WCW Fall Brawl
September 17th, 1995
Asheville Civic Centre
Asheville, North Carolina
Match One
Number One Contendership for US Title
Brian Pillman vs. Johnny B Badd
Okay, so the first thing that shocks me about this one is the length of time. These two were given 30 minutes, which Pillman could pull off with the right opponent, but Badd has no license going 30 minutes with anybody. With that being said, this had the potential to be really bad, but you can argue that Pillman put on one of the best performances of his career. Even if potentially at the halfway mark he looked a little tired, he was great. This would have been Badd’s best match in WCW if the length of the match was cut in half, but because they needed to fill 30 minutes, there’s a lot of dead space where it feels like nothing is happening. Also, I’m a big fan of wrestlers who can change their style mid match based on the crowd reaction. I think of The Rock as a guy who was very good at this. Fans have turned on him on quite a few big occasions, and in each one, he just flicks the switch and starts working heel. It felt like Pillman did that here when the crowd was clearly favouring Badd (lol why), so that gets a thumbs up from me. To add to the spectacle, Badd gets some accidental blood, with a cut around his orbital bone. When they turned it up towards the end of the first twenty minutes, it got really exciting, with Pillman getting a Backslide but time runs out for the three count can be made. The referee then apparently makes the decision that because this is for a title shot, there must be a winner, so we are going to sudden death. The overtime does have that big match feel, with Badd unleashing all of his arsenal. Pillman tries to but starts failing with a lot of his high-risk stuff. The ending comes about when they go with a Double Crossbody spot, and luck goes Badd’s way as he lands on top and gets the pin. Probably a little generous with the match rating here because whilst there was a lot of nothing, I still enjoyed the effort and performance from Pillman. Solid opening, but yes, still to long. **3/4
Mean Gene now interviews Ric Flair in the back. Flair holds up the four fingers and says this is the symbol of excellence. He and Arn were together for fifteen years, they bonded, lived together, sweated together, bled together and at times, cried together. Flair said they were best friends and he never asked Arn for anything he wouldn’t give back. Tonight, in Horseman country, they don’t walk side by side as masters of War Games, but from opposite ends of the building. Flair says people in life don’t get a chance to stand next to greatness, but tonight, Arn would face it. Mean Gene then asks Flair if he hates Arn. Flair says the problem is he loves him. He loves him so much that he has to show him there’s only one king of the hill and that’s The Nature Boy. Flair then throws up the four fingers again. Good stuff.
Cobra comes out first and Pittman initially doesn’t make his entrance. Instead, another soldier guy comes out and has a message to give Cobra, but Cobra interrupts and begins berating the youngster. As this is happening, Pittman comes down from the rafters dressed in full camo gear and face paint. He looks ridiculous as he army crawls through one ring and into the other, takes off the bullet strap and starts choking Cobra. I actually don’t know if this is bad or hilariously good.
Match Two
Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra
Pittman tosses away the thing he was choking Cobra with and just beats the crap out of him. Cobra shoves him away and lands a Lariat. Cobra tries a high risk move but Pittman sidesteps and drops him with a Facebuster. Pittman locks in his Arm Bar or Code Red and this ones over in about a minute. Again, not sure if I thought this was fun or just awful. Happy it only went a minute so maybe leaning more towards the former. Pittman wins and hopefully this is over with now. ¾*
On commentary, Tony Schiavone and The Brain talk about Paul Orndorff recently losing a match to Randy Savage, before showing footage of Orndorff throwing a tantrum in his dressing room. Gary Spivey shows up and gets him to believe in himself again in a weird psychic type of segment. Just awful stuff honestly. This was terrible.
Match Three
WCW World Television Championship Match
The Renegade (c) w/Jimmy Hart vs. Diamond Dallas Page w/The Diamond Doll and Maxx Muscle
Considering this is Renegade and 95 DDP, I wasn’t expecting much but this wasn’t terrible. Not good or anything but decent enough, and better than I expected. A pretty typical 90’s affair with a bit of back and forth and a bit of control from the heel, but DDP really had a good performance here. This was a big moment for him on PPV, and he clearly tried his ass off. He has some incredible stooging and over selling of Renegade’s putrid offense which makes his bearable. I thought they set up somewhat of a false finish nicely as after DDP collided with Muscle on the apron, and Renegade got to the top, it looked like it was over. Instead, Renegade sees Muscle moving towards Jimmy Hart on the outside and leaps onto him instead. When