"I said, 'you're going to tell me you have someone at NBC who can write for Jesse The Body Ventura," he said. "You have no one that can do that. Dick sat there a minute and said, 'you're right.' He said, 'get rid of that thing.'"

Wrestling historian Evan Ginzburg of Forest Hills, said SNME helped bring the WWF — the company changed its name in 2002 — to a mainstream audience that once thumbed its nose at the sport.

"All of a sudden it was getting the same cultural significance as Saturday Night Live, because it was in the exact same time slot on the same network," said Ginzburg, who was an associate producer of "The Wrestler," a film starring Mickey Rourke. "And it helped to make the wrestlers into mainstream celebrities."

Rockville Centre native Brian Shields, co-author of the WWE Encyclopedia, said fans have a special place in their heart for 1980s-era wrestling, when the sport exploded into the public's consciousness.

"The fans love the idea of going back in time and experiencing things the way they were," said Shields, who teaches digital marketing and social media at LIU Post in Brookville. "And it's a little different, or maybe a lot different, than the [Monday Night] Raw and [Friday Night] SmackDown presentations of today. So this is going to be very special."

Nicholas Hirshon, of Forest Hills, a journalism professor at William Paterson University in New Jersey and the author of a photographic history book on the Coliseum, said the arena has always been synonymous with professional wrestling, dating back to the mid-1970s with legends such as Bruno, Sammartino, Bob Backlund and Andre the Giant.

But decades later, the Coliseum's future is uncertain. The New York Islanders are long gone, playing at UBS Arena in Elmont, and a proposed casino development at the Nassau Hub that could involve the destruction of the arena may be the final nail in the venue.

"There's always a chance that the next big event at Nassau Coliseum will be its last," said Hirshon, who is attending Saturday's show. "That's what makes it even more special. Because for myself, like so many Long Islanders, we grew up in that arena. We have so many fond memories. I've been to so many other arenas across the country but nothing quite replicates that Old Barn feeling."

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.