On May 10, 1985, the first-ever edition of WWE’s Saturday Night’s Main Event took place at Nassau Coliseum. Nearly 40 years later, on Dec. 14, 2024, WWE returned to the same venue to put on the same event.
A crowd of 14,000 packed the seats of the arena to watch a five-match show headlined by reigning WWE champion Cody Rhodes take on Kevin Owens. While Saturday Night’s Main Event provided a long-awaited return to where it all began as a celebration
in itself, the event also marked the final major WWE event of 2024 and an opportunity to look ahead to the future of WWE.
WWE’s history has always been deep-rooted in the New York area. The first Wrestlemania, WWE’s flagship event, was held at Madison Square Garden in 1985. Summerslam, WWE’s second biggest annual show, also had its inaugural event at MSG and
will return to the New York/New Jersey area this summer, with the “Biggest Part of the Summer” going to MetLife Stadium this August, where the event will be held over two days for the first time on Aug. 2 and 3.
Among the many events that originated in New York is Saturday Night’s Main Event, which, on May 10, 1985, drew 8,500 fans to the Nassau Coliseum. The show’s original run ran from 1985-1992 before a short revival between 2006-2008. The show, which began as an occasional fill-in for Saturday Night’s Live, made its return in 2024 and, by all accounts, is here to stay. With special guest commentator Jesse “The Body” Ventura back, Saturday Night’s Main Event will air occasionally on Saturdays on NBC moving forward.
The show marked the end of what, by all accounts, was a very positive year for WWE. The event that many fans will likely look back on will be Wrestlemania 40 in Philadelphia, which saw Rhodes “finish his story” by beating Roman Reigns with help from WWE legends John Cena and the Undertaker. Rhodes and Co. were able to fend off Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, and the rest of “The Bloodline” en route to a moment that wrestling fans will never forget.
WWE also, for the first time ever since Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over, has entered what many are calling a renaissance era, and the biggest moment of this WWE rebirth is believed to be right in front of them. On Jan. 6, 2025. WWE’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw, will debut on Netflix, becoming the company’s first weekly show to move solely to streaming. Since 2013, WWE has held all of its premium live events (formally known as pay-per-views) on the WWE Network, and in 2021, WWE signed a deal with Comcast-owned Peacock. The deal, valued at over $1 billion, moved the WWE Network to Peacock over a five-year period.
The 10-year, $5 billion agreement will see Raw exclusively on Netflix through 2035. Fans see the agreement as an opportunity for the company to go back to its attitude-era roots. Fans have long been annoyed by the censoring of chants, and those could very well be a thing of the past in the Netflix Era.
WWE is starting the Netflix Era with a bang on Jan. 6, with matches such as Roman Reigns vs. Solo Sikoa for the title of Bloodline Tribal Chief. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins in one of WWE’s most anticipated matches and Liv Morgan vs Rhea Ripley for the Women’s World Champion. The show will also see an appearance from John Cena, which will begin his final year in WWE, and will include a performance by 10-time Grammy award nominee Travis Scott.
In the words of Triple H, “WWE is on fire right now,” and with a future like this, it’s hard to argue with that. WWE will return to New York/New Jersey this upcoming August for Summerslam.
