WCW Fall Brawl 98'

WCW Fall Brawl 98'

Winston-Salem, North Carolina - September 1998

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: At this time, the World Heavyweight Champion was the massively over Goldberg (though he would not appear on this show because this is WCW), the United States Champion was held by Bret Hart, the Television Champion was Chris Jericho, and the Cruiserweight Title was held by Juventud Guerrera. On the tag side of things, Scott Hall and The Giant hold the WCW World Tag Team Championships. 

COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Mike Tenay 

Fall Brawl 98' begins with an impromptu message from WCW Television Champion, Chris Jericho, who announces that he will finally get the match he's been demanding for weeks now - a title vs. title bout against WCW World Champion, Goldberg! Okerlund and the commentators are shocked, but intrigued...

Disco Inferno and Alex Wright tangle with The British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart in the opening contest. Say what you will about Davey Boy's skill level at this point in his career, but he's respectably giving in this match, bumping for the considerably less-known Das Wunderkind. The match runs a bit long and the in-ring action never scores higher than "alright, I guess," but the finishing sequence is surprisingly solid (even as Bulldog struggles to get Inferno up for his powerslam). (2/5)

Backstage, Scott Steiner, with help from Buff Bagwell, tries to get out of his match with brother Rick. JJ Dillon reminds Steiner that if he does not compete tonight, he will be banned from WCW forever! 

Back in the arena we hear the familiar sounds of Chris Jericho's entrance music, only he and his security team (Ralphus and the mulleted Jericoholic Ninja) are having trouble finding their way out to the ring. Just in case the allusion floats over your head, Jericho recites lines from This is Spinal Tap. When Y2J finally does get to the aisle, his pyro is pitiful. The crowd is chanting for "Goldberg" and clearly wants to see the Television Champion get his comeuppance, but - swerve alert - instead of Goldberg, we get a much smaller, less defined Imposter Goldberg (played by Mark Cribb). A "Bullshit" chant erupts almost immediately as Jericho takes out the Fake Goldberg after a few minutes. As a match, this isn't good, but as an angle, it absolutely works - Jericho gets great heat, Goldberg is obviously set to come in and decimate him, and when its all said and done, both guys will come out of it even more over. How could WCW screw this up? Oh, they decide to not do anything after this with it? Not even on a Nitro? Oh, that's how. (+1)

The next actual bout has a very contrived back story - "The Cat" Ernest Miller has been running around backstage proclaiming himself the greatest and interrupting the interview time of other athletes like, on this night, The Armstrong Brothers (why the lower-lower-sub-undercard Armstrong Brothers would be lined up for an interview is never explained). Norman Smiley took umbrage with The Cat's antics and swiftly challenged him for Fall Brawl (they also had a pull apart moment backstage earlier in the show). Smiley had not yet gotten over with The Big Wiggle and Miller is a less well-rounded Glacier so this is about as uninteresting a match as one would expect. If I recall correctly, there's another loud "We Want Flair!" chant at some point (though, that could've happened during the opener too). The entirety of Miller's offense is kicking and Smiley, touted on commentary as an amazing submission-based wrestler, doesn't really come off at all as advertised. I know that Smiley was more than just a comedy wrestler in Japan and Mexico, but WCW missed that boat by not immediately pairing him up with respected and, most importantly, over grapplers like Benoit, Malenko, and Regal (was he still in WCW at this point?). (1/5)

Months in the making, it is time for brothers to clash - Scott Steiner vs. Rick Steiner. The crowd is super psyched for this match and I love how Rick Steiner takes the fight right to Scott, hitting him with a stiff Steinerline early and not giving him a second to breathe. Low blows from Scott bring on an abbreviated heat segment as the minute Buff Bagwell gets involved, the match pretty much stops entirely as the referee, participants, and announcers deal with what looks to be a legitimate injury. For the next 10 minutes, Schiavone, Heenan, and Tenay put on their most somber voices to sell that Bagwell, who suffered a career-threatening neck injury in 97' or so, is once again at risk of being paralyzed due to a Rick Steiner manhandling. At first the audience chimes in with a "Bullshit" chant, but WCW goes above and beyond to make sure this angle comes off as the real deal - Rick Steiner breaks kayfabe and shows his caring side, Eric Bischoff is shown on screen in his "non-nWo role" (I might be mistaken but Schiavone refers to him as WCW's "executive producer"), and a swarm of medical staff fill up the ringside area. They eventually bring Buff into an ambulance and Rick promises to call his mother as the doors close....before the doors spring back open and out comes Buff and Scott to attack Rick Steiner again! I legitimately laughed out loud. If I had paid $30 for this show, I probably would've slammed my fist through my TV screen but what's that thing about time plus tragedy equaling comedy? The match itself was kinda entertaining for 5 minutes, then really boring for 10 minutes, and then really funny for about 10 seconds. I'm not sure how to rate this, but I know its below average because 2/3rds of it are spent building up to the "punchline" that you, as a fan, are an idiot if you were "swerved" into thinking someone might actually get hurt "for real" in a fake wrestling match. (2/5)

