WCW Fall Brawl '95: War Games
Originally posted to Cohost.
Last time I mentioned being unsure what the difference between War Games and the Fall Brawl is and that I maybe have two PPVs to watch. It turns out that the Fall Brawl and War Games are the same thing, so that's one less PPV I need to watch at least. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this so I'm just going to watch it and see how it is. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the characters who haven't been on Nitro yet.
As always, notes made while watching to follow.
The intro sequence is absolutely terrible. I can't adequately express how bad it looks, even by the standards of the mid-90s.
Right off the bat the announcers are talking about things that happened earlier that same day and I'm already lost in terms of storylines etc. A little googling tells me that this PPV had a pre-Pay Per View segment broadcast live on WCW Main Event. Annoyingly this doesn't appear to be on the WWE Network, so I can't watch it, but that's fine. I'm going to have to accept that it's functionally impossible to keep up with the sheer volume of wrestling that was being broadcast at the time.
Match 1: Flyin' Brian vs. Johnny B. Badd
The winner of this match gets a championship shot against Sting on WCW Saturday Night, which I won't be watching. This match also has a 20 minute time limit. I don't know what happens if they go longer than that - are there judges? I assume it won't be an issue.
This is the slowest match I've seen in WCW so far. The only consolation is that this isn't the Nitro commentary team, so I don't have to sit through boring wrestling and mind numbing commentary. But the wrestling is boring. It picks up after the 5 minutes time warning but at that point we've already sat through 15 minutes of tedium. This match had no right to take up the entire 20 minutes, and the ending was a hot mess.
Have you ever heard of a wrestling match going to "sudden death overtime"? What does that even mean? The commentators say it means "you play until it's over" which is just... How wrestling works? This was a terrible way to start Fall Brawl and I want half an hour of my life back.
Interlude
We get a bit of story from the commentators about Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, and cut away as one of the presenters gets into a slight argument with a fan off camera which is hilarious. Then we cut to a Ric Flair promo which is absolute nonsense in the way that only Flair can deliver. Amazing to watch, absolutely meaningless.
Match 2: Cobra vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman
This one has a 15 minute time limit and I'm already wondering if it's going to be as meaningless as the limit in the first match.
The commentary team tell us Cobra - who looks like a knock-off GI Joe action figure - isn't a Marine but is actually a CIA Agent. That's a weird thing to say.
As we're waiting for Pittman an army cadet comes out in his place for some reason, and Cobra starts arguing with him as Pittman abseils in from the roof dressed in camouflage and gets the drop on Cobra from behind. There's a weird level of military fetishism going on in this match that's very American and very strange to watch nearly 30 years later. Thankfully the match ends after only a minute or two due to a submission so we don't have to deal with it for too long.
I've also just realised that this event is called War Games and I think maybe I'm going to have to deal with a lot more jingoism over the next few hours.
Interlude
A very weird pre-taped promo of Mr. Wonderful having a bad moment in his dressing room, being comforted by be-wigged TV psychic Gary Spivey. What the fuck is going on? (Seriously, Gary Spivey specifically exists as a symbol of everything weird about American popular culture.)
Match 3: WCW World Television Championship - Diamond Dallas Page vs. Renegade
This one has a 20 minute time limit. I guess this is a thing?1 I'm glad it fell out of favour because ending a match with a draw is really anticlimactic and if they all are allowed to run over so that someone can win then it's irrelevant anyway. I don't know if that's what happens, I'm basing it entirely on the first match in this event, but either way having explicit time limits is very silly in a sport where the winner is pre-determined. Although I guess it's all part of maintaining kayfabe, even though this is 6 years after Vince McMahon had gone on record in court that professional wrestling is in no way a competitive sport.
Anyway.
DDP is one of those iconic wrestlers whose name I feel like I've known my entire life but I haven't ever actually seen him wrestle until now. Renegade on the other hand I don't remember ever hearing of but I'm also positive I had a plastic toy of him in the 90s, he looks weirdly familiar. (It's weird to think about how many WCW toys I had and how much I loved WCW/nWo Revenge on the N64 when I never watched it.)
This match is fine. DDP wins due to outside interference, and there's not really anything memorable about it. Thankfully it's short.
Match 4: Tag Team Title Match - Harlem Heat vs. Buck & Slater
Booker T and Stevie Ray are just iconic aren't they? I don't historically like tag matches all that much, they always feel a bit chaotic (in a bad way not a good way) and tend to drag on longer than I like. But I could watch Harlem Heat all day long.
