The SmarK Rant for WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

Hey, it’s the season for HALLOWEEN HAVOC and this is the next one up that I haven’t redone since originally watching it back in 1998. And even then I was mostly distracted for the first half because my roommate was in a fistfight with his drug-addicted brother elsewhere in the apartment. Good times, good times. This was featured on the WWE Vault channel on YouTube a few days ago but I do things at my own pace because I’m a REBEL.

Live from Las Vegas, NV, drawing 10663 and a 0.78 buyrate.

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan & Mike Tenay.

Rick Steiner joins Mean Gene to start, in advance of facing his brother tonight. This brings out Buff Bagwell, rocking a FUBU jersey in some peak 1998 fashion, and he promises that he’s had a change of heart and wants to be in Rick’s corner tonight. Rick was so stupid.

WCW World TV Title: Chris Jericho v. Raven

Raven was in the midst of a losing streak gimmick at this point, which ended up setting up the Jersey Triad/New Flock stuff in 1999. Raven’s Nirvana ripoff has been replaced with generic guitar riffs and cawing raven sounds, while Jericho’s Pearl Jam ripoff is slickly replaced with “Break the Wall Down”, which is pretty impressive all things considered. Raven of course complains about getting put in a match he wasn’t scheduled for. He should have said “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today” for maximum pop culture reference. Jericho points out that he means buyrates and he’s disappointed that he doesn’t get to beat Raven, since Raven is such a loser and moron and such. Harsh but fair. So Raven decides to attack and Jericho steals the jacket and whips him with it, and the ARROGANT COVER gets two. Raven clotheslines him to the floor and they brawl out there as Raven suplexes him onto the stairs. And then Raven goes flying with a dropkick off the steps, sending Jericho into the stairs. Back in the ring, Jericho necks him on the top rope and dropkicks him off the apron, but he follows with a dive and takes a Pillman bump into the railing. OUCH. More brawling as Jericho runs him into the railing. Back in the ring, Raven does some cheating to take over and grabs the sleeper, but Jericho suplexes out of that and hits a senton. Jericho exposes the turnbuckle, but he charges and Raven powerbombs him and catapults him into the steel, setting up a lariat for two. I see Raven is in his manic phase tonight. Belly to belly gets two. Jericho rolls him into the Liontamer, but Raven makes the ropes. Jericho literally hops around the ring in anger, but Raven hits him with the DDT for two. Jericho rolls him up for two and goes low, and a german suplex gets two. This brings Kanyon out to watch, but Jericho knocks him off the apron and puts Raven into another Liontamer for a fast submission at 8:00 to retain. I don’t know where this one came from but it was GREAT. And they never even had another match that I know of! ****

Hollywood Hogan and his microphone holder join us and reminds us how he’s gonna cut up Warrior and beat him tonight, just like he beat up his own nephew on Nitro.

Meng v. Wrath

They immediately brawl on the floor for a HOSS FIGHT and Wrath pulls out a somersault senton off the apron, and back in the ring for a slugfest. Meng won’t go down, so Wrath hits a flying clothesline for two. Shoulderblock and he goes for the finish right away, but Meng boots him down with the KICK OF FEAR for two. Backbreaker gets two. Meng beats on him in the corner and hits a back suplex for two. Meng with a corner clothesline as this is already dragging, but Wrath gets a uranage for two. Meltdown finishes at 4:20. Wrath seemed motivated to start but then got unmotivated again pretty quickly. ½*. Not much heat from a super-hot crowd either.

Disco Inferno v. Juventud Guerrera

Winner of this gets a Cruiserweight title shot at Kidman later tonight. This show is certainly the proverbial Forrest Gump box of chocolates in terms of never knowing what’s coming up next. Although that saying never made any sense to me, because there’s literally a legend printed on the inside cover of the box! Maybe READ it before reaching in and taking a chocolate? Although I’m pretty sure Juvy’s box of chocolates is just the booze ones. Disco quickly hits a side slam and gets two, but Juvy fires back with chops and botches a fameasser out of a hiptoss, so he repeats the spot and at least does it right on the second try. Disco charges and Juvy monkey flips him to the floor and follows with a headscissors to the floor as Disco is doing his best to be the base for his flying. Makes sense, disco music has a lot of bass. Back in the ring, Disco with an atomic drop and clothesline to cut him off, and he goes up with the middle rope elbow for two. Disco with the chinlock, but Juvy rolls him up for two and necks him on the top. Disco runs away from a springboard, but makes the mistake of pointing to his head to indicate intelligence. Yeah Disco isn’t fooling me with claims of being smarter than anyone. I feel dumber every time he tweets. Back in the ring, Juvy with a rana and they trade suplex attempts, but Disco necks him and hits a neckbreaker for a double down. Disco gets two off that and stops to do the Macarena, but Juvy rolls him up for two. Disco with the Giant Swing and he gets dizzy and lands on Juvy’s crotch as this thing is falling apart, and that gets two. They’re having drastically different matches than each other at this point. Disco goes up and Juvy crotches him and brings him down with a rana, and then follows with a leg lariat from the top for two. Bulldog gets two. Disco with a piledriver out of nowhere to finish at 9:41 and earn the title shot. This was all over the place, like some kind of box of chocolates without a legend on the inside of the top. **

Scott Steiner joins us and promises to put up the tag team titles because he’s so confident of beating his brother, so now the singles match is a tag team match with Scott & Giant v. Buff & Rick Steiner instead. But then JJ Dillon interrupts and says that if Scott is putting up the tag team titles, then Rick gets his singles match with Scott if he can win the titles tonight. Wait, WHAT? They already announced the singles match between Rick and Scott, and the first segment on the show was Rick asking Buff to be in his corner. So now that match ISN’T happening? Also, it’s time to play everyone’s favorite game from 1998, “Who The Everloving Fuck Are the WCW Tag Team Champions This Week?” In this case, the answer is apparently Scott Hall and the Giant and I guess the belts are just defended by anyone in the nWo who wants them in a kind of expanded Freebird rule that makes no sense. It was no secret that Bischoff was actively out to kill off the belts anyway, which granted is a pleasant change of pace for a promoter given the state of wrestling titles today, but the WCW titles weren’t long for the world in 1998. But yeah, this whole segment felt like I was watching something out of order from a different point in the show.

Fit Finlay v. Alex Wright

What a gloriously weird show this is. This is of course the climactic battle to determine who the greatest wrestler in Europe truly is, thus settling the argument once and for all. If you think political discourse on Twitter gets ugly, you should see the “Greatest European wrestler” discourse on there. MADNESS. They trade forearms and Wright puts the boots to him and catapults him under the bottom rope while the crowd expresses their opinion about the quality of the match so far. To be fair it’s only been 2 minutes, they haven’t had a fair chance to be boring yet. They head to the floor and Finlay beats on Alex out there and drops him on the railing. Back in, Alex with a sunset flip for two, but they tumble to the floor again. Back in, Wright randomly hits a neckbreaker and pins him at 5:00. I’m assuming Fit was hurt and they needed to go home in a hurry. *1/2

Saturn v. Lodi

Saturn is free of the Flock and apparently going through former Flockers on the way to…well, nothing really. They didn’t really do much with him after his super hot babyface turn. Lodi keeps retreating and trying to get his signs back from the ringboy, but Saturn suplexes him back in the ring and Lodi runs away again. Back in the ring, Saturn with another series of suplexes and a falcon arrow. Death valley driver finishes at 3:48. Well this was certainly a match that happened. ½*. Incredibly, Lodi is apparently still going strong today after a solid 20 years of working indies, which is amazing because he vanished off the face of the earth after WCW died.

