When Shotgun Saturday Night Went to Chattanooga, 2/16/99

On 2/16/99 WWF had what had to have felt like an interminably long taping in Chattanooga, TN, taping 19 matches for airing on Super Astros, Sunday Night Heat, Raw, and Shotgun Saturday night. 19 matches on a Tuesday night! But the three matches from the Shotgun taping stood out more than the rest, because all three matches were WWF wrestlers against local southern indie talent. It's another invasion that was shut down one night in, but this one probably didn't have the same drawing potential. After the ECW invasion, after the NWA invasion, before Invasion. This is the Tennessee Mountain invasion we never talked about!

WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (Broadcast 2/27/99)

HHH vs. Buddy Landel

ER: HHH does his very long ring intro that 17 yr old me thought was cool, and Jim Cornette on commentary says "These people are jacked tonight! They're ready to suck it!" The match started out good and ended quickly in disappointment. Buddy and HHH each have their ponytails and each clearly wear their influences, and Buddy is a little thicker around the middle at this point, but it starts simple and cool. Landel grabs a tight headlock, HHH gets one of his own, both guys get a little time to establish their headlocks, HHH gets a nice go behind and Landel snaps him with a nice back elbow. It's all shaping up very nicely, Landel eats a knee and takes an impressive snap bump...and then HHH calls for the Pedigree and it's over, 1 minute and 40 seconds in. 100 seconds, with the first 80 seconds worked like they were going 8-10. Not only was that pointless, it reeked of wanting to put someone in their place. Is it possible that they were in the middle of a long night of tapings and wanted to speed things up a bit? Sure. But it sure felt disrespectful to someone like Buddy.

The Hardy Boys vs. Frank Parker/Roger Anderson

ER: Hardys come out in their OMEGA shirts (that wasn't a thing they normally did during this era, right?), and this match rules. This is more like it. This is going the way of a Hardys squash, and it's fun seeing their offense from 20 years ago. Matt had a great elbow drop that he doesn't really use anymore, Jeff did his awesome swanton to the floor, Matt hit his nice bulldog, we get a cool double team where Jeff leapfrogs Anderson and he runs right into a Matt swinging neckbreaker (it's a smart way to get someone in position to take a neckbreaker, as they'd be naturally ducking their head down so the don't run face first into a leaping man's crotch) Death & Destruction were taking hip tosses and big backdrops and not gaining any ground. And then Anderson held the top rope down without Jeff seeing it, and while running the ropes Jeff took an absolutely insane, fast bump over the top to the floor, smacking his head off the apron on the way down. Awesome bump that sounded like it surprised Cornette. From there Death & Destruction get a lot of control, and they worked the match from there as if they're an actual signed team. Parker drops a great leg, there's a fun chop exchange in the corner between Matt and Anderson, D&D take over with some kneelifts, it all gave a cool glimpse of a tag scene that might have been, if only WWF wanted a couple other guys who looked like Festus. Imagine three awesome lumpy bald goatee guys in a stable!? Hardys' finisher was really awesome, the legdrop/splash from the top, and this match delivered what I hoped this match would.

Tiger Ali Singh vs. Killer Kyle

ER: This is me, going out of my way to watch a Tiger Ali Singh match. What a weird WWF run he had. I bet most people can hardly remember a thing about the guy, but he showed up on TV for years, then would disappear just as quickly as he came. Who kept wanting Tiger Ali Singh? This was also worked fairly even, and Cornette really didn't talk much about the Smoky Mountain alum Kyle. Each got to hit cool powerslams and Kyle gets to throw a bunch of punches and chops. Singh was pretty bland, hit a needless chinlock and made Kyle look bad when he unexpectedly backed out of a punch that Kyle was clearly throwing to connect, threw off the timing of everything. The finish was cool though as Kyle whiffs on a lariat, and before turning around Singh kicks him in the back of the knee and then hits a neckbreaker.

So instead of trying to make money on a Tennessee invasion, bringing back Smothers and Tony Anthony and the Rock n Rolls, they went and shot this moneymaker in the foot right as it started.