Before that, WWF Superstars of Wrestling was the name of a weekly recap show hosted by Vince McMahon (or Gene Okerlund) and Lord Alfred Hayes that lasted from 1984 through August 1986.

The new version of Superstars was the program on which all the angles began and at times ended and on which the majority of title changes took place if not at a pay-per-view event (e.g. WrestleMania or SummerSlam).

Matches primarily saw top-tier and mid-level talent vs. Jobbers; pre-taped interviews with the WWF's roster of superstars; and promos featuring the wrestlers.

During its syndication run, the program was re-branded and aired in some parts of Canada as Maple Leaf Wrestling (essentially replacing a program of the same name filmed in southern Ontario), despite having almost no Canadian content other than interviews promoting matches that were to be held in Canada, along with occasional program-exclusive matches taped at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario.

However, this repackaging was, at the time, sufficient to allow the program to count towards Canadian content requirements for local television stations.

When the WWF introduced Monday Night Raw on USA in January 1993, the live program usurped the show's once preeminent position in the company as the primary source of storyline development and pay-per-view buildup, and Superstars became secondary in importance.

In 1997, the format of Superstars as aired in the United Kingdom also changed and began to only feature weekly summaries of Monday Night Raw.