Silver King challenges Juventud Guerrera for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship in the next match. The crowd gives no shits about Silver King and maybe only half of one for Juventud despite Guerrera actually having a fairly decent resume in WCW up to this point. King and Guerrera work hard but can't win the crowd over - at one point they're either chanting "Goldberg" or "Boring" and it doesn't really matter which because the point is, no matter what these two try to do (big suplexes, sunset flips sequences, quick counters) the audience doesn't care about them enough to invest. The biggest spot of the match is a nasty Inverted Hurricanrana from the top rope that Guerrera busts out that should've absolutely ended the match, but instead, Juventud hits King with a Juvi Driver (barely) and then shuts things down with his 450 splash (the second best spot of the match). In front of a crowd more familiar with Silver King, this might've been regarded as more than just average, but a cold crowd prevented that from happening. (2.5/5)

Backstage, Scott Hall bothers Konnan. Konnan tells him that when they fight, they need to come at each other "professinally," alluding to the fact that Hall is a drunk. 

We get a video recap of Saturn's most recent issues with Raven's Flock. After losing a match to him, Saturn had become Lodi's slave and thus had to do whatever Lodi said. He withstood a verbal taunting by Kanyon and then withstood a beatdown from the Flock when he refused to break the fingers of Scotty Riggs. 


Saturn vs. Raven is fought under Raven's Rules (No DQ, No Countouts) with the added stipulations that Kanyon will be handcuffed to a ring post and that if Raven wins, Saturn becomes his servant for "the remainder of his wrestling career" according to Dave Penzer. Raven gets some heat early but Saturn takes over, knocking Raven all the way into the guard rail before hitting him and Lodi with a huge splash over the top rope and to the floor! After shoving Raven back into the ring, Lodi pulls Saturn into the rail himself in a clever transition. Lodi hoists up a "Bill, Did You Inhale?" sign because that quote was about 6 years old and, in wrestling, that means its still "current." Raven locks in a sleeper hold, a questionable move as the audience wasn't fully with them. Thankfully, Saturn breaks out with a jawbreaker within a few seconds. Dead silence for the next minute or so. Raven hits his double leg sweep combo but can't get more than two. Pretty soft "Raven's Rules" match so far with neither guy brandishing any weapons yet. Raven connects with a shoulderblock to the midsection in the corner and grabs a chair, hitting Saturn with the drop toe hold into the chair. Saturn takes it fairly gingerly so it warrants a pretty minimal pop. Sick Boy, Horace, and Riggs show up with a table and set it up between the ring and the rail. Kidman hits Raven with a dropkick! Kidman's turned face! Huge pop from the crowd as the Flock chases him! Saturn hits his Death Valley Driver, but it only gets him a 2 count! And just like that the crowd is awake and cheering on Saturn's flurry of offense. Saturn gives Raven everything he's got - suplexes, drivers, a springboard clothesline - before locking in the Rings of Saturn which gets broken up by interference by Lodi. A ref bump leads to Kanyon getting the keys to the cuffs and unlocking himself. Kanyon pulls Saturn up and hits him with a Flatliner before rolling Raven on top of him. Too much time has passed before the ref is able to count though and Saturn gets 2! Saturn hits Lodi with a Death Valley Driver through the table! The crowd gives this a huge pop but Raven is able to hit Saturn with an Evenflow DDT on his way back in the ring! Kickout at 2! Saturn gets up and hits his Death Valley Driver to free the Flock! This one started off okay, lost the crowd entirely, but them pulled them back with Kidman's face turn and then Saturn's dizzying array of offense during his comeback. Each false finish got a huge pop because they were all believable as potential endings to the match - unlike alot of what we see in the WWE today. The actual finish was anti-climactic, though, as Saturn basically no-sold the Evenflow DDT after the two count. With so much booking here, one wonders why they couldn't have come up with a more clever way to get Raven into position for a second DVD? Fun match, but it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. (3/5)

We cut to a clip from Nitro when Dean Malenko took on Curt Hennig in a cage match. Why do the clips from Nitro look more exciting than anything we've seen on tonight's show so far? Malenko is about get to get his head smashed in by the cage door, but Arn Anderson makes his return to WCW to save him from nWo Hollywood! I was watching WWE much more closely by this point (as were many fans), so this angle passed me by, but it looks red hot based on the crowd reactions. 

Malenko vs. Hennig is next. Malenko controls the whole match, going after Hennig's knee and looking great doing it. Perfect's selling is on-point too, but in order for this match to have transcended its basic premise, he should've been able to mount at least some sort of offense to get some more heat into things. Rude also sells for the much-smaller Malenko, further cementing the Iceman as worthy of being a Horseman. Malenko hits a PerfectPlex - nice touch - but Rick Rude breaks up the count and gets his man DQ'ed. Throughout the match, the crowd has obviously been waiting for the return of Ric Flair and when Arn Anderson runs in (and gets beaten down too), the "We Want Flair" chants are deafening. Unfortunately, Bischoff opted to have Flair make his return the next night believing that ratings on a Monday are better than pleasing fans on a Sunday. Silly Eric, you would've had both. (2.5/5)

A "drunk" Scott Hall makes his way down the aisle with Vincent, drink in hand. Hall's acting here is pretty good, though, it is definitely awkward to watch a guy with real-life addiction problems pretending to be drunk on-screen as some sort of "kayfabe-breaking" gimmick. Scott Hall conducts a sloppy survey to help introduce the Wolfpack's Konnan. K-Dawg is mega-over, or at least his catchphrases are with the North Carolina crowd (he even throws in some No Limit Soldiers lines for good measure). Say what you will about his gimmick at the time, Hall is pretty amazing to watch here with all of his goofy antics, in fact he's so good, he makes Konnan's pedestrian offense exciting. After taking one too many hits, Hall opts to grab a quick refresher on the outside and nearly gets himself counted out. This match wasn't going to be packed with logic, but Konnan willfully stepping into a Hall submission is glaringly stupid when K-Dawg hadn't taken more than two punches beforehand. They sit in the resthold for awhile before Konnan reverses it and shoves the Bad Guy into the corner. Hall counters with a low blow for two and then throws in his signature fallaway slam for good measure. Hall applies an abdominal stretch and...takes another sip. Had there been any sort of nefarious transition in this heat segment, it would actually sort of work - but they didn't earn it and the crowd doesn't care at all because of it. Lazy match layout kills what began with the crowd eating out of the palm of their hand. Konnan is momentarily back in control because its his "turn" but Hall cuts him off with a clothesline as this match officially enters minutes it should've already been wrapped up by. Hall hits a belly-to-back suplex from the top rope but doesn't go for the cover. Instead of trying for the Outsider's Edge, Hall decides to grab one more sip, telegraphing Konnan's comeback and the Tequila Sunrise. Points awarded for Hall's acting in the first third of this match. (1.5/5)

MAIN EVENT TIME - Michael Buffer announces the names of tonight's captains and then asks fans if they are, in fact, ready to rumble. They are and down comes the massive cage. First out for Team WCW is noneother than Diamond Dallas Page, who will start the match by squaring off against Bret Hart of nWo Hollywood (kind of?). Page and Hart get 5 minutes to go at it and their work is fierce, but hardly the best they could've probably done together - Hart, even as a heel, is a guy who works meticulously to tell a story and build drama while Page, at this point, may have been at his peak in garnering sympathy and delivering great hope spots. Stevie Ray comes in third - a teammate of Hart on nWo Hollywood and, I'm guessing, the guy thrust into this match solely to say "I Quit" later. From here, the intervals are kept (mercifully) at 2 minutes and Sting shows up to a huge ovation at Number 4. Piper, Luger, and Nash are the next bodies to come down, Nash getting the biggest reaction so far. Before the timer sounds, though, Hogan makes his way down the aisle and sneaks into the ring, ostensibly to take out Nash (now, if Hogan was really brilliant he would've had Stevie Ray lie down for him immediately). Hogan, but more specifically, Stevie Ray uses his slap jack to take out nearly everyone else, including Hart. The Hulkster hits his leg drop on Nash but instead of scoring the easy pin, he and Ray just look at their destruction and gloat as the crowd chants "Hogan Sucks." After a minute or so, the rings fill up with smoke, signaling the arrival of The Warrior...who is immediately taken out by Hogan from behind. More smoke and...wait...that wasn't the Warrior, the real Warrior runs down the aisle and takes out Hogan and Stevie Ray to a respectable pop from the crowd. Hogan escapes the cage and the Disciple locks the door as Warrior takes out Stevie Ray on the inside. Warrior makes his way into the second cage but is focused entirely on Hogan on the outside, eventually kicking is way through just to get at his mortal enemy. In the ring, the siesta continues, all 7 of the other participants playing dead. Hart, Stevie Ray, and Page are up, but Sting pulls Hart to the mat as DDP hits his Diamondcutter on (you guessed it) Stevie Ray to end this match. The first five minutes were okay, I guess, and a half-point awarded for the Warrior nonsense being so ludicrous. (1/5)



Fall Brawl 98's "Kwang Score" of 2.06-out-of-5 puts it in pretty rarified air - it stands as one of the 20 lowest-rated shows I've reviewed. Amazingly its not the worst WCW show from 98', though (that would be the previous month's Road Wild show), but ignoring the historically horrendous Road Wild shows (the 97' version scored a woeful 1.97-out-of-5), this is the worst show WCW put on in over two years (it is almost as if the string from SuperBrawl VI through Slamboree 96' were  purposefully designed to be so bad so that the nWo's arrival that summer would be an even bigger deal). There's not a single match from Fall Brawl 97' I'd want to revisit, the best parts of the night being, oddly, the intentional comedy of Chris Jericho vs. "Greenberg" and Rick Steiner being made to look like a total goof and the unintentional comedy of the preposterous Warrior/Hogan interaction in the main event. Malenko/Hennig could've been a great moment...but WCW opted to keep Flair off the show believing (rightly so) that his return would boost Nitro's ratings. At the time, the importance of the Monday Night War had convinced him this was a necessary move - but this particular show suffered from his absence and the crowd let them know it throughout the show. 

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville