The Wrestling Doctor 11.04.08: Halloween Havoc (Part 2 of 2)

Hope you all in the States exercised your right to vote today. If not, there is still plenty of time, considering this column goes up mid-afternoon.

THIS WEEK’S PATIENT: Halloween Havoc: the Nitro Era

This week is part two of my look at the WCW franchise pay-per-view, Halloween Havoc. Last week I looked at the WCW Saturday Night era from 1989 to 1994. Today, we examine the Nitro era of 1995 to 2000. I will look at significant moments and matches from each show, but not every individual bout (do you really need to know about Alex Wright vs. Steve McMichael?)

Halloween Havoc 95: 29 Oct 1995 / Detroit, MI: The first Halloween Havoc after the debut of Nitro saw WCW struggling with putting together quality PPV’s while maintaining compelling, weekly television. Interestingly enough, the WWF would run into the same problem with PPV in 1998-1999 when Raw was on a hot streak.

The 1995 edition of Havoc was built around Hulk Hogan’s return to avenge a neck “injury” at the behemoth hands of The Giant (Paul Wight), who Kevin Sullivan had brought in under the gimmick of being Andre the Giant’s son. The Giant had injured Hogan after the War Games match at Fall Brawl. Hogan could not wrestle to sell the “injury” (i.e. he to fulfill film commitments) and The Giant was not ring ready, so the feud was largely built up on television through as series of White Castle of Fear-esque monster-truck skits. Prior to their actual wrestling match at Halloween Havoc, the two faced off in a pre-taped monster truck competition on the roof of the neighboring Cobo Hall. In the merciful end to a contest that was far more painful to watch than you can imagine, Hogan knocked The Giant’s truck off of the roof into the street (supposedly broadcast live). The Giant proved that what a badass he was by showing up 15 minutes later for their World Title match.

The match with Hogan was actually Wight’s first bout, and he performed remarkably well for someone debuting on the main event of a pay-per-view. I never thought that these two had much chemistry, but the match is not as awful as their Hog Wild encounter ten months later. The Giant won the match by disqualification and, because of a heelish turn of backstabbing contractual shenanigans by Hogan’s manager Jimmy Hart, the Giant was awarded the belt. He was stripped of it a couple of weeks later, giving meaning to the new World War 3 PPV.

The rest of the card was equally as muddled. Randy Savage and Lex Luger had been developing a fierce rivalry within their alliance with Hogan and Sting, but instead of a one-on-one pay-off match, they had to wrestle Kamala and Meng, respectively, before facing each other. The Ugandan Giant had walked by the night of the show, so the Zodiac filled in for a quick squash loss to Savage. Luger and Meng gave us a nice 15-minute bathroom break. The eventual Savage-Luger match was forgettable, as they would have much better contests over the next two months on Nitro.

The highlight of the show was the culmination of the Ric Flair-Arn Anderson feud. AA had aligned himself with Brian Pillman, and the two had made life miserable for Flair since Fall Brawl. Flair called out to Sting for aid, who was understandably hesitant but, because he was a gold-hearted face, eventually had to fold and join the Nature Boy. Flair appeared to be taken out before the Halloween Havoc match, so Sting had to go it alone for nearly 20 minutes against Anderson and Pillman until (take a guess!) an “injured” Flair stumbled to the ring in torn street clothes – and promptly proceeded to turn on Sting. The Four Horsemen were reborn for a journey that began as very promising but ended as two years of poor booking and burial at the hands of Hogan and his buddies. A great if not predictable swerve, though, which gave us the awesome and sadly brief Horsemen combo of Flair, Anderson, Pillman, and Chris Benoit.

Halloween Havoc 96: 27 October 1996 / Las Vegas, NV: This show was the first Halloween Havoc from the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the home of the last five shows. I believe this event was also the first Havoc sponsored by Slim Jim, which also became a staple of the Nitro-era October cards.

This show occurred as the nWo was riding roughshod over WCW, and the main event was a much-anticipated (yes, it really was) World Title showdown between Hollywood Hogan and Randy Savage. The Macho Man had been the nWo’s weekly punching bag throughout the fall – including the best moment of wrestling sponsor product placement when Kevin Nash literally whipped Savage with a Slim Jim. The match itself was not great, but the surprise return of Rowdy Roddy Piper to face down Hogan was a highlight of the year. The IWC was still infant enough that most viewers were legitimately surprised, and the Hogan-Piper rivalry had great energy leading into their first WCW match two months later at Starrcade.

The 1996 Halloween Havoc also saw Kevin Nash and Scott Hall captured their first WCW Tag Team Titles from Harlem Heat. The Outsiders were not yet as lazy as they would be in a year, and Harlem Heat could always work a good tag match. A much-improved Diamond Dallas Page got a hard-earned win over Eddie Guerrero, Syxx made his WCW PPV debut with a win over Chris Jericho, The Giant beat a newly-arrived Jeff Jarrett, and Lex Luger helped to end Arn Anderson’s career by exacerbating a neck injury in their grudge match.

The show-stealer was the opening bout (a WCW hallmark) for the Cruiserweight Title between Rey Mysterio Jr. and Dean Malenko. These two had been going at it since June, with Rey grabbing the belt on the Nitro following Bash at the Beach. For nearly 20 minutes they put on a clinic of what great cruiserweight wrestling could be; the bout is available on the most recent Mysterio DVD.

Halloween Havoc 97: 26 October 1997 / Las Vegas, NV: After this PPV, WCW declared the non-title main event between Hollywood Hogan – Rowdy Roddy Piper to be the greatest cage match of all time. Is it a wonder this company went down? Jim Cornette responded to that assertion on Raw with an entertaining rant comparing the Hogan-Piper snoozefest to the first Hell-in-a-Cell match which had occurred a few weeks earlier. You can see the Cornette rant on the Monday Night Wars DVD.

