World War 3 - November 1996
Norfolk, Virginia
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan is the WCW World Champion, the Cruiserweight Championship is held by Dean Malenko, and the United States Championship was technically vacated at this point (Flair was injured and The Giant had essentially stolen the title). The Television Champion is Steven Regal (though he does not defend the title on this show) and the World Tag Team Champions are the Outsiders, Hall and Nash.
COMMENTARY: Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, and Bobby Heenan
After some words from Diamond Dallas Page, we get to our next match - Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick. The stipulation here is that Jericho will have one arm tied behind his back. This one is a continuation of a storyline started at Halloween Havoc when Patrick, the "nWo ref," helped Syxx score a victory over the Lionheart. Jericho is accompanied by Teddy Long, presumably his manager though I definitely didn't recall that ever being the case. The match begins with Jericho dominating and Patrick bumping all around the ring before he momentarily gets the upper hand. The crowd is fairly dead for this despite Schiavone trying to assert otherwise on commentary. A fairly "by the numbers" match considering its stipulation, hardly recommended for even the biggest Jericho fans. (1.5/5)
I'm tempted to award a bonus point for the quick peak backstage, where a shirtless Marcus "Buff" Bagwell is hanging out with the CompuServe nerds...
Ric Flair, arm in sling, makes a grand entrance, joining "Mean" Gene to cut a promo about the New World Order. It's a great one too, passionate and to-the-point but impossible not to enjoy. Unfortunately, its an inessential segment and undeserving of a score.
The Giant takes on Jeff Jarrett in a rematch from Halloween Havoc next. I liked their previous bout a decent amount, impressed by Jarrett's selling and The Giant's effective use of his admittedly limited defense. What might be most interesting here is that The Giant's dominance draws a fair amount of cheers, the crowd really eating up the dismantling of Double J. A few minutes in, the crowd pops for the arrival of Sting in the rafters and the in-ring action becomes the least important part of the match as the Stinger makes his way towards the ring. In a twist I certainly didn't recall, WCW's Franchise player takes Jarrett out with a Scorpion Death Drop, allowing The Giant to then finish him off with his chokeslam. Interesting storyline development, but far from a must-see match...which is kind of unfortunate because the little bit of work both guys did perform in this match was pretty crisp, athletic, and engaging. (2.5/5)
Roddy Piper makes his way down the aisle, contract in hand, ready to issue his challenge to "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan for December's Starrcade PPV. Instead of Hogan, though, the newly-turned Eric Bischoff makes his way down the aisle, backed up by Ted DiBiase and Vincent. After Bischoff flaps his gums a bit, Piper cuts arguably his best WCW promo - noting that he taught Vincent how to fight, calling Sleazy E an "Eddie Munster lookalike," and beckoning the Hulkster out of the back. Adding to the scene is the fact that the audience is rabidly anti-nWo, tossing all sorts of trash from minute one to the very end. When Hulkster shows up, he's backed up by The Outsiders, The Giant, Syxx (with camera), and "Miss nWo" Elizabeth. This leads to Hogan demanding that Hot Rod "show em' the hip," calling Piper a cripple before he agrees to sign the contract. Piper slaps the taste out of his mouth, but the numbers game is too much as the nWo holds him back and allows Hogan to hit his hip with a (not-so-impressive) chairshot. Adding insult to injury, Hogan spray paints his leg as well before ending the segent by spitting in his face. In terms of despicability, this is peak nWo stuff. Of course, Piper manages to come out of this looking pretty tough too, getting back on his feet as the nWo leave him behind and grabbing the mic to tell Hogan it's going to take much, much more to keep him down at Starrcade. While not perfect, this is a great segment that effectively builds a match and does so with enough interesting one-liners to make it "water cooler" talk level entertainment. (4/5)
The next bout is a continuation of the never-ending Sherri/Colonel Parker storyline as Harlem Heat takes on The Amazing French Canadians, Jacques Rougeau and Carl Oullette. The stipulation here was that, if the Heat won, Sherri would get 5 minutes alone with Parker, meaning that there is little question as to what the finish will be. Considering Rougeau's age, he's still the best performer of the four, kipping up early and smartly leading his team through a series of classic double-team maneuevers. The crowd is mostly dead, though, popping very little for Stevei Ray's hot tag and subsequent guerrilla press slam. A ref bump pulls the audience back, but after this point, the nonsense just piles so high it is impossible not to laugh at the ridiculousness. For starters, the heels' decision to build an elaborate scaffolding to hit their finisher comes out of nowhere and seems to go against the traditional characters they have (as compared to, say, Public Enemy doing the same thing). Then, you have the referee, waking up out of his sleep on the mat and realizing that he should still be asleep. Finally, you have Stevie Ray and Sherri on the outside, essentially watching this all unfold. Overbooked, poorly executed, and completely tone deaf, this match deserves at least some credit for the comedy of its final two minutes. (1.5/5)
Starrcade 96' commercial.
"Mean" Gene welcomes "The Total Package" Lex Luger and asks him his thoughts about Sting, who had handed him a baseball bat on a recent episode of Nitro. Luger hypothesizes that Sting handing him the belt might symbolize that he has joined the New World Order. Luger then details, in a very mild-mannered, calm, and straight-forward way, why he thinks he will win the night's big battle royale. Okay.
Psychosis vs. Dean Malenko for Malenko's Cruiserweight Championship is next. Some have knocked this match (and much of Malenko's output) for not pulling in the audience, the criticism being that better performers would be able to "right the ship" when the audience isn't engaged while Malenko, for all his skill, was woefully ignorant of what the audience actually cared about. I think there is truth in that statement. Malenko would've benefitted from heeling it up a bit more to make the audience want to see Psychosis beat him. Still, the good heavily outweighs the bad in this match (and most any Malenko bout from this era). He puts on a clinic and epitomizes the "Iceman" attitude, physically dissecting his opponent with logical moves that target Psychosis' shoulder, neck, and legs. A few more hope spots would've made this one seem less one-sided, but its also somewhat refreshing to see a dominant champion actually dominate when current WWE World Champion Seth Rollins has something like a 3-12 record since winning the gold in April. Overall, not an all-time classic match, but still considerably above average thanks to loads of tight sequences, submissions galore, and even a few attention-getting twists (for example, Psychosis slips on his first high risk maneuver and is weaved into the match so organically it is commendable) that fans of cruiserweight action will be undoubtedly pleased for checking this one out. (3.5/5)
The WCW Tag Team Championships are on the line in the next bout, a Triangle Match between the reigning titleholders The Outsiders and the top two contenders, The Faces of Fear and The Nasty Boys. This match is surprisingly watchable considering that no one involved is that strong a bumper and 4-out-of-6 are essentially lumbering, clobbering, stiff grinders. Nash and Hall initially get cheered like faces and neither of the other two teams do anything to elicit sympathy, but somehow it still works as a whole. There are hiccups and seemingly unintentional breaks in the action, but there is also a real sense that the titles are important and that the teams want them - not necessarily because there is hatred for the nWo (neither team seems to care about that part of the story at all) but because the Faces of Fear and the Nasty Boys legitimately represent the old school toughness that the cowardly nWo members mock. The match might run a couple minutes longer than it needs to and the finish isn't perfectly executed (one doesn't need to look too hard to notice Hall waiting for his cue on the left side of the ring), but considering I went into the bout expecting to be bored to tears, the fact that it kept my attention is enough for me to nudge it close to average range. Had this been a straight-up two-on-two situation, I think the results would have been considerably more yawn-inducing. (2/5)
Main event time - a 60-Man Battle Royale featuring such top names as Eddie Guerrero, The Giant, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Lex Luger, Ciclope, "Big" Ron Studd, Ice Train, Stevie Ray, Roadblock...uh, yeah, when you have to fill a match with 60 competitors, the bottom of the barrel will be scraped. The match itself is an almost unwatchable clusterfuck of meaningless brawling and, at certain points, sheer idiocy. At one point, a half-dozen men try to eliminate Ron Studd by piling on top of him, lapsing on the basic premise of a battle royale mere minutes into the action. Then there's Eddie Guerrero eliminating himself...but somehow being permitted back into the match (he ends up being one of the final 10 or so guys). Wrestlers take breaks at random moments and the only interesting storylines pushed in this thing are the Horsemen's feud with the Dungeon of Doom and the growing tension between the American Males. The only time the crowd comes alive is the final 5 minutes, when the nWo, fully intact, starts to gang up on the sole representative of WCW left - "The Total Package" Lex Luger. After all is said and done, Bobby Heenan calls this "the greatest battle royal in history," seemingly forgetting that he actually called and had a tremendous role in the actual greatest battle royal in history 4 or so years earlier at the 92' Royal Rumble. Pretty terrible, but it is kept so short that its brevity actually helps keep it from an absolute zero rating. (0.5/5)
With an overall rating of 2.43-out-of-5, The 96' edition of World War 3 skates by with a somewhat passable rating thanks to two strong cruiser bouts, an excellent Piper/nWo segment, and a Battle Royal featuring 60 men that somehow wraps up in under 25 minutes (it helps that 8-9 guys are eliminated before the match even begins). Had either tag match been above average, the overall rating would've been even higher, though, I will say that the WCW World Tag Team Titles bout is better than it would look on paper. Recommended if you really, really, really like WCW in 96', have a few beers in the fridge, and will likely fall asleep in the third hour.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuever
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