WCW Cruiserweight title: Billy Kidman v. Disco Inferno

My god, we are BLESSED by two Disco matches to go along with the main event tonight. Kidman with a dropkick and he grabs a headlock on Disco and then goes to the armbar on the matm, but Disco comes back with a neckbreaker as Tony discusses how the young ladies in the audience love Kidman. Well sure, now that he’s washing his hair and wifebeater. Women love that, I’ve heard. Disco talks some trash, I think, and sends Kidman to the floor. Back in, Kidman misses a splash and Disco goes to his favorite move, the chinlock, to slow it down even more. Kidman fights out and Disco faceplants him and stomps a mudhole in the corner. Back suplex gets two. Disco goes up and misses, and Kidman powerbombs him for two, but misses a dropkick. Disco hits the piledriver that won his previous match, but that only gets two. Kidman comes back with the bulldog, but Disco hits a gourdbuster for two. He tries for a finishing powerbomb, but YOU CAN’T POWERBOMB KIDMAN and the shooting star press finishes at 10:48. This was fine, maybe even good, both guys were clearly friends and liked working together, in as much as anyone could be friends with Disco in any sense and/or like doing anything with him. ***

WCW World tag team title: Scott Steiner & The Giant v. Rick Steiner & Buff Bagwell

Buff isn’t even in his gear tonight as we head towards the stupidly obvious swerve. Giant beats on Rick in the corner, deep into his DGAF endgame wit WCW, and Scott comes in and puts the boots to Rick. Rick gets tossed and Giant beats on him out there. Back in the ring, Rick slugs away in the corner, but Scott puts him down with an atomic drop. Rick comes back with an elbow and tags in Buff, who immediately turns on Rick and rejoins the nWo before walking out. The announcers of course sound like complete morons talking about how everyone was “fooled” by Buff’s act, which I assure you, no one was actually fooled by. So Rick has to continue by himself, and Scott chokes him out on the ropes. Buff’s turn here actually killed his career, as he was on the verge of a gigantic sympathetic babyface push after coming back from career-ending neck injury and they just flushed it down the toilet for nothing. So that Buff could be Scott’s errand boy for another year? Sure, why not. Giant with a legsweep for two as this drags on, but Rick makes a comeback until Scott cuts him off with the great equalizer. So the Giant goes AIRBORNE and accidentally dropkicks Scott Steiner as a result, allowing Rick to make the comeback with the flying bulldog on Giant to finish at 8:45 and win the tag team titles. Well at least the tag team titles won’t sink any lower now, LOL!

Hang on, let me just check the title history and refresh my memory…

Oh. OK.

So this leads to…

Rick Steiner v. Scott Steiner

Scott tries to walk out, but Rick chases him back into the ring to start their singles match. Rick blocks a blind charge with a boot and then hangs Scott in the corner with a slam for two. So the match drags on, but a fan comes out of the crowd dressed in a Bill Clinton match, revealing himself to be Buff Bagwell, and that’s a DQ at 2:40. But then Scott covers Rick and Buff uses the ref’s hand to count two, with Rick kicking out anyway. And then Rick makes another comeback, hits a flying bulldog, and pins Scott at 3:33. I guess it wasn’t a DQ then? Not much to it, but it had a lot of heat, so I’d go ** for the whole thing start to finish.