Halloween Havoc 97 shows why WCW eventually lost the Monday Night War, as the card is loaded with a re-hashing of the year instead of new feuds. We got a third PPV meeting between Hogan and Piper (and the second non-title) in ten months, as well as the third one-on-one match since April between DDP and the Macho Man (fifth if you count tag bouts). Hogan vs. DDP would have been a fresh and strong attraction, considering how over DDP was at the moment, and Savage-Chris Benoit had been teased but never developed. Benoit and new tag champs the Steiners were left off of the show, but we did get another airing of the Nitro-staple of Lex Luger vs. Scott Hall.

A highlight of Halloween Havoc 97 was the grudge match for the US Title between Ric Flair and Curt Hennig, as the former Mr. Perfect had turned on Flair and the Horsemen a month earlier at Fall Brawl I was amazed that this bout was left off of the recent Mr. Perfect DVD. Flair carries his ring psychology of wanting revenge well in this contest, eventually getting disqualified for placing the belt over Curt’s face and stomping the hell out of him. Good stuff.

Disco Inferno finally had his showdown with Jacquelyn Moore (18 months before Chyna started to wrestle men) but because Turner had a no violence against women policy, Inferno could not undertake any offense. How they pulled this one off is impressive considering the limitations, and shows some real ring smarts on the part of both participants.

The show opened much stronger than it closed, with Yuji Nagata beating the Ultimo Dragon and Chris Jericho going over Gedo. The show-stealer, once again, was the Cruiserweight Title match between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, with Rey’s mask on the line. Easily the WCW match-of-the-year, these two let it all loose before Rey captured the gold and saved his identity. You can pick this one up on the Rey DVD, as well.

Halloween Havoc 98: 25 October 1998 / Las Vegas, NV: Last week I mentioned that Halloween Havoc hosted two of the most embarrassing moments in WCW history. The first was The Chamber of Horrors match in 1991, and the second was the much-hyped Hulk Hogan-(Ulitmate) Warrior return match at the 1998 Halloween outing. The feud was built up through a series of magic tricks by The Warrior that made The Black Scorpion look like David Copperfield, and culminated with one of the dullest and poorest-worked efforts you will ever see. Hogan attempted to throw a fireball at Warrior during the bout but could not get it lit, and Tony Schiavone audibly laughs as Hollywood throws a wad of innocuous flash paper at his foe.

The main event World Title match between Goldberg and DDP was cut off by most cable companies, as the show had run over its time. WCW showed the bout in its entirety the following night on Nitro, enraging many fans who had plunked down $40 to end the night with a blue screen. What pushed the show over its time? Such PPV-quality gems as Saturn over Lodi, Alex Wright over Fit Finlay, and Wrath over Meng. Sting and Bret Hart had a respectable meeting, albeit for the US Title instead of the World gold, and Nash and Hall finally faced off one-on-one, but the show did not have any positive moments that stood out. WCW was in real trouble at this point – but maybe the following year would bring fresh life to the company…

Halloween Havoc 99: 24 October 1999 / Las Vegas, NV: If you were not watching at the time, I cannot begin to describe how high hopes were for this show. Bischoff was out, Vince Russo had just been brought in, and a solid card looked like WCW was ready for a revival. The plan was to have Hulk Hogan regain the WCW Title from a newly-heel Sting, then have his long-awaited showdown with Bret Hart the following month at Mayhem. Hart would certainly go over Lex Luger in his return to PPV, with Goldberg vs. Sid and Ric Flair vs. DDP as major attractions.

That is not at all what happened. Russo and Hogan either had a disagreement over direction or an agreement to give Hogan time off (depending on who is telling the story), so Hogan ended up doing on those silly “lay-downs” for Sting. Sting came out at the end of the show and threw down an open challenge, which was answered by Goldberg – who had beaten Sid for the US Title earlier. Instead of a full-blown affair, we received a three-minute Goldberg pinball match, with the title being held up the following night by WCW executive J.J. Dillon.

This angle was actually not bad as far as circumstantial booking goes – the Hogan angle only changed the week before, so WCW had to do something big to send their audience to bed happy. The rest of the show remains a mystery. Hart, who wound up winning the Word Title tournament, lost to Luger – by submission (Luger would lose to Meng a month later on the same show where Hart captured the WCW title). Rick Steiner regained the WCW TV Title from Chris Benoit when Dean Malenko turned on his Revolution teammate – but WCW clearly had no plans for Steiner, so why put him over instead of someone like…Malenko, for instance? Brian Knobbs and Hugh Morrus clogged up the tag team title pipeline, but did provide one of the few highlights of the night as a plastic mummy was involved in the finish of their thrice re-booked three-way bout with Harlem Heat and Billy Kidman & Konnan.

WCW could have gone into a great new direction with this Halloween Havoc, but instead they put on one of the most forgettable shows of the entire franchise. It was not terrible, but it certainly was not good – when it should have been the beginning of a significant new era for WCW.

Halloween Havoc 2000: 29 Oct 2000 / Las Vegas, NV: This show closed with Goldberg squashing Kronik in a 3.5 minute handicap elimination match. Would you pay for that main event? Not a lot of people in 2000 did, either, and they probably would not have complained if this Goldberg match had been cut off by their cable company. In the semi-main, Scott Steiner should have captured the WCW Title from Booker T, but instead the match ended in a disqualification in order to build up the next PPV. Reno wasted our time with AWOL, Buff Bagwell faced David Flair in a first blood match to extract DNA for the Torrie Wilson-paternity test angle, Ernest Miller and Mike Sanders were in a kickboxing match that ended in a count-out, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was back in the US Title scene with Lance Storm and Hugh Morrus General Rection (for all of those 7th grade fans out there).