WCW Fall Brawl 94'

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 94’ – September 1994

Roanoke, Virginia

CHAMPIONSHIP BACKGROUNDS: Hulk Hogan is the reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion heading into tonight’s show, having defeated Ric Flair at Bash at the Beach in July. The team of Pretty Wonderful are the WCW Tag Team Champions, Ricky Steamboat is the reigning US Champion, and Lord Steven Regal is the recognized TV Champion.

COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone & Bobby Heenan

Kicking things off, we have Atlantic Records country artist Martin Delray singing the National Anthem. I only mention this because his mullet is breathtaking. No score, though, in remembrance of Daron Norwood. 

The opening contest is for the WCW Television Championship with Lord Steven Regal defending against Johnny B. Badd. I gave their Bash At The Beach match a very solid 4-out-of-5 rating and, at Clash XXV, they earned a 3.5 in my book, meaning I went into this match expecting very good things. I was not disappointed either, as, from the get-go, they show off some really tight sequences. The commentators do a nice job of playing up how much homework Badd had done in the build-up to this bout, which is a nice touch. The camera misses a big crossbody onto Regal on the outside, but makes up for it with a nice wide shot of Badd guillotining himself on the top rope minutes later in a tide-turning moment. Badd’s selling is really strong throughout, as is Regal’s viciousness, though Marc Mero haters will likely still be irked by his fiery comebacks, which can come off as hokey. The closing moments are a fun and meaningful throwback to basically every time Regal had defended his title in the past – Sir William attempts to cheat, but it backfires, which leads to Regal trying again but inadvertently hitting his manager with a forearm. In an extra nice twist on expectations, these miscues lead only to near falls, keeping me (and any other first time viewer) guessing about what the outcome would be until the very last second. (4/5)

Cactus Jack vs. Kevin Sullivan (with Dave “Evad” Sullivan) in a Loser Leaves Town match is next. Earlier in the year, Sullivan and Jack held the WCW Tag Team Championships, but had split up since. The commentators play up Jack losing his ear in Germany, building him up as an absolutely fearless maniac, which is a bit odd considering how this match ends. Equally questionable are the bumps that Jack takes, landing back-first multiple times onto the exposed concrete floor. The match only runs a few minutes, but the action therein is high impact. Still, the finish and the heavy involvement of such a lame character as Kevin Sullivan’s dyslexic brother is enough to keep this one from “must see” territory. (2.5/5)

Our next contest is sure to be a barnburner – WCW United States Champion Ricky Steamboat taking on top challenger “Stunning” Steve Austin. Wait. Scratch that. Presiding official Nick Bockwinkel announces that Steamboat is unable to compete due to injury and the title is handed over to Steve Austin. Austin’s delivery and word choice is not as pitch-perfect as it would become years later and his facial expressions are a bit cartoonish, but the segment is still quite good until Bockwinkel announces Austin’s opponent - “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. Austin bounces around the ring, hooting and hollering in protest of the match, but the bell rings and, in a flurry, this one is over. The crowd cheers the title change, but this non-match will still leave a bad taste in many people’s mouths after how well Austin had been built up over the past few years as someone on the brink of being a true main eventer. Taken as an overall segment, it’s not like this one is boring or uneventful or meaningless – the drama is there, the crowd goes bananas, and the surprise appearance of Duggan is disappointing to modern viewers in a way that it wasn't back then. Still, neither the build or the match is any better than decent. (2/5)

Pretty Wonderful, the World Tag Team Champions, are up next, taking on Stars n’ Stripes, aka Marcus Alexander Bagwell and the Patriot. What is somewhat interesting here is how comfortable and confident Roma is by this point, largely due to his lengthy pairing with a still-over Mr. Wonderful. One wonders if Roma’s not-so-great reputation would be as bad if he had started out in this team rather than as a Horseman. The action is standard from the start, with Roma grimacing in pain as Bagwell and the Patriot take turns dishing out punishment. An overuse of wristlocks early on keeps things in a low gear, but there are at least lots of tags to keep the dance partners fresh. At one point Wonderful connects with an elbow drop preceded by all sorts of bells and whistles and a large portion of the audience starts cheering the villains. Orndorff knocking Bagwell’s head into a plastic cooler seems a bit oversold, but the final third of the match is fun, with a bunch of classic tag team wrestling tropes thrown in leading to a believable finish that finds an interesting way to subvert the expectation of a kickout. All in all, a match that is considerably better than it would seem on paper, and possibly a career highlight for half of the guys involved. (2.5/5)

