Weekend Wrestling!

This weekend I’m looking at WWF Shotgun Saturday Night, but not the version in the clubs and at remote locations, instead after they’d given up with the ECW-lite pretences and just started filming extra matches in and around their Raw tapings. This was a show we didn’t really get in the UK, instead getting a combination of a Wrestling Challenge recap show and some of the less edgy stuff to put on at the weekends during the day as Shotgun Challenge, which actually sounds far more edgy than it comes across. Russian roulette, anyone?

In addition, a mini review of an episode of the visually rebooted Batman: The Animated Series from 1997, The New Batman Adventures.

This episode was recorded Monday the 17th of February in Nashville, Tennessee, and aired Saturday the 22nd.

On commentary are Vince McMahon and Jim Cornette, the latter pulled in to lend some sort of credibility to it after the Fondle Me Elmo and Flying Nuns debacle.

British Bulldog vs. Crush

Both men are managed by Clarence Mason, and while Bulldog and Owen Hart were the tag champs, Mason’s interests were clearly with the Nation of Domination. Davey Boy is giving high fives and prompting a jailbird chant, leaning into being a babyface without having gone through a full turn. Shoulderblock and dropkicks drop Crush, who then runs into an armdrag and armbar. The Nation sans Faarooq comes out as we go to commercial, coming back with Crush hitting a piledriver. Owen slinks out in a halfhearted attempt to support Davey, while taking more time positioning his Slammy and making nice with Clarence. Belly-to-belly from Crush for two. Nervehold as they’ve done nothing past 1990 at this point. More interesting is that Owen’s Slammy, which got broken the night before, has fallen over in two. A danger putting this match on at nighttime because it’s a cure for insomnia. Crush misses a flying something and Bulldog comes back with a terrible neckbreaker and clotheslines. Delayed suplex would set up the powerslam, but instead he clothesline Crush out and then an unnamed D’lo Brown off the apron. Suplex back in sees Savio Vega pull the leg out and hold it down so Crush falls on top for the pinfall victory. Bulldog fires Mason after the match knowing that he has no interest in his tag team while Owen protests (“Hey, don’t blame me or Clarence, I know you’re upset, it’s not our fault you lost…” “I DIDN’T LOSE NO MATCH!”). Absolutely crap match, but it at least cleaned up and concluded things with Owen and Bulldog to go into the biggest angle of the year after WrestleMania XIII.

Commercial:

• The return of Sugar Ray Leonard against… Donny Lalonde? Nope, Hector Camacho. I was about to say before the drugs and wearing a mesh bodysuit and wig, but that’s Oscar De La Hoya.

T.L. Hopper vs. Goldust

Poor Tony Anthony got a favour job alongside a few other Corny ex-employees and buddies and happened to mention he was working with his dad as a plumber, resulting in him becoming a wrestling plumber. Marlena is absent due to two occasions of having been attacked twice in two nights running by an “Amazonian” who would soon be known as Chyna. The initial attack would prompt this nugget from Jerry Lawler at Final Four:

Goldust: “Throw her in jail!”
The King: “That’s where you should be too!”

Nothing much happening at first until Goldust gets an uppercut and clothesline, then a neck vice that Hopper punches out of. Goldust punches back and goes to an armbar to keep it slow, slow, slow. Punches out again, but Goldust reverses an Irish whip into the corner and gets the Curtain Call for the win. Couldn’t be more mailed in if it was in a manilla envelope.

Let’s take you back to last Monday night and the Bret Hart/Sid match that took three goes to get going due to Steve Austin and a desire to tease it out over two hours in an ill-fated attempt to trump Nitro. In the end, Bret gets Sid in the Sharpshooter, which leaves him exposed for a chairshot from Austin, leading to the match-winning powerbomb and short title run number two for Sid. Austin famously did his knee in and limps off, with the real fear that his I Quit match would be an all time stinker as a result. Of course, it’s still one of the greatest matches of all time and certainly his best ever. The Undertaker comes out to face off with Sid after.

Shotgun Exclusive footage shows us Bret half-heartedly swearing at a camera and tapping stuff with his toe backstage after losing. When he really let loose that was the start of a time delay.

Interview with new champion Sid in the ring with Kevin Kelly. For some reason they keep his music and light show running throughout the interview. The champ does a riff on never having been afraid of the dark. Not one of his best, but nothing wrong with it.

