Happy Wednesday Everyone!
We continue on with our three show pay per view arc in the world of WCW in 1997 with World War 3 1997. I’m sorry but I’ve decided to keep the monstrosity that was the three ring battle royal on these events, although I’m hopeful that we can shoot and present it in such a way in order to at least make it watchable.
If you’d like to see how things went at Halloween Havoc then please check out Part One in the archives.
If you’d like to see what the real card for this one was then you can click below;
Card « WCW World War 3 1997 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database
Opening Match
Meng and The Barbarian Vs Mongo McMichael and Chris Benoit
10 Minutes
The prospect of Mongo wrestling either of these two opponents genuinely excites me because I have no idea how it’s going to go. It could be amazing or it could be atrocious. Either way, I am HERE for it! Benoit is a good enough wrestler that he should be able to carry things for his team and this should hopefully be a fun opener. We’ll let Mongo spike The Barbarian for the finish to give the babyfaces the win to start us out.
Match Two
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Saturn w/ The Flock Vs The Disco Inferno
8 Minutes
Disco will have lost the belt on TV in between Halloween Havoc and World War 3, and this will be his rematch here on pay per view. Disco will give it the old college try but he’ll be outnumbered and that will eventually lead to Saturn picking up the win.
Match Three
Yuji Nagata w/ Sonny Onoo Vs Ultimo Dragon
12 Minutes
Onoo and Dragon parted ways and Onoo brought Nagata in to defeat Dragon at Halloween Havoc, so Dragon gets his win back here. Onoo can hit his own man by mistake in order to give the bigger Nagata an out for losing, with Dragon pouncing to pick up the win.
Match Four
WCW Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Steiner Brothers Vs Scott Hall and Konnan w/ Kevin Nash
10 Minutes
Thanks to Nash it will look like the nWo will be set to regain the Tag Team Titles, but then Nash’s Starrcade opponent, The Giant, will come down to put a stop to his plans. With Nash nullified, poor old Konnan will end up getting Steinerized in order for the Champs to retain.
Match Five
Raven’s Rules
Raven w/ The Flock Vs Scotty Riggs
10 Minutes
Just as in real life, Raven will end up brutalising Riggs with a series of DDT’s until the referee stops the bout for Riggs’ own safety. Raven and The Flock will then essentially kidnap Riggs and he will end up as a member of The Flock.
Match Six
Lucha de Apuestas
Title Vs Hair
WCW Cruiserweight Title
Champ: Rey Mysterio Jr Vs Eddy Guerrero
15 Minutes
Rey put his mask on the line for a Title shot at Halloween Havoc and won, so Eddy is putting his hair on the line to get a rematch here. Eddy will CHEAT TO WIN in order to set up the final bout between the two at Starrcade.
Semi-Main
No DQ
WCW United States Title
Champ: Curt Hennig Vs Ric Flair
15 Minutes
Hennig betrayed Flair at Fall Brawl and their match ended in a DQ at Halloween Havoc, so we’ve got the No DQ follow up for this pay per view. Flair will give Hennig a good kicking and will have things in hand with the Figure Four, but Hennig will clock Flair with a weapon whilst in the hold and that will lead to a last gasp three count.
In real life Flair had an injury and couldn’t work Starrcade, so we can’t blow this feud off there but we’ll make sure to continue it on the show itself.
Main Event
Three Ring Battle Royal
30 Minutes
It’s very hard to make this match work just because it has 60 people in it and it was almost always a mess. However, there’s something to be said for being able to promise a big special gimmick match like this, so we’ll roll the dice on it again here, with it eventually coming down to a WCW contingent of Lex Luger, The Giant, DDP and The Steiner’s taking on an nWo group Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Curt Hennig, Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton. We’ll have Bagwell throw Luger out in order to set up a match at Starrcade, whilst Nash and Giant can eliminate each other in order to build to their eventual contest. Eventually it will come down to Hennig and DDP, with DDP throwing Hennig out to not only win a Title shot at Souled Out 98 but to also get himself in contention for a US Title shot.
In Conclusion
Hogan Vs Sting will be the big Main Event at Starrcade, with over a year of build ensuring that we’ll have a big buy rate. We won’t have the disastrous “nWo Nitro” storyline going on because it led to an all-time bad episode of the show and we have such a stacked roster when it comes to big names that we really don’t need to also shoehorn in Eric Bischoff to wrestle, especially with Bret Hart coming over from the WWF.
By flinging out Hennig in the battle royal we’ve got an easy way to give DDP a Title shot, and we’ll make sure Flair makes some appearances if he can despite his injury, just so Hennig has to keep looking over his shoulder.
Nash and Giant have been at loggerheads all year so we’ll book that for Starrcade as well, but I’ve come up with a somewhat creative way to try and make sure Nash doesn’t try and duck out of the contest.
We’re going to try and give Bagwell a bit more of a push in 1998, and we’ll get the ball rolling by having him feud with Luger in the build up to Starrcade, with the two set to face off at the event itself.
We’ll start a feud between Raven’s Flock and Chris Benoit, thus putting Benoit in the TV Title picture with an eye to eventually having him wrestle Raven in a big match.
And with Bret Hart coming in we’ll need something for him to do at Starrcade and I think I have a decent idea for that.
Please join me next week for Starrcade 1997!