Weird observation maybe but some of the camera work in this match is really cinematic. There are a few moments where you feel really close to the action in a way that's unusual for televised wrestling. It feels like actually being ringside. I wish more matches were shot like this.
There's probably thousands of words you could write about a pair of white southern guys in cowboy boots, Levi's, and mullets beating up a couple of Black dudes while the commentators talk about how Harlem Heat "aren't thugs", they're good guys, actually, and an old white man in a cowboy hat, suit, and bolo tie who calls himself The Colonel eggs them on from outside the ring. That's just what we call Americana I guess.
Harlem Heat end up winning due to interference by the Nasty Boys. I might have said it before in one of these posts but these sorts of wins are my least favourite trope in wrestling. There's some plot stuff going on with the woman who came in with Harlem Heat (whose name I didn't catch) and the Colonel, who for some reason are making out in the second ring when the Heat take the title from the Colonel's team, but I don't know any of the context for it and therefore don't care.
Match 5: Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair
Before the match we get a fairly long recap of the plotline that's led up to this match, which is useful. I can't pretend I find it all very compelling but it's nice to actually have some context.
This is the first time Anderson and Flair have fought each other and a huge number of the other WCW wrestlers are seated in the audience to watch it. It's clear this is a pretty big deal.
At one point the referee blocks a punch from Anderson and I have no idea why. I assume it's some rules thing I'm not aware of? No idea.
Anderson wins this thanks to interference by Flyin' Brian. I might start keeping a tally of how many matches end up being decided due to interference because I hate it and it happens way too often.
Interlude
One of the worst promos I've ever seen for the upcoming War Games match. I immediately want the Dungeon Of Doom to lose this match because they're very annoying.
Match 6: Dungeon of Doom vs. Hulkamaniacs
I've never actually seen a War Games match so I don't know if the rules that get explained here are the same as they always are. To be honest I'm glad of the explainer though because I can sense that this is going to be hard to follow.
We get a plot twist, which is that if the Hulkamaniacs win the Task Master has to face Hulk Hogan in the ring tonight one on one. I assume this means that the Hulkamaniacs are of course going to win.
The first five minutes of the War Games match is Sting vs. a member of the Dungeon of Doom whose name I didn't catch and don't care enough about to double check. I think it's Shark? He's got a shark on his shirt anyway.
I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to be the in-cage cameraman for this, with no gap between the cage and the ring. The roof of the cage is also really low as well - I'd be interested to know when they first got elevated for things like Hell In A Cell.
The first 5 minutes of this match are pretty dull. The Dungeon of Doom win the coin toss and Zodiac comes in at speed, so now it's 2-on-1 against Sting for another dull 2 minutes before Macho Man comes in the even things up. Things speed up a little bit. Weirdly Shark refuses to sell a few hits from Sting and Macho Man.
By the time Kamala comes in Shark looks absolutely exhausted. He just sort of plods around the ring, occasionally hitting someone or throwing them into the side of the cage and then stopping to catch his breath. Even the commentary team mentions it at one point. And he still sells things incredibly poorly, barely reacting even when Macho Man goes off the turnbuckle onto his back.
The gimmick of the two rings side by side is fun on paper but in practice it just seems irrelevant.2 I would have loved to see a really high tempo match with people going between the two rings, getting thrown through the ropes and springing off them etc, but we don't get anything like that. It's just a very slow, crowded brawl that occasionally spills over into a second ring but mostly stays confined to a single space. There's a fun moment where Zodiac gets caught between the two rings, bouncing back and forth as Hogan lays into him, but that's about all we get.
And of course, the Hulkamaniacs win thanks to Hulk causing one of the Dungeon Of Doom (whose name I've forgotten, I couldn't keep track of them all) to submit.
Hulk faces off agains the Task Master alone in the ring, throwing him back and forth, and then there's another intervention. The Giant comes in and rescues the Task Master, and for some reason (plot innit) the Hulkamaniacs are nowhere to be seen to stop it happening until after Hogan is lying on the floor. There's a call for paramedics to ringside, and then the night ends.
Honestly? I've been really impressed with the wrestling in Nitro so far but the Fall Brawl was rubbish and I wish I hadn't wasted my time on it. In future I'll read up on PPVs and see if they seem worth watching before I commit the time to them I think.