WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (March 22, 1997)

 

Original Airdate: March 22, 1997 (taped March 17)

From Syracuse, New York; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Brian Pillman

Henry Godwinn v Blackjack Bradshaw: Posturing to start, and Henry tags him with a clothesline to win a criss cross. Henry unloads in the corner from there, and a turnbuckle smash follows. Godwinn with a backdrop, and a vertical suplex follows for two. Bradshaw manages to get control with a big boot, as Doug Furnas and Philip LaFon make their way out to observe from the ramp. Henry dodges a lariat, and tries for an inverted DDT, but Bradshaw holds the top rope to block. That allows Bradshaw to go up for a flying clothesline, but Henry catches him in a powerslam for two. Henry uses a corner whip to rebound Bradshaw into a belly-to-belly suplex for two, and a powerslam gets two, as the Headbangers arrive to attack Furnas and LaFon. Those two teams brawl around ringside, and it spills into the ring, resulting in a no contest at 6:34. They were just treading water until the finish here. ¼*

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WWF Title Cage Match: Sycho Sid v Bret Hart: From RAW is WAR on March 17 in Syracuse. I miss when they used to set up the cage by hand. I know it took too much time, but I always thought it was a great way to build anticipation. Bret hammers him into the corner to start, pounding the champion to a horizontal base, and bootchoking him. Sid gets to his feet and returns fire, as we see Steve Austin watching on a monitor backstage. Bret fights Sid off with a snapmare to set up a pointed elbowdrop, but Sid blocks an escape attempt, and unloads on his challenger on the ropes. Sid rams him into the cage a few times, and makes a climb attempt, but he's moving like he's walking to the toilet to take a piss at 3am, and Bret is able to cut him off. Bret dives off the top rope with a fist, and he throws a headbutt to the lower back. Hart climbs, but Sid slams him off the top to stop the effort, and he goes for the door, but Bret dives onto the ankle. Austin joins us to force the door shut to prevent a potential Sid escape, and Stone Cold stands guard at ringside, even after the attempt has been neutralized. Sid hits Bret with the Powerbomb, and he makes a climb attempt, but Austin goes to the top to slug it out with him to buy Bret time. I love how Steve was openly cheering on Sid hitting the Powerbomb (since it hurts Bret), but is still totally onboard with making sure Hart wins the title. Bret gets to the top as well, leading to the weird visual of Hart and Austin working together, and that draws Undertaker out to defend his claim. He keeps Bret from escaping, and gets rid of Austin, but Hart still manages to stay in control of the contest by superplexing Sid. Meanwhile, Austin hits Undertaker with a chair to keep him out of it, and Bret goes for the door, but Undertaker slams it into his face as the officials escort Austin away. Meanwhile, Sid is able to climb, and he escapes at 10:00. Not a great match, but the chaos worked well, and did a good job giving WrestleMania the final push. Afterwards, Vince heads in to talk to the Hitman, and Bret, after months of being pushed and pushed and pushed, finally snaps. He shoves McMahon down, and cuts a hard edged promo, screaming curse words, and generally flipping the fuck out like he's in Montreal. Apparently he didn't realize they were on-air at that point, but thank God they were, because it's probably the best promo of his entire career. Or, at least the most famous. I always thought Bret was an underrated promo in general. He wasn't over the top and flashy like Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage, but he always came from what felt like a real place. This was an amazing way to build up to the official heel turn at WrestleMania, as he couldn't be any closer to the line if he tried, but at the same time, you couldn't really deny that he was right. This all leads to a big brawl between Hart/Austin and Sid/Undertaker, as Shawn Michaels shows up to watch, though without getting involved. * ¼

Kevin Kelly brings WWF Tag Team Champions Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart out to talk about their title defense at WrestleMania… but only Owen shows up. Owen cuts the promo on his own, but he throws some shade at Bulldog, and Davey arrives to remind him that he beat him in the European title tournament to put him in his place

Goldust v Tony DeVito: Goldust is all fired up here, and aggressively squashes Tony. Goldust with the Curtain Call at 2:53. I appreciated Goldust’s energy here. ¼*

The Legion of Doom v Crush and Savio Vega: Also from RAW. It's almost unnerving how quickly this has become an entirely different promotion just by changing the set design for one show. It's like suddenly even the fans are more aggressive and edgy than they were just a couple of weeks ago, and you can see it in the type and amount of signs suddenly all over the place. They brawl around ringside to start, dominated by the LOD, as Ahmed Johnson pops up on split screen to hype WrestleMania, or possibly forfeit the Intercontinental title based on that jacket. Dust settles on Hawk and Savio, and Savio tries a piledriver, but Hawk no-sells. If anyone on that team was going to try and break Hawk's piledriver no-sell streak, it really should have been Crush. Hawk with a poorly timed dropkick, and it's over to Animal to work a chinlock, as Faarooq pops in to offer his own promo on WrestleMania. Back to Hawk, but he fails to cut the ring in half, and Crush tags in, as we split screen a THIRD time to see highlights of the Nation attacking Ahmed last night at Madison Square Garden. I dig how much more lively the show is becoming, but one thing at a time, guys. Hawk gets into trouble in the corner, allowing Vega a spinheel kick, and Crush tags in to hit a belly-to-belly suplex for two. We cut to the back yet again where Ahmed is watching the match on a monitor, but Faarooq attacks him with a nightstick, as Animal gets the hot. He runs wild, and it's Doomsday Device time for Savio, but Faarooq runs in for the DQ at 9:27. The Nation do the beat down after the match, but Ahmed runs in to make the save, and he's still crazy over. Shame he never lived up to his potential, because he should have been huge. The match was nothing, but it hyped up the Street Fight for the PPV, and that's all it needed to do. ¼*

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Sunny comes out to host Sunny Undercover. For real this time. She doesn’t actually have a guest, though, she just gives her WrestleMania predictions. This was terrible. Surprisingly so, since Sunny was usually good at this sort of thing

BUExperience: Only two original matches, and neither of them were good. Plus, it’s a go-home show for one of the least interesting and least well developed WrestleMania cards of all time (and certainly the worst to that point), so it’s an uphill battle already.