When I looked into the timeline starting from the beginnings of TNN expressing an interest in adding wrestling to their schedule, I found that the road towards episode one airing was a bit bumpier than you might have known. And so that's what we’re going to look at here.
In this video, we’ll look at the state of ECW in mid-1999. We’ll then look at some of the problems that ECW faced before they even went on the air. Then finally we’ll look at TNN episode one, to see what hit screens in the end.
ECW in 1999
While the official announcement of the TNN show would happen at the end of June, it’s important to understand the state of ECW at the time. In April the Wrestling Observer would claim that even two years before the end, cheques were bouncing and talent wasn't getting paid. “There have been several bounced checks again over the past two weeks starting a lot of rumors about the company being one step from the grave. Paul Heyman again met with the wrestlers on 4/17 and said that everything would be okay financially in another month. Since he’s said that before, the confidence in those statements is pretty low”. There were however deals on the table that looked like they could help ECW stay afloat. For example, Paul Heyman was attempting to strike a deal with Acclaim Entertainment to licence ECW video games. This deal was very important for the company, as Wade Killer notes in the Pro Wrestling Torch, as it could potentially make ECW “solvent and debt-free for the first time in well over a year.” The alternative for Paul was by far a less desirable option. “Without the deal, there are rumors of the WWF or WCW being interested in bailing out ECW in return for part or whole ownership.”
In June (WONJun7), Paul would eventually land the video game deal, and Hardcore Revolution, which played suspiciously like a previous Acclaim title, WWF Attitude, would be released in February 2000. This alone wasn't going to rid Heyman of his financial woes, but larger national exposure on television might. A week later Wade would add that “Acclaim will likely strike a video game deal with whoever ends up with The Nashville Network deal. If that is the case, ECW’s future strongly hinges on getting a clearance on TNN.” As Wade is alluding to here, TNN was looking to add wrestling to it’s schedule, and had a few options on the table.
While ECW was struggling to make deals to keep themselves going, the channel formerly known as the Nashville Network was looking to rebrand itself. In the April 19th Observer, before ECW was in talks with them, it was reported that there was “a lot of talk about TNN carrying pro wrestling starting in August on Friday nights in prime time, either in the current RollerJam time slot, or as part of a two-hour block.” While Dave Meltzer speculates that this could lead to a new promotion starting up, he says that “TNN had talked with both ECW and NWA about the slot. ECW had a meeting scheduled for early this week with TNN, so the fact there was a meeting says that they must still be in contention”. TNN were even looking at much smaller groups who weren’t yet known on a national level. Another candidate in the running was “Howard Lipkint’s group out of Las Vegas,” which could well have become the very short lived WXO, which would end up only running only one television taping before going out of business. It’s here in the timeline where we get to the first major problem that ECW faced on the way to landing the TNN deal, one of their biggest stars leaving on fiercely bad terms.
Hardcore Heaven 1999
On May 16th ‘99 ECW presented it’s Hardcore Heaven pay per view from Poughkeepsie New York. While the show is perhaps best remembered for a battle between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn, who had stolen the show at the last pay per view too, what was going on behind the scenes was far more interesting. (WONMay24) Representatives from several television channels were backstage watching the show, including TNN, Showtime, and MTV, as ECW had been in talks with all of them. With all of these important people backstage, Paul Heyman needed to book a show putting ECW’s best foot forward, but it wouldn’t happen without drama.
Just one day before the pay per view, one of Paul’s top stars would appear on an indie show at the ECW Arena called ‘Breaking the Barrier,’ which I talked about in more detail in my video about the historic venue. At this event, Shane Douglas would cut a scathing promo against ECW in the ring, quitting the company in the process. Shane’s issues with Paul had been growing for a while. He reportedly didn’t attend the previous weekend's event in Philadelphia because he was told that he wasn’t welcome after previously being booked. Paul Heyman told the Torch, “I had a conversation with Shane Douglas at the beginning of last week at which point I told him that it’s better for the locker room and better for he and I not to be in the same locker room and that the time had come for us to go our separate ways.” Heyman then went even further, claiming that “Douglas threatened to “expose the real financial status of ECW” to TNN to try to kill the deal.” Of all the people who Paul Heyman has had a public falling out with over the years, Shane Douglas is one of the few that he doesn’t seem to have made up with, so there could have been some truth to this reporting.
