I’ve been very WWE heavy in the last year plus of this review column, so I figured it would be a good time to look into what the competition was doing in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. And since we’re now in the middle of the change from summer to fall, what better event to look back on than the eventual home for the yearly battle that was War Games. The first pay per view event called Fall Brawl happened in 1993, though the NWA and Jim Crockett promotions had run several Clashes that were subtitled ‘Fall Brawl’, but we won’t be talking about those here. We’ll wait to do all the Clashes together, which I want to do next year because 2022 will be the 25th anniversary of the final Clash of the Champions. So stay tuned for that in the coming months.
1993
The inaugural pay-per-view event from the Astro Arena in Houston, Texas and we find ourselves in the beginning of the dueling world title. Long story short, WCW pulled out of the NWA in 1993 but they still had the big gold belt that represented that world title. They just kept it and decided that it would be a shame to hide this masterpiece and thus the WCW International World Heavyweight Title is born. Yeah, it was as good of an idea as it sounds. But that’s just one of our main events tonight. The big one is the big one and it will SHOCK the world: WAR GAMES!
Our opening contest has a world of potential as Ricky Steamboat defends the World Television Championship against Lord Steven Regal. Right off the bat, they establish that this match will revolve around the ribs of the Dragon, injured on Saturday Night 24 hours before by Regal and his umbrella. Not my weapon of choice to beat a guy with but hey, the nobility do things differently. If old school mat wrestling is your thing, this is your match. The finish will disappoint a bit because of the screwy end to an otherwise physical encounter. Honestly, if this were about 3-5 minutes shorter, I would make it a must see. But it drug on for 17 minutes and it really didn’t need to get much past 12.
Up next, a giant man called Big Sky (the guy who played Michael Meyers in the Rob Zombie Halloween flics) takes on Minnesota-staple Charlie Norris. On commentary, they say Norris has been in WCW for about 3 weeks and I think they wanted to use the PPV spotlight to try to position Norris for a babyface run. Unfortunately for him, Big Sky looked much better in the elevated squash. A four-and-a-half minute match that started slow and got a burst of energy for the finish but no one was behind either guy by then.
An added match next as 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell take on Paul Ordorff and the Equalizer. My initial thoughts on the Equalizer is that he was a cheap knockoff of The Berzerker John Nord, sans fuzzy boots. Pretty standard tag match, heat was where it needed to be, the old wrong legal man trick leads to the finish. The crowd was into Scorpio’s 450 and the heels got back up to get their heat but nothing to write home about here.
Next up on WCW Pro… er, Fall Brall, it’s Ice Train and Shanghai Pierce. Two big guys do big guy things to get Train over. Nice and quick but far from the stuff that should be on PPV. That’s a house show match, y’all.
Hopefully, we’re off to a real match as The Horsemen (Arn Anderson and Paul Roma) defend the WCW Tag Team titles against the Nasty Boys. It’s a surprisingly evenly split crowd between the Horsemen and the Nastys, who are accompanied by Missy Hyatt. She was recently linked with the Horsemen but they kind of nothinged her presence so she turned to side with their foes. It doesn’t really matter. Despite the fact that this match has Arn Anderson in it, it was a long 20 minutes. Another title match just drags on, follows the formula to the letter and doesn’t really do much of anything and Houston really did not care about the title change. I was hard to determine who were the heels in this one.
Next, Cactus Jack takes on Yoshi Kwan. Kwan, a white guy playing an Asian assassin and the less said about that the better, was hired by Vader’s manager Harley Race to take out Jack before he could get his revenge on Vader and yes, this is the next step in this story after Lost in Cleveland. Look, Mick can only do so much when that’s what he’s given to work with. And it will take longer to figure out what’s happening in this story because this is a rushed 3 minute encounter. I dunno if they cut the time to give it to another match or if there was an injury issue. Jack did come out with his knee in a big brace. Either way, a squash to push us towards a Cactus Jack/Vader rematch.
In the semi-main event, the International World Heavyweight Title is on the line as Ric Flair defends against Rick Rude. I don’t care what anyone says, Rude’s theme here slaps so hard. Given who is in this match, it should be a home run and this is not a bad match. But it is a slow match until we get to about 26 minutes in. Rude has to go to the tights to produce brass knuckles to pick up the win and the title, making it three title changes in three title matches and underwhelming contests all of them.
