Mike Reviews WCW Fall Brawl 1995

Happy Friday Everyone!

This one is being written in December 2024, as I try to review both Fall Brawl and Starrcade before WWE Network goes away here in the UK (Hi, September 2025 Mike here; I managed it in the end). Fall Brawl has an infamously awful War Games match, but it also has Brian Pillman Vs Johnny B. Badd and Ric Flair Vs Arn Anderson, so I’m looking forward to those matches at least.

You can view the full card for Fall Brawl by clicking below;

WCW Fall Brawl 1995 Card

Logan has reviewed this one previously as well, so give him some views!

All of the pics came from WWE Network News

Fall Brawl is emanating from Asheville, North Carolina on the 17th of September 1995

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

The opening video package features on the Flair/Arn and War Games matches as the two big bouts of Fall Brawl.

Opening Match
#1 Contender Status to the WCW United States Title
Brian Pillman Vs Johnny B. Badd

Pillman was in the beginning stages of his Loose Cannon gimmick, whilst Badd was basically a regular wrestler by this point as opposed to just being a Little Richard cosplayer. Badd has frisbees for the crowd prior to the bout starting, which delays Michael Buffer in making the pre-match ring announcements. The fans seem to be ahead of the curve with Pillman’s Heel turn, as they sound to be more vocally into Badd, despite this ostensibly still being a Face Vs Face contest. The early exchanges of this one feature some good back and forth wrestling on the mat, which is done both to establish that the wrestlers are equal to one another but also done to help them conserve a bit of energy because they are planning to put some time in here. What’s nice though is that they aren’t just lying around on the mat in holds where it’s clear that they aren’t actually wrestling. One wrestler makes it look like they are fighting to get out of the hold whilst the other looks like they are fighting to keep it applied, so they’re “working” holds instead of “rest” holds.

Pillman eventually leans into the idea that he’s going to be the Heel here, as he tries to turn the technical wrestling battle into more of a fight and he also yells a bit at the crowd. There’s a great bit where Pillman gets knocked out of the ring and delays a bit in returning, leading to a woman on the front row yelling at him to get back in, showing how Pillman has done a good job in playing into the crowd being more for Badd. Badd looks like he ends up bleeding at one stage, which leads to the director doing everything in their power not to get a clear shot of it because WCW didn’t like blood at the time and would cut to a far view of the ring if there ever was any claret in a bout, even on a pay per view like Fall Brawl. I don’t think it’s a Badd blade job, it’s just a case of “fortuitous juice” but someone has to think of the children I guess so we can’t see Badd’s eye bleeding a little bit because it might give delicate WCW fans nightmares if they saw a hardway on pay per view.

They do a good job of gradually increasing the tempo in this one, with the mat wrestling moving on to strikes, that moving onto more high flying stuff like dropkicks and dives, and then that building up to bigger power moves such as Powerbombs and Piledrivers. Each wrestler has chances to win it but their opponent is always able to just kick out, as the crowd gets into the action. Eventually the 20 minute time limit runs out and we have a draw. These days that would probably mean a Three Way Dance, but in 1995 we need to have a clear winner here, so instead we move into overtime in order to decide a winner. In a nice touch as well, the bout just doesn’t end a minute into the overtime period either, as we get nearly 10 more minutes of match first. I never liked the whole “do a finish as soon as overtime starts” trope just because it was really overused and made those sorts of things too predictable.

Pillman totally leans into Heeldom during the overtime period, even going as far as to outright bite Badd at one stage and then take the fight to the floor so that he can fling Badd into the metal railings at ringside. They’ve done a really great job of telling the story of Pillman going from Face to Heel over the course of this match, with Pillman being excellent in the role. They haven’t over-egged it either, they’ve built it gradually in ways that make sense and Pillman’s performance has been pretty much perfect. Both wrestlers do an excellent job of selling the exhaustion and the physical demands of having such a long match, and the crowd buys into the increasingly desperate attempts each wrestler makes to pick up the win as well.. Overtime mostly sees the two either going for big moves or pulling off counters, such as Pillman countering a Powerbomb into a rana whilst Badd counters a Crucifix attempt into a Samoan Drop. The finish goes back to how even the two competitors are, as both of them go for a cross body and meet in the middle of the ring, with Badd being able to land on top after the two collide, which is enough for the flash three in about 29 Minutes.