Next up is the evening’s triangle match to declare the number one contendership for Hulk Hogan’s World Heavyweight Championship – The Guardian Angel vs. Sting vs. Vader. Now, what is odd about this is that it is not a “three way dance” in the typical sense – it is more like a round robin, where, after a coin toss, it is decided that Vader will face the Guardian Angel first and then Sting will wrestle the winner. And so, I’m going to split this one up…

Vader vs. The Guardian Angel – Very physical, as expected. These two consistently brought out the best in eachother. Bossman’s offense always looked good against Vader and he was, despite what he may have lacked in-ring and how terrible his gimmick was, a popular personality, which keeps the audience invested. The match doesn’t go too long and actually left me wanting another minute or two because the action was pretty great, though not nearly their best match against eachother. (3.5/5)

Sting arrives next for his match with Vader and, again, it goes without saying that these two had absolutely great chemistry. Sting’s intensity is tremendous in the beginning  and his selling pairs well with Vader’s devastating moveset. Sting’s comebacks and offense are sharp too – they may not be incredibly realistic, but you always get the sense that beyond the desperation "hope spots," he always had a gameplan if he could withstand Vader’s onslaught. The Vadersault spot is always a treat, though predictable at this point, and there’s a nice (intended or not) “callback” to their famous strap match when Sting hits the big man with a Fireman’s Carry. The crowd is electric the whole time too. When you get the announcement that 10 minutes have gone by, one is reminded of the impressiveness of Vader’s performance. As the match nears the end of regulation, urgency sets in and the work from both men is just brilliant. The actual finish is frustrating, but only because this match deserved a more definitive ending. That being said, this is a near-masterpiece that lives up to the tremendous series of matches they'd had two years earlier. (4.5/5)

Hulk Hogan appears via satellite and the audience boos pretty audibly, potentially out of anger with the finish of the previous match or disgust with Hulk not appearing live or, as some have theorized, disgust with Hulk Hogan period. The segment is pretty awful too, both guys floundering quite a bit. Like many of Hogan's promos during this span of it time, it is also endless and bizarre, Hogan’s reactions being ridiculously out-of-character. This so bad, it is almost good – but not enough to make it even worthy of going viral. (0/5)

For the next 15+ minutes, absolutely nothing happens aside from a recap of the feud leading to this WarGames match, Gene Okerlund reminding fans of the rules of WarGames, and the cage itself coming down from the ceiling. 

WarGames is next – Arn Anderson, Terry Funk, Buckhouse Buck, and Colonel Parker taking on “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes, the Nasty Boys, and “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes and Anderson start things off, both quite familiar of the WarGames environment. I’ve seen this match get praised as the second best of its kind and it is a serious improvement on 93’s edition, but I’m not necessarily a huge fan of this bloodless, very by-the-numbers brawl. Terry Funk is highly entertaining, walking around for most of the match in a stupor, and when Dusty Rhodes comes in, the crowd’s response is incredible. Colonel Parker is eventually ripped to shreds by the good guys, giving the crowd the satisfying finish they obviously desired, but there really aren’t any twists or turns to the match, which prevents me from giving it my full recommendation, especially to modern fans who might expect a bit more danger and higher stakes for a match with the WarGames moniker. (3.5/5)

With an average match/segment score of 2.81-out-of-5, Fall Brawl 94’ is the company’s worst PPV since SuperBrawl IV, a significant drop from the consistently good Bash at the Beach, Slamboree, and Spring Stampede events. A significant part of the problem is the arrival of Hulk Hogan and, to some degree, his friends. Hogan’s work on tonight’s show is unwatchable and the instant pushing of Jim Duggan was never going to yield classics the way others could have in a similar position. In fact, it’s the WCW stalwarts (Regal, Badd, Dustin Rhodes, the Studs Stable, Vader, and Sting) that provide the night’s best moments and make this show bearable. Had Sting/Vader and Regal/Badd not been so good and had the main event not had the crowd going wild, this show would probably have ended up in DUDleyville territory, but with at least two highly entertaining matches and the historical significance of this show being Cactus Jack’s final WCW match (and maybe Austin’s last relevant one in the company), I’m going to bump it a notch higher than it probably should go.

FINAL RATING – Watch It…With Remote in Hand