Your main event is the WCW staple that is War Games. Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Dustin Rhodes and The Shockmaster (yes, this is the match he was introduced for. Yes, that fall) take on Harlem Heat, Sid Vicious and the WCW Champion Vader. The Champ and US Champ Dustin Rhodes get us started and Dustin has taped up ribs after an attack the night before on Saturday Night. That seems a little familiar… There was a nice little story being told, I would rate it right in the middle of a ranking of War Games matches…and then there was the finish. The Shockmaster entered, had a solid exchange with Vader and then locked Booker T in a… bearhug… and won with it.
FINAL GRADE: F
Wow, was that tough to get through. I now understand why some have called that the worst pay per view offering from the company. The show should have been better than this. At the same time, I wouldn’t have put half of that card on pay-per-view, even in 1993. I know it gets better from here. It has to.
1994
The new home of the War Games returned in ‘94 to a Crockett Promotions stronghold, Roanoke, Virginia. There have been a number of changes to the company since the last event. First and foremost, Hulk Hogan is now in town and is already World Champion and his first mention provoked boos from the crowd. Second, Mean Gene has arrived and taking Jesse Ventura’s place at the commentary table is Bobby “the Brain” Heenan. The World title, by the way, is not on the line tonight. However, the champion and his challenger at Halloween Havoc, Ric Flair, will do a live head-to-head interview via satellite.
Your opening contest is Johnny B. Badd challenging Lord Steven Regal for the Television title, a belt Regal has held for most of the last year since winning it at last year’s Fall Brawl. I am extremely confused by Regal’s choice of attire tonight, coming to the ring in a powdered wig. The match itself was a solid opening bout, a nice contrast between Badd’s athleticism and Regal’s technicality. Both guys spent a good chunk of the match on offense with Badd overcoming the interference of Sir William to win the title with a backslide in about 11 minutes.
I’d like to see another match, but we get a recap of the recent Clash of Champions where Ric Flair has Hulk Hogan’s knee injured by a mask man and I totally forgot they did a Nancy Kerrigan angle just 5 months after the real life attack…
Finally, our second match is a loser leaves WCW match between Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan, accompanied by his brother Dave who was calling himself Evad because…. Because he’s dyslexic… The former WCW World Tag Team champions had a physical war that included Jack getting bealed off the second turnbuckle to the concrete floor outside, one of several bumps he took on the floor. A brutal match ended quickly when Sullivan took advantage of his brother getting in the way to roll up Cactus and send him to Philadelphia.
We were supposed to get a US Title defense from Ricky Steamboat against Steve Austin. However, a back injury forced Steamboat to vacate the title and legit retire from the sport. The belt goes to Austin, commissioner Nick Bockwinkle makes him defend against Jim Duggan and 35 seconds later, Duggan is US Champion. Austin’s reign lasts about 5 minutes, the shortest in the title’s history. No wonder he wanted out of the company so badly.
And if one patriotic gimmick wasn’t enough, here comes Stars and Stripes, Marcus Alexander Bagwell and The Patriot to challenge for the World Tag Team titles against Pretty Wonderful, Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma. It’s a serviceable match, with all the pieces and parts where they need to be. The champs survive with a win involving the old legal man conundrum and the challengers don’t look too bad in the defeat. It was a safe, if not a little forgettable, title match to keep everyone where they were entering the match.
Let’s move on to the triangle match for the #1 contendership for the WCW title. It’s Sting vs. Vader vs. The Guardian Angel (aka Ray Traylor) and you can already see where we’re going before we take step one on the road. But is not a three-way match in the form that we think of it now. There was a pre-match coin toss and Vader and the Angel started the match and once there was a fall, Sting would face the winner. So we really have two singles matches. The first was exactly what you’d expect: two of the best big men in the sport doing big men things including an enzuguri from Angel. But for some reason, the chemistry just wasn’t there and things got a little sloppy at times. Following some interference from manager Harley Race, Vader hits the Vader Bomb and moves on to face Sting.
On the opposite end of the chemistry scale are Sting and Vader. These two had already had a long and acclaimed rivalry before this match. While it started out with a few uncharacteristic miscommunications, it picked up about 5 minutes in and they found a second, third and fourth gear.