WINNER: JOHNNY B. BADD
RATING: ****

Thoughts: This one was built really well, as the two wrestlers started on the mat and gradually upped the tempo over the course of nearly 30 minutes, with the crowd going along on the journey with them. Pillman was fantastic as the babyface who gradually leaned into being more of a Heel, Badd sold well throughout the bout and both wrestlers delivered some hot moves when they reached the latter stages of the contest. What was nice was that the big moves felt “earned” because the two had spent the time building up the parity between one another with the mat based wrestling earlier on in the bout, so the fans were ready for bigger moves once the match hit the home stretch and the wrestlers delivered them. A lot of the wrestling in this one felt cutting edge for 1995 in North America, as you didn’t get a tonne of near-fall-fests like this around this time, especially in the “Big Two” promotions, so these two going out there and being given 30 minutes to have what the kids call a “banger” today felt quite special and the crowd bought in to it. I liked as well how Bobby Heenan laid the groundwork for the finish early on in the contest by saying that these two were so even and so good in the ring that it might take a bit of luck in order to win, and that essentially played out in the finish with Badd having a touch of luck in that he fell top of Pillman and not the other way around, although Badd more than showed that he was worthy of victory in the match as a whole so he couldn’t really be begrudged that luck at the end. Heck of a a way to kick off Fall Brawl!

Mean Gene Okerlund is interviewing Ric Flair backstage. Flair cuts a tremendous promo talking about the history that he and Arn Anderson have as allies and friends. Flair says that he loves Arn Anderson, but there can be only one King of the Hill, and that’s going to be The Nature Boy. Flair toned down the crazy a bit here and it made the promo a lot better.

Match Two
Sgt. Craig Pittman Vs Cobra

Pittman is a psychotic army guy and mixed martial artist who likes breaking limbs, whilst Cobra is supposedly someone that Pittman betrayed in the past. Cobra would end up getting a gimmick repacking a year later at the 96 version of Fall Brawl as a fake version of Sting. This one ends up being a squash, as Pittman distracts Cobra with Prince Iaukea (not yet named) in a solider outfit, which allows Pittman to repel from the ceiling and attack Cobra from behind. The crowd actually gets into Pittman coming down from the ceiling and then crawling from one ring to another in order to jump Cobra, but once the actual match starts they don’t really care about it. Pittman quickly applies an arm bar and that’s the finish in about 1 Minute.

WINNER: PITTMAN
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: I suppose in WCW’s mind the fact that Pittman came down from the ceiling made this whole thing “pay per view worthy”, as you didn’t normally get spectacular sequences like that on TV at the time until Sting started dressing like The Crow. That being said; take the repelling out of the equation and this was just a TV angle that they put on pay per view and it didn’t really belong on an event like Fall Brawl.

We get an infamous bit of Wrestle Crap, where Paul Orndorff is having a crisis of confidence until psychic self-help guru Gary Spivey and his wacky hair show up to try and help him. This was really silly, but it was actually entertaining because of that silliness. Marouane Fellaini was probably watching the segment and scribbled down some hair care ideas

Match Three
WCW World Television Title
Champ: The Renegade w/ Jimmy Hart Vs Diamond Dallas Page w/ Diamond Doll and Maxx Muscle

Renegade had been brought in as an Ultimate Warrior cosplayer when WCW couldn’t sign the genuine article, and sadly for him he’d been a real flop in the role due to the combination of his inexperience in the ring and the fact the fans resented getting a fake Jim Hellwig instead of the real one. DDP had been gradually improving in the ring and had support from the likes of Eric Bischoff and Dusty Rhodes backstage. His character at the time was that he was an arrogant jerk who treated the lovely Diamond Doll (his real-life wife Kimberly at the time) like dirt whilst she gradually started to stand up to him more and more. DDP bumps all over the place for Renegade in the early going, and it’s entertaining, owing to DDP being such a funny buffoon. There aren’t enough funny Heel buffoons in wrestling anymore I think.

