THEE 23 Man Shotgun Saturday Night Battle Royal!

23 Man Battle Royal WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 9/19/98 

ER: This is the kind of TV battle royal I miss, and this just might be the closest this era of WWF ever came to the kind of brilliance we saw in WCW's infamous 1995 Nasty Ned battle royal. While doesn't have quite the same charm as that 1995 masterpiece, it still has the kind of charms found in Coliseum Video battle royals and I think that's a nice measuring stick. Its biggest strength is that it boasts a truly bizarre collection of participants, a real freak show of guys who weren't on the main programs of 1998 any longer and wouldn't be in any programs whatsoever in 1999. A great battle royal is one where there are several strong potential winners, or absolutely zero plausible winners. When you're looking over the 20+ guys involved and the only two who stand out as possible winners are Bradshaw and Dan Severn, then you know you have some incredible parity in your battle royal. 

Give me a battle royal with Tiger Ali Singh in his first match in a year, Bob Holly still in his Midnight Express gear two months after the Midnight Express existed, Kaientai wearing Michinoku Pro gear and not their street gang attire, Scott Taylor without Brian Christopher, Papi Chulo in his last appearance before becoming an exclusive part of the Super Astros roster for the next 6 months, Southern Justice getting the strongest crowd reaction of anyone else during their entrance, twin Nazis, Miguel Perez and Jesus Castillo still in their Boricuas gear before their shift to Super Astros, and the Oddities. Of course, my glee over who could possibly be considered the favorite among these names was deflated a bit when the final entrant was The Rock. Obviously the Rock is going to be winning this specific battle royal, but there is still plenty of 7th generation video quality joy to gleam from this. 

Where else will you see Golga having one on one interactions with Mens Teioh or Papi Chulo? Bob Holly and Marc Mero were fun unexpected standouts, with Holly always going right after physically larger guys, and then punching it out with The Rock and selling really well for him. Dan Severn does an amateur throw to eliminate Jesus, gets double teamed by Togo and Teioh in another odd pairing that couldn't have happened anywhere else, bullies Singh into the corner with hard shoulders to the stomach, then takes a cool cartwheeling elimination bump after being thrown over by Bradshaw. Mero was getting a great reaction from hotdogging the entire time, the way far more people should hotdog while in a battle royal. Mero would punch someone, then raise his arms, then punch someone, then raise his arms, and before long the crowd was erupting every time he raised his arms. It's more of a playful house show call and response game than anything you see on TV, and it's cool seeing someone random like Marc Mero be a noteworthy part of someone's WWF live event experience. 

The eliminations all come at once, like they were told to all go out there for 7 minutes and whomever is left who isn't the final 5, get the fuck out of there and quick. We get a lot of great elimination bumps: Togo gets backdropped over by Funaki for some reason, Papi Chulo gets the back of his head clotheslined and winds up tumbling all the way to the entrance ramp, Miguel Perez and Scott Taylor take the kind of bumps to the floor you would expect from two bump kings, and we wind up with a fantastic final 3: The Rock, Dennis Knight, and either 8-Ball or Skull. Dennis Knight comes off like a real badass in this battle royal, and when I saw how cool he came off during the finishing stretch it made me think back to Southern Justice getting such a big reaction during their entrance. I really liked the Southern Justice look and wish they got a long run with that gimmick. Wrestling SHOULD have tag teams that look like two of Ben Gazzara's toughest goons in Road House. And walking to the ring, they DID look cool. 

Knight really puts the boots to the Rock, with the kind of energy that makes me want to do a Godwinns/Southern Justice project, a Viscera/Mideon project, and - if those go well - a Naked Mideon project. It's crazy how much of an impression a guy can make in 30 seconds, but damn did I like Southern Justice here, and seeing Knight taking it to the Rock was great. Knight and [a Nazi] punch and stomp the Rock, Rock ends up eliminating the Nazi on a missed charge, then we get to see how perfectly Dennis Knight sells the People's Elbow before the finish. This was when the Elbow was really starting to catch on big, and the crowd went nuts for it, but it's not exactly a thing that finishes a battle royal. Well, when the elbow impacts Knight's chest, he gets up and runs around like he took a shot from a defibrillator, then gets leveled by Rock over the top. Dennis Knight sold the People's Elbow the way you'd picture Chris Candido selling the People's Elbow on a house show, and I know anyone reading this is picturing how that looks right now. This was a great battle royal, the kind you will never see on WWF C shows again.

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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.

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