Then finally, our main event… WAR GAMES! Well, after the satellite face-to-face interview between WCW Champion Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. It’s worse than you think actually. It’s a pair of pre-tapes with the two having a phone conversation. And a reminder that we’re having this extended interview on a pay-per-view broadcast. That people paid money for…
The War Games match itself pitted Dusty and Dustin Rhodes and the Nasty Boys against Terry Funk, Bunkhouse Buck, Arn Anderson and Col. Robert Parker and it was an okay War Games. It did what it needed to do: the Rhodes family got their revenge over Funk and Parker. The Colonel gave up after Dusty locked in a figure-four and the Nastys took turns dropping huge elbows on him. It’s also memorable because during that beating the poor Colonel had himself a bout of diarrhea. While wearing an all-white suit.
MUST SEE MATCH:
Round 2 of the triangle match for the #1 contendership to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Sting vs. Vader
I was unsure about placing this match here at first but as the match wore on, it became clear that this was another chapter in this great rivalry. Even with the wonky rules of a 15-minute time limit, then a 5-minute overtime, then a sudden death where the first man off their feet loses, they still turned in another classic. Ignore the overbooked finish too. It made sense in the context of the weird rules.
FINAL GRADE: C-
It’s a card buoyed by the final two matches. The triangle match was great, War Games was pretty good but there’s a lot of not the greatest stuff. Also, the build-up of the cage match between Hogan and Flair a month later really dragged proceedings out and things down a bit.
1995
The 1995 edition of Fall Brawl comes at the beginning of a vital time in the business. Two weeks before this show, WCW Monday Nitro premiered on TNT which officially kicked off the Monday Night Wars. This WCW was still months away from picking up the angle that would make it the top pro wrestling company in the world and from the angles we’ll see tonight, that is really evident. Hulk Hogan is still an iffy face with many WCW crowds already done with the monster heel slaying that he’d done for years up north.
The opening contest is a window into the action that would open many, many WCW shows in the future: a light heavyweight contest to decide the #1 contender for the US title between Brian Pillman and Johnny B. Badd. Attitude Era fans wouldn’t recognize this Brian Pillman, as he hasn’t slid into his loose cannon persona and he is just shy of starting his involvement with the Four Horsemen.
Up next, a grudge match between Cobra and Sgt. Craig Pittman. Wait, a military gimmick called Cobra? And he’s the good guy? I don’t know. Pittman has a cadet distract Cobra so he can repel from the ceiling and jump the man. This was a nothing of a match but the upside was that it only lasted like 2 minutes.
The World Television championship is on the line next as The Renegade defends against Diamond Dallas Page. It’s always interesting to see DDP in his earlier, heel-ier forms instead of the people’s champion we grew to love during his wars with the nWo. It’s also a little weird to see him bounce around the ring for the Renegade. In the end, he comes out as the new champion.
Harlem Heat challenges Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater for the WCW Tag Team Championships, in the middle of the Sherri/Col. Parker storyline that seemed to go on for all of 1995 and into 1996. And of course it plays into the finish here, as do the Nasty Boys because they had to get revenge on Parker’s team. It was really the only thing to speak of in this one. Booker T took a lot of the heat in this achingly slow, formulaic match where Buck and Slater’s 53 day reign is ended.
Our semi-main is a match we never thought we’d see. The Horsemen explode as Ric Flair goes one-on-one with Arn Anderson.
Our main event is a War Games for the hokiest of gimmicks running at a really hokey time in the business: it’s the Dungeon of Doom against the Hulkamaniacs and if they win, Hogan gets 5 minutes alone in the cage with The Taskmaster. It fit that the finish was as hokey as the gimmicks. It was not a good War Games match and there are much better examples to go looking for. Oh, and the post-match beating Hogan gave the Taskmaster looked pretty bad too. Until The Giant came in and tried to unscrew Hogan’s head from his body. Honestly, seeing Big Show jump over the ropes and into the cage was the most impressive part of the main event.
MUST SEE MATCHES:
- Johnny B. Badd vs.Brian Pillman for the #1 contendership to the WCW United States Championship
- A well built match with plenty of rises and falls, constructed around the idea of the 20-minute time limit and sudden death continuation. It’s unique because they actually go several minutes after the restart, instead of a finish usually coming in the first minute or so after the restart. Badd does hit one of the prettiest top rop sunset flips I’ve ever seen, but this is an old school match for an old school crowd
- Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair
- Two of the most celebrated workers in the sport face off after being inseparable for the better part of a decade. A tremendous story told by two of the best. It would be here for the historical moment.