Upon finding out about Shane quitting, Paul knew he had to do something to save face with the TV reps. He would call in a huge star who had worked sporadic dates for the company. Someone who he knew would look impressive to the network reps. Paul would, at 11:30 the night before the pay per view, call Sid Vicious, who luckily made it to the event in time. This ended up from a TV rep standpoint a genius move by Paul, as he was able to show “that Douglas’ loss on the show wouldn’t be missed and that he was replacing him with a bigger star that the fans would pop big for when he showed up, which is what happened.” However from a booking standpoint it would end up being bittersweet. Paul’s plan was for Sid to receive the biggest ovation from the crowd possible, hopefully impressing the reps. He did this though, by sacrificing two of his up and coming top heels, Justin Credible and Lance Storm.
I talked about this in more detail in my video about Sid in ECW, but in short, the segment would be just a bit of a mess. Justin, who had been supposed to face Shane Douglas, would be interrupted in the ring by Sid and his manager Judge Jeff Jones. It would take Justin’s cane, which seemingly had no effect, Lance Storm, Jayson Knight, and a run in by Sabu to finally beat down Sid, who would pop up from all of it like a movie monster, only to attack Jeff Jones afterwards. In itself, the segment makes the best of a bad situation brought about by Shane quitting, but Justin and Lance came out of it looking a bit ineffectual against Sid, who wasn’t going to be staying. Sid would only make one more appearance in ECW, teasing an ongoing story with Justin and Sabu, but this would never come to anything.
Justin in particular had been quite protected up to this point, and was a project of Paul’s. He had beaten many an ECW great, and was likely set to beat Douglas, but the booking on this night didn’t exactly make him look strong. It would take nearly a year after this to finally get him onto the main event level. Despite all of the chaos at Hardcore Heaven, Paul Heyman must have done something right. The June 7th Observer reports that ECW was basically all but confirmed officially to be coming to TNN later in the year. Dave does say though that “The contracts have yet to be signed and all the terms haven’t been exactly worked out.”
On June 30th, after nearly a month of questioning, the official announcement would be made. In the coverage we learn the reason for the 8pm timeslot. “ECW has been slotted in the early-evenings because it is considered the best bet to draw a strong lead-in audience for TNN’s RollerJam and Championship Rodeo and Motor Madness shows that follow.” When asked about this, Paul Heyman wasn’t perturbed in any way by the timeslot not exactly being what he was used to. “we bring to the table something that they need which is a strong lead-in for Roller Jam. We already have the core audience and hopefully we can expand that audience. But it’s a proven product on late-night television. That’s something that they need.”
“ECW didn’t exactly have a ton of leverage in negotiations since they are an unproven product on a national scale that has gone through a year of financial problems. The bounced checks to wrestlers, arenas, and suppliers became an embarrassment for the company.”
Paul Heyman, as you can imagine, phrases it differently, telling the Torch “I think it is an incredibly intelligent deal on behalf of a network that understands what their exposure is going to bring to this company. And they have every right to ask for that because they’re the ones that are going to put us on the map. It certainly gives us a chance to entice more people to buy our tapes or shirts or dolls or whatever else we’re selling, including our tickets and our pay-per-views.” Paul's mentality, and I suppose this had to be the way he looked at it, was that if TNN helped ECW grow, then TNN were going to take a cut from that. Therefore it’s in the network's best interest to work with him, and then all could reap the rewards. This line from Wade though, pulls back the curtain a bit on what TNN’s approach was, and how different it was to Paul’s. “TNN privately is touting the deal as a no-lose situation for them. They get a huge percentage of all ECW revenue above what current levels in every category – from PPV and arena shows to merchandising and websites. TNN also reserves the right to buy ten percent of ECW after one year.”
Paul Heyman would waste no time in telling his audience about the big news, and he would do it on the air. On July 3rd at the Elks Lodge in Queens, Paul Heyman would stand in the ring and tell the fans that on August 13th ECW would start on TNN. Remember this date because it’ll become more important later. Joey Styles would then confirm that this 13th date is a special episode, with the main series beginning on August 27th at 8pm.
Heat Wave 1999
Paul's announcement would air for television viewers on July 17th, one night before ECW’s next pay per view, and Heyman’s next big headache. Unlike the previous years Heat Wave, which is regarded among fans to be one of the best ECW events, the ‘99 version is largely remembered mainly for an unscripted part of the show, and it involved Bubba Ray Dudley.
There had been several nights where Bubba had stirred up the fans so much that they wanted to get in the ring and fight him. This one from Elks Lodge is my personal favourite, with a fan going over the balcony to try and get to Bubba. At Heat Wave, his promo was so antagonistic towards the fans, picking out individuals and being quite vulgar in his jokes, that there were claims that he nearly incited a riot in the building. According to the Torches' coverage of the event, Bubba it seems would catch a lot of the heat for this, essentially being punished for his verbiage. “Sources say Heyman was hoping Buh Buh would become a locker room leader heading into the TNN show. Instead, Buh Buh has earned himself a place in the dog house of Heyman and the wrestlers in general.“
But given that riling the crowd up was a normal part of the Dudley’s act, why did it get Bubba in so much hot water this time? What you might not have heard before, is that TNN reps were again in the building as they were at Hardcore Heaven, and they were none too impressed with Bubba’s promo, nor the overly violent match that followed, where Spike Dudley and Balls Mahoney would win back the tag team titles against Bubba Ray and D-Von. “This match and pre-match turned out to be controversial, as there were folks in the cable industry in particular at Viewers Choice and also at TNN who were upset about the pre-match mic work by Buh Buh, both the level of the swearing and inciting the crowd, feeling he was inciting a riot, and the match, in particular the close-ups of the blood and the flaming tables.” This wasn’t helped by the idea of some that Bubba knew exactly what he was doing. “Many believe Buh Buh knew his comments were crossing the line (especially the racial comment) but claim Buh Buh is starting to believe his own hype and is too concerned with his gimmick of being the “greatest tag team in history.”” That last part is pretty funny if you’ve heard Bubba continuing to make this claim in 2025.
As far as the violence of the match, the network reps’ reaction to this actually influenced the rest of the show. Later in the night Taz would defeat Yoshihiro Tajiri, retaining his ECW World title in a match with a quite unique finish. Taz would be awarded the win by submission, as he choked Tajiri with barbed wire, during which the camera angle shown was from the very top end of the building, meaning the TV viewers could barely tell what was going on. This was apparently done as a direct reaction to the TV reps being unhappy with the violence shown in the Dudleys match, something I’d always wondered about. It does make you wonder though, did TNN properly know what they were getting, and was there perhaps any buyers remorse, a month before the premiere air date?
As ECW got closer to the premier date, it seemed that they just couldn’t stay out of trouble. In fact, they would find impressive new ways to get in trouble. In the July 26th Observer, it’s noted that “Joel Gertner will work with Joey Styles as the announcing team for the TNN shows. It’s something of a debatable decision.” it would become even more of a debatable decision a few days later, after Joel would cross the line on that weeks Hardcore TV. But first, some context. On July 16th 1999, John F Kennedy Jr would pilot a plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean not far from Martha's Vineyard airport in Massachusetts. You may be wondering what this could possibly have to do with Extreme Championship Wrestling? On the July 24th ‘99 episode of Hardcore TV, Joel Gertner would go on a lengthy and ill advised rant about the recent death of JFK Jr. Joel’s rant was clearly meant to be about how much of the news coverage was spent on the story and seemingly not much else, but it being Joel Gertner, it was laced with distasteful jokes, most notably ones comparing Kennedy’s anatomy with a part of the plane. As you could probably imagine, this did not sit well with the media.
