WCW Halloween Havoc 97'
Las Vegas, Nevada - October 1997
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan holds the WCW World Championship coming into tonight's show, the United States Champion is Curt Hennig, the Disco Inferno is the Television Champion, and Eddie Guerrero holds the Cruiserweight Championship. At this point, the Steiner Brothers were recognized as the WCW World Tag Team Champions, having defeated the Outsiders on an episode of Monday Nitro earlier that month.
COMMENTARY: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Dusty Rhodes, with Mike Tenay
In a nice touch of continuity, Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the show and reminds the fans that it was in this very arena, on this very pay-per-view a year prior, when Roddy Piper made his WCW debut to confront "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan. A year later, they will square off for the third time in 12 months, this time in a cage.
Opening things up we get Yugi Nagata, with Sonny Onoo, taking on The Ultimo Dragon. Nagata is impressive here, using his size and strength advantage to slow down Dragon and control the tempo. Compared to 96', when Ultimo was working as the ultra-innovative heel, the Master of the Asai Moonsault has been on a roll fighting from underneath, ably getting his signature offense in as counters and "hope spots" without "spamming" the match with choreography and set-ups the way he seemed to as a villain. Very solid opener that, despite featuring two international talents, gets rowdy reactions from the crowd. (2.5/5)
Chris Jericho vs. Gedo is next, Gedo making his WCW debut here. Highly physical match with Dusty and Heenan praising Gedo for his toughness and Tenay doing a great job on commentary to detail their history, there is at least one nasty botch (Jericho bizarrely attempts a top-rope Frankensteiner and nearly breaks his own neck doing so) but the rest of the match is interesting enough to maintain the crowd's attention. Imperfect but interesting. (2.5/5)
Backstage, Debra McMichael and Mongo McMichael get into an argument. What's noteworthy here is that, by this point, Jeff Jarrett (who Debra had been managing) had hightailed it back to WWE, eventually leading a stable of NWA old-timers with Jim Cornette and, if I recall correctly, the Rock n' Roll Express.
The Cruiserweight Championship is on the line next - Eddie Guerrero defending against Rey Mysterio Jr. Over the years this match has taken on mythic status and deservedly so - this might be one of the most perfect matches ever performed, every spot executed with quickness and accuracy. Every move you think you've seen before is performed here with a fresh twist, moonsaults turning into corkscrews, planchas turning into hurricanranas, vicious powerbombs into seemingly-unkickoutable pinfalls. Eddie's reversals are as awe-inspiring as Mysterio's, each guy pushing themselves to new levels of creativity and the audience gasping and cheering in equal measure throughout. The only complaint one could have about this match is that it almost goes by too quickly. One of, if not the, best cruiserweight matches of all time. (4.5/5)
Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan announce that Hogan will not wrestle tonight unless WCW can guarantee that Sting does not make an appearance. The Hulkster is at his delusional best here, calling Sting a coward, threatening to beat up Piper at his home, claiming that the fans will be running JJ Dillon out of WCW - his words may not make 100% sense, he may seem lost at times, but the feeling behind the promo is great. (+1)
Mongo McMichael makes his way down the aisle for his bout against Debra McMichael's latest talent acquisition...Alex Wright. An interesting mish-mash of styles here, Wright showing off his sound technical background while McMichael tries to keep up and do his damage with big right hands and bodyslams. They botch a piledriver spot (why Wright would believe he could lift Mongo is beyond me) and then we get the a run-in that leads to the most poorly executed ref distraction spot I've ever seen. What is incredible about the ending and post-match is that, without a doubt, Goldberg is positioned as a heel, stealing Mongo's Super Bowl Ring and teasing an uneasy alliance with Debra, but the crowd cheers for him anyway. The match isn't as bad as it could be, but the finish is laughable. Again, like Jericho/Gedo, I'm going to give this one points despite its flubs because I'll take interesting and imperfect over a boring, predictable, well-executed match any day. (2/5)
Macho Man is backstage with Elizabeth. Not as great as Hogan's promo, but still enjoyable simply because when is Macho Man spouting nonsense not fun?
