Shining a Spotlight 7.12.07: War Games

The changes come late in the book. First the chapter of “Where are they now?” has been updated with notes on the likes of Douglas in TNA and more on Eddie Guerrero’s death. Notable is that the entry on RVD has been removed. Perhaps Williams realized that you can’t really say RVD is “the picture of wasted potential” when he ended up messing up his WWE title reign. Williams does continue his near-deification of Shane Doulgas with a bit on how Douglas admitted his painkiller addiction and “in a business built on lies and deceit…(Douglas) stands as an example to anyone willing to acknowledge (the truth.)” I get Williams is a Douglas fan and Douglas did the intro to the book but this goes a tad far.

The big addition of course is a new chapter detailing the revival of ECW in 2006. I’m not sure where Williams got all his information or its accuracy but it’s a great read of the battles between Heyman and Vince and the various ways they wanted this new ECW to go. Tellingly, Williams talks about Hardcore Holly being in the Elimination Chamber at “December to Dismember” but fails totally to mention how Holly won respect from ECW fans for fighting with that horrible gash in that RVD match. Not surprisingly, Vince comes off as a total scheming bastard who makes “Mr. McMahon” look like a saint, blasting Heyman on how Lashley should be leading the brand and telling him “you don’t like it, you can hit the door.” Still, the book remains a nice in-depth look at ECW despite its sometime bias and the paperback updates make it worth a look even if you have the hardback version.

Okay, had planned to do this two weeks ago but obviously things got in my way. So, a bit late but here we go:

There are times when I can feel old as a wrestling fan. When you realize how there’s a whole new generation who will never know what it’s like to have a dozen different major promotions around. That will never have the feel of competition amid the televisions stations for wrestling programming. That will just not understand the battle for control wrestling endured and how that brought about such exciting times.

It’s said competition forms inspiration and the wrestling world of the mid-1980’s to the late ‘90’s was proof of this. Vince McMahon has even said that he was so much stronger when he had the competitive fire building in him. He wasn’t the only one inspired either. In order to compete with Vince, other promotions, the ones more typically in the “classic” wrestling mentality, would try to strike back with their own specialty attractions. For the most part, they didn’t really work out (while cool looking, that whole “Tower of Doom” multi-cage match never really caught on). But one did, big time.

I’m a WWF man. I always have been, I make no apologies for it. Oh, I liked the classic NWA/WCW too but I just felt a better connection to Vince’s products. But I do acknowledge the old-school ways of the NWA and I do miss it. Of course, there were problems, like Dusty Rhodes booking things in a mess with himself at the center of so many storylines and “Dusty finishes” that annoyed fans and drove down the company’s bottom line.

But despite all the bad stuff people will say about Dusty, he must be credited with one of the greatest matches ever conceived in wrestling history. It’s a match so unique, it became a staple of NWA/WCW until they went under. A match so tied in with WCW that WWE has never even tried to do it.

War Games/The Match Beyond.

The title alone had people intrigued even before they learned what the match itself was. Once they did, they were really hooked. The match was the climax of the massive feud going on between the Four Horsemen and the alliance of Dusty, Nikita Kolloff and the Road Warriors. I recall watching in excitement a weekend TV show that promised a big eight-man tag match between the two groups. Of course, in a sadly typical move of the time, after talking about it for the whole hour, the telecast ended just as the match was about to start. But this was going to be different: Not just all eight of those men but also managers JJ Dillion and Paul Ellering. This was something fans just hadn’t seen before and thus there was huge anticipation for it.

It was going to be the centerpiece of the 1987 Great American Bash. Now, the GAB was a lot different then. Instead of one big PPV event, the Bash was a series of cards spread out throughout the summer, mostly in the top areas of interest for Crockett. The matches would be taped with a big collection video coming out in the fall for fans. It was an interesting way to spread out storylines and action throughout the days normally slow for wrestling.

July 4, 1987 was the day of the first War Games, held at the Atlanta Omni. Fans who entered the building were immediately struck by the odd sight of two rings set side by side. The rest of the matches of the card were carried out in just one ring (with the occasional unique sight of a guy thrown over the ropes of one ring and into another). Finally, a cage was set around both rings, covering them completely up to the apron. A door was set up on each opposite end of the cage and a roof was enclosed as well. This wasn’t like the roofs of a Hell in the Cell match that are about ten feet over the ring; the caged ceiling was only a few feet over the top turnbuckle of the ringposts, making the whole thing look much tighter than a regular cage match.

The sight of all ten men around the caged ring was something to see as they waited for the match to start. The War Games itself would begin with two men (in this case Arn Anderson and Dusty Rhodes) entering the cage to do battle. For five minutes, they brawled it out, at which point a coin was flipped. The idea was that the team that won the coin toss would be able to send a man in. This would cause a two-on-one advantage until the end of two minutes, at which point a member of the opposite team would enter. This would continue, the winning team always having one extra man, until all ten had entered. Of course, it should be noted that in every single War Games match, the heel team always won the coin toss.

Tully Blanchard was the first man to come in after that coin flip, teaming with Anderson to pound away on Dusty. Animal got in next and quickly showed the brutality of the cage by slingshotting Tully into it three times in a row. Ric Flair was next, attacking Animal, and busting him open which actually played into a storyline as Animal was going to challenge Flair for the NWA title later in the tour. Nikita Kolloff was next, laying waste to the Horsemen, including being slingshot into a corner by Blanchard and Anderson and coming out roaring with a double clothesline to nail both men. Lex Luger was next, going right after Nikita, the US champion that Luger was going to challenge soon. Flair nailed Nikita with a sick low blow, then helped Tully give Nikita two spiked piledrivers. Hawk was next to help his team out and then JJ Dillion entered. Dillion, of course, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the match and was clearly not in shape for it, hanging in the background while the insanity unfolded.

By this point, everyone was a bloody mess and the action was almost impossible to call. The shortness of the cage’s height was made clear by men actually grabbing onto it to kick out at opponents and a few guys getting an atomic drop that caused their heads to bounce into the roof. Finally, Paul Ellering entered and “The Match Beyond” part started. See, the entire point of the previous twenty-some minutes was that, no matter how brutal and bloody it got, there was no chance to win. No pinfalls, no submissions, no DQ, nothing until all ten men had entered the cage, which meant each side could brutalize the other as much as they wanted with no one stopping them. In that one brilliant rule twist, the War Games became a match that was meant to solve massive feuds and do so in a violence you just didn’t see in pre-ECW wrestling.

Ellering had been a wrestler once but was mostly a manager now so, like Dillion, he wasn’t in the best of shape. Unlike Dillion, however, Ellering had brought in an edge in the form of a spike from the Warriors’ shoulder pads. Ellering attacked Dillion with it, giving the man his first-ever blade job and it was a gory one. Ellering then turned it over to his charges and Animal and Hawk tossed Dillion head-first into the cage, beating him onto the mat until Dillion was forced to yell out his submission to the referees outside. Thus, the faces were victorious, receiving cheers from the fans astounded at the 26 minutes of wild action they’d just seen.

The effects afterward were big as each man would come onto the weekly TV shows bearing bandages and other marks of their ordeal. Nikita would wear a neck brace for several weeks and, only a week later, Luger would take advantage of his injured neck to win the US title in a regular cage match. Probably most affected was Dillion as he legitimately tore his shoulder out in the match and had to wear a genuine sling for a few months and, as he relates on the Four Horsemen DVD, the injury still nags him today. Fans were naturally clamoring for a rematch and, recognizing gold, the NWA struck while the iron was hot. So, on July 31st, in the Orange Bowl in Miami, the second War Games w as held. With Dillion still injured, the Horsemen turned to a mysterious masked figure known only as the War Machine (in truth, Ray Traylor, who had been working with the Horsemen as Big Bubba Rogers). His presence didn’t change much. In fact, almost nothing was changed; the match was a mirror of the earlier one from the order of entry to Ellering using the spike on War Machine to get him to quit. But the crowd was still hot for it and it still seemed a great way to settle feuds so it was rather surprising that the NWA decided to hold off on doing another one for an entire year.

The 1988 Bash took place at a time when Crockett was starting his downward slide and Dusty’s booking was causing some of the troubles. Rhodes and Crockett were hot for Lex Luger to beat Flair for the World title but Flair didn’t think Luger was ready and refused to drop the belt. This led to several backstage battles and far too many bait-and-switch matches with Flair retaining the belt. In late July, another War Games was held at one of the Bash cards in the Carolinas. Barry Windham had joined the Horsemen at this point so it would be the five of them against Dusty, Luger, Paul Ellering, Nikita and Steve “Dr. Death” Williams. Again, it was Dusty and Arn starting it off and it should be pointed out that on the Horsemen DVD, Dusty really puts Arn over as helpful in making sure the War Games got off to a great start. This is the match that’s on the DVD, notable for the bit where Windham actually gets his head stuck in between the two rings. Williams pretty much filled the role of Animal in this bout with power moves and great strength. A new bit was Blanchard bringing a chair into the ring with him to smash Dusty with. Once again, it was Dillion who submitted, this time to a figure-four as he’d pretty much let everyone know not to do the shoulder again. Once again, it was a hot match but the NWA decided to pretty much keep it going only once a year or so.

