10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 1996
8. The Original Plan For Shotgun Saturday Night
In 2002, knowing that it was obscenely difficult to strike a halfway decent television deal, NWA:TNA had the idea to air weekly pay-per-views as a compromise and a bid to generate more money than a series of house shows. It didn't work.
Well over a year before Vince McMahon formally introduced the Attitude Era with a verbose speech that basically amounted to "We're going to do controversial car crash TV, with bonus breasts", the WWF wanted to launch something similar. It didn't work either.
The idea - as reported by an independent trade journal, confirmed by company sources to the Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer, and floated to PPV providers Request and Viewer's Choice - was for the WWF to air a risqué one hour weekly PPV aimed at the adult audience. This bid to capitalise on ECW's underground momentum - or, one may state, rip it off - ultimately manifested as Shotgun Saturday Night, which premiered as a TV show in January 1997. Shotgun was exciting and creative if not exactly great TV, but was quite tame. The unique location was a fun diversion, but it was a demo for something far more successful.
You have to think, away from stricter standards and practises, that if the weekly PPV model did amount to anything, it would have been much more "edgy".
In a neat trivia note, when Meltzer relayed the story in the August 26 WON, he - using markers to reflect a quote - said the internal word was that the Saturday specials "would "push the envelope"".
Vince used that exact verbiage in December 1997.
Again, there was a company-wide awareness that things needed to change - but these experimental ideas only took root months or even years later.