The WCW Television Championship is not on the line next - the champion Disco Inferno not defending against Jacqueline as WCW and the Nevada Sports Commission have declared this an "unsanctioned" intergender match. I'm a bit of Disco mark, so I enjoyed this probably more than most did and would, Disco doing a nice job of getting over how awkward this match is for him, but also how scared he is of actually getting physical with his opponent. This leads to nuclear heat for every actual strike or counter in the first half of the match. Inferno takes every opportunity to retreat until he finally decides to simply walk away from the fight (to no avail, of course) and the match then stumbles a bit, overstaying its welcome and repeating itself in uncreative ways until Jacqueline finally lands a big offensive maneuver to pop the crowd again. Feel-good ending that I don't feel hurt Inferno too much only because, throughout the bout, its obvious that he's not actively trying to win the match anyway. (2/5)
The United States Champion, Curt Hennig, arrives wearing a sleeveless Nature Boy robe, the ultimate show of disrespect towards his one-time friend and opponent, Ric Flair. Flair comes in with a head full of steam and Hennig gets tossed around for a little bit, trying to escape the crazed Nature Boy. When Perfect does get the upperhand, he immediately goes after Flair's knee, trying to hobble his one-time mentor. Hennig eventually goes after Flair's head, trying to reaggravate the injury he inflicted at Fall Brawl. The commentators play up this idea, but its unclear how much this is recognized by the audience as Hennig, fairly swiftly, goes back to targeting Naitch's knee. The match goes on and there are some noticeably ugly spots, including a lame catapult on the outside, but Hennig's expert selling and Flair's overness counterbalance some of the more questionable sequences. The finish seems abrupt and a bit anticlimactic. (2/5)
On the ramp, JJ Dillon announces that tonight's main event will go on as he is personally guaranteeing that Sting will not be showing up. Bischoff comes out and this overly complicated storyline continues as Sleazy E announces that, if Sting shows up, the nWo is going to "get Nitro."
Moving on, special guest referee "The Living Legend" Larry Zybysko makes his way down the aisle for the night's next big showdown, Scott Hall of the nWo taking on WCW muscleman Lex Luger. Syxx has accompanied Hall to keep things "even" and, surprisingly, isn't banned from ringside within the first few minutes as Hall is able to break down Luger and lock in a lengthy (boring) submission (that's ultimately reversed). Zybysko, for the most part, calls things down the middle at the start of the bout even after Hall tosses a toothpick into his eye. After hitting his fallaway slam, Hall applies a sleeper, the match in desperate need of anything but that. Luger's comeback gets a good reaction, but that's a credit to the overness of the characters involved and the storyline that built to this match rather than anything these two have actually done since the bell rang. Hall eventually goes after Zybysko but gets back-body dropped out of the ring for his troubles, leading Bischoff to come out and get involved himself. The match continues, the crowd now fully engaged thanks to all the extraneous action, and the clusterfuckery continues for the next several minutes, deflating and re-inflating the crowd in a bizarre effort to keep everyone looking tough, building to one of Starrcade's major matches. While the match itself is well short of good, nWo fans (like myself) will still find parts enjoyable, especially the closing 90 seconds. (2/5)
A post-apocalyptic commercial for World War 3 (Part 3?) airs, hyping the show's main event, a 60-man battle royale.
