Mike Books WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 30th January 1999

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’re continuing on with booking Shotgun. If you’ve been following these then I hope you’re enjoying them, and if you’d like to get up to date on previous editions you can do so by checking the archives. I will post a recap of last week’s show down below the break line as well.

Hopefully ya’ll have some fun whilst we book some Shotgun!

Last week on Shotgun;

The Road Warriors squashed Kit Carson and Chris Young. Hawk challenged Droz to a match following the bout

Tiger Ali Singh snuck by Bob Holly by grabbing the ropes on a pin attempt

Godfather and Kurrgan decided not to wrestle one another, with Godfather winning by forfeit due to Kurrgan accepting some fun with the ladies, but Too Much complained about lack of focus on them and got sent packing

Goldust defeated Khris Germany in a semi-competitive bout

Droz accepted Hawk’s challenge in an interview with Jim Cornette

The Acolytes bruised their way past The DOA

Gangrel closed the show with a clean win over The Blue Meanie

And with you all brought up to speed, let’s move on to this week’s show!

This taping took place on the 25th of January 1999 from Phoenix, Arizona
Episode aired on the 30th of January 1999

Four Shows were held;

Super Astros Taping
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=15854

Shotgun Taping
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=36160

Sunday Night HeAT Taping
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=8440

Live airing of Monday Night Raw
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=2059

So yeah, four shows in one night. That’s going to be BRUTAL

Show Intro

We get the opening credits and then the announce team run us through what we can expect to see on tonight’s edition of Shotgun.

1 Minute for Segment
1 Minute Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 1
D-Lo Brown Vs Christian

Edge and Gangrel are working a tag match on Raw, but Christian is free, so we’ll book him here against D-Lo. This is two talented wrestlers who should be capable of having a watchable match, so we’ll let them have a back and forth battle until it’s time for D-Lo to pick up a clean win. This should be a pleasant opening to the show, and losing shouldn’t hurt Christian here providing the bout is competitive first.

7 Minutes Total for Segment. 5 Minutes for the match. 2 Minutes for Entrances
8 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 2
Sunday Night HeAT Recap

This is a segment reserved for recapping the notable events of the most recent episode of HeAT, seeing as this is a weekend syndicated show at the end of the day, whilst Raw and HeAT are the main two shows of the week. This segment exists not only to recap the previous episode of HeAT but also as a way to hype up and advertise any matches or segments that have been announced for the next episode.

2 Minutes for Segment
10 Minutes total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 3
Tiger Ali Singh and Steve Blackman Angle

Tiger is supposed to wrestle Blackman here, but he makes the mistake of doing his usual pre-match promo filled with insults, and quickly realises that saying all of that stuff when he’s supposed to be fighting someone called THE LETHAL WEAPON might not perhaps be the best course of action. After cutting the promo, Tiger refuses to get in the ring and teases doing so a few times whilst the referee desperately attempts to hold Blackman back so that the match can start. Eventually Tiger cheap shots Blackman, but then decides not to fight after that and flees to the back, with Blackman giving chase, meaning we have no match after-all. This is a bait and switch, but I’m hoping the heat will go on Tiger for being a cowardly Heel more on the company for not delivering the match. This will be going somewhere story wise, so I’m hopeful that audiences will be tolerant of it once the story takes its next steps. Tiger has run his mouth with the wrong person this time though and now he’ll have an angry Blackman looming in his future.

5 Minutes Total Segment.
15 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 4
Monday Night Raw Recap

This is a segment reserved for recapping the notable events of the most recent episode of Raw, seeing as this is a weekend syndicated show at the end of the day, whilst Raw and HeAT are the main two shows of the week. This segment exists not only to recap the previous episode of Raw but also as a way to hype up and advertise any matches or segments that have been announced for the next episode.

2 Minutes Total for Segment
17 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 5
The Godfather Vs Bob Holly w/ Scorpio

This match is originally supposed to be Godfather taking on Scorpio, but Godfather suggests that they just call the match off and head out on the town with the ladies. Scorp seems receptive of this idea, but Holly is ever the curmudgeon and says that if Scorpio won’t wrestle here, then he will. The match is a relatively quick one, with Scorp arguing a few times with Holly about being such a grump, which eventually gives Godfather the opening for a roll up for the three count. The J.O.B Squad will be breaking apart soon, so this is a way to lay some foundations for that whilst also keeping Godfather in a shorter match than usual and focusing more on what gets him over, his character and promos. Holly and Scorpio argue following the match whilst Godfather almost looks apologetic that he caused a rift between them.

