STW - One Night Only 1997 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Today we’re looking at WWF’s first UK-exclusive PPV event - One Night Only from Birmingham, England from 25 years ago this month on September 20, 1997.

The show was only the sixth event shown on traditional PPV in the UK on Sky Box Office, of any kind. The first 5 were all boxing events, the first being the second Frank Bruno vs Mike Tyson fight on March 16, 1996.

All the normal monthly WWF PPVs were shown on the regular Sky Sports channel as part of a consumer’s monthly Sky TV subscription, and still would be until the early 2000s.

The WWF had previously done 5 live televised specials in the UK for airing on Sky TV from 1989-1993. Plus of course SummerSlam 92 at Wembley Stadium.

WWF had always been a hot property for Sky, once they got really running off the ground in 1989 and was always one of the highly rated shows for them, with 92 and SummerSlam definitely being the peak.

Was getting an actual PPV in the UK a priority, and something in the works for a while?

The show is barely promoted in the United States - understandably so as they’re not gonna see it when it happens.

It’s also bang in the middle of the PPVs In Your House: Ground Zero on 9/7 and Badd Blood on 10/5.

The UK promotion for One Night Only is mostly relegated to commercials, video packages and UK specific promos inserted into the shows.

Some of the news notes leading up to the UK show:

Observer 9/15:

“With the return to a largely head-to-head situation on 9/8, the Raw vs. Nitro feud set a new record for margin of victory with Nitro almost doubling the audience of Raw. Nitro earned a 4.27 rating (4.28 first hour, 4.26 second hour) and 6.73 share, its second best rating ever in a head-to-head situation. Raw did a 2.15 (2.10 first hour, 2.20 second hour) rating and 3.39 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.90 (2.80 first hour; 1.78 second hour; 1.27 over-run 30 minutes) and 3.67 share. A large margin of victory was expected given the momentum Nitro has coming off its two largest audiences in history, combined with the historical fact that it takes Raw two or three weeks every year to regain its audience after the U.S. Open pre-emptions. Nevertheless, this large a margin was staggering. In the actual head-to-head period, Nitro beat Raw 4.26 to 2.12 so it actually slightly more than doubled the audience for the first time ever over that long a period of time head-to-head. Even more staggering is that the Nitro replay's first 38 minutes that went head-to-head with Raw's final 38 minutes saw Nitro do a 2.70 to Raw's 2.27.”

“In an effort to build up stronger relations with the media, particularly in Japan, Titan has opened up ringside at all its events to magazine photographers after a ban dating back to 1984 when McMahon's goal was to take wrestling completely over including controlling every aspect of the business. WWF is looking at getting a strong relationship with the Japanese media since it wants to run a Tokyo Dome show in the next year or two.

Michaels and Brackus were sent to England and Germany for a promotional tour. Due to the Princess Diana death (on 8/31), they canceled the England portion since it would have gotten no coverage at all.

Ross and McMahon met last week with people interested in promoting tours in India and South Africa.

Matt Ghaffari, the Olympic silver medalist, was given a looksee over the past week. He hasn't signed, but we're told it's a good bet that he will. Cain's debut, originally scheduled for the 9/7 PPV show, has been moved back to 10/5.

There is also talk of programming Interrogator (Kurrgan) with Undertaker.

Observer 9/22:

“Probably the biggest news of the past week revolved around Shawn Michaels' behavior at the Raw taping on 9/9 in Muncie, IN. Neither Vince McMahon nor Undertaker were at the taping, and Michaels did an interview where he came out in tight biker shorts with asock or socks stuffed in his crotch for whatever reason and proceeded to make some very lewd gyrations like acting as if he was humping Jim Ross, swearing during his interview and called out Undertaker who was on a tape on the video wall. Everything was able to be edited off the show, and if you didn't know about the incident, you wouldn't even know the interview was heavily edited. Since Undertaker wasn't there, but since he was on a tape on the wall people thought he was, when Michaels kept insulting him, calling him a big chickenshit, and begging him to come out and call him more names when he didn't come out, it made Undertaker look bad in the city, not to mention it being totally unprofessional. Whether Michaels was doing it in another attempt to get fired so he could go to WCW or he had other ideas up his sleeve, it definitely brought a lot more negativity toward him in a lot of circles.

WWF has threatened New Japan with a lawsuit over the company having the old WWF light heavyweight title belt as part of the J Crown since WWF is introducing a new light heavyweight title shortly. Once word got out, then Hisashi and Hisatsune Shinma got into the same act and threatened New Japan over the UWA belt that is part of the J Crown. The WWF went to Japanese reports and asked if it would be better to file the suit or simply to get word to New Japan of the threat and not make a public spectacle out of it to allow New Japan to simply drop the belt on its own.

