WCW Fall Brawl 93'

RATING LEVELS:

Curt Hennig – A “GOAT” show, as Perfect as possible

Watch It – A consistently good show worth watching in its entirety

Watch It…With Remote in Hand – 3 or more above-average ratings

High Risk Maneuver – Mostly filler, inessential, but 1-2 good matches

DUDleyville – Zero redeeming qualities, chore to watch

FALL BRAWL 93’ – September 1993

Houston, Texas

CHAMPIONSHIP BACKGROUNDS: Heading into tonight’s show, Vader is the WCW World Heavyweight Champion and Ric Flair holds the NWA World Championship. Arn Anderson and Paul Roma are WCW’s Tag Team Champions, the TV Champion is Ricky Steamboat, and Dustin Rhodes is the United States Champion after a lengthy rivalry with Rick Rude.

COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone & Jesse Ventura

In the first match of the evening, Ricky Steamboat defends his TV Championship against Lord Steven Regal. As could be expected, this is a very good match, though it doesn’t quite hit “all time classic” level. Steamboat does a great job selling his injured ribs, while Regal pulls out a variety of impressive maneuvers, including a surfboard and an underhook suplex. Steamboat is no slouch on offense, either, administering some trademark chops. The live crowd’s energy starts off strong, but tapers off as the match goes on, which is unfortunate because, overall, this is a really well-performed match with a quality finish. (3.5/5)

The next match, Big Sky vs. Charlie Norris, is easily the worst match I’ve watched so far in my trip through WCW history. Both guys look terrible here, with Norris’ non-existent offense and Big Sky failing to get his opponent up for his sole power move. The crowd chants “We Want Flair” and “Boring” for the first few minutes, then seemingly fall asleep. (0/5)

“Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff and The Equalizer vs. 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell is next. Bagwell is announced as WCW’s “Rookie of the Year” despite working in the company for years at this point. I must admit that Bagwell and Scorpio have surprised me by putting on some decent matches over the past few shows. Orndorff was still pretty over at this time based on the amount of “Paula” chants he receives, but nothing compared to where he was months earlier. This is a fairly paint-by-numbers match, but there are a few moments when one can see Orndorff’s experience help matters just as much as Scorpio’s impressive aerial maneuvers, particularly an entertaining stretch in the final two minutes – the minutes that arguably matter most. (2.5/5)

Shanghai Pierce (w/ Tex Slazenger) arrives next to take on Ice Train in a match that sounds like it would’ve fit perfectly on an episode of Worldwide. For the first few minutes, you mostly just get posing and a ridiculous test of strength and things don’t get much more interesting as it goes on. What might be most surprising is that, while this is Ice Train's first pay-per-view appearance for WCW, it is far from his last. (0/5)

The Nasty Boys take on WCW’s reigning Tag Team Champions, Paul Roma and Arn Anderson next in their first WCW pay-per-view match in quite awhile. The Nasties are best when all they need to do is brawl, while Anderson and Roma are more well-rounded. This matches tries to balance these two styles, but bogs down whenever a resthold comes in. I understand that the heels and faces use these holds to try to generate heat, and to some degree it works, but at no point does the crowd really reach a fever pitch. Anderson’s face-in-peril work is convincing, leading to some mild “Anderson” chants, but Roma’s hot tag isn’t as impressive. From here, we hit the rather unoriginal finish of to match that features enough hard work to get it over the average 2.5 rating. (3/5)

From here, we get a video package reviewing the recent troubles of Cactus Jack. After going through the entirety of his feud with Vader and Harley Race up to this point, Jack cuts a promo that is fairly similar in presentation to what would be coming out of ECW. While I’m guessing the live crowd didn’t get to view the promo, as a viewer at home, I enjoyed this far more than I enjoy what the WWE tends to do on their PPV broadcast – which is play video packages advertising a match I’ve already paid to see. That being said, the overall quality is well below what the WWE was producing even back then. (2.5/5)

