Mike Books WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 6th March 1999

Happy Holidays 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 Hardy Boyz got a win over Frank Parker and Roger Hill

Buddy Landel got a surprise count out win over Tiger Ali Singh courtesy of Steve Blackman

Prince Albert squashed Mike Kyle, leading to a brawl between Droz/Albert and The Road Warriors

Triple H closed the show with a competitive win over Christian

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

This taping took place on the 28th of February 1999 from Dayton, Ohio (RIP The Rick)
Episode aired on the 6th of March 1999

Three Shows were held;

Super Astros Taping
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=16274

Shotgun Taping
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=36168

Live edition of Sunday Night HeAT
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=8444

No Raw this evening, although HeAT was still kind of an A-Show at the time, which means I might not have the biggest roster available for Shotgun.

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
WWF Hardcore Title Match
Champ: Hardcore Holly Vs Steve Blackman

Holly and Blackman open the show by trading weapon shots and fighting all over the venue in an effort to leave with the Hardcore Title. Eventually the fight spills into the backstage area and it looks like Blackman might have the Title won. Tiger Ali Singh tries to attack Blackman with a Singapore cane in order to cost him the belt, but Blackman sees it coming and blocks the attack. However, this distraction allows Holly to smash a nearby weapon over Blackman’s head before picking up the three count from the referee. Tiger has cost Blackman the Hardcore Title!

8 Minutes Total for Segment. 6 Minutes for the match. 2 Minutes for Entrances
9 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
11 Minutes total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 3
Pre-Tape Promo from Mideon, Viscera and Paul Bearer, with Kevin Kelly

The Ministry of Darkness team have a match later on in the show, so Bearer puts them over as a destructive force and also throws some threats The Corporation’s way, seeing as the two factions were feuding at the time.

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

Segment 4
Al Snow and Road Dogg Angle

Snow and Dogg are due to team up later against The Brood, but they are both still rivals when it comes to claiming the WWF Hardcore Title, leading to the two of them arguing about the match later. Tensions seem to be high, which raises the question as to whether they’ll be able to pick up the win later on.

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

Segment 5
Viscera and Mideon w/ Paul Bearer Vs Scorpio and Flash Flanagan

The story of this one is pretty straightforward. Whenever Scorpio is in there he does okay for himself, but Flanagan regularly gets pummelled. Scorp gets a quick mini-hot tag sequence, but he then gets bumped from the ring and that leaves Flanagan to the mercy of The Ministry of Darkness team. Mideon lays Flanagan out with a neck breaker and then Viscera follows up with a Big Splash for the three count, whilst Mideon keeps Scorpio at bay. The Ministry get themselves a win but Scorpio doesn’t get jobbed out too badly either, with Flanagan fulfilling the enhancement role.

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

Segment 6
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
21 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 7
Droz/Albert and The Road Warriors Angle

Droz and Albert come down to the ring and say that they are finally willing to step into the ring with The Road Warriors. The Roadies head down and say they are happy to fight right now, but Droz says that they’ll have to wait till next week, and that he expected The Road Warriors to show up, so he’s arranged for some personal security. The Road Warriors make quick work of the hired security, but that particular battle allows for Droz and Albert to back away. Next week, the match is on!

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

Segment 8
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.

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

Segment 9
The Brood (Edge and Christian) w/ Gangrel Vs Al Snow and The Road Dogg

Snow and Dogg have some notable communication issues here, which leads to them struggling in the early going. However, as the match wears on they start to gel together a little bit and things seem like they might be alright. Gangrel prevents an unexpected victory though, by spitting some of his viscous red liquid into Snow’s eyes, leading to a blinded Snow delivering the Snow Plough to his beleaguered partner. Edge delivers a Spear to Snow following that whilst Christian pounces with the Impaler onto Road Dogg in order to give his team the three count. Following the match, Road Dogg is about to attack Snow, but he sees the replay on the video wall and realises it was an accident, so instead he stomps to the back dejected whilst Snow argues in the ring with The Head about how Head should have seen that coming!

10 Minutes Total for Segment. 6 Minutes for the match. 4 Minutes for Entrances and Post-Match
37 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 10
Pre-Tape Promo from Shane McMahon and Test, with Jim Cornette

Shane states that Test is going to lay a mighty whupping on “X-Punk” tonight, thus taking the DX member out of his hair permanently. Test adds some threats of his own.

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

Segment 11
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
39 Minutes Total for Taping out of an available 45

Segment 12
Test w/ Shane McMahon Vs X-Pac

Because of the abbreviated time left for this one (I’ll explain in the conclusion) we probably need to nix the babyface shine here and have Test immediately cut X-Pac off for the heat, possibly thanks to Shane’s involvement. Test has the power advantage, plus Shane at ringside, so X-Pac is at a notable disadvantage here. X-Pac eventually manages to make a bit of a comeback, which leads to Shane trying to help his man by getting involved. X-Pac is able to run the two together though and then takes off Test’s head with a big spinning kick for the quick three count. Shane’s plan has failed this evening, but will X-Pac be able to get real revenge on El Hijo Del Vince when the two meet at WrestleMania XV for the WWF European Title?

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

End of Show

I got my timings wrong this week. Initially I seemed to have it in my head that we’d have 8 minutes left for the Main Event instead of 6, but clearly I hadn’t added things up correctly at some stage and had to cut some time from the last match as a result. I’m not sure why I imagined that I had two extra minutes to play with, but there you go. Thankfully the size difference between Test and X-Pac means that you could likely get away with no babyface shine for that one, especially as the end result is X-Pac getting a win, so the fact Test takes most of the match isn’t as big of an issue, and Test has an out for his defeat to the smaller opponent as well.

From an in-ring perspective we don’t really have anything like the longer Christian Vs Triple H match from last week, but we’ve advanced some storylines and most of the matches should have at least been watchable. I know Mideon and Viscera are hardly the most exciting tag team you can have on the show, but we might as well give them a win and a chance to look dominant seeing as they are aligned with The Undertaker. It doesn’t make Taker look that good if his heavies can’t get the job done in the ring, especially when they are matched up against a lower card wrestler and an enhancement guy.

I also didn’t want to do the cliché “mis-matched tag team partners don’t get along and then turn on each other” thing when it came to Road Dogg and Al Snow. I feel like that’s a trope that is overdone sometimes, so instead I went with the idea of them working through the mis-matched nature of their team only to then lose because the opposition team was cannier on the night. It makes The Brood look better because they beat a functionable team due to their own smarts and weren’t just gifted a win when their opponents fell out, and it also keeps both Road Dogg and Snow as babyfaces because neither betrayed the other. The babyfaces didn’t look like idiots as they didn’t turn on one another and ultimately lost due to the other team just being the tighter unit and also having a buddy at ringside to help them. I’m hoping Road Dogg being an actual adult at the end and not attacking Snow once he sees the replay will help towards that too.

Next week we’ve finally got Droz and Albert taking on The Road Warriors, so you won’t want to miss that!

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