FINAL GRADE: D+
Outside the opener and Flair/Anderson, man was this show bad. This was a great match, a good match and a collection of uninteresting and slow matches. When I say those two are must see, I mean those are the only two worth seeing.
1996
What a difference a year makes. We go from the yellow and red to the black and white as we have kicked off the WCW/nWo war just two months ago at Bash at the Beach. That all leads us into a War Games with several stories to tell heading into the main event.
Our opener is a grudge match between Diamond Dallas Page and Chavo Guerrero Jr., the culmination of a short feud between the two. They had a good, solid, physical contest here with plenty of peaks and valleys. Page hits an impressive and scary-looking tilt-a-while gutwrench powerbomb and then takes a unique reversal into a Diamond Cutter for the win.
Up next is a submission match between former tag team partners as Scott Norton takes on Ice Train. It’s seven minutes of big guys doing big guy things that included a lot of working the arm. Eventually, interference from Train’s manager Teddy Long allowed him to lock on a full nelson and get Norton to tap. A meh match that forced both guys into areas that weren’t in their wheel house.
Konnan defends the AAA Mega Championship against Juventud Guerrera next, which also brings the Professor Mike Tenay to the broadcast booth. The team referrers to Konnan as the Mexican Heavyweight Champion. I completely forgot he did a spell in the Dungeon of Doom in that stable’s dying days, but he’s completely changed his look from when he first arrived in WCW. Gone is the mast and colorful trunks and now the wifebeater and sagging jeans. He comes out really intense and beats on Guerrera, even yeeting him clear over the top rope. Juvi threw all the good lucha things at the bigger Konnan, who was full of fire for the first third of this match. A vicious looking power bomb and he retains the title. Another good match in a time when the cruiserweight division was routinely turning in good performances.
Up next, Chris Jericho’s WCW PPV debut against the Four Horsemen’s Chris Benoit and knowing the matches these two will have later in their careers, I am looking forward to this one.
Rey Mysterio Jr. defends the WCW Cruiserweight title next against Super Calo. They do some good lucha things. Calo gets a lot of offense in during the match, but if there’s maybe on knock on it, it could be that it spends more time in the slower down time than a cruiserweight normally would. I think the best description is a drawn out version of the cruiserweight matches we were getting to open Nitro every week. The finish though is a show of absolute ridiculousness from Rey.
The WCW Tag Team titles are on the line as Harlem Heat defends against the Nasty Boys. It was a big brawl with a heavy emphasis on the outside interference from Sister Sherri and Colonel Parker. It all made sense with the finish, but early on it felt like the Nastys were putting too much time in going after Sherri and Parker. Dings it a little bit for me.
The Macho Man Randy Savage continues his war against the nWo next, going one-on-one with The Giant. It is interesting considering how many times each of the guys would be in and out of the nWo over the next few years. In a trope we will see over and over again, Giant is out to soften up Savage before he gets his title shot against Hogan at Halloween Havoc. And in another trope that became very played out before the end of the nWo angle, Hogan comes to ringside to stop Savage’s comeback, lures him up the aisle and to an Outsiders ambush, they roll him in, Giant defeats Savage.
MUST SEE MATCHES:
- Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho
- This show is in Winston Salem, North Carolina and if you need a reminder that sits in the heart of Horsemen Country, everything high impact that Benoit does in the early part of this match elicits a huge pop from the crowd. A great example of both guy’s earlier work, just check out the stuff these two were doing in this hard-hitting banger.
- War Games Match: The New World Order (Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and a 4th man) vs. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger and Sting?
- Is this a great wrestling match? Well, not really. It’s a brawl, it gets sloppy, it’s War Games. But it also has the best stories being told in that cage in several years. After this match, the nWo invasion gets turned up to 11 and is worth seeing where the inferno gets started.
FINAL GRADE: C+
The entire show is rather up and down for me, but not in some of the egregious ways of Fall Brawls gone by. The floor is much higher and while there are matches that are worth fast forwarding through, there’s just as much good stuff and is a good representation of where WCW was right before they completely took over the wrestling world. Would the momentum continue for the rest of the life of the event? Well, come back in a few weeks to find out.
The Finisher 