Commercial:

• WrestleMania 13: Heat! NOBODY remembers that subtitle. Notable for nodding towards guys in the past like Lawrence Taylor and Andre the Giant, but no Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage or Ultimate Warrior as they were persona non grata.

The Headbangers vs. The Godwinns

Ring announcer Lance Wright calls them Mosh and “Thrash” instead of Thrasher for the latter. The Godwinns have not only Hillbilly Jim with them but Cledus T. Judd, who was a country music parody artist, but looks more like a white rapper. Mosh tricks Phineas into doing a mule kick and attacks from behind, but then gets mule kicked in an ugly spot. Corny is really blowing the Headbangers on commentary as he came up with them. The partners tag in and Henry takes Thrasher down with a clothesline before we get the first moment of “excitement” in the episode as the New Blackjacks, Windham and Bradshaw, make their re-debut attacking the Godwinns, meaning a no-contest.

The Headbangers vs. The New Blackjacks

Back from a commercial with Windham and Bradshaw taking the match for themselves. Corny claims, incorrectly, that Bradshaw is the son of Blackjack Lanza. The Headbangers get the advantage over Windham while Bradshaw bitches about the referee on the outside and coming in without a tag. Pumphandle slam and elbows on Mosh. The Godwinns return and it’s a no-contest. I believe this was ostensibly designed to set up the four-way tag match that opened WrestleMania, with Phil Lafon and Doug Furnas being pulled down further to be a part of it. As bad as the rest.

Slam Jam with Dok Hendrix to promote Raw being back at the Manhattan Center and Madison Square Garden, with the latter being the last show recorded for the MSG Network. The Manhattan Center wasn’t returned to until one of the retro anniversary shows in the last decade.

Let’s take you back to last Monday night when Jerry Lawler got pissed off by someone at ringside with an ECW sign and went off on a rant about them. It was actually a pretty wise move for the heel commentator to dump on them rather than the good guys. Also included in the bitch are WCW, who took a King sign off one of his friends when he went to Nitro. This leads to Paul Heyman calling in and promising to show up at the Manhattan Center with his crew, which was much needed when most of the WWF stars were on tour in Europe.

And that’s the show. Embarrassing can be two things. One is when someone does something and you wonder why they bothered. Another is when they do nothing and it similarly leads to an unfulfilling result. This show was that latter kind of embarrassing, but luckily despite a lot of stink around it there were still good times ahead this year on the return to success.

Here are some 1997 commercials from the UK, courtesy of the Discovery Channel:

Including:

• Where in the world? PC World!
• Ibiza – some awesome songs in a terrible commercial for the Pete Tong Essential Selection of Winter 1997.
• Disney World in Florida, before they tried to direct more traffic South towards Euro Disney.
• A pretty filmic commercial for Seiko Kinetic.
• Followed straight after by a country music collection.
• A dubbed Gillette Sensor Excel advert with the handsome American actors being voiced over by some bald British bloke in a recording booth in Soho, probably.
• A disturbing advert for the NSPCC that sees not only domestic abuse but a kid getting their Christmas presents broken in front of them.

I think I’ll go back to American ones for companies just off the highway selling cheap gold and stapled back together furniture next week after that!

Before we go, here’s a review of the Batman episode Joker’s Millions. Warner Bros. decided to reevaluate the look of their hit show to bring it more in line their new Superman show as well as to minimise some of the costs, so Batman loses the yellow oval from behind his bat emblem to begin with plus characters such as the Joker go to two main colours and have a tweaked look (Scarecrow most extensively, but Joker gets black eyes with white dots, which would be reversed back to the old look for Justice League). Joker is down on his luck, but is left millions in the will of gangster King Barlowe and goes spend-happy, buying himself immunity with the aid of a Johnnie Cochran parody. But will he stay clean? Of course not, plus he faces a bigger enemy than Batman: the taxman! Also, the joke is on him, as he’s gone on the spree without knowing King has left him millions of dodgy notes. It’s a comedy episode, with Harley Quinn getting the majority of gags in her attempt to escape Arkham to get back at Mr. J. when he replaces her with Fake Harley. Being based on a classic comic it gets a little bit of a free pass, but it’s definitely a good, fun episode, although maybe lacking the menace of the likes of Joker’s Favor and The Laughing Fish.