Renegade still can’t do a side headlock properly despite months of practice, as he stands with his left leg forward and his right leg back, which is the exact opposite way you’re supposed to do it. Despite that, this is probably the best Renegade has looked on a WCW pay per view thus far, as DDP is actually willing to make Renegade look good and they keep it simple enough that Renegade doesn’t ever really come across as being overwhelmed or too over his head. There is some fun character stuff going on with DDP and his menagerie too, with DDP demanding that Doll hold up numbered signs like he’s figure skating in the Winter Olympics whenever he hits a nice looking move. Renegade actually takes some decent bumps from DDP’s offence as well, and he makes an okay looking comeback as well, complete with a Handspring Back Elbow in the corner.

The crowd responds reasonably well to this one too, which is a marked improvement on Renegade’s match back at the Bash at the Beach show, where fans turned on the match and booed poor Renegade out of the building/beach. Here at Fall Brawl; the fans pretty much react how they are supposed to, and pop for some of Renegade’s better applied moves. There’s actually a very nicely done near fall where Renegade counters the Diamond Cutter by shoving DDP into the corner and then getting a roll-up for two. The finish sees DDP and Muscle accidentally collide, but Muscle starts threatening Jimmy Hart following that, which means that Renegade has to help his manager by attacking Muscle rather than finishing off DDP when the opportunity presents itself. Muscle ends up grabbing Renegade by the ankle when Renegade tries getting back in the ring though, which the ref misses due to Hart, and the Diamond Cutter gives DDP the win and the Title in about 8 Minutes.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: DDP
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Renegade looked kind of like an actual wrestler here, which was either because he’d improved in-ring, because DDP was such a meticulous planner when it came to putting matches together, or a combination of the two. DDP was a pretty unselfish opponent, being happy to bump all over the place and look like an idiot in order to get the match itself over, which wasn’t always the case with Renegade opponents as some of them were bitter that they had to make the rookie look good and often didn’t even try to make the match itself enjoyable. DDP was both trying to make Renegade look good and also have an entertaining match here, and he mostly achieved it. DDP was actually surrounded by green people here, as not only was Renegade inexperienced, but so too were Muscle and Doll, and yet everyone did what they needed in order to make the match work. DDP had only been a full-time wrestler for 3-4 years or so at this point as well, so for him to essentially be the aircraft controller having to hold this whole thing together on a big show like Fall Brawl was a considerable task. If it was a test of some kind, then he ultimately passed here. I liked the finish as well, as Renegade prioritised saving his manager over winning, but Hart would eventually betray him in about a month, so you can possibly ask whether Hart ended up costing Renegade on purpose as part of a longer scheme?

Diamond Doll is not impressed that DDP is the Champion, whilst DDP and Muscle bail as quickly as possible like thieves in the night.

Match Four
WCW World Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Stud Stable (Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater) w/ Colonel Parker Vs The Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) w/ Sister Sherri

Back at the Bash at the Beach show; they were setting up The Stud Stable as the next challengers for The Heat, so the belts must have changed hands at some point along the way. This one has an additional story where Parker and Sherri are seemingly becoming an item after Sherri developed amnesia from bumping her head and seemingly forgetting that she hates Parker. Buck looks so happy to actually have a belt here, like he almost can’t believe that they let him win one. Buck and Slater are both remarkably ugly, but in a way that totally works for Pro Wrestling. Two grizzled looking dudes who have probably had a bar fight in every American state they’ve visited. The crowd is a bit flat for this one, possibly because they’re not sure on who to cheer for. They kind of teased that The Heat might be going babyface a couple of times in these reviews but they ultimately have remained Heel, so now the fans aren’t sure how to feel about them.

