Vintage Vault Pre-Viewing: Saturday Night’s Main Event 3

Saturday Night’s Main Event Halloween Hijinks

So ever since I revived this series back when we were into the 2006 Vaults and even before when Chad Campbell was doing this, we have reviewed an interesting collection of matches throughout the PPVs and the house shows since we started doing them in 1985. However, for this show I decided to take a slightly different take here and instead of looking at a match, I will at a segment or in this case a series of segments. This was now the third SNME of 1985 and thus far the previous two have had a theme surrounding it as the first one in May had a Mother’s day party and the most recent one was centered around Uncle Elmer’s wedding. Since this show was airing a few days after Halloween (and was actually taped on Halloween night), it was only fitting that they had a Halloween theme around the show. I always like how they utilize the holiday that they are on and incorporate it into the show, and it would help make the show feel memorable especially for SNME since they wouldn’t get into having longer matches until later in its run.

So as mentioned, this show had a heavy Halloween theme around it as the backstage area was decorated accordingly and everyone was dressed up in various costumes, and it was also very fitting that this show was taking place in Hershey, Pennsylvania which is essentially the chocolate capital of the USA. In addition to some of the big matches on this show including Hogan/Andre vs. Bundy/Studd, there would be a special event that featured 3 different events featuring two teams competing against each other. The first event takes place right after Terry Funk defeated the Junkyard Dog and “Mean” Gene Okerlund (sultan) brings in the two teams. The “face” team consists of Captain Lou Albano (Julius Caesar), WWF Champion Hulk Hogan (Hercules), WWF Intercontinental Champion Tito Santana (Zorro), and the hillbilly team of Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Junior (The Three Musketeers). On the other side is the “heel” team of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan (Davy Crockett), King Kong Bundy (Abraham Lincoln), “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth (Tarzan and Jane), and the team of the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff (Batman and Robin). The first contest to take place here is the pie eating contest which will see Albano and Bundy represent their teams, and the rules are whoever can eat the most chocolate pies in 90 seconds will win for his team. Heenan takes Bundy’s hat off and Bundy now looks like Amish Roadkill from ECW while Albano gets fired up, and then Okerlund starts the contest as both men waste no time and start chowing down on pies. Both teams root their respective guy on as Albano looks to have an early lead on Bundy, and both men are just stuffing their mouths with whipped cream and chocolate filling as there is a major mess on the table. Okerlund counts down the final seconds and as time expires, Albano is the clear winner of the contest as he has eaten almost all the pies on the table yet surprisingly doesn’t feel sick to his stomach. The heel team accuses Albano of cheating and a frustrated Bundy shoves a pie right in Albano’s face, but Albano loves it and ends up asking for another piece of time as his team celebrate their victory.

One thing to point out which is pretty funny is how quickly those that have to compete get out of their costumes and into their wrestling gear, and then quickly get back into their costumes after their matches. After we get a special Piper’s Pit with the hillbilly trio where they confront Piper and Jesse Ventura about their disrespectful comments during the wedding last month, we head to our second contest in the event which is the pumpkin dunk. For this contest, Bobby will represent his team along with Savage and Elizabeth while Junior will represent his team along with Santana and the Junkyard Dog (mummy), and in a cool touch we opened the show with Bobby practicing this event and Junior comes in here late as he was coming from the ring. This contest is similar to bobbing for apples in which both men will bob for pumpkins in a vat of chocolate sauce, and whoever can pull out the most pumpkins in 60 seconds will win the event. Okerlund starts the clock and both men get dunking in the sauce and Bobby quickly pulls out the first pumpkin, and he starts to build a nice lead as Junior struggles to grasp the pumpkins with his teeth. Bobby starts cheating a bit as he uses his hand to assist in pulling the pumpkins out while Savage accuses the faces of cheating in a nice touch, and Bobby’s face is completely covered in chocolate as Okerlund counts down to zero and with a score of 7 pumpkins to Junior’s 4, Bobby wins the pumpkin dunk for his team. Bobby is jubilant as he celebrates with Savage and Elizabeth while taunting the faces, and the score is now tied at one contest apiece with one contest left to do.

