[1997-01-04-WWF-Shotgun Saturday Night] Bob Backlund and The Sisters of Love

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Welcome to Shotgun Saturday Night, a creative and very brief WWF experiment in running seedy shows in hole-in-the-wall venues to create a sleazy television show. Bob Backlund warns us of all sorts of nefarious activities taking place inside the building before the show opening and a cut to hosts Vince McMahon and Sunny. They are confused that nuns are in the ring to wrestle. (It's the Headbangers.)

[soup23]

The parental advisory graphic is awesome.

 

Backlund starts us off with Shotgun Saturday Night and he is disgraced by the actions of the show. NYC should be Banned! This has such a different feel to anything else going on and feels like a different world from just 5.5 years earlier with where I am at in 1991. It even feels different from the 1994 yearbook stuff. Vince and Sunny run down the card. Sunny looks great here and this looks like a Evolve show in the bar. The nuns are in the ring which is weird.

[Kevin Ridge]

Shotgun Saturday Night was required TV for me at the time. It had a very brief run but it was fun. Check out the ECW fan regulars in the crowd. They needed another announcer than McMahon to be hosting this type of show show.

[bradhindsight]

The parental advisory graphic is awesome.

 

Backlund starts us off with Shotgun Saturday Night and he is disgraced by the actions of the show. NYC should be Banned! This has such a different feel to anything else going on and feels like a different world from just 5.5 years earlier with where I am at in 1991. It even feels different from the 1994 yearbook stuff. Vince and Sunny run down the card. Sunny looks great here and this looks like a Evolve show in the bar. The nuns are in the ring which is weird.

Love the Evolve reference - was watching some of these early Shotgun shows recently and you're spot on. I love when they show guys on their way to the ring and they get passed by waitresses with trays of drinks.

 

This is pretty much Sunny at her PEAK when it comes to hotness.

[Bigelow34]

When we chatted with Glenn Ruth, he said they loved the Sister of Love stuff and had a ton of fun filming the vignettes in NYC. Agreed in Sunny...she looked amazing on these shows.

[Robert S]

Welcome to Shotgun Saturday Night, a creative and very brief WWF experiment in running seedy shows in hole-in-the-wall venues to create a sleazy television show.

Shotgun might have run longer if they only did one episode a month as some sort of special.

[El-P]

I loved Shotgun Saturday Night. Awesome idea, looks totally different from anything else. Backlund being batshit insane is always fun. Actually he should have been used more.

The Flying Nuns, although, was an atrocious gimmick. Reeks of the crap early TNA would put on. Who the hell came up with it ? The Head Bangers already had their identity in SMW, there was no need to change them.

One thing interesting in the credits, you can see Taker looking more or less like The American Badass.

[PeteF3]

From a looks and execution standpoint, the WWF actually knocks this out of the park. So rare to see this kind of outside-the-box thinking from the company at any point in time. Backlund harassing a taxi driver and holding up traffic in the intro is pretty funny. And hey--BikerTaker is in there! Todd Pettingill fills us in on Sister Angelica and Mother Smucker, the Flying Nuns, out of a Tibetan Order in the Himalayas...okay, call it a home run that's turned into a double upon replay review.

[Exposer]

This is hilarious. Backlund is losing his mind over the debauchery of Shotgun Saturday Night. A pair of nuns standing in the ring to open the show really is a surreal visual & in a lot of ways the perfect way to kick off this show. It lets the audience know that this is going to be a wild show from the start.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Sunny is the most underutilized talent in wrestling history.

 

Backlund talking about banning Saturday night is funny. Vince is fucking hilarious in this setting. He is such an uncool dad but it works. His line about Mothet Smucker with a name like that she must be good referencing the food brand had me rolling.

[KB8]

Mr Backlund is losing his shit so naturally I'm on board. Vince as goofy chinos-wearing dad was also my first thought. I haven't seen any of these shows in forever, but based on this it feels like maybe he'd be able to let his hair down a little and probably enjoy himself (if he continues with announcing duty, anyway).