The Stud Stable have been consistently Heel since showing up in WCW, so they could have possibly had The Heat working as de-facto Faces here by bumping the Heels around, like when the two wrestled back at the Great American Bash pay per view. Instead both teams are working as Heels and just kind of trading momentum whilst the managers flirt with one another. Slater eventually throws Booker over the top rope onto the ring steps in an unpleasant looking bump, but the ref does at least make sure to be looking the other way so we don’t get another example of WCW’s inconsistent over the top rope DQ rule. That looks to kind of be a heat segment on Booker, but the crowd doesn’t really care about The Heat as babyfaces, so the atmosphere continues to be flat. The work is okay, with Slater getting a nice Ukrainian Leg Sweep and then following it with a Piledriver soon after.

The Stud Stable do seem to be making a bit of a concerted effort to be heelish here, with them constantly doing illegal things and attacking Booker on the outside. Booker’s selling is solid, although it is slowly dawning on me that Stevie Ray is going to have to do the hot tag in this scenario and I’m not sure how that one is going to go. The crowd does react a little bit to Stevie’s hot tag, possibly because they feel the pace will pick up a bit. Stevie does at least stand in the middle and let the Champs come to him rather than stumbling around the ring trying to catch them, so it’s not a bad hot tag in all fairness. Things break down following that with Parker and Sherri getting together in one ring romantically whilst their teams fight in the other ring. The referee is distracted by this, which allows The Nasty Boys to run in an attack Stud Stable in order to give The Heat the win when the referee turns around in about 17 Minutes.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: THE HARLEM HEAT
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Solid wrestling for the most part but little in the way of crowd reactions. They tried to get the fans behind The Heat, but the crowd just wasn’t biting, even though The Stud Stable worked a competent heat segment and Booker sold well to set up the hot tag. Sometimes you just have a day where things don’t work, and that was the case here

Parker doesn’t seem too bothered that his team lost because he’s managed to have a smooch with Sherri. Both The Stud Stable and The Harlem Heat seem perturbed by their managers canoodling. I think they’d get over a year out of this storyline, complete with Parker and Sherri having an on-screen wedding segment.

Parker tells Mean Gene that he’s serious about Sherri and that he’ll get his men another shot at the Tag Titles.

We get a video package to recap the issues between Ric Flair and Arn Anderson.

Mean Gene is interviewing Arn Anderson. Arn cuts one of his best promos ever in hyping up the match with Flair, where he talks about how he has to beat some sense into Flair after Flair has spent months losing his mind. This was such a good promo and it’s amazing to see how serious this angle and storyline is being treated when you consider some of the sillier stuff going on in and around Fall Brawl.

Co-Main
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson

Flair was taking Arn for granted, leading to them having a falling out in order to set this one up. There are wrestlers watching this one in the crowd, such as Eddy Guerrero, Alex Wright, The American Males and Brian Pillman, with the idea being that this is such a big match that even the wrestlers want to see it up close as well. Arn looks to be taking the babyface role here, with Flair getting bumped around and shown up in the early going, which the crowd reacts to well. The commentary team do a really good job getting across the relationship between the two competitors and how shocking it is that we’re seeing these two long-term allies going at it. Heenan of course blames everything on Hogan, as he is want to do. Arn does some customary work on the arm of Flair, which leads to Tony and Bobby talking about the history of the Anderson Family when it came to targeting appendages and hurting people. It’s a really effective little bit at making Arn come across as a dangerous technician who needs to be feared.

Flair of course replies by throwing chops and looking to attack the legs of Arn so that he can set up the Figure Four, with the crowd being into every big move and sequence. This one may as well be the Main Event as far as some of the live crowd are concerned due to Flair and Arn being such big stars in the local area. Arn generally gets the better of things in the early going, but Arn ends up taking a spill to the floor following a Flair low-bridge, and that leads to Flair coming off the top rope with an Axe Handle to the floor for the cut off. Arn’s selling is really good during the heat, as he gets the balance right between showing that he’s in possible jeopardy whilst also showing that he can still fight back. The way both wrestlers get across the tiredness and pain they are feeling as the bout rages on is really on point, and you really feel like they are investing everything they have into this both physically and mentally.

