1. Shotgun Saturday Night Was Once Exclusively Held In Nightclubs
Most important to Shotgun Saturday Night is that the program was initially exclusive to nightclub spaces. Long Island's now closed Mirage Nightclub, Manhattan's famed Webster Hall and the now shuttered Times Square locale the All-Star Cafe hosted the show. Also, similarly closed Denim and Diamonds in San Antonio, Texas hosted the first six episodes of the program. Early Shotgun holds the unique historical distinction of maybe making WWF look like the world's worst ECW rip-off of all time. ECW's Elks Lodge shows in Queens and certainly the shows at Philadelphia's ECW Arena organically had the type of madcap, devil may care atmosphere that the WWF wanted out of hosting the programs in nightclubs. While yes, fans were drunken and chanting swears, in-ring action including Bob Backlund, The Sultan, Salvatore Sincere and the Honkytonk Man paled in comparison to Sabu, Taz, Tommy Dreamer and Rob van Dam. Yes, the idea of naked Marlena, appearances from Sable and the aforementioned promise of a Sunny sex-tape airing that involved a doll named "Fondle Me Elmo" certainly upped the ante on titillation. However, by comparison to Kimona Wanalaya performing a strip tease, the WWF's offerings were truly tame.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