Scott Hall v. Kevin Nash

We were in the midst of the “Everyone gets an nWo” split of 1998 as WCW stumbled ass-backwards into the Wolfpac as a money drawing machine and then pissed it away. They “brawl” to the floor to start and Hall gives him a lovetap with the microphone and chokes him out with a cable, but Nash somehow recovers from this horrific beatdown and shakes off the doctors to continue. Hey big guy, don’t do ME any favors! Back in the ring, Hall slugs him down and slams him, but Nash fights off the Razor’s Edge. So Hall slugs away in the corner while Nash refuses to fight back. Kevin Nash declining to fight? Am I in CRAZYTOWN? Nash fights up and chases Hall out of the ring and then tears off the t-shirt, so at least he’s one up on Hulk Hogan these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made sure WCW reimbursed him for the shirt sale. Nash works on the back as it’s a good thing they’re in Vegas so they can pump oxygen into the arena like casinos do and keep the crowd awake. Nash literally goes “BAM! BAM! BAM!” while doing his patented knees in the corner and mocking Hall’s drinking, as they’ve somehow managed to take one of the biggest tag team breakup feuds in history and turn it into a boring comedy match. Luckily for them, this won’t even be in the conversation for worst match of the show by the end of the night. Nash pulls down the straps and hits the Poochiebomb. “Think I’ll make it a double” notes Nash, and Tony clarifies “That means he’ll hit another powerbomb” with a completely straight face. YA THINK?!? So indeed, Nash does a second powerbomb, which I’m assuming requires a contract extension from WCW, and then Nash decides to walk out on the match and Hall wins by countout at 14:06. Well that’s a WCW finish all right. This went WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long for whatever they were going for with it, as the show is already 2 hours long and they’ve got three matches left to cram in.

WCW US title: Bret Hart v. Sting

This is heel “groin pull the likes of which you wouldn’t believe” Bret Hart against Lobster Makeup Sting in case you need a reminder, like me. Bret stalls to start and Sting hauls him into the ring and slugs away in the corner. Atomic drop gets two. Bret rakes his face on the ropes, sadly not rubbing the ugly goatee off his chin, and a DDT gets two. Bret drops the leg for two. Elbowdrop gets two. Bret with a chinlock as he’s taking his time here, to say the least, but Sting quickly fights out of that. Bret goes up and Sting catches him in a Scorpion, but Bret makes the ropes and then claims a leg injury on a leapfrog. So Sting of course buys it and that allows Bret to load up a foreign object. Well at least if Trump wins, we’ll only see AMERICAN objects used by heels from now on and the rest will be deported. USA! USA! Sting gets the weapon, but Bret goes low (which is about the 14^th or so tonight) and takes over again with a backbreaker for two. They fight leisurely to the floor and Bret drops him on the railing, but Sting heads back to the apron and accidentally elbows the ref in the face to knock him out. Maaaaaaaan there have been some bad booking tropes tonight. Sting comes back and misses the Stinger splash while the ref naps on the job, perhaps having watched that boring Hall v. Nash match, and Sting superplexes Bret onto the poor ref and now everyone is out cold. Still more action than the Outsiders match, though. Sting misses another Stinger splash and Bret grabs the bat and knocks Sting out even more, and then revives the ref and puts Sting in the Sharpshooter at 15:00. You can just see the glassy lack of caring in Bret’s eyes at this point. This was probably one of his worst ever PPV matches, too. *1/2. Hopefully there’s an even worse trainwreck coming up next to make everyone forget about this one!

