WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (March 22, 1997)

After a bit of a hiatus from most wrestling I’ve slowly gotten back into the swing of things with my random-ass Watch WWF ’97 But Only Shotgun and PPVs project that I was working on last year. Today we’re taking a look at the March 22, 1997 episode of Shotgun. This is the WrestleMania “go home show” so I honestly don’t expect much here beyond a bunch of video packages to give me the hard sell on Mania one last time.

WWF on MSG Network (March 16, 1997)

Dok Hendrix’s constant hyping of the March 16th return to Madison Square Garden during episodes of Shotgun Saturday Night got to me and I have decided to go ahead and watch that show. I have, in the past, watched and reviewed “fan cam” footage of a wrestling show on this here website, but that is not what is going on here today. From the mid-70s through early 1997 the MSG Network would occasionally air WWF cards from Madison Square Garden. The show I’m reviewing today was (at the time of my writing this) the last of these broadcasts. So let’s see how things were on a quasi-house show from this time.

WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (March 1, 1997)

It’s time for another look at what WWF was up to over on their B-Show, Shotgun Saturday Night in the year of 1997. On Raw and the PPVs things are honestly getting interesting as the world title scene is heating up and ECW is invading and there’s a new title being introduced for the first time in 20 years, but that’s stuff for Raw and the PPVs. This is Shotgun Saturday Night where you ask yourself, “That guy was still with the company in 1997?” on a weekly basis. So let’s check it out!

WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (February 22, 1997)

After a bit of a detour to watch some WWF wrestling shows from 1997 that actually mattered I’m back to on my bullshit as we press on with my march through Shotgun Saturday Night. This is the first episode of the revamped Shotgun. The show is no longer coming to us from various dive bars in New York City but instead just whatever arena or civic center Raw broadcast from that week since the show the show would be taped prior to Raw going forward.

Also all the matches on this episode were also featured on Superstars the following morning, albeit in a slightly different order making it a bit of a Metal / Jakked situation. This apparently only lasts until March at which point Superstars transitions into a recap show if memory serves correctly.

WWF In Your House 13: Final Four (February 16, 1997)

It’s time for WWF In Your House 13: Final Four! It was a PPV that was supposed to determine the #1 Contender for the WWF Championship after all manner of Stone Cold shenanigans made the Royal Rumble less decisive than folks would have liked it to be. But between the Royal Rumble and Thursday Raw Thursday, Shawn Michaels lost his smile and relinquished the belt so now the WWF no longer needs to find a #1 Contender they need to find a WWF Champion.

WWF Superstars (January 26, 1997)

So I’m taking a bit of a detour from watching Shotgun Saturday Night to watch another C-Show from 1997, specifically the January 26, 1997 episode of WWF Superstars. Why am I watching this you ask? Well on the January 25, 1997 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night they hyped this episode up and in doing so alerted me to the fact that there was actually a second WWF (Insert Program Name Here) Bowl match.

That’s right folks! The story you heard about the Raw Bowl being so atrociously bad that it was never revisited was as wrong as the legend you heard about the 1997 Royal Rumble being the first appearance of JR’s cowboy hat. So let us see how the WWF dealt with Superbowl Sunday on a random C-Show back in 1997.

WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (January 18, 1997)

For as much as I complained about the episode of Shotgun Saturday Night I reviewed recently the show was a pretty easy one to just sit down and watch and so I’ve decided to continue watching Shotgun Saturday Night at least up until the format change that I know is coming happens and the show goes from being a weird ECW homage and just become proto-Velocity or Jakked.

ECW (September 29, 2009)

I’m going back to the WWECW well with the September 29, 2009 episode of the show. They’re somewhere in Boston, MA this week and the awful announce duo of Matt Striker and Josh Mathews are, as always, on the call. Let’s go get…mildly extreme. Do they still get extreme in ECW?

ECW (September 22, 2009)

I’ve decided to stay on the WWE ECW tip and check out some more episodes. Today we’re taking a look at the September 22, 2009 episode emanating from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The godawful duo of Josh Mathews and Matt Striker are on the call and tonight in the main event we’ll see Christian defending the ECW Championship against the #1 contender, Zack Ryder.

ECW (September 15, 2009)

I randomly stumbled upon a mess of WWE ECW episodes up on WWE’s YouTube channel and have decided to check some out from the period where it was less an ECW revival and more a proto-NXT to get folks ready for “the main roster.” Why am I watching these? Well, I think hour long wrestling shows are the best sort of wrestling shows and by and large 2009-2010 is probably the period I’ve seen the least amount of wrestling of any sort from and since these ECW episodes tick those two boxes I figured why not? Anyway here are words about the September 15, 2009 episode of ECW.