I think this attitude really helped. I mean, Hell in a Cell was awesome the first few times but having it two or three times a year took away from its special impact a bit. The reason why things like King of the Mountain or Money in the Bank get so much attention is that they only happen once a year at big shows and so War Games helped retain its uniqueness by being used not as much. The 1989 Bash hardly needed the help of War Games to be special. After all, many claim this as one of the best PPVs of all time. But the War Games did help, notable as the first one not involving the Horsemen. Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin, then the arrogant World tag team champions, were teamed with the Samoan Swat Team and Hayes’ old Freebird partner Terry Gordy. Against them was the team of the Road Warriors, Steve Williams and the Midnight Express. Garvin and Bobby Eaton were the first ones in and once again the heels won the toss with Gordy the next one. Williams evened the odds, he and Gordy pounding on each other, rather ironic considering the terrific team the two would make three years later. Samu was next then Animal, doing his usual “run in and beat the crap out of everyone” routine. A great bit was that every time it was the heel team’s turn to send someone in, the SST’s manager, Paul E. Dangerously, would tell the cameras that Hayes was next. Yet each time someone else went in while Heyman said Hayes would be the next one. So when it finally was Hayes’ turn, he did a hysterical “there’s no one else? Damn,” reaction before going in. He did do a great job, hitting DDTs on everyone and his trademark strut but then Hawk evened the odds with clotheslines for all. The Warriors tried the Doomsday Device on Gordy with Garvin breaking it up only to get hit with a clothesline, a pair of neckbreakers and forced to tap out to a choke hold. The heels did get some retribution by waiting until the other faces were leaving, then grabbing Animal and beating him down.

It would be two years until the next War Games match up, at the rather apro WrestleWar 91. It would change things to a four-on-four encounter with the Four Horsemen (Flair, Anderson, Windham and Sid Vicious) taking on Sting, Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers. However, Anderson was injured and had to be replaced by Larry Zybsko. The Horsemen had been tearing it up for a while, including an attack on Pillman on TBS Saturday Night show the day before the card so Windham came out with bandages all over his left shoulder and side. Pillman broke away from his teammates to enter first, the others protesting, obviously wanting him to hold back due to his injuries. It was too late as the cage doors were shut and the match was on with Pillman taking it to Windham, grabbing onto the cage roof to hit him with dropkicks and a rana. Pillman may be known for his technical and flying abilities but he was also a great brawler, raking Windham’s face across the cage to bloody him up. Flair was next inside and they brutalized Pillman before Sting came in with his usual high energy. Rather than be a carbon copy of earlier War Games bouts, this one had some really unique moves like Sting pressing Flair over his head and into the roof of the cage and all four faces giving the Horsemen figure-four leglocks. However, the ending is what people remember the most as Sid grabbed Pillman for his typical power bomb finisher. However, Sid, whose head practically touched the roof of the cage as it was, misjudged how that roof would interfere with the move. Thus, Sid ended up driving Pillman down right onto his neck, bending it to the point where one’s shocked Pillman’s neck didn’t just snap then and there. Incredible as that was, it got worse as Sid picked Pillman up, this time taking the time to prop him up right before power-bombing him again. Pillman was legitimately knocked out cold and his partner, El Gigante, had to come down to the ring, enter the cage (stupid as the whole point of War Games was to keep people out) and get the refs to stop the match. Whether this was the plan or not is unknown but for the first time ever, the heels won War Games and Pillman suffered a serious injury. If you want to know why people rank on Sid so much, here’s a great reason.

The next year’s Wrestle War would bring back War Games, this time as the culmination of a feud that had rocked WCW. For the entire year, Paul E. Dangersouly’s Dangerous Alliance dominated the promotion with Rick Rude holding the US title, Steve Austin the TV title, Arn Anderson and Larry Zybsko having a reign as tag team champions and Bobby Eaton also enjoying a tag reign. All of them had feuds with pretty much every babyface in the company from Sting to Ricky Steamboat and thus the War Games was meant to settle it all. Sting, then the World champion, would be teaming with Nikita, tag team champions Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes and the newly face Windham, who had beating Aus tin for the TV title. For once, Anderson was not the first man in the cage, letting Austin go against Windham and we kicked off with a nice bit of continuity as Austin grabbed the top of the cage to dropkick Windham but Windham moved out of the way to let Austin flop on the mat. Rude was the first man in for his team, attacking Windham while a bloodied Austin lay in the corner. Steamboat was next, his usual high-flying style hampered a bit by the cage but still using his great fighting skills. Arn helped his team get the upper hand until Dustin evened the odds. Another nice continuity bit was Windham getting Arn’s head stuck between the rings so he could attack him. As Zybsko came in for the Alliance, Medusa climbed up the cage and onto the roof to drop Paul E’s cell phone (which, like most portable phones of the time, was about the size of a small brick and thus the perfect foreign object) into the ring. Sting chased her down but Anderson used the phone to nail every member of Sting’s Squadron. Sting entered to use his usual War Games strategy, pressing Rude over his head and into the cage roof. Eaton was next, attacking Sting to give Rude the chance to loose the top rope, removing a ring hook. Nikita came in, which was interesting as he and Sting had been feuding but both hated the Alliance for interfering in their matches and were willing to put their own differences aside to put the hurt on them. After more battling, the top rope finally broke apart and the hook was fair game to use as a weapon. Zybsko tried to hit Sting with it but missed, hitting Eaton’s long-battered shoulder, allowing Sting to get him in an arm drag and win the match. Afterward, the five heels argued and blamed each other for the loss, Dangerously trying to play peacemaker but the War Games pretty much spelled the beginning of the end of the Alliance.

In 1993, WCW decided to relocate War Games to Fall Brawl, a nice way to pay off on feuds during the year. However, the first attempt didn’t really work out. Sting and Davey Boy Smith had both been feuding with Vader and Sid so using them for the match was good. Vader and Sid were teamed with Harlem Heat, not quite the mega-hot team they would soon be (indeed, instead of Stevie Ray and Booker T, they were still called Kane and Kole). For their part, the faces recruited US champ Dustin Rhodes and then…

Oh, boy, how to explain this.

At a Clash of the Champions card in August, Sting and Davey Boy were guests on Ric Flair’s “A Flare for the Gold” segment when the heels entered to demand to know who their partner was. Promising a big surprise, Sting announced that their partner for the War Games would be…the Shockmaster! No one had the slightest idea who that was so WCW helpfully had a big explosion come off camera and a guy burst through the wall dressed in jeans, an open-chested robe and a helmet that, on closer inspection, was a Stormtrooper helmet with silver foil on it. What happened next has become wrestling legend, noted in everything from Wrestlecrap to WWE’s own magazine: After bursting through the wall, the Shockmaster tripped and fell, his helmet flying off to reveal him to be Fred Ottoman, Dusty Rhodes’ brother-in-l aw who had last been seen as Tugboat/Typhoon in WWF. Ottoman got to his feet quickly, putting on the helmet in time for Ole Anderson (backstage and thus not seeing the debacle) to speak through a voicebox to threaten the heels. Instead of quaking in their boots, Sid, Vader and the Heat were fighting to keep from bursting out laughing. The fans put up no such struggle and even commentator Jesse Ventura couldn’t help breaking up during his calling of the action. Believe it or not, they actually thought Shockmaster would be a good fit against Vader later in the year but any potential for the gimmick was destroyed in three seconds flat which, even for WCW, was a record.

Needless to say, that led to roughly no interest in fans for the War Games itself. Vader started off with Dustin, who did a good job against the monster before Kane came in. Sting was next as he and Vader continued their feud before Sid came in to attack his old foe. It seemed that this War Games was less intense than ones before it, the participants aware of the dangers and not seeming willing to go in for the danger. Dustin did do a good blade job while the Bulldog nailed all the heels. Kole came in to help the Heat beat down everyone but then the Shockmaster was last and, with absolutely no build-up, clamped a bearhug on Kole, who submitted almost immediately. Needless to say, fans were not at all happy with this sudden conclusion and any chance Ottoman had in the company was pretty much dead right there. In one go, War Games had gone from the coolest match around to a mess.

The 1994 version wasn’t much better. Fall Brawl ’94 can be seen as one of the biggest turning points for WCW…and not in a good way. First off, neither World champion Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair were on the card at all. Also, the first signs of the Hogan backlash by the WCW faithful were starting to show as chants of “we want Flair” echoed and Hogan would be booed when appearing in an interview. As for the matches, Cactus Jack lost a loser-leave-town match to Kevin Sullivan, forcing Mick Foley out of the company. Even worse was the planned rematch between Steve Austin and Ricky Steamboat for the US title as Steamboat came out in street clothes, explaining he’d been injured winning the title from Austin the month before (and, in fact, would be forced to retire from it) and had to surrender the belt. However, Austin was ordered to defend it against Hacksaw Jim Duggan and, in what has to rank as the lowest point of his career, Dugan beat Austin for the belt in 30 seconds, cutting a promo in which he bad-mouthed Flair and got booed by the fans for it. Also, Sting, the man fans really wanted to see on top, was forced to fight a strange three-way tournament with Vader and Ray Traylor (then going by the Guardian Angel).