Expect far more international tours as the company needs to establish new revenue streams overseas as cash flow is tight. There will be a tour the last week of October to Abu Dabai, there is a tentative tour for Pakistan in November and perhaps one more tour before the year is out.”

On the weekend One Night Only is taking place - this was the stellar house show line up for 3 smaller shows running Friday-Sunday in Poughkeepsie, NY, Scranton, PA and Liberty, NY:

Brakkus vs Dr X (who here is your brother Tom Prichard)

Brian Christopher vs Scott Taylor

Marvelous Marc Mero vs The Sultan

The New Blackjacks - Windham & Bradshaw vs Los Boricuas - Jesus and Jose

Goldust vs Brian Pillman

Skull from DOA vs “Double J” Jesse Jammes

and Ahmed Johnson vs Rocky Maivia from the Nation

Crush, Chainz & 8-Ball from DOA vs Faarooq, Kama & D’Lo from the Nation is the main event

Woof.

9/19 in Poughkeepsie, NY drew 2,059 and $38,948, 9/20 in Scranton, PA drew 1,890 and $26,497 and 9/21 in Liberty, NY drew 966 and $17,844, the latter would be the smallest WWF house show crowd of 1997.

Onto the show!

The lineup was changed several times leading up to the show - Bret vs Austin, Taker vs Ahmed and Owen vs Shamrock were planned as the other top matches to go with Michaels/Bulldog, but they had to be changed due to injuries.

One Night Only only drew 20,000 buys in the UK.

To compare the first 5 boxing PPVs drew 348,000 as the lowest and 720,000 as the highest in the previous 18 months on Sky Box Office.

The show was aired on tape delay in selected markets in Canada on PPV, in the U.S you could only see it on an edited down Home Video release (Taker vs Bret for example was removed from the U.S video release)

They try to make the show feel as special as a U.S PPV - Vince, JR and King are all there to handle the commentary for the event, and there’s a great video package on Davey Boy Smith to start the show.

“The World Wrestling Federation ran its first ever PPV show primarily for the British market on 9/20 before a sellout crowd of 11,000 fans at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, England.

Our reports indicated it was a very good show, with the final three matches being the highlight of the show, headlined by Shawn Michaels winning the European title from Davey Boy Smith in a match that Smith dedicated to his sister, Traci, who came out to the ring with him and is suffering from bone cancer. The basic idea for this title change, making Michaels the first ever "Grand Slam" champion (WWF, IC, WWF tag team and European) in company history, appears to build up a second PPV for the United Kingdom, likely coming from Smith's home town of Manchester, England, sometime in the spring of 1998.

It was the same promotional gimmick used by the WWF last year to build up the Royal Rumble PPV where Shawn Michaels regained the WWF title in his home town of San Antonio. The fact Michaels was given the title in the wake of the incident in Muncie, IN where he was swearing (nicely edited off television), calling out Undertaker who wasn't there, and running around in biker shorts and "stuffing" his crotch makes one wonder just how much Vince McMahon really didn't know about the incident before hand. Throwing all that out, from a pure business perspective, this is a viable tried-and-true wrestling angle, with a heartbreaking loss by the top babyface (in that market) to set up a return. If the Michaels deal wasn't an angle, which is something I'd be skeptical of at this point, than the WWF is stupid to put a belt on Michaels in the state he's in, not to mention his track record of how many times coming up with excuses and reasons to never drop back belts he's given.

For WWF in England, the first PPV show was expected to do well based on the novelty of it being the first non-boxing event ever on PPV in that country, but it becomes less and less of a novelty with each successive show. Rather than "waste" having your largest expected audience with a blow-off, you use the largest audience to do a major angle to try and keep it for the next show. But it doesn't appear that this title change was planned more than a week in advance unless the communication within the company has broken down, because on Raw two days after the switch, there were localized promos all over the country running for matches in October talking about Bulldog's matches as being European title matches.”

1. Hunter Hearst Helmsley pinned Dude Love at 12:51 with the pedigree. Love had Helmsley pinned with a double arm DDT, but Chyna put his foot on the ropes. With Love distracted by Chyna, Helmsley used his move and got the win.

This was the third time Foley and HHH opened up a PPV show and each time they deliver, it this just to guarantee a great start to the show?

2. Tiger Ali Singh (accompanied by his father Tiger Jeet Singh) pinned Leif Cassidy at 4:06 with a bulldog off the top rope. Sunny is the guest ring announcer for the match.

The inclusion of Leif Cassidy - Al Snow is interesting as during this period of time he was working in ECW as part of the working agreement between the two companies.

Do you know why Al was called up to work this one shot - on an overseas show no less to do a job for Singh here?

This was also the last time we would ever see Al in the WWF until the next year following his success in ECW, and challenging Shane Douglas for the ECW title at WrestlePalooza in May 98.