We do eventually get some Figure Four action, although Arn makes Flair work for it by blocking the overhead leg at first, as they continue to get the most out of everything they do. There has been zero wasted motion in this one, everything has made sense and has been well worked. Pillman ends up jumping on the apron to seemingly cheer Flair on, but Pillman then clocks Flair and that leads to Arn getting the DDT for the three count in about 23 Minutes as the crowd explodes. Interestingly, even though Arn was seemingly the babyface in the match itself, the fans did not like how Arn won and the result has essentially led to a double turn, with Arn now the Heel and Flair now as a Face.

WINNER: ARN ANDERSON
RATING: ****

Thoughts: This was two top level Pro Wrestlers going in there and having a fantastic old school styled bout, where everything made sense and the work itself was top notch. The crowd was really into the action and the finish set up an interesting direction in the storyline that eventually led to The Horsemen reforming the next month at Halloween Havoc. Just excellent Pro Wrestling and a marked difference from some of the cartoonish nonsense that can be found elsewhere in WCW during this time period

We get a video package for the next match.

We get footage of The Giant destroying Hulk Hogan’s motorbike with a monster truck on the pre-show.

Mean Gene is interviewing Hulk Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage and Lex Luger w/ Jimmy Hart backstage. They all seem to be on the same page ahead of the War Games. This was the usual “lots of people yell excitedly ahead of a big match” interview segment and those are usually entertaining in a wild bombastic way.

Main Event
War Games
Luchas de Apuestas
If Team Hulkamania wins then Hulk Hogan gets 5 Minutes inside the cage with Kevin Sullivan
The Dungeon of DOOM (Kamala, Meng, The Shark and The Zodiac Man) w/ “The Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan
Vs
The Hulkamaniacs (WCW World Champ Hulk Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage and Lex Luger) w/ Jimmy Hart

The story here is that the Dungeon of DOOM are a collection of wacky characters who are trying to end Hulkamania, so Hogan has put together an All-Star team in an effort to take them out. The problem is that Luger has only just jumped from the WWF, so Hogan and Savage aren’t sure that they trust him whilst Sting is trying to be the peacemaker and keep everyone together. Vader was originally supposed to be on Hogan’s team, but he got fired for having a backstage fight with Paul Orndorff, so Luger has got the slot instead. For those not au fait with War Games; the rules are such

• Two wrestlers start for 5 minutes
• There’s a coin toss to decide which team gets the advantage when it comes to sending the next member into the cage, at which point a new person joins the match every 2 minutes
• Once everyone has entered; the Match Beyond begins, where you win by submission or surrender

Interestingly Sting almost gets the biggest reaction for his team, although Hogan only just edges him out. It shows just how popular Sting was at the time, even though he was arguably the #3 babyface in the promotion at the time. Shark (John Tenta with one of the many wacky gimmicks he got saddled with in the 1990’s) and Sting start us out. The problem with the majority of the WCW Era War Games matches is that the bouts were generally bloodless, and that took away some of the oomph of the gimmick. I’m not saying everyone has to be drenched in claret or anything, but it does stretch the bounds of credibility that someone could be thrown into a metal fence over and over without even getting a scratch on their face or head. Shark and Sting do a reasonable opening section, with Sting leaping across the two rings in order to pop the crowd at one stage. Sting ends up hurting his back on a Body Slam attempt though, which leads to Sting selling that whilst Shark goes to a Bear Hug. The crowd sticks with Sting during that though, as this one has had decent crowd reactions thus far.

In a shock of all shocks; the villains win the coin toss, which means that they gain the advantage and can send another wrestler in.

