WCW Fall Brawl 97'

WCW Fall Brawl 97'

Winston-Salem, North Carolina - September 1997

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan is the WCW World Champion, the Outsiders hold the WCW Tag Team Championships, "Mongo" McMichaels is the reigning US Champion, Alex Wright is the Television Champion, and Chris Jericho holds the Cruiserweight Championship.

COMMENTARY: Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan with Larry Zybykso and Mike Tenay


Fall Brawl 97' opens up with a Cruiserweight Title Match - Chris Jericho defending against Eddie Guerrero in a rematch from Clash of the Champions the previous month. An improvement on the aforementioned match, Jericho and Guerrero put on a match featuring a ton of innovative, highly technical spots. The amount of high spots is dazzling and while the psychology and drama may be lacking a bit, it is impossible to ignore the effort that these two put in to try to get the crowd into it. Guerrero is particularly excellent here as a heel, though, I do wish his newfound love of rule-breaking figured into the finish more. Meltzer gave this nearly 4 stars when he reviewed it 20 years ago, but I was a touch more into it than he was, mesmerized by the sheer number of "never seen it before" maneuvers. (4/5) 

The Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat is next. This is the type of match that, even if I wasn't supremely sick of the Harlem Heat team and the Steiner Brothers after spending the past three years seeing them wrestle the same exact match over and over, I still would find hard to enjoy. Sure, they hit each other with stiff shots and watching Scott and Rick dish out their suplexes isn't the most unimpressive sight, but as neither team has been able to usurp the WCW World Tag Team Champions in their nearly year-long reign (or had it been a full year by this point?), its hard to care about them in a Number One Contenders' match. Filler. (1/5)

In another return match from Clash of the Champions, Alex Wright defends his WCW Television Championship against Ultimo Dragon. Wright is considerably better as a heel than a face and I'm not sure the opposite isn't true about Dragon either. Wright controls the majority of the match, which allows for some suspense and, like their bout at CotC, makes Dragon's impressive variety of high-flying and technicality that much more impressive. There are a hair too many telegraphed exchanges, but there are also a few specific bright spots - Dragon chopping and round housing Wright out of the ring, Wright countering a Dragon splash with a dropkick to the gut, an incredible powerbomb spot from the corner by Dragon. Like the opener, the finish, while clean and believable, is almost lackluster by not actually having Wright's heel character play into it. (3.5/5)

Backstage, "Mean" Gene's hotline shilling is interrupted by a group of nWo b-teamers (Kennan, Buff, and Syxx) walking by him and busting into one of the locker rooms. When Gene opens up the door, it is revealed that they have beaten down Curt Hennig.

Jeff Jarrett makes his way down the aisle for his match with Dean Malenko. At Road Wild, Malenko was left high and dry by Jarrett in their tag match against the Horsemen, so this match isn't as random as some might think. Plus, the winner of this one will get a shot at McMichaels' United States Championship (which he'd won from Jarrett a few weeks earlier), so the stakes are high. Jarrett does his usual heel shtick to start the match, but when the actual wrestling begins, he shows that he can keep up with the Man of a 1000 Moves. While the pace is slower than Guerrero/Jericho and there's less high-flying than even Wright/Dragon, what makes this match special is Jarrett's strong character work and the way that, through selling and facial expressions and the building of suspense, the crowd is considerably more engaged than in either of the previous matches. There's nothing in this match you haven't seen before, but both guys work smartly and make the little things they do meaningful. It is a "less is more" match that pulls you in through brilliant turns of the tide, quality near falls, and respectable psychology and character work. A quality finish that is adequately built-up throughout the match. Wrestling done right. (4/5)

Kevin Nash, Buff Bagel, Syxx, and Kennan cut a promo backstage about their upcoming match. Nothing special.

Wrath and Mortis make their way down the aisle for their bout against the respected veteran team of Meng and The Barbarian, aka The Faces of Fear. What's somewhat interesting here is that this is essentially a heel/heel match-up, the Faces of Fear technically "tweeners," but I'd argue lean more on the bad side than the good. Considerably better than the Steiners/Heat match due to the freshness of the pairing and the fact that Barbarian has got to be one of the strongest dudes in wrestling, powerbombing his way through his Mortal Kombat-inspired opponents. With help from James Vandenberg, Mortis and Wrath gain control and while Wrath is sometimes awkward to watch, Mortis' creativity makes their domination of Barbarian (whose selling is actually pretty great too) interesting. By the time Meng comes in for the hot tag, the crowd is fully behind the Faces of Fear and pop huge for his offense and his no selling. The finish isn't perfectly executed (and, to be sure, there are at least three or four other botched moments or awkward set-ups), but the spirit of it is pitch perfect. On paper, this would seem like a match to skip, but on a lesser card, it's a Match of the Night contender with some great spots in it, including an astonishing double-team superplex. (3.5/5)

The Horsemen are backstage sans Curt Hennig. After some words from Benoit and Mongo, Ric Flair cuts an awesome promo that hypes up his teammates and puts the nWo on notice.

