Sorry to hear of the director's passing.
Ah yes, the Ritz, February 2, 1988. This was the ultimate damn show when I was growing up. Using my trusty VCR, I taped it off MTV at the time of its original airing, and I saved the VHS tape for around 20 years before finding the uncensored version on ebay for sale. MTV has long since deleted the footage from their archives, which was foolish because they could've made a fortune releasing that thing.
Is it confirmed that they "Deleted" the footage? If so, this is beyond tragic news. I have always held out hope that the Ritz '88 would see an official release