The Zodiac Man enters the War Games

Zodiac is Ed “Brutus Beefcake” Leslie with a terrible gimmick where he wears face paint and says the opposite of whatever the other person is saying to him. So if someone says “Yes” then he’ll say “No” and if someone says “decent human being” he’ll reply with “Vince McMahon”. Anyway, Zodiac and Shark are too much for Sting to fight against on his own, although he does the best he can and the crowd does react whenever it looks like Sting will do something. The work is pretty sloppy though, as Shark is getting tired and Zodiac isn’t any good.

Randy Savage enters the War Games

Savage of course runs wild as best he can, although he stupidly puts Zodiac in a Boston Crab whilst Sting is down selling, which makes it easy for Savage to get clobbered by Shark. Meng and Kamala keep reaching through gaps in the cage to help their teammates. The work continues to be pretty meh, but the crowd is seemingly still somewhat invested.

Kamala enters the War Games

Not much happens really, although Sting does get a reaction for throwing some punches at Kamala.

Lex Luger enters the War Games

Luger runs wild on the Heels, and the crowd loves it. Whenever the babyfaces have actually done anything here the crowd has been into it, but the crowd doesn’t seem to care about seeing The Dungeon work any heat, possibly because they are all so goofy that it’s hard to take any of them seriously aside from maybe Meng?

Meng enters the War Games

A miscalculation between Luger and Savage leads to them arguing and almost fighting, which makes it easy for Meng to come in and start wrecking all of the babyfaces. The crowd doesn’t react as big to the Faces seemingly crumbling as you’d expect them to be, even though it makes sense in the storyline and you’d think the crowd would have been geared up to possibly see it?

Hulk Hogan enters the War Games

Hogan of course has powder with him, like the cheating coward he is, and he throws it in the faces of the Heels. Zodiac was allegedly very excited for that spot before he realised what as ACTUALLY getting thrown at him. The babyfaces seemingly manage to get back on the same page following Hogan’s rescue attempt, and that leads to the babyfaces working together in order to try and win the contest. Zodiac is seemingly Hogan’s designated job guy here, as he takes an almighty pounding from The Huckster and ends up getting locked in a Camel Clutch in order to give the babyfaces the win after about 19 Minutes. Luger and Sting actually have trademark submission holds so it would have made more sense for them to get the win of course, but I’m guessing that one didn’t work for Terry, brother.

WINNERS: TEAM HOGAN
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This didn’t do much for me in all honesty. The work was a bit sloppy and the crowd only really seemed that invested when the babyfaces were running wild, and you obviously can’t do an entire match like that, so there were some flat moments when the Heels were trying to get some heat. Hogan winning with a lame Camel Clutch just so he could be the one to get the deciding fall when he had partners with actual submission holds on his team was annoying, but it’s Hogan so what can you do? I think some blood might have improved this a bit, if only to increase the drama. Not the worst Fall Brawl War Games (1998 still owns that dubious distinction) but not a patch on the fun and entertaining War Games from 1994

So Hogan now gets Taskmaster in the cage, which is of course a one sided beating in favour of Hogan. However, The Giant joins us and snaps Hogan’s neck like he’s doing a fatality in a Mortal Kombat game or something, thus setting up a match between Giant and Hogan at Halloween Havoc.

In Conclusion

Fall Brawl certainly had some tonal dissonance. You’ve got good old fashioned serious wrestling with the Pillman/Badd and Flair/Anderson sections of the show, but then you had wacky cartoonish stuff with the Dungeon of DOOM Vs Hogan feud. It felt like you were watching a promotion with a serious split personality problem at times. There’s enough solid to excellent wrestling on Fall Brawl that I’d be happy to give the show overall a thumbs up, but you can see why the promotion needed the nWo storyline before it could conquer North America, because the serious stuff on the show was clearly what the crowd was most invested and interested in, so once they moved away from the goofy Dungeon of DOOM and did the nWo Invasion the company finally had a feud on top that fans could get their teeth into and that’s why things took off the way they did.

Mildly recommended show