Were there ever any actual plans to do something with Tiger Ali Singh once you had him under contract? Or once you got him and saw him in the ring, were you like - oh shit.

3. Head Bangers retained the WWF tag titles beating Savio Vega & Miguel Perez at 13:34

The Headbangers only had the tag titles for a month - were they just a short term fix when you had to vacate the titles after Austin’s neck injury?

4. Patriot, who was said to have gotten the biggest heel reaction of anyone on the card, pinned Flash Funk at 8:47 with the Uncle slam (full nelson drop).

The heat Patriot got on this show is incredible and really shows the strength of how the USA vs Canada feud had evolved into the UK fans despising someone for waving the American flag.

5. Legion of Doom beat Godwinns at 10:42 when Hawk pinned Phineas after the Doomsday Device.

Safe to say Henry wasn’t gonna take that move again, right?

They did an interview in the ring with Ken Shamrock, who was scheduled to face Owen Hart on the show. Shamrock said he couldn't wrestle due to a punctured lung suffered in his match in Muncie, IN with Faarooq. The actual problem was a lung infection, which caused the bleeding from the mouth in both the Faarooq match and the SummerSlam PPV match against Bulldog, so it's a problem he's had for a while and not a ring injury. The doctors strongly recommended against him wrestling for one week until it cleared up so his first match back will be on 9/28 on the FMW Kawasaki Baseball Stadium show.

Anyway, Rockabilly came out and ran down Shamrock and slapped him. Shamrock jumped on him and put an ankle lock submission on him until all the officials broke it up.

6. Vader pinned Owen Hart at 12:14 by reversing a cross bodyblock into a powerslam for the pin. This was said to have been a good match. Owen was the total face to the live crowd in this match.

7. Bret Hart retained the WWF title beating Undertake via DQ at 28:34. Both men were cheered when they came out, but since crowds generally root for the challenger to win the title, as the match progressed, Undertaker received a total face reaction while Hart got a 50-50 reaction. Hart had done an interview earlier in the show totally kissing up to the fans and trying to make himself the face since the match story was built around him as the face.

The finish wound up with Hart having the ropes wrapped around his neck choking him, and Undertaker kept punching him until he was finally disqualified. Undertaker's attack was vicious enough that it finally got the crowd to turn on him. After the match, Undertaker choke slammed both referee Mike Chioda and Gerald Brisco.

8. Michaels beat Bulldog at 22:53. Even though Bulldog got a huge face reaction, Michaels reaction was still 50-50. Rick Rude, Helmsley and Chyna all interfered freely during the match. The key spot was Smith attempting to deliver his running powerslam while on the ringside floor, which was actually elevated on a platform. He stepped off the platform "accidentally," blowing out his bad knee. Michaels worked on the leg including removing his knee brace. He used the figure four, with Helmsley and Rude holding his arms to add leverage when ref Earl Hebner ruled him unable to continue. They did the same gimmick which got Austin over so big as a face where they're pushing that Bulldog never submitted in the match.

After the match, Michaels put the figure four on again until Diana Smith hit the ring. Chyna went after her, which brought Bret and Owen out to clear the ring. By this point the crowd was in a near riot pitch throwing bottles and cans all over the building and the ring filled with debris, but the situation was said to have become quite dangerous.

From Shawn’s book:

““I told the creative team, “If you want to get me some heat, have me screw him for the title in his hometown.” They loved the idea. Davey Boy was so over in England and he never lost there. Screwing him out of the title in front of his hometown fans was a good business decision because I would generate a ton of heat.

Davey never once expressed to us that he was upset with our plans. But he wasn’t the kind of guy who would say anything to your face. He would do it in the back. He wasn’t mean, that’s just the way he was brought up in the business: you bury guys behind their back. It’s my understanding that Bret really got him wound up about losing in his hometown. For Bret, the important thing was not about what was right for business, but about looking like the good guy in the eyes of the wrestling industry.

I had Hunter, Chyna, and Rick Rude, who was with us for a brief time, assist me in applying a figure-four hold on Davey Boy, and the referee stopped the bout. The crowd went nuts. They were throwing beer, food, just about anything they could get their hands on, at us. It was honest real heat in Birmingham.

Even though I had already been World Wrestling Federation Champion, I had no problem becoming the European champ. I didn’t look at it as a step down. On the contrary, I felt I could make something of the title. Before the show, we were discussing what was going to happen with the agents and producers at the day’s production meeting. Someone spoke up and said, “If we do this, Shawn, wouldn’t you be the first person to have held every belt here [World Wrestling Federation, Intercontinental, Tag Team, and European]?”

“That’s right,” Vince said. “We need to have a name for that. That’s monumental. That’s huge.”

The show’s director, Kerwin Silfies, suggested “Grand Slam.”

“Sounds good,” Vince replied. And that’s how I became the first Grand Slam Champion.”