As for the War Games, Dustin Rhodes had been feuding with Arn Anderson, Terry Funk and Bunkhouse Bunk, all managed by Colonel Robert Parker. This was a mid-card feud that didn’t have that much heat going for it with the Hogan-Flair battles dominating and so using a War Games to settle it was a stretch. There had been a nice emotional bit on TV where Dusty tearfully offered to team with his son, who accepted. But in another of those stupid vignettes WCW just couldn’t really pull off, Dusty recruited the Nasty Boys who had turned face over the year to help out. The fourth man was going to be the massive Meng but, to try and add some heat to the match, WCW decided to put Parker in his place. Parker protested that he had no wrestling experience, which was utterly laughable considering his 20 years wrestling as Robert Fuller. Arn and Dustin kicked it off, with Arn using his experience well until Bunk entered and they got Dustin in a nice half-crab nelson. Sags joined and it was quickly clear that the utter lack of hatred between the participants took away from the action a War Games usually provided. So it was a good thing when Funk entered with his usual wild man style, bringing a boot into the ring with him. However, in a sign of how ultra-clean WCW was at the time, no one was being busted open despite the boots and being rammed into the cage numerous times. Honestly, the whole point of a War Games was its violence but this bout made WWF at the time look like ECW. Parker was last for his team, in street clothes, whipping people with his belt. Naturally, Dusty was the last one in, smashing everyone with elbows and brutalizing Parker while Meng shook the cage from outside. Parker would submit to a figure four from Dusty, ending the least wild match in War Games history. It was soon clear that only the big feuds could be used for this matchup.

By 1995, WCW had been transformed into a carbon copy of 1980’s WWF with Hogan dominating as champion with so many of his old running buddies around. Hogan had been in a feud with Kevin Sullivan’s wild Dungeon of Doom so a War Games match seemed a way to solve it. It was going to be Shark (the late John Teneta, formerly known as Earthquake), The Zodiac (Ed “Brutus Beefcake” Leslie), Kamala and Meng. Originally, Hogan was going to team with Randy Savage, Sting and, in a surprise move, Vader. They even did a nutty video of them acting like a commando unit setting up explosives at the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at the Disney-MGM Studios. I can’t believe I just wrote that. But Vader and Paul Orndorff had their backstage dust-up that led to Vader getting the boot from the company. Lex Luger, who had shocked everyone by showing up at the first Nitro offered his services and despite their distrust of him, the faces agreed. Adding to the match was the stipulation that if Hogan’s team won, Hogan would get five minutes alone in the cage with Kevin Sullivan.

The Hulkamaniacs all came out in face paint, Sting kicking off things with Shark. Despite the mismatch, Sting held his own until Zodiac won the coin toss to enter. Savage was next to battle Zodiac but, in an actually smart bit, his leg got caught outside the cage, allowing Sullivan to pound on it. Kamala was next as the violence was still more toned down than your average War Games. In another nice bit, Luger and Savage soon began arguing and coming to blows, allowing Meng to lay out the faces. Of course, when Hogan entered, they begged off like the Chinese army had come in and Hogan lay waste to all. Attacking former friend Zodiac, Hogan made him submit to the worst chinlock I’ve ever seen. Hogan got his five minutes with Sullivan but before it could start, out came Paul Wight, going by the “son of Andre” to attack Hogan and choke him out, setting up their horrific Halloween Havoc matchup.

By the next year, things had changed massively for WCW with the New World Order dominating and new members joining all the time. So of course, a War Games seemed perfect for a WCW-NWO battle. It was going to be the Four Horsemen going against them but Sting and Luger quickly offered to replace Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael, promising a huge battle. But one week before the show, Sting appeared to come out of a limo to attack Luger and everyone freaked about him joining the NWO. During a promo before the match, Sting came up to his teammates, telling them it wasn’t him but they weren’t going to listen (exactly why Sting waited a week to try and explain this was unknown). Once again, Arn Anderson kicked things off, battling Scott Hall and seeing Arn being the one cheered in a War Games was quite bizarre to say the least. Not surprisingly, the NWO won the coin toss and Kevin Nash helped his partner out. Luger was next to help Arn out and both men double-teamed Hogan when he entered. This was a great psychology bit as Arn and Luger had more experience in War Games than anyone and were thus able to use it as an advantage. Flair was next to low-blow anyone who moved and get the crowd riled up. Then came Sting. Of course, just as with the infamous Halloween Havoc ’90 debacle, it was obvious to everyone but the announcers that this was not the real Sting as he attacked the faces. Just as the announcers were freaking out over who could help WCW now, the real Sting rushed out to pummel the entire NWO to the delight of the fans. After laying everyone out, Sting turned to Luger, yelled “you happy now?” and walked out of the cage. This was totally unheard of for the fans, to see their hero redeemed only to choose not to help those who didn’t have faith in him. Luger tried to call him back only to be attacked by the imposter Sting and put in a Scorpion Deathlock. Luger held on for a while but eventually submitted, giving a rare heel team victory to War Games. Sting would soon change from the classic blond hair and Sgt Pepper coats to “The Crow” look. More importantly, this would signal the beginning of the “NWO always wins” attitude that would lead to the downfall of WCW.