7 Minutes Total for Segment. 2 Minutes for Match. 5 Minutes for Entrances, Pre-Match and Post-Match
24 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 6
Pay Per View Centre

This is where we let Dok Hendrix hype up the upcoming pay per view. If any matches are already announced then he can hype them here, and if we’re still waiting for any of the real meat of the pay per view to be advertised then we can look back at previous events in order to pad the segment out.

2 Minutes for Segment
26 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 7
Too Much (Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor) Vs The Oddities (Kurrgan and Golga) w/ Giant Silva

Is there a more 1999 Shotgun match than this? This is to follow-up the angle from last week, with Too Much looking for some payback following their humiliation. The Oddities get the better of things for the most part, but eventually Golga goes for a body slam on Taylor and Christopher pulls his leg from outside the ring, leading to Taylor landing on top for a three count whilst Christopher holds Golga’s leg down unseen by the ref. This will probably be watchable whenever John Tenta is in the ring but rough whenever Kurrgan is, but we’ll keep the match on the shorter side just to be safe.

6 Minutes Total for Segment. 4 Minutes for the match. 2 Minutes for Entrances
32 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 8
Live Event Centre

This is where Dok Hendrix hypes up the next big event coming to YOUR local area. So it’s a long day for the poor sod in the recording booth, but we need to slip that stuff in on the syndicated show.

1 Minute for Segment
33 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 9
Droz Vs Road Warrior Hawk w/ Road Warrior Animal

After Droz tried to steal Hawk’s place in LOD 2000, Hawk is in a really bad mood here and looks to unload some punishment on Droz as a result. Droz realises he’s going to need to do something, so he pretends to get tripped up by Animal and tells the ref, leading to the ref demanding that Animal leave ringside. During that commotion, Droz is able to get a cheap shot on Hawk and work some heat. Hawk’s rage cannot be contained however, and he eventually makes a big comeback, and seemingly has things won. However, a hairy pierced man makes himself known at ringside and tries to climb into the ring. As the referee is blocking the man, Droz kicks Hawk right in his Legion of DOOM and then picks up a three count once the referee turns around. Post-Match, Droz hugs the burly man that we will soon learn is to be named Prince Albert. The two new best chums try to put a beat-down on poor Hawk, but Animal returns to make the save and the two bail for the meantime. However, Droz now has an ally in this war, which might spell ruin for The Road Warriors.

Now obviously Prince Albert didn’t actually debut on the main roster until a few months after this in real-life, but he was in the WWF system at the time and I’m allowing myself the ability to call him up for the purposes of this storyline. Firstly, Droz is the Heel and he’s outnumbered, which is never ideal, so I needed to team him with someone and I couldn’t think of an existing main roster guy it would work with. Also, Animal can’t do singles stuff, so the well for potential matches is going to run dry pretty quickly. Thus, Droz needed a partner and I decided to bring up Prince Albert earlier than he came up in real-life. This is the only time I’ll be doing something like that though. Droz is actually doing double duty here too as he’s wrestling George Steele on Raw, but that will only be a 48 second match or something like that, so he should be able to still work this one just fine.

12 Minutes Total for Segment. 7 Minutes for the match. 5 Minutes for Entrances and Post-Match
45 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

End of Show

We advanced our two main storylines this week, with Droz Vs Road Warriors and Tiger Ali Singh being a jerk getting some more screen time. We also have some smaller level things going on, with The J.O.B Squad dissension and Too Much’s squabbles with The Oddities. A lot of the matches were either short on in-ring action this week or were just elongated angles, with part of that being that I didn’t want to throw too much in-ring in there when there were four shows to be taped. The other reason was that I didn’t have a lot of people on the show who could have decent length matches, so I went to the Paul Heyman tactic of trying to hide people’s weaknesses as much as possible in order to put on as entertaining a show as I could. One possible change I could have made was giving D-Lo and Christian a bit more time as that match at least has a solid chance of being good, but I decided to give Too Much and Golga a couple of extra minutes for their match, as so long as Kurrgan wasn’t in there much I think that could be watchable, as all three of the other guys can have a decent bout.

So, not one for the fans of in-ring action this week really, even though the show itself only had 9 segments overall. I am doing my best to not double book too many people who are already working HeAT and Raw, so as the weeks go on I’ll be able to add in a few more good matches as and when I can depending on who I have available to book. Such is the life of the person booking the bottom show on the totem pole I guess.

Hopefully I’ll see you all next week for more Shotgun!