WWF presents The Big Event!

[Trill Co$by]

Okay so, this event hosted by the then World Wrestling Federation was held in the summer of 1986, and brought in over 74,000 fans to the Exhibition Stadium of Toronto. This was also the event that would let the WWF know that they can in fact host a big crowd event, a feat that they would duplicate and exceed at WrestleMania 3 when Hogan body slammed Andre the Giant!

In a sense, The Big Event was bigger than WrestleMania and WrestleMania 2. At least on the attendance scale. So why on Earth did the WWE not pursue other "Big Events"?

Also, before we get started, let me just say that I realize that looking at the August gate, it could be argued that "The Big Event" was essentially the first SummerSlam, which is now marketed as "The Biggest Event of the Summer"... but to me, The Big Event and SummerSlam are two entirely different things, and really could've been used to push for another WrestleMania type event later in the year. Or maybe WWE could've used it as an international version of WrestleMania, like they did with its run in Toronto.

Follow up question, if The Big Event were around today along with the "Big Four" do you think we'd look at the PPVs as the "Big Five" instead?

 

[bioshock]

I too have wondered why they haven't at least brought back "The Big Event" its name alone gives it a reason to be a big deal, and held in a big stadium, no pun intended.

Also to your question; why didn't WWE pursue other Big Events? Well actually they did. They had Wrestlefest I think 2 years later, but I'm not for sure. And it was outdoors, had some huge matches on the card, but I don't think it had the big crowd or big sell like Big Event did.

But don't forget WWE also had Wrestling Classic, and King of the Ring which took place in 1985 I think and was a outdoor event around the summer time. So I really think Vince always had plans for big shows during the summer time. But I think to a point he let Wrestlemania get to his head, so he wanted to make sure it was the biggest show and not something else. That or one of the shows like Wrestlefest 88 wasn't a big enough sell or money maker to keep going on.

Personally though, I don't even get why WWE doesn't do some big outdoor events every year in the summer time. I know MLB stadiums are usually tied up during summer, and ratings aren't always best during the summer, but what a better time. And heck I think just at a park WWE could put on something big. Kinda like Woodstock (held in a open field 100s of 1000s to see it). I think NWA did it best with the GAB tour they had in football stadiums during the summer, though it wasn't the best draw, still had good ideas.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

The Big Event was actually an important moment in WWE history that tends to get overlooked these days.

You're right, this was the card that showed McMcahon that he could run WM3 in a football stadium and fill it. Specifically, this was the card that showed McMahon that he could run WM3 in a football stadium in that area and fill it. The area between Toronto and Detroit was rabid with wrestling fans, and at the Silverdome, these were the people that would be traveling to the show. He just needed the right draw for them to come. (remember, he was coming off the WM2 debacle and there wasn't a guarantee that there would even be a WM3 at the time).

Other key points about the Big Event:

- it was held at Toronto's CNE, a fair they held every year, and the show was part of the fair's attractions. This helped greatly with the gate, although it's not like that's the reason for the 60,000 attendance. The WWF ticket was a separate ticket from a fair ticket (ie you could get into the fair with a wrestling ticket, but you couldn't see the wrestling with just a fair ticket)

- the actual card was really just the Hogan house show tour card of the time. This wasn't a supercard like PPV's you got used to later on. In fact, the same night the Bulldogs tour was in Kansas City

- the event sold mostly on the draw of Hogan/Orndorff. It is really forgotten exactly how huge that feud was in it's day, and this show was just at the very start of it, with Orndorff turning on Hogan on TV only weeks earlier. The rest of the card, outside of the Machines and Steamboat/Roberts, wasn't really much of a draw

- it wasn't marketed as the 'Big Event'. In the local TV spots they'd do on Superstars leading up to the show, it was just a show in Toronto that was being held in a different location than Maple Leaf Gardens. The 'Big Event' title only came later when they put it out on Coliseum Video

- from what I've read, the original plan for the show was 30,000 seats (which still would have made it one of the biggest paid shows in history at that point), with the rest of the stadium being sectioned off. They only increased the seating when the demand for tickets went beyond what they were expecting. Like I said, Hogan/Orndorff was a massive draw and they did it right by making it seem the entire time like Orndorff was Hogan's equal and could realistically win the belt

In a way, you can look at this show as the first Summerslam... just not in name. But in 1986, they just weren't ready to add a second major PPV. PPV itself was still in its infancy, and even their previous forays into PPV (first two Wrestlemania's, Wrestling Classic) were limited on a PPV distribution scale and more common on closed circuit. It wasn't until a year or so later that the PPV market was big enough that they could really take advantage of it, and it wasn't until late 1987 that the WWF really jumped into it. Even then, the 1987 Survivor Series was done more to prevent Crockett's Starrcade from gaining any ground (McMahon famously told PPV distributors that if they wanted Wrestlemania, that they'd run his new Survivor Series instead of Starrcade, and after the success of WM3, no one wanted to miss out on that).

For your follow up question, if they did go with the Big Event as a major annual show, would there be a big 5 today? No. It would have replaced Summerslam and things would have stayed the same, just with the big summer show having a different name.

 

[The Boss]

The name, "The Big Event" was an afterthought. No one imagined that it would draw as well as it did. They were only expecting about half of that, which would have still been a respectable number. But, when it drew over 74,000 (the largest wrestling crowd ever at the time) they figured they had to call this the BIG event.

 

[thebarber]

I thought this was a great show, for the time at least. Remembereing the WWE's first foray into ppv was the Wrestling Classic in late 1985, having an event like this was no different to some of the huge shows Vince promoted at Shea Stadium in 1980.
Hogan vs Orndorff was huge at the time and I always thought it was odd Hogan didnt beat Orndorff convincingly in the main event. Possibly with the idea of running it as the Mania III MAIN EVENT. Once Vince decided to do the Silverdome, he neded a much biiger main event to attempt to sell it out, thus the Andre the Giant heel turn and storyline.

If ppv was running strong for WWE at the time, this would obviously have been the second of the Big 2 after Mania. As Mania wasnt even on ppv then, how could any other show be. The Wrestling Classic was a trial to see how ppv would go with a wrestling evemt, history would suggest it was a wise move.