Falls count anywhere in our next match - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage. I'm a bit of a mark for both of these guys and really love every match they had against each other leading up to this. From the get-go, these two unload a variety of offense on each other, brawling in the ring and out of it. Page goes for the Diamond Cutter early, but Macho escapes and the match continues with both guys, somewhat surprisingly, hitting high-risk high-flying maneuvers to the outside. Fighting their way into the crowd, we get a cameo from Raven's Flock as well as an overzealous fan who, for some reason, takes his shirt off as he watches Savage attack his opponent. In a great sequence, Page and Savage fight on the Halloween Havoc stage, the weapon usage sending Dusty Rhodes into hysterics. After some spots with the stairs and a camera, Miss Elizabeth gets involved (which leads to Kimberly Page getting involved) and the crowd goes (justifiably) insane. Meanwhile, in the ring, Page and Savage sell exhaustion and injury expertly, Page hitting several of his signature spots but struggling to apply the Diamond Cutter. In a great parallel, Savage, back on offense, can't hit his elbow at first, too tired to fully extend himself. As the match goes on into extra innings, the Diamond Cutter teases get increasingly complex and dramatic, but, unfortunately, the conclusion itself is the opposite, an uncreative cop-out that WCW had used and overused multiple times by this point. A stronger ending would've nudged this one up another half-point easy. (3.5/5)
Main event time - Roddy Piper vs. "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan in a non-title steel cage match. Hogan arrives without the WCW World Championship as Hot Rod had stolen it. Its interesting to think about how, over in WWE Land, the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels would essentially redefine the modern cage match with the first Hell in a Cell this same month while Piper and Hogan put on one of the more forgettable cage matches in history. In both cases, though, the structure of the cage itself was different than usual - the WWE creating the infamous Cell and WCW opting to bring back the wobbly, ugly "Supercage" for some bizarre reason. Hogan immediately tries to climb out, but Piper won't let him, whipping him with his belt and then biting him. The crowd is enthused at first, but as the match goes on, it becomes clear just how limited and tired these two are, the match existing as nothing more than a series of low blows, eye pokes, poorly-executed atomic drops, and Three Stooges-esque horseplay. It is unclear how this match would end as neither guy goes for a pinfall, there is no ref, and while they both make attempts to climb the cage, early on they escape it in a way that would seemingly end the match (if escape was the way to end it). Like the previous bout, we get the appearance of an impostor Sting (in this case, actually four impostors), but at least in this case, it makes storyline sense as Hogan and Sting were on a collision course headed to Starrcade. To their credit, Piper and Hogan show some bravery by duking it out at the top of the cage, taking some stiff belt shots, and, in Hogan's case, even getting a little color. Half point for Randy Savage's ridiculously stupid late-match involvement (I believe the spot he attempts here ended up causing him an injury he'd never fully recover from) and the post-match shenanigans, which are wholly bizarre and produced perfectly to make you wonder what's "real" and what's not. (0.5/5)
Scoring a not-so-great 2.5-out-of-5, Halloween Havoc 97' is a mixed sack of trick-or-treat items. On the plus side, you have arguably the best match WCW produced all year - Guerrero vs. Mysterio for the Cruiserweight Championship. Gedo/Jericho is "warts and all" interesting and the Jacqueline/Inferno match, while it goes at least 3 minutes too long, has some fun moments. On the negative side, the main event is a trainwreck and the clusterfuck finishes of each of the nWo bouts are downright insulting. If one is curious about how WCW could go from being the industry leader to out of business in less than 3 years, this show is a crash course in crappy booking, especially as it concerns to the last two matches, both of which were won by the wrong guy.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
Chris Jericho vs. Gedo is next, Gedo making his WCW debut here. Highly physical match with Dusty and Heenan praising Gedo for his toughness and Tenay doing a great job on commentary to detail their history, there is at least one nasty botch (Jericho bizarrely attempts a top-rope Frankensteiner and nearly breaks his own neck doing so) but the rest of the match is interesting enough to maintain the crowd's attention. Imperfect but interesting. (2.5/5)
Backstage, Debra McMichael and Mongo McMichael get into an argument. What's noteworthy here is that, by this point, Jeff Jarrett (who Debra had been managing) had hightailed it back to WWE, eventually leading a stable of NWA old-timers with Jim Cornette and, if I recall correctly, the Rock n' Roll Express.