That should have been proven by the fact that as Fall Brawl ’97 came up, the NWO was still in power and another War Games was ready. The setup was that, due to various neck injuries, Arn Anderson was forced to retire. In an emotional moment, he thanked the fans for all their support over the years and offered his spot to Curt Henning, who accepted. The next week, the NWO made fun of it with Kevin Nash mocking Arn, even suggesting he had a drinking problem. It was a crass and classless bit all around and Bischoff has actually apologized for it. Worse, the plan for the Horsemen to come in and break it up was nixed by Nash, not wanting to seem weak. The Horsemen were infuriated, both in real life and behind the scenes so a War Games against Nash, Syxx, Konnan and Buff Bagwell was set. Earlier in the show, the NWO attacked Henning, injuring his arm and making his chances doubtful. Still, Henning came out in a sling, which made some fans suspicious. But then, this was the Horsemen’s chance for revenge, it was in Horsemen country and Henning was such a great fit that surely WCW wouldn’t do something this stupid, would they?

It was odd and even a bit sad to see a Horsemen War Games without Arn taking part. Instead, Benoit and Bagwell started it off. This was about as much a mismatch as you can imagine until Benoit missed a flying headbutt. That led Konnan help Bagwell beat him down until McMichael entered. The War Games was the perfect setting for the brawling former football player who sent Konnan and Bagwell flying into the cage with tackles. Syxx came in to help but Benoit quickly put him in his place. Flair was next and rather than his usual low blows, settled for chops for everyone. You got the sense in this match that the heat was truly genuine between these two groups, with the Horsemen representing the classic WCW while the NWO just looked out for themselves. Nash was last for his team, using his size to dominate everyone. Finally, Henning entered…and promptly attacked Flair, tearing off his sling to reveal he was perfectly fine and helped the NWO beat down the Horsemen. This was one of the biggest missteps of WCW at that time as Henning had been such a perfect fit for the Horsemen and fans wanted to see them win rather than yet another NWO beatdown. Henning would place Flair’s head in the cage doorway, threatening to slam the door unless Mongo quit…then did it anyway just to be a jerk. While the fans gave it true heel heat, it was less the heels themselves and more the stupidity of seeing WCW’s most elite group being beaten down just to keep Nash and Bischoff happy. They’d be even less happy if they had known this would be the last traditional War Games match.

In 1998, the War Games was host to a match of rather…confusing origins. Despite the fact that fans were pretty sick of the NWO by this point, WCW was still shoving it down their throats, splitting it up into Hollywood and the Wolfpac. This gave the idea you had to be in one of the two groups to get a push, an idea that was shattered when Goldberg exploded onto the scene and went to the top on his own. In the middle of all this, WCW hired the Ultimate Warrior who went about playing mindgames with Hogan like appearing in a mirror, a move that Hogan and the audience could see but for some reason Eric Bischoff couldn’t. So it was decided that the War Games format would be used but without the typical set-up. Instead, there would be three teams: Hollywood (Hogan, Stevie Ray, Bret Hart), Wolfpac (Nash, Sting, Luger) and WCW (Roddy Piper, Diamond Dallas Page and the Warrior). DDP started off by battling Bret and after about five minutes (not exactly because that would be too simple) Stevie Ray came in to attack DDP. Sting was next, helping DDP despite Page’s refusal to join the Wolfpac before. Piper came in to nail everyone with eye pokes, followed by Luger and then Nash and at this point, things were just a massive mess with no real division of sides and impossible to tell who was winning. Hogan was last, using a slapjack to knock everyone out at which point, smoke poured into the ring and when it faded everyone was flat on the ring except Hogan and the newly appeared Warrior. Warrior had popped up from a hidden trapdoor in the ring which WCW had failed to tell any of the workers about, as proven when Davey Boy Smith took a backdrop that sent him right through the trapdoor earlier in the s how. Smith was laid up with massive back pain, developing the painkiller addiction that would follow him to his death. Hogan exited the ring (stupid as the whole point was to make sure no one could get out) and despite having teleported inside before, the Warrior was now locked in, eventually kicking the door open to chase Hogan. During their aisle brawl, despite his utter lack of athletic ability shown, the Warrior managed to twist his ankle and tear his bicep. Back in the ring, DDP nailed Stevie Ray with a Diamond Cutter and, in a War Games first, pinned him as the fans booed loudly and Tony Schivanoe boasted “What an event!”

And people wonder how WCW fell apart so fast.

As if realizing how horrible they had botched their trademark match, WCW did not hold a War Games at Fall Brawl ’99. In September of 2000, on a Nitro called “Russo’s Revenge,” a version was held in the three-tiered cage made famous by the movie Ready to Rumble. It was Nash, Jeff Jarett, Scott Steiner and the Harris Brothers versus Sting, Booker T, Goldberg and Kronik and would be for the WCW World title to boot. It started with Sting and Jarrett fighting in the lower cage. Once again, the heels won the toss with Scott Steiner entering to attack. Due to a strange pre-match stipulation, both members of Kronik were allowed to enter together, giving the faces a three-on-two advantage for the first time ever. The second level cage had a variety of weapons with Steiner grabbing bolt cutters to attack his opponents. Russ o came in dressed in full-scale hockey gear and with the Harris twins backing him up thanks to another nutty stipulation. The two tag teams battled with Steiner and Sting fought. Nash soon entered but made it clear to his teammates no one else was to go after the belt. The Harris Brothers and Kronik left the cage (honestly, did WCW completely forget the point of a cage match was no one could enter or leave?!), fighting through the crowd and weren’t seen again. Booker T entered to nail Russo before battling Steiner. Goldberg was last but quickly handcuffed to the cage and Nash hung by the door, knowing whoever got the belt from the top would have to come back down and into his hands. After much brawling, Booker managed to get the belt but with Sting handcuffed in the second cage, had to fight all the other guys to get out. Russo then hit him and grabbed the belt but Ernest Miller grabbed the belt before being power-bombed by Nash. Goldberg broke his cuffs to maul everyone in sight. Grabbing the belt, Goldberg was about to leave when Bret Hart came out of nowhere to slam the cage door in his face. Russo got the belt but Nash gave him a hug, took it and left to retain his title. It was a surprisingly good mix of drama and action but would turn out to be the last type of match used by WCW as they went out of business a few months later.

While WWE would bring out stuff like the Elimination Chamber, they’ve never gotten around to doing a War Games-like matchup. TNA, however, decided to do try it out, first in a 2003 weekly PPV. When “Lockdown” was announced, Dusty Rhodes, still booking TNA at the time, came up with the “Lethal Lockdown” matchup that would mix parts of War Games with the old Bunkhouse Stampede matches. Originally, it was going to be Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page and Sean Waltman against Jeff Jarrett, Monty Brown and The Outlaw (now known as Kip James). However, Nash suffered a staph infection on his leg (TNA, knowing Nash’s record of faking injuries, actually led the PPV off by having Nash show the infection on camera to let the fans know it was real) so a special “mystery partner” would be put in. All the combatants arrived in street clothes and were able to use weapons, a wild match as BG James was the replacement for Nash, kicking off the long tease of a New Age Outlaws reunion. A difference would be that, instead of both teams outside the ring throughout the match, they’d come in from the back to better tease the mystery of who was next. Throughout the show, Dusty would draw names out of a hat to announce who went in what order and it kicked off with Waltman taking on Jarrett, brawling in the crowd before even getting in the cage, Jarrett wearing his title belt the whole time. The Outlaw was next with some cage slams and the use of a cookie sheet, of all things, as a weapon. Page was next, taking his time to pose at the entranceway while his teammate got his ass kicked, not exactly great babyface behavior. He did bring a kendo stick to nail the heels, following it with clotheslines and punches before the Outlaw came out of nowhere to hit him with a low blow. Monty was next with a baseball bat that was really never used as the battles went back and forth. The last man was BG James who went wild, hitting everyone, even the cameraman and ref but paused when he came to Outlaw. Monty recovered to hit a Pounce on Waltman and Page, Page recovering to hit a Diamond Cutter on Jarrett but he and BG got a Double Pounce from Brown. He and Waltman tried for a power bomb reversal but Waltman messed up so they had to do it again with Waltman pinning Brown for the win. As you can tell, it was something of a mess and it’s probably best that they didn’t have this as the main event of the show but rather a terrific AJ/Abyss battle.