Hollywood Hulk Hogan v. The Warrior

To put the PPV overrun controversy into perspective, we’re already at 2:40 into the show and the co-main event match hasn’t even started yet. If only there was like 6 or 7 matches they could have cut from the midcard to tighten things up a bit! No, that’s crazy talk, then we wouldn’t know who the greatest European wrestler in history was. Hulk beats on Warrior with forearms, which to Tony is “kicking it into high gear”. My god I’d hate to see what low gear was. Warrior puts him down with a shoulderblock and it’s 1990 ALL OVER AGAIN, BY GOD! ‘MEMBER 1990, WCW FANS? Hulk retreats to the floor, but Warrior wants a test of strength and Hogan declines. Instead, we get Hogan choking him out in the corner before putting Warrior in the knucklelock, as they desperately try to replay spots from Wrestlemania VI 8 years later. The fans, bless their hearts, could not give a single shit about Warrior’s struggle to escape this deadly test of strength, THAT HE ASKED FOR MIND YOU, and they redo the criss-cross spot and trade slams. This is so bizarre, like the comedy troupe that used to do touring live performances of old Star Trek episodes. They head to the floor and Warrior runs Hogan into the vicinity of where the ringpost is, and we head into the ring for our first ref bump at only 7:00 in. Hulk calls out the nWo to help and I’m confused why Warrior is even selling right now, but then he makes his own comeback and somehow fights off the awesome forces of the guy who used to be Virgil and the other guy from Harlem Heat and the guy who was about to go to the WWF while smoking cigarettes while the ref revives. So Hulk chokes Warrior out again and beats on him with the weight belt, but he misses an elbow and Warrior kind of rolls around on the mat before missing his big splash. You know how you’ll go to a local high school sometimes and yell out the name of their rival school and then blame it on some dumb teenager who is standing around minding his own business, in order to start a fight for your own amusement? Those fights have WAY more action and better choreography than this mess. And then the BEST PART, as Hulk tries to light a FIREBALL and somehow fucks that up completely, not even able to get it into the air enough to warm Warrior’s skin. I think he might have even blamed the Warrior for that one after the fact if I’m remembering correctly. It certainly sounds like something he’d say at least. And Warrior has no idea what to do, just carrying on and stumbling around the ring before hitting a double axehandle for some reason. Hulk does his legdrop, but Warrior makes the comeback while Horace Hogan and Eric Bischoff come out, and Horace turns on Warrior in a shocking swerve that surely no one saw coming, allowing Hogan to get the pin at 14:14 after a chairshot. This was like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a much better match, where you then try to crumple it up and set that photocopy on fire and throw it at someone a foot away and still somehow manage to miss. Hope that clarifies my feelings on it. -*****. And that’s the end of the Warrior’s career in WCW, aside from I think one more Nitro appearance and all the money that Turner had to pay out because they signed him to a long term contract because they’re idiots.

WCW World title: Goldberg v. Diamond Dallas Page

So at this point we’re at 3:00 into the show and PPV providers started shutting the show off, resulting in WCW paying out thousands of dollars in refunds and destroying whatever benefit the buyrate had. But hey, they drew a big rating showing this match on Nitro the next night, so there’s that I guess. Goldberg goes for the arm and Page sweeps the leg to take him down, so a pissed off Goldberg slams him and tries an armbar on the mat. DDP makes the ropes and tries for the cutter, but Goldberg throws him out of the ring to escape. Back in, Goldberg goes to the arm again, but Page reverses out and then gets bullied to the floor again. Back in, DDP with a neckbreaker and legsweep out of the corner for two. Page with a facelock, but Goldberg puts him down with a neckbreaker and follows with a suplex. Sideslam gets two. Goldberg with the Hartkiller superkick, but he tries the spear and hits the post, landing on the floor. Back in, Page goes for another cutter, but Goldberg escapes and spears him for the double down. The arm is injured, though, so when he tries the Jackhammer, DDP is able to reverse him into the Diamond Cutter for the insane babyface pop. That only gets two, however. So he tries it again, but Goldberg reverses that into the Jackhammer and we’re done at 10:24. And with that we go flying off the air while Goldberg pays respect to Page after the win. This was definitely Goldberg’s best match of the initial run, but it was pretty severely overrated by people at the time, I think, because he just hadn’t done anything more than 2 minutes long before and it was such a shock to see it. I’d call it good thanks to DDP walking him through it step by step, but not as good as some of Goldberg’s later matches once he legitimately got better in the ring. ***1/4.

Hoo boy, usually with these WCW PPVs from the 90s I’m like “Wow that aged better than I remember it!” but this one kind of aged like the cheese in a Logan Paul lunch snack, with a needlessly overlong midcard that caused the show to go over curfew for literally no reason. The opener was a fun sprint that was better than I remember, but the main event wasn’t quite as good as I remember, so it kind of balanced out for me in the end and there wasn’t really anything else on the show that I’d consider worth sitting through the 3:14 to relive. A decent show, but mostly fast forward material overall.