The Cruiserweight Championship is on the line next - Eddie Guerrero defending against Rey Mysterio Jr. Over the years this match has taken on mythic status and deservedly so - this might be one of the most perfect matches ever performed, every spot executed with quickness and accuracy. Every move you think you've seen before is performed here with a fresh twist, moonsaults turning into corkscrews, planchas turning into hurricanranas, vicious powerbombs into seemingly-unkickoutable pinfalls. Eddie's reversals are as awe-inspiring as Mysterio's, each guy pushing themselves to new levels of creativity and the audience gasping and cheering in equal measure throughout. The only complaint one could have about this match is that it almost goes by too quickly. One of, if not the, best cruiserweight matches of all time. (4.5/5)
Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan announce that Hogan will not wrestle tonight unless WCW can guarantee that Sting does not make an appearance. The Hulkster is at his delusional best here, calling Sting a coward, threatening to beat up Piper at his home, claiming that the fans will be running JJ Dillon out of WCW - his words may not make 100% sense, he may seem lost at times, but the feeling behind the promo is great. (+1)
Mongo McMichael makes his way down the aisle for his bout against Debra McMichael's latest talent acquisition...Alex Wright. An interesting mish-mash of styles here, Wright showing off his sound technical background while McMichael tries to keep up and do his damage with big right hands and bodyslams. They botch a piledriver spot (why Wright would believe he could lift Mongo is beyond me) and then we get the a run-in that leads to the most poorly executed ref distraction spot I've ever seen. What is incredible about the ending and post-match is that, without a doubt, Goldberg is positioned as a heel, stealing Mongo's Super Bowl Ring and teasing an uneasy alliance with Debra, but the crowd cheers for him anyway. The match isn't as bad as it could be, but the finish is laughable. Again, like Jericho/Gedo, I'm going to give this one points despite its flubs because I'll take interesting and imperfect over a boring, predictable, well-executed match any day. (2/5)
Macho Man is backstage with Elizabeth. Not as great as Hogan's promo, but still enjoyable simply because when is Macho Man spouting nonsense not fun?
The WCW Television Championship is not on the line next - the champion Disco Inferno not defending against Jacqueline as WCW and the Nevada Sports Commission have declared this an "unsanctioned" intergender match. I'm a bit of Disco mark, so I enjoyed this probably more than most did and would, Disco doing a nice job of getting over how awkward this match is for him, but also how scared he is of actually getting physical with his opponent. This leads to nuclear heat for every actual strike or counter in the first half of the match. Inferno takes every opportunity to retreat until he finally decides to simply walk away from the fight (to no avail, of course) and the match then stumbles a bit, overstaying its welcome and repeating itself in uncreative ways until Jacqueline finally lands a big offensive maneuver to pop the crowd again. Feel-good ending that I don't feel hurt Inferno too much only because, throughout the bout, its obvious that he's not actively trying to win the match anyway. (2/5)
The United States Champion, Curt Hennig, arrives wearing a sleeveless Nature Boy robe, the ultimate show of disrespect towards his one-time friend and opponent, Ric Flair. Flair comes in with a head full of steam and Hennig gets tossed around for a little bit, trying to escape the crazed Nature Boy. When Perfect does get the upperhand, he immediately goes after Flair's knee, trying to hobble his one-time mentor. Hennig eventually goes after Flair's head, trying to reaggravate the injury he inflicted at Fall Brawl. The commentators play up this idea, but its unclear how much this is recognized by the audience as Hennig, fairly swiftly, goes back to targeting Naitch's knee. The match goes on and there are some noticeably ugly spots, including a lame catapult on the outside, but Hennig's expert selling and Flair's overness counterbalance some of the more questionable sequences. The finish seems abrupt and a bit anticlimactic. (2/5)
On the ramp, JJ Dillon announces that tonight's main event will go on as he is personally guaranteeing that Sting will not be showing up. Bischoff comes out and this overly complicated storyline continues as Sleazy E announces that, if Sting shows up, the nWo is going to "get Nitro."
Moving on, special guest referee "The Living Legend" Larry Zybysko makes his way down the aisle for the night's next big showdown, Scott Hall of the nWo taking on WCW muscleman Lex Luger. Syxx has accompanied Hall to keep things "even" and, surprisingly, isn't banned from ringside within the first few minutes as Hall is able to break down Luger and lock in a lengthy (boring) submission (that's ultimately reversed). Zybysko, for the most part, calls things down the middle at the start of the bout even after Hall tosses a toothpick into his eye. After hitting his fallaway slam, Hall applies a sleeper, the match in desperate need of anything but that. Luger's comeback gets a good reaction, but that's a credit to the overness of the characters involved and the storyline that built to this match rather than anything these two have actually done since the bell rang. Hall eventually goes after Zybysko but gets back-body dropped out of the ring for his troubles, leading Bischoff to come out and get involved himself. The match continues, the crowd now fully engaged thanks to all the extraneous action, and the clusterfuckery continues for the next several minutes, deflating and re-inflating the crowd in a bizarre effort to keep everyone looking tough, building to one of Starrcade's major matches. While the match itself is well short of good, nWo fans (like myself) will still find parts enjoyable, especially the closing 90 seconds. (2/5)
A post-apocalyptic commercial for World War 3 (Part 3?) airs, hyping the show's main event, a 60-man battle royale.