The next year, Sting would actually call the main event a “War Games” with the addition of a roof for the cage and various weapons placed inside it. Sting’s team (Sting, AJ Styles, Ron Killings and Rhino) took on Jeff Jarrett, America’s Most Wanted and Scott Steiner. Chris Harris and Styles kicked it off with 5 wild minutes of action then, just like old times, the heels won the coin toss so James Storm raced in to aid his partner. Rhino was in to even it up but after missing a Gore, was beat down by AMW. Jarrett was next but Rhino left the cage to attack him on the ramp and was joined by Styles, once again, weakening the whole point of the cage. Killings came in to help set up a big Tower of Doom that sent AJ at the top flying. Steiner was next to hit belly-to-belly suplexes on everyone. Sting entered to hit Stinger splashes on everyone, then made a big deal of the cage roof being lowered, with fireworks shooting out from it which was a bit over the top. The highlight, of course, would be AJ and Storm on the roof of the cage, setting up a table with AJ bringing an obvious but still good “holy shit!” moment by hanging from the lighting rig to splash Storm through the table. The ending would be a mix of finishers: Jarrett getting the Stroke on Killings, Rhino Goring Jarrett, Steiner Recliner on Rhino, Sting getting the Scorpion Drop on Steiner. Harris would nail Sting with brass knuckles and put him in the Scorpion Deathlock but Sting would reverse, forcing Harris to tap and ending a wild match with AJ and Storm still dead on the roof. So, yeah, crazy overbooking but the best War Games match in years.

Naturally, Lethal Lockdown was again the main event for the most recent Lockdown PPV from St. Louis as Christian Cage, Tomko, Scott Steiner, Styles and Abyss took on Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Sting, Rhino and surprise member Jarrett with Harley Race as a guest enforcer. There was also the added bonus that the person who got the winning fall would earn a title shot against NWA Champion Cage, which had paranoia and distrust on both teams. AJ and Angle kicked it off and once again, that TNA didn’t save their first ever one-on-one meeting for a PPV is still a shocking blowing of a big payday. As it was, we got five minutes of great action before Abyss entered, another big showdown blown away. Rhino was next to brawl with Abyss before Tomko came out to bring a stiff style into what had been a pretty fast-paced match. Joe came out to smash Tomko down and Angle followed that up with five German suplexes. Steiner was next and shocked everybody (especially me) by actually pulling off a Frankenstiner from the top rope on Rhino. Sting was next, leading to what I suspect will become a LL tradition, a Tower of Doom suplex with Joe and AJ taking the burnt of it. Sting put the deathlock on Steiner but with a few guys still out, it didn’t count. Christian was next, taking his time to get there and taking it to Sting who basically no-sold and attacked right back. Jarrett was last, causing the cage roof to be lowered and reveal a new variety of weapons like nightsticks, trash can lids and even a steel pipe that Abyss killed Steiner with. James Mitchell tried to hand Abyss some bags of tacks but was laid out by Race. Sadly, yet again, the point of the cage was forgotten as Rhino hit Tomko with a Gore that sent them both out and Steiner soon joined them brawling outside. Sting and Jarrett would double-chokeslam Christian onto the tacks but moments later Jarrett would get a Black Hole slam into them. Meanwhile, up top, Angle threw AJ off the roof of the cage and onto his teammates at ringside. Abyss showed some out-of-the-box thinking by filling Jarrett’s guitar with the tacks but was attacked by Sting. Jarrett picked up the guitar, giving the hint he might attack Sting (as most everyone expected) but instead smashed Abyss, sending tacks flying and letting Sting pin Abyss. That was a great wild brawl with the added tension of the title shot but still seemed a bit over the top for a classic War Games.

It does seem regrettable that a match so cool could end up so overbooked. But War Games still has an amazing legacy as it was one of the first matches that could work multiple rivalries in one major climax. It set the stage for the likes of Hell in a Cell and other “gimmick” bouts created to bring major feuds to a head. Plus it was just a damn cool match, eight or ten guys in a huge cage battling it out, truly bringing wrestling to the old gladiator games roots. Twenty years and it remains a match that still gets major props from fans and for good reason. We may not see it in its classic form anymore but the memories of the Match Beyond still remind you of how awesome wrestling can be.

Well, Pillman talk has mostly fizzled out so also on 411mania:

Just S’Pose has an intriguing take on Ric Flair as both NWA and WWF champion.

Truth B Told looks at characters in wrestling.

You’re an Idiot and Here’s Why puts the quite correct focus on the media.

That Was Then focuses on an old fave of mine, Scott Hall.

Ripple Effect does focus on the impact of Benoit’s loss for the WWE roster.

Why I Love Wrestling looks at Indies.

The Fink books HHH’s return.

Julian counts down the 10 greatest acquisitions.

The Shimmy takes a look back at the best matches of 1999.

Schmoozes and Screwjobs looks back at the Invasion.

Evolution Schematic tackles Gene Okerlund.

Next week I do a review of a new book on heels and their status today. For now, the spotlight is off.