Yoshi Kwan vs. Cactus Jack is the next match, a “Bounty Match” building on Race and Vader’s goal of ending the career of Cactus Jack. This is Jack’s return match from a lengthy absence and his participation in tonight’s show gives it a much needed boost. Watching Jack do his trademark clothesline-over-the-top-rope spot is always a fun way to kick off a match, but from there, it is essentially a squash and Kwan’s offense and selling are comical at times. I want to give this match a higher score out of sheer excitement for Jack’s return, but for the sake of objectiveness, I won’t. (1.5/5)

And now the match I’ve been most excited about seeing on this show – Rick Rude vs. Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. I love how this match starts with Rude unveiling his air-brushed Fifi tights, which is classic Rude (Fifi is also Naitch's current wife, if I'm not mistaken). Flair is able to get the Figure Four on early, which elicits a nice pop from the crowd. For some reason, Ventura’s mic gets cut off momentarily by “Sara Lee,” the audio engineer, as Flair applies a number of wristlocks. At this point in his career, Rude has been criticized for relying too much on restholds himself and not bumping as well as he had a year or so earlier, but I still find his facial expressions and the way he contorts his body to be pretty damn great. Flair dismantling his opponent is a bit odd to see a babyface do, as usually it is the heel who dominates in this fashion, but things do turn a little when Flair crossbodies his opponent to the outside. After a long chinlock from the Ravishing One, the pace picks up a bit, with Flair showing off his own legendary selling. Towards the two-thirds point of the match, there is an excellent false finish, the likes of which are fairly common today, but, in my memory, were extremely rare back then. The actual finish is even more well-executed, though I am admittedly in the minority in that view based on reading others’ reviews. While I wasn’t necessarily a huge fan of the start of the match, as it moved along I felt it got better and better as both guys worked very hard to deliver a compelling story despite Rude’s obvious injury-caused limitations. (4/5)

War Games is next, featuring the team of Sting, The British Bulldog, The Shockmaster, and Dustin Rhodes vs. Vader, Sid, and the Harlem Heat. Last year’s edition was heralded as a 5-star affair by Dave Meltzer, but you can tell just by looking at these teams that this will need to be the match of all of these men’s careers to achieve the same. Vader and Rhodes start things off, which was smart booking considering the alternatives. The brawl they have at the start makes me wish the War Games concept was nixed altogether and WCW let these two just duke it out one-on-one. Second in is “Kane” of Harlem Heat, aka Stevie Ray, giving the heels the first of their advantages. Before Sting can get in, Rhodes has been bloodied, which is commendable considering how little confidence I had that this match would live up to the War Games legacy. Sid’s arrival is met with a nice pop, but aside from a good looking chokeslam, his offense is pretty unremarkable. The last man in for the heels is Kole, aka Booker T, while The Shockmaster’s entrance is teased with a half dozen jokes at his expense from Ventura and Schiavone. Almost as soon as “The Match Beyond” truly begins, it is over with one of the lamest finishers of a night (which says something considering how many poor endings there were). Had this one had a better finish, I’d have given it at least a half-point higher of a score, but for what it was, it actually wasn’t nearly as bad as it may have been, largely due to the hard work from Rhodes, Vader, and Sting, the obvious MVPs (in that order). (3/5)

With 9 matches/segments, but an average score of just 2.22-out-of-5, this PPV is pretty darn weak and could only be recommended to those fascinated by Rude's career trajectory or the early US work of Regal. Some of the matches wouldn’t have belonged on an episode of Thursday Thunder, let alone a show that fans were expected to pay several dozen dollars to see. The matches that do sound good on paper, like the opening contest and the NWA Championship match, are above average, but not superb. The main event has a surprisingly good start, but a very poor finish, which doesn’t help matters at all. In what has been an unfortunately consistent rating for WCW productions around this time, this show ends up with a….

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville