WCW Halloween Havoc 1992

So... in preparation for this week's NXT show - featuring another edition of Spin The Wheel Make the Deal - I decided to revisit the WCW show responsible for its infamous reputation and that is Halloween Havoc 1992. Tomorrow, we'll be look at the 1993 edition that also featured the second ever STWMTD match before the concept was shelved forever and never seen again until a couple times when WWE would bring it back as RAW Roulette or whatever they used to call it.

Anyway, onwards with the show, as it were.

We have a six-man opening tag match that saw Johnny Gunn, Tom Zenk, and Shane Douglas defeat Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson & Michael Hayes in a weird match that saw the latter team cheered and the former team booed, when they're supposed to be opposite rules. This must be a Philly show. In any event, perfectly acceptable little wrestling match. Kept me entertained for a bit. Good start.

Ricky Steamboat defeated Brian Pillman in a pretty good match. Nothing mindblowing or anything; just a fun little match between two premier wrestlers for their day.

U.S. Champion Big Van Vader... okay, so Rick Rude is apparently the United States champion, but he had a match later on with Masa Chono for the NWA title... but he also has to defend the title and Rude complained about having to work twice on one night... not enough pay, I suppose. So he got Vader to fill in the role for him. So this is Big Van Vader defending someone else's title against Nikita Koloff and beating him to retain said title on behalf of Rude. Not much else to say; this was two big guys potato-ing each other and that's it, but with none of that.

World Tag Team Champions Barry Windham & Dustin Rhodes defeated Stunning Steve Williams and Dr. Death Steve Austin to retain the titles... no, wait. That doesn't sound right. Oh well, whatever. 

So Sting comes out to SPIN THE WHEEL, MAKE THE DEAl... we don't even get the mini-movie that made this whole thing famous. The concept of the wheel is straight-forward; there's a bunch of match types on the wheel and whatever lands is the stipulation for the Sting/Jake Roberts match. Naturally, since this is wrestling and it's all pretend, one would assume they'd gimmick the wheel so that it would land on a desired match type or stipulation to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Instead, they land on a Coal Miner's Glove match, which is basically a glove on a pole... right up Vince Russo's alley, apparently. Of all the possible match types you could've gone with... a GLOVE ON A POLE match is what you end up with... who was running this shit show?

Bill Watts, you say?

Really?

Was he whistling Stranger In Paradise while booking this thing?

The match between NWA World Champion Masa Chono and Rick Rude ends in a fuck finish where Chono apparently wins with a submission, but the second referee (who may or may not be Harley, I don't remember) reverses the decision and awards the win to Rude. This match was like watching that Edge vs. Randy Orton match from that one PPV... long, boring, it put me to sleep. Just a complete waste of time.

WCW World Champion Ron Simmons defeated The Barbarian (managed by Cactus Jack) in a shitty match that doesn't merit discussion of any kind to retain the title. The less said, the better.

Sting defeated Jake "The Snake" Roberts in a GLOVE ON A POLE match in a boring main event featuring Jake under the influence, but still enough in control of his faculties that, when the situation called for it, he was able to shove a harmless cobra onto his neck and sell it like it was biting him when it obviously wasn't. This was sad to watch and thus a total farce of a main event, but in fairness, at least this had a winner.

So this was a case of the first half of this show - right up until the tag match - was pretty entertaining stuff and then went off a cliff with the main event and two World title matches. It's honestly pretty shocking that there would be that steep a shift in quality in terms of the entertainment value. I mean, I expected the Sting/Snake match to be as bad as I've heard it, but the other main matches were also pretty bad for different reasons.

Such a shame, really.