Before we get to the final event of the event, we do have one more awesome segment to talk about which takes place after the huge tag match that saw Hogan and Andre the Giant defeat Bundy and Big John Studd while we also saw Savage and Santana wrestle to a double countout in their IC Title match. In this segment, we visit “Rowdy” Roddy Piper from his home as he prepares for Halloween and he is joined by Vince McMahon, and he starts preparing his own versions of candy which consist of bowling balls with sticks drilled into them as “candy apples” and bricks wrapped in foil as “chocolate bars”. Piper talks about how he used to celebrate Halloween back in Scotland as Vince calls him out for his “candy”, and Piper starts getting frustrated as he talks about the children that constantly come to his house. He starts getting fired up just talking about it which he calls “trick-or-treat” as the doorbell rings and a group of kids are standing on the front porch, and Piper brings the kids in and he insults the one dressed like Hulk Hogan. He turns his attention to the candy they have in their bags as he pulls out his “candy apples” and “chocolate bars”, and he forces them into the bags which causes them to bust on the bottom and candy falls on the floor. The kids get upset as Piper takes the candy and puts it in his skirt as it dumps a bowl of candy corn into a bag and hands it to the Hogan kid, and he hands another bag to the girl dressed as Cleopatra as he continues to pick candy off the floor in delight. The kids thank him and Vince leads them out the door and tells them to try the neighbors as Piper giddily says he sees some new stuff, and the kids talk amongst themselves as they hope that Piper enjoys his chocolate-covered red peppers. They start laughing as Piper screams hysterically in the house and he grabs a vase of flowers and tosses the flowers out to take a drink of water, and he flips out as Vince laughs at him and says “Trick-or-Treat”, and then we get a brief back and forth with Vince and Hogan as they laugh at Piper’s expense. This was an awesome segment and was Piper at his absolute best as he hams it up with the kids, and he tries to pull one over on the kids only for them to get him in the end and it was a perfect addition to the Halloween theme of the show.

After we get the special Kung Fu challenge where Ricky Steamboat defeats Mr. Fuji only to get attacked by the Magnificent Muraco, we head back to the party for the third and final event in the Halloween contest. Vince and Jesse join up with Okerlund and recap the previous two events where Jesse lands one of the greatest lines in WWF history as he calls Lou Albano a big, fat, sloppy pig, and the two teams get set up for this event which is the pumpkin pass. The two teams are at full strength for this event and Piper (“Super Roddy”) joins the heel team for this contest, and the rules are that both teams have to pass a pumpkin down the line using only their necks in 60 seconds and the team that gets their pumpkin further down the line wins the contest and the event. We saw both teams practice their passing and at one point Okerlund tries to practice with Elizabeth, and the face team goes first as Vince starts the clock and JYD takes the pumpkin first and passes it Santana who then passes it Junior. Jesse and the heels say they are using their capes to shield them using their hands as Junior passes to Jim and then he passes it to Albano, but Albano drops the pumpkin before he gets to Hogan and the line stops at him with 5 passes. Jesse comes over to Okerlund who will start the clock for the heel team and Jesse already gives them an edge by putting it under Bundy’s chin, and the clock starts as Bundy passes the pumpkin to Volkoff who then passes it to Sheik. Sheik prepares to pass to Elizabeth as Piper and Volkoff use their capes to block the view of them cheating, and Elizabeth tries to pass to Piper only to drop the pumpkin and end the line at 4 passes which gives the face team the win in the contest and the Halloween event. After the contest, Savage angrily spikes the pumpkin into the floor while yelling at Elizabeth and Piper also berates her while the face team celebrate their win.

Overall, these segments were a lot of fun and helped fill the show in between the short number of matches that the show had. I always like how they go all out with themes like this and when everyone plays along with it, it makes it feel even more unique and memorable. I thought the choice of wrestlers involved was good as everyone brought a lot of energy into these segments and hammed it up big time. I thought it was very cool to have all the wrestlers in different costumes and some of them added their own spin on the costumes, and I thought having champions like Hogan and Santana involved brought some credibility as well. I thought the first segment with the pie eating contest was the best one despite the sloppiness of Albano with chocolate and whipped cream all over his face, and Jesse hitting that big, fat, sloppy pig line just summed it up perfectly. The second segment with the pumpkin dunk was decent as the highlight was Bobby celebrating with chocolate sauce all over his face, and as mentioned the segment with Piper at his house for Halloween was a completely awesome segment with Piper at his best. The final segment with the pumpkin pass was also pretty good and it was pretty clear the faces would win since the heels had Elizabeth on their team and she inadvertently costs them the event despite their cheating ways. The matches themselves that surrounded these segments were decent and helped continue some hot feuds like JYD/Funk, Hogan and Andre/Heenan Family, Santana/Savage, and Steamboat/Muraco and with a few of those guys not involved in these segments, those that were involved helped make those segments better. It will be interesting going forward if they do any more themed-based shows like this or if they were change course and focus more on the in-ring product to make SNME feel like a really big show. For the third one in the short history of SNME, this was clearly the most memorable SNME to date carried by the antics of the Halloween party and the Superstars having some fun on the holiday.

Final Grade: N/A