Scott Norton makes his way down the aisle for a match against The Giant who, oddly, had no entrance music at this time (unless it was simply taken out in post-production for some reason). The build for this match is that Norton is the nWo's resident monster, the only guy with enough brute strength to pose a threat to the big man (aside from Nash, who'd powerbombed The Giant some months prior). Like the previous bout (though not to the same extent), this match is considerably better than one might think - The Giant wrestling with passion and showing just how well-rounded he'd actually become as a worker and Norton obviously working to make the most of the most high-profile bout of his WCW career to my knowledge. With an impressive and well-received finish, this is yet another better-than-average bout for this card. (3/5)

Diamond Dallas Page and Lex Luger take on "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Scott Hall of the nWo, the night's third Clash of the Champions rematch. Unlike that match, the WCW World Tag Team Titles are not on the line this time, though. The crowd is hot and the work is quite good - Luger and Page showing tremendous energy, Hall selling like a used car salesman, and Savage using every dirty tactic he can to give his team an advantage. Zybysko's commentary adds to the match by playing up his personal animosity towards The Bad Guy too. Luger gets caught between the two rings while Page gets tossed from one to the other repeatedly, the match devolving into a beatdown until even the referee is no longer safe. Scott Hall's character work for the final 3-4 minutes is tremendous, villainy straight from the Karate Kid playbook, but the finish itself doesn't make a lick of sense. Still, thanks to a passionate crowd and even more passionate commentary, fired-up work out of all the participants, and solid storytelling, it works. (3/5)

Halloween Havoc commercial featuring Randy Savage.

Michael Buffer introduces our main event and the cage comes down - it's War Games Time! The nWo arrive first, followed by their opponents (sans Curt Hennig) led by Ric Flair. Buff Bagwell and Chris Benoit start things off, Bagwell showboating a bit before the Wolverine goes right after him, tossing him into the cage and showing how vicious he can get by suplexing him into the cage as well. A short "We Want Sting" chant starts up, the fans obviously believing that it will be the Stinger who will be replacing Hennig, a not-so-wild idea. Bagwell takes control and ends up back body dropping Benoit into the cage in a good spot while Konnan wins a coin toss to be the match's next entrant. The heels have the advantage but Benoit keeps fighting, getting some quality shots in until Konnan delivers a DDT to put them in the driver's seat with a minute until Mongo McMichael gets to jump in. Another two minutes pass and Syxx comes in, but Benoit continues to show his resiliency and brutality, the Horsemen maintaining relative control until the numbers game is finally too much for them. Ric Flair comes in to a huge reaction and proceeds to go after Syxx, whose been ping-ponging himself into the cage. Kevin Nash arrives, the final member of his team, and dishes out some sick punishment, hitting Flair with a sidewalk slam, bodyslammbing Benoit into the cage, and then going after Mongo as the crowd chants "We Want Sting." Curt Hennig, who had made his way down the aisle with his arm in a sling prior to Flair's entrance, comes in as the final man and Buffer announces that the "games have begun." Henna reveals that his arm was not injured and proceeds to pull out a pair of handcuffs, decking Mongo and then leading a multi-man beatdown on Flair, turning heel as the crowd boos in shock. Benoit and McMichael are handcuffed to the cage while Flair is mercilessly ripped apart. Nash grabs a mic and asks Benoit if they'll surrender, to which Benoit spits in his face (a great touch). Flair gets powerbombed but the Horsemen refuse to quit, the crowd popping each time they tell off the nWo. In a disgusting, ultra-violent spot, Hennig drags Flair to the corner of the ring and puts his head between the doors. Mongo quits on behalf of his team, but Hennig slams the door anyway. While far from the best War Games match ever, I found it has enough solid action, crowd interest, and character-defining moments to be significantly better than average. (3.5/5)



As I haven't seen many WCW pay-per-views post-Starrcade 97' (and what I recall from that show isn't necessarily great), if you were to tell me that Fall Brawl 97' was the last great WCW event, I'd probably believe you. With a solid score of 3.19-out-of-5 on the ol' Kwang-o-Meter, Fall Brawl 97' ranks fairly highly when compared to the rest of WCW's offering from that year, nearly eclipsing UnCensored 97's scores of 3.29. Aside from the nearly unwatchable Steiners/Harlem Heat match, every other bout is good-to-great, several delivering far better action than one would surmise on paper (Mortis and Wrath vs. the Faces of Fear and Giant/Norton immediately come to mind). Jarrett/Malenko is an unheralded gem of classic wrestling while Jericho/Guerrero is an excellent opener. The main event and the tag match that come before it are not going to be everyone's cup of tea, especially if they're massive Horsemen fans or are sick of screwy finishes, but nWo enthusiasts will have no such problem. With only one match not recommended, I'm going to make this show the lowest rated show to ever score a...

FINAL RATING - Watch It All