It has been way too long since we’ve done one of these and it’s mostly relevant because it’s still autumn, though we are getting close, and WWE made it official recently that War Games is returning at the end of the month for Survivor Series. Well, that’s the match that the 1997 WCW Fall Brawl was built around.
For the second time, the nWo will battle WCW inside the confines of the War Games as we march our way towards another showdown between Hollywood Hogan and Roddy Piper. It’s safe to say that the main storyline in the company continued to be the WCW vs. nWo battle though an objective observer might note that’s starting to lose a little steam by now and we’re breaking things back up into individual issues. Eight matches await us from Winston-Salem, North by God Carolina, so let’s see if any of them are worth going out of your way to see.
We start where WCW usually started pay-per-views with the Cruiserweight title, Chris Jericho defending against the epic mullet of Eddie Guerrero.
Your second contest is a pair of legendary tag teams going to war as Harlem Heat takes on the Steiner Brothers. Scott is about half way into his transition into Big Poppa Pump here and they are accompanied by Ted Dibiase. Stevie Ray got a good amount of shine here before things turned chaotic and the Steiners picked up the win and will get the next shot at Hall and Nash for the tag titles. Most of the match was big meaty men slapping meat but there was still some impressive stuff. The Heatseeker is an insane move, even more so when you take into account the size of the guys doing the move.
The World TV title is on the line next as Alex Wright defends against Ultimo Dragon. Right afterwards, we go to the back where the nWo cuts through Mean Gene’s hotline teaser after waylaying Curt Hennig, putting his participation in the main event in question.
Next up, we’ll determine the number 1 contender for Steve McMichael’s United States title as Jeff Jarrett takes on Dean Malenko. These two excellent workers did excellent work and I’ll make this my honorable mention match of the night because they did so much but there was something missing here. I mean, Winston-Salem was pretty quiet most of the time. They made a point of Jarrett sending Debra to the back after their entrance and then she reappears mid-match to do pretty much nothing. I don’t know how this statement makes sense but it was a really good match that somehow came off pretty flat.
The entrance of one of our next teams is a prime example of why sometimes the era of the nWo kinda sucked for the television product. Mortis and Wrath do their slow, scary walk through their big light show and all the commentary team can talk about is the nWo and their attack on Hennig and the War Games match and Meng and the Barbarian are almost in the ring before they get around to realizing that there’s literally a match in the ring in front of them. Admittedly, I am slightly confused by the Faces of Fear choice of shiny red pants for their ring gear. Doesn’t exactly say fear to me, but then again when the men wearing said shiny pants are Meng and the Barbarian, they are tough enough to wear whatever the hell they want. This one fulfills the hoss match requirement of the night: four big guys beating the crap out of each other. I do have to call out one spot where Wrath put Mortis on his shoulders to execute a superplex on the Barbarian, but as Wrath timbered backwards to take his part of the bump, his head snapped backwards and blasted Mortis right in the pills. And poor Mortis could not hide that one. An enjoyable match all around.
I take it back, the next match, Scott Norton vs. The Giant is the beat ‘em match. They spent half the match on the floor before Norton took control in the ring. He did so with a blatant punch to the little Giants and then an impressive hot shot. The Giant took a lot from Norton and that only works because of how big and strong Flash is. A different member of the nWo wouldn’t make sense to get this much over on the Giant. The big man is way over here and gets the win with a kip up, super kick and choke slam. It also works because they kept it right around 5 minutes, but eh.
It’s time for mayhem and Madness as DDP and Lex Luger take on Randy Savage and Scott Hall in a No DQ tag team match. Well, it’s a no DQ match out of the ref just giving up. It started out like a normal, average tag match that was getting some hot reactions because of who was involved. I guess Page and Luger won because Hall started beating on referees, so Larry Zbyszko left the broadcast booth to confront him which allowed Luger to get a roll-up and Larry fast counted and I guess that counts. I guess it worked as an angle because it was a hot mess of a match.
Finally, we come to our main event. War Games. WCW vs. nWo. Buff Bagwell, Kevin Nash, Konnan & Syxx take on Chris Benoit, Ric Flair, Steve McMichael and allegedly Curt Hennig of the Horsemen. Hennig, you remember, was jumped by the soda machine earlier in the night. So the Horsemen enter with just three in what is a painfully predictable swerve here. It wouldn’t be such an egregious thing if they literally hadn’t done a version of the exact same angle in last year’s War Games. Benoit and Bagwell start us off and Bagwell takes a pounding for a few minutes, before just like every other War Games match, the heels win the coin toss and get the one man advantage. Hennig comes down to the ring in the middle of match, arm in a sling, enters last, takes off the sling, he’s got handcuffs and wallops the Horsemen. For the second straight year, WCW is dumb enough to get left down a guy in War Games. If you’ve never seen a War Games match, maybe go to a different year in the past. This was, it was a match. It was no where near the bloody, violent wars that the Horsemen had been in years before. But it also wasn’t really action-packed and pure fun like the recent WWE War Games matches have been. In a word that I’ll steal from another show that I do, this match was… inessential.
MUST SEE MATCHES:
WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Eddie Guerrero
Two of the best to ever do it squaring off shortly before either truly hit their stride. But that’s not a negative as they are both still great here. A match full of peaks and valleys, they took turns rolling through high spots and submissions. They stretched each other then went flying at each other. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a Gory special reversal like Jericho executed here as well. So many great near falls here and the finish was picture perfect, even if it looked like Eddie lawndarted head first into the mat. I feel like I’ve recommended almost every opening match on the WCW shows that I’ve covered, but that tells you how good the cruiserweight division was at this point.
WCW World Television Championship: Alex Wright (c) vs. Ultimo Dragon
I went back and forth on this one because for most of it I was thinking that it was similar to the open but had a few too many chinlocks and could have benefitted from being maybe 3-4 minutes shorter. But then they found a different gear in the last 5 minutes or so. Both guys got the chance to shine in a great match from a pair of guys who were a testament to the depth of the mid-card at the time.
FINAL GRADE: C
In what’s quickly becoming a theme with these WCW pay-per-views, they start out with some truly great matches and then get slower and more disappointing as we roll towards the main event. If you watch the first four matches of the night and give a pass on the last four, you’d be much happier than someone who paid for all eight.
If you want to see what we thought of the first four editions of Fall Brawl and the matches you should seek out from them, check them out here.
Finally, because I’m switching up how I do these reviews so that they are sometimes hopefully timely, I think we’ll talk about a War Games match worth finding. Next time up, we’ll head back to May 1992 and an incredible main event at WCW Wrestlewar.
The Finisher 