Falls count anywhere in our next match - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage. I'm a bit of a mark for both of these guys and really love every match they had against each other leading up to this. From the get-go, these two unload a variety of offense on each other, brawling in the ring and out of it. Page goes for the Diamond Cutter early, but Macho escapes and the match continues with both guys, somewhat surprisingly, hitting high-risk high-flying maneuvers to the outside. Fighting their way into the crowd, we get a cameo from Raven's Flock as well as an overzealous fan who, for some reason, takes his shirt off as he watches Savage attack his opponent. In a great sequence, Page and Savage fight on the Halloween Havoc stage, the weapon usage sending Dusty Rhodes into hysterics. After some spots with the stairs and a camera, Miss Elizabeth gets involved (which leads to Kimberly Page getting involved) and the crowd goes (justifiably) insane. Meanwhile, in the ring, Page and Savage sell exhaustion and injury expertly, Page hitting several of his signature spots but struggling to apply the Diamond Cutter. In a great parallel, Savage, back on offense, can't hit his elbow at first, too tired to fully extend himself. As the match goes on into extra innings, the Diamond Cutter teases get increasingly complex and dramatic, but, unfortunately, the conclusion itself is the opposite, an uncreative cop-out that WCW had used and overused multiple times by this point. A stronger ending would've nudged this one up another half-point easy. (3.5/5)
Main event time - Roddy Piper vs. "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan in a non-title steel cage match. Hogan arrives without the WCW World Championship as Hot Rod had stolen it. Its interesting to think about how, over in WWE Land, the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels would essentially redefine the modern cage match with the first Hell in a Cell this same month while Piper and Hogan put on one of the more forgettable cage matches in history. In both cases, though, the structure of the cage itself was different than usual - the WWE creating the infamous Cell and WCW opting to bring back the wobbly, ugly "Supercage" for some bizarre reason. Hogan immediately tries to climb out, but Piper won't let him, whipping him with his belt and then biting him. The crowd is enthused at first, but as the match goes on, it becomes clear just how limited and tired these two are, the match existing as nothing more than a series of low blows, eye pokes, poorly-executed atomic drops, and Three Stooges-esque horseplay. It is unclear how this match would end as neither guy goes for a pinfall, there is no ref, and while they both make attempts to climb the cage, early on they escape it in a way that would seemingly end the match (if escape was the way to end it). Like the previous bout, we get the appearance of an impostor Sting (in this case, actually four impostors), but at least in this case, it makes storyline sense as Hogan and Sting were on a collision course headed to Starrcade. To their credit, Piper and Hogan show some bravery by duking it out at the top of the cage, taking some stiff belt shots, and, in Hogan's case, even getting a little color. Half point for Randy Savage's ridiculously stupid late-match involvement (I believe the spot he attempts here ended up causing him an injury he'd never fully recover from) and the post-match shenanigans, which are wholly bizarre and produced perfectly to make you wonder what's "real" and what's not. (0.5/5)
Scoring a not-so-great 2.5-out-of-5, Halloween Havoc 97' is a mixed sack of trick-or-treat items. On the plus side, you have arguably the best match WCW produced all year - Guerrero vs. Mysterio for the Cruiserweight Championship. Gedo/Jericho is "warts and all" interesting and the Jacqueline/Inferno match, while it goes at least 3 minutes too long, has some fun moments. On the negative side, the main event is a trainwreck and the clusterfuck finishes of each of the nWo bouts are downright insulting. If one is curious about how WCW could go from being the industry leader to out of business in less than 3 years, this show is a crash course in crappy booking, especially as it concerns to the last two matches, both of which were won by the wrong guy.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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