TV Guide published a critical article, and the MSG network went as far as to not even air the segment, instead replacing it with commercials. Paul Heyman on the other hand was quoted to be happy with the attention it got them, and he “assumes TNN is happy with the media attention heading into the show’s debut.” Explaining the piece, Heyman told the Torch ““We were looking for controversy, more or less, without using violence or swearing,” he said. He added that the company was trying to “demonstrate our attention to pop culture,” and said he helped Gertner write the piece which he claims was inspired by a Dennis Leary comedy routine.” Despite Paul being happy with the attention the segment received, this and the incident at Heat Wave weren’t a good look approaching the new show on TNN, which TV Guide described in their article as “TV’s traditionally wholesome Nashville Network.” You might think that Joel’s position on the TNN show might be reconsidered, but Paul would double down and keep him beside Joey when the series would air. When Dave Meltzer questioned the use of Joel as a broadcast team with Joey, his reasoning was that “Gertner is great at delivering pre-planned lines for short interviews, but there’s a big difference between that and thinking on your feet and not running out of things to say for a 60 minute television show.” Ironically, Joel’s pre planned routines are what got him in more hot water than anything, but Paul was ready to welcome any publicity as good publicity at the time.
The TV Tapings
On August 13th, TNN was supposed to air a ‘History of ECW’ special, catching new fans up to what the company is all about, while the prospective August 20th one was going to introduce the current roster and storylines. “TNN will not be airing the history of ECW show which was initially talked about for the two Fridays before it’s regular Friday night debut on Aug. 27. The network was open to the idea of airing the show but Paul Heyman says he turned them down because they ran out of time to properly promote it.” As I noted earlier the show was first mentioned on television on July 3rd, yet somehow there was not enough time to promote it. I could more believe Paul’s next reason, “All of the newspaper and magazine articles about ECW on TNN have listed Aug. 27 as the debut date. Heyman didn’t want to end up debuting on the network with a low rating and will instead wait for the heavily-hyped Aug. 27 series debut.” There is an alternative, maybe more accurate depending on who you believe suggestion posed in the Observer, which claims that the shows “didn’t materialize due to no show being provided by deadline.” This is not the best start, but it’s not going to get any better.
On the August 14th episode of Hardcore TV, Joey Styles makes some pretty interesting comments about the company’s new business partner, again before the first episode has even aired, and right after they’ve already missed a deadline. Part way through the episode, Joey directly addresses the New York fans watching on the MSG Network, relating to the TNN taping set to take place in Queens on August 26th. He stresses that this is not just a national TV taping, but now with the new coverage in Canada this is an international one. The concerning comments would come next. “If I may I’m gonna shoot for you fans. TNN didn’t want us to tape their TV show at the Elks Lodge, the madhouse of extreme. They said it’s not a TV worthy building. We want a five thousand seat building where we can hang a lighting grid and have a big ramp, no. ECW fought to have a TNN taping at the madhouse of extreme, the Elks Lodge.” He ends by saying “We will see you from there whether they like it or not, and they will like it because the ratings will prove it.” Admittedly, it’s fair to point out that this was a localised ad that was just going out to their New York fans, and it was said with the rebellious tone and attitude that ECW was known for, but it’s still a pretty daft move to say to your most loyal fans “that new network we just joined, they don’t want you.” Especially again, before episode one has even aired.
On the same day, August 14th, ECW held what was supposed to be tapings for the launch episode. The card had been stacked, with a dream partners tag team match pitting Rob Van Dam and Justin Credible against Jerry Lynn and Sabu, I promise you I said that right because those pairings make no sense. A big tag team championship change had been planned too. Actually, a few big changes had been planned. “There was consideration given to booking two singles title changes at the initial TNN tapings. Jerry Lynn to defeat Rob Van Dam in the first hour to capture the TV Title, then Van Dam beating Taz to capture the ECW Hvt. Title during the second hour. Taz signing a contract last week probably led to the change in plans.” Taz had quite openly been in talks with WWE at the time, and while it wouldn’t be long until he did leave, he had told Paul he would be staying, leading to his plans changing.
While some of the taping would be used as episodes of Hardcore TV, like Spike and Balls defeating the Dudleys for the tag team titles, much of the night's taping was deemed “unairable,” and wasn’t seen on TNN. “Sources say Heyman was visibly disappointed after the show. He didn’t consider the event a disaster and cited the strong crowd reaction as a positive, but said the show just didn’t come off as well as he expected. After viewing the footage, Heyman is said to have lightened up and admitted to friends that he may have set his expectations too high.“ For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that “although Heyman didn’t like the Toledo ECW/TNN tapings, TNN officials who were on hand were apparently thrilled with the initial taping. After the main event, the representatives reportedly hugged several members of the ECW crew and voiced their approval. They also took the time to meet some of the wrestlers before and after the show.” It is never made clear what exactly Heyman wasn’t happy about, not specifically at least, with the Torch saying that he was “disappointed in the way some of the booking plans came across.” If I were being a conspiracy theorist, given the comments Joey Styles made earlier I wouldn’t be shocked if Paul just wanted the first TNN taped matches to come from the Elks Lodge taping on August 26th, but we’ll never really know.
In one last note before the first episode aired, Wade Keller claimed that “Sources within the cable industry are saying TNN expects a 3.0 rating from ECW from the start. TNN launched a cross-channel advertising campaign last Friday to hype the series debut”. To put this number into a bit of perspective, the previous episode of Raw had drawn a 6.6 rating, and Nitro the same night a 3.3. It would be a tough ask for ECW to match Nitro on it’s very first week, especially since a few weeks earlier, Wade had printed that “TNN is a low rated cable network, but they do draw peak ratings around 2.0 for big NASCAR broadcasts.”
Episode One
This finally brings us to episode one of ECW on TNN, which would air on August 27th 99. For all of the pitfalls and unfortunate events that had taken place on the way to this night, ECW would take full advantage of it’s first hour, doing their very best to set themselves apart from the other promotions. The first thing we see is a cold open of the Dudleys putting Balls Mahoney through a table that is on fire. Over the top of it, Joey Styles confidently tells us “this isn't the WWF. This isn’t WCW. This is ECW on TNN!”
On the debut broadcast, ECW would air essentially what the preview specials would have been. The only unique content being Joey Styles’ links between segments. They started by showing the entirety of the Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn TV title match from the recent Hardcore Heaven pay per view. While this match was undoubtedly an ECW classic, and helpful because it filled almost half of the hour, it wasn’t exactly the original content that TNN had wanted, but at least it was a very popular match, and one that was going to draw in any new fan. There are far worse ways to give a first impression.
Next, ECW would make an absolutely genius move. Instead of just showing their former world champions or current stars which they would do later, Joey introduced a list of big names who used to work for ECW, making the point that all of them failed to capture the ECW world title despite being massively successful elsewhere. Names like Konnan, Cactus jack, and even Steve Austin. If a brand new fan were tuning in and saw that Steve Austin, who was the WWF champion at the time, had tried and failed to win the ECW belt, it might well leave them asking how good must the ECW locker room be?
They would follow this up with another very clever move, by introducing some former ECW World champions, two of the most notable being Raven and Sandman. The reason this is so clever is that both had recently been working for WCW, and were each on their way back, set to appear on TNN very soon. Raven had, in fact, returned to ECW just twenty four hours earlier at the Queens TV taping, interfering in the main event for the tag team titles, preventing the Dudley Boyz from taking the belts to WWE with them, by winning them with his fierce rival Tommy Dreamer. Sandman wouldn’t be back in ECW for a few more weeks, making his triumphant surprise return at the ECW arena on October 23rd ‘99. It was then, a very smart move for ECW to highlight these two, given that they would be a major part of the show very soon.
Up next we get our second match of the night, a World title bout that originally aired on the June 26th ‘99 Hardcore TV, where Taz would face the rookie monster of Steve Corino. That rookie monster was Rhino. Taz would beat Rhino handily in just a couple of minutes, and knowing the absolute killer Rhino would become in ECW, it’s crazy to see him as essentially enhancement talent in this match with Taz, his first ever on ECW television.
One more quite interesting thing that ECW aired was a very brief match, just seconds long in fact, but it really got across the rowdy nature of the Queens New York fans. Spike Dudley versus Big Sal, who they name on the lower third as “600lb Sal Graziano versus Little Spike the Giant Killer”. As it turns out, this match was actually taped a full year earlier. It aired originally on the August 29th 1998 episode of Hardcore TV, and was probably chosen because it came from the Elks Lodge, where the following week's TNN episode had been taped from. Spike would hit a low blow and an Acid Drop for the win in about thirty seconds. As I mentioned in my quick recap of Sal’s career in a recent video, Sal lost to Spike many times, often to get the crowd cheering, but also to get across Spike’s giant killer persona.
The rest of the hour would be spent briefly introducing each member of the ECW roster, with a particular focus on Lance Storm and Justin Credible who are among the few who get promo time. We see cleverly edited clips of them beating down well known names like the Dudleys and Shane Douglas. I say cleverly, because they at one point show Justin and Lance beating up Sid Vicious from Hardcore Heaven, not including the part where Sid rises like a movie monster and destroys them.
Following a Kid Rock music video showing off the rest of the roster, the show ends with a promo from the World champion, Taz. We see footage of him choking out who else but Shane Douglas, because Paul has never shied away from being spiteful from time to time. Taz promises that he will continue to tap out all challengers, and he would for a little bit longer.
After all the talk before the show aired of a 3.0 rating, how would episode one actually do? “The first broadcast of ECW drew a 0.9 rating, the highest rated show on TNN that night.” Most importantly, they would do much better than Rollerjam, which only earned a 0.6. If you’ve never watched a video on this channel before, I promise I don’t usually talk about ratings, but here it’s significant. The next week Wade would explain a bit more about the high estimate. “The second ECW program on TNN grew to 1.0 rating, which is in line with what TNN executives hoped and expected the show would draw in its first few weeks. TNN officials guaranteed advertisers a 2.0 average rating for the first season, but it is standard practice in the advertising industry to oversell ratings rather than undersell them.” Over the next few months, the shows ratings would show slow growth just as Paul had predicted, regularly passing 1.0, at least until late in the run, when things were really going South between the two sides. The highest rating that the show would ever draw on a few different occasions was a 1.3.
Conclusion
I’ve been quite critical of ECW through this video, but I will say one thing. While watching the first episode of ECW on TNN, I really forgot all about the many hurdles they tripped over to get there.
It’s been said many times that Paul Heyman was an excellent wrestling booker, and that his greatest skill was being able to accentuate the positives of a talent, and hide away their weaknesses. You can do this in a lot of areas in life, like PR and promotion, but unfortunately you can’t just hide away the negatives in business. Why the ECW and TNN relationship failed is a conversation that has to look more at the run of the show itself, but I’ve tried to show that as rough as the road to the debut was, the first episode was booked in a manner that Paul always tried to, by hiding ECW’s negatives, and leaving you wanting more.
Sources:
WON Apr 26th 99 Bounced cheques https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-26-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-davy-boy-smith-recovering/
PWT May 1st Acclaim deal https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/04/27/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-546-may-1-1999-cover-story-on-death-of-rick-rude-coverage-of-wwe-breakdown-ppv-headlined-with-steve-austin-vs-rock-and-triple-h-vs-x-pac-more/
WON May 3rd Acclaim deal https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/may-3-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-death-rick-rude-wwf-backlash/
WON Jun 7th Acclaim landed, WXO https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/june-7-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-fallout-death-owen-hart/
PWT May 8th Acclaim deal link to TNN https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/05/04/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-547-may-8-1999-cover-story-looking-at-latest-signs-of-wcws-follies-wwf-newswire-detailing-growing-backstage-tension-between-austin-and-the-roc/
WON April 19th TNN rebrand https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-19-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-davey-boy-smith/
WON May 24th TNN, Showtime and MTV reps at Hardcore Heaven https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/may-24-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-ecw-hardcore-heavenwwf-no/
PWT May 22nd Shane Douglas Heyman heat https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/05/17/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-549-may-22-1999-cover-story-titled-ecw-features-good-matches-puzzling-booking-coverage-of-ecw-hardcore-heaven-ppv-newswire-on-goldbergs/
JUNE
PWT June 12th Mixed replorting, Kulas https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/06/08/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-552-june-12-1999-cover-story-on-hart-family-and-wwf-clashing-over-usage-of-funeral-footage-of-owen-hart-second-cover-story-on-sables-110-mill/
PWY Jul 3rd RVD 1 https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/06/29/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-555-july-3-1999-keller-dissects-hogans-interview-on-larry-king-live-cover-story-details-wwf-embarrassing-wcw-in-its-home-market-cover-sidebar/
WON June 28th RVD 2 https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/june-28-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-reaction-wwf-contracted/
PWT July 10th Official announcement https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/07/06/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-556-july-10-1999-details-on-jerichos-decision-to-jump-from-wcw-to-wwf-cover-story-featuring-extensive-exclusive-quotes-from-heyman-on-ecw-clea/
JULY
HW99
PWT Jul 31st Heat on Bubba https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/07/27/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-559-july-31-1999-cover-story-on-vince-talking-about-owen-tragedy-on-tsn-kellers-end-notes-examining-veracity-of-mcmahons-comments-lette/
WON July 26th 1999 - Bubba upsets TNN reps at Heat Wave, Gertner https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/july-26-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-governor-jesse-ventura/
PWT July 31st JFK jr https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/07/27/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-559-july-31-1999-cover-story-on-vince-talking-about-owen-tragedy-on-tsn-kellers-end-notes-examining-veracity-of-mcmahons-comments-lette/
AUGUST
PWT August 14 Intro special not aired https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/08/10/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-561-august-14-1999-cover-story-on-wwfs-financial-status-being-revealed-in-ipo-long-wwf-newswire-including-quote-from-vince-saying-f-them/
WON Aug 30th Intro not aired
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-30-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-summerslam-review/
PWT Aug 21st Problems with first taping https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/08/17/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-562-august-21-1999-cover-story-on-wwf-banking-on-ventura-drawing-new-fans-wwf-newswire-featuring-austin-upsetting-wwf-wrestlers-with-his-influen/
PWT June 12th Nascar quote https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/06/08/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-552-june-12-1999-cover-story-on-hart-family-and-wwf-clashing-over-usage-of-funeral-footage-of-owen-hart-second-cover-story-on-sables-110-mill/
PWT Sept 4th Ep 1 recap and notes https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/08/31/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-564-september-4-1999-cover-story-detailing-wwfs-help-getting-steroid-doctor-suspended-cover-sidebar-looks-at-venturas-problems-with-media-co/
ECW on TNN ratings https://www.angelfire.com/pa2/RAWisWAR/ECWTNNRatings.html
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