Another thing from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter 12/96

[fg]

“ WWF Shotgun Saturday Night is scheduled to debut in a few days and still very little is known about the show or the concept. The debut episode will air from The Mirage nightclub at 610 W. 56th St in Manhattan. The show will be more risque than the usual WWF stuff but nothing quite as extreme as ECW. They're trying to get celebrities to appear in order to create the aura that going to the shows is the new "in" thing to do on Saturday nights in New York.”

www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/6ph2yf/wrestling_observer_rewind_dec_30_1996_final_post/

That would have been bad if they got celebrities who weren’t fans. It would have predated the Raw Guest Host era by 12 years. Now if they got celebrities that were fans, than yeah that would have been good.

[jason1980s]

I never had a channel that got Shotgun as a kid (nor Challenge). The original format didn't last long before it was done in arenas like all the other shows. It was a cool concept but WWF just wasn't cool at the time (though some wrestlers were) and WWF wasn't ready for that. A year later would have worked out.

[fg]

I lived in the NY area yet my cable system didn’t carry WLNY and I didn’t have a strong enough antenna so I missed out.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Of all the ideas they've had that didn't work out, Shotgun Saturday Night was one of the better ones.

Even now, I don't think WWE running a one hour late night show from small venues with TV-MA content would be a bad idea.

[Triangle Lancer]

I have all the originals up to the "Best Of" episode. Then real life got in the way and I couldn't/didn’t watch anymore.

(To think this was the weekly PPV idea. $9.95/week.)

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Undertaker tombstoning Triple H at the top of an escalator and Hunter’s limp body riding it down is maybe my choice for Best Forgotten Spot in wrestling history.

[jason1980s]

Aug 20, 2022 10:59:19 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

Undertaker tombstoning Triple H at the top of an escalator and Hunter’s limp body riding it down is maybe my choice for Best Forgotten Spot in wrestling history.

If I had seen that at the time I would have thought it was just like Taker killing off Executioner the previous month and would have believed we'd never see HHH again. I almost get now why he was so protective of his spot 10-20 years ago, after doing every job WWF asked him his first few years.

[XIII]

Aug 20, 2022 10:59:19 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

Undertaker tombstoning Triple H at the top of an escalator and Hunter’s limp body riding it down is maybe my choice for Best Forgotten Spot in wrestling history.

Strangely enough probably one of the more dangerous spots that H did. If his hair got caught in the machinery it would have been bad.

[salz4life]

I wonder if Shotgun would've been better received if they debuted it a year or so later?

[Deleted]

Aug 20, 2022 10:59:19 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

Undertaker tombstoning Triple H at the top of an escalator and Hunter’s limp body riding it down is maybe my choice for Best Forgotten Spot in wrestling history.

It's the first thing I ALWAYS think of when it comes to Shotgun.

[Honeybear Lyder]

I remember the ring was really small and it looked weird af.

[tafkaga]

I always think of the flying nuns and wish we'd gotten the flying nuns instead of the Headbangers.

[thegatewaydrug]

I imagine the main headache was getting the TV crew and equipment to a busy NYC club (or train station) on a Saturday afternoon was no fun, even when compared to them lugging everything up one tiny elevator to the Manhattan Center ballroom in years past for original Raw.

[Mozenrath]

Aug 22, 2022 12:22:57 GMT -5 thegatewaydrug said:

I imagine the main headache was getting the TV crew and equipment to a busy NYC club (or train station) on a Saturday afternoon was no fun, even when compared to them lugging everything up one tiny elevator to the Manhattan Center ballroom in years past for original Raw.

Probably, and even with the smaller ring (I think it was a 16x16 ft. ring instead of WWF's usualy 20x20, but maybe it's 18x18. It's definitely smaller than usual, though), it was still a logistical nightmare, I don't doubt.

[chronocross]

I remember the episode the night before Royal Rumble 1997 where Terry Funk challenged Todd Pettengill to a fight and called his mother a whore lol.

[mattyy]

What's crazy to me is the original concept of Shotgun lasted like.. maybe a month or two of its like two and a half year run, and yet it's always what people think of. It's also weird to think that it went from Shotgun to Proto SmackDown/HeAT to Jakked/Metal within a six month span. Like there were angles that were furthered on Shotgun in like May/June, but by the end of the year it was just the D show.

[James Fabiano]

Aug 20, 2022 9:35:39 GMT -5 fg said:

I lived in the NY area yet my cable system didn’t carry WLNY and I didn’t have a strong enough antenna so I missed out.

I think we got it on ours one year prior...it was still WLIG and filled mostly with reruns...loved it, esp. the late afternoon Laverne and Shirley.

Of course, I wish I had access to the channel almost 10 years before that, in retrospect, as the channel had a mini block of old game shows consisting of Pitfall (the show Alex Trebek didn't get paid for) and Bill Cullen's version of The $25,000 Pyramid.

Anyway back to Shotgun...I recently listened to a certain someone describe a certain member of creative's ideas for this show. I am sure some of you know who I'm talking about. Wild if true. (example: mixed tags where the wrestlers introduce their girlfriends/spouses and wrestle each other. And the Shotgun Badge Championship)

[auph10imitated]

This is certainly one of those wrong place, wrong time situations as if this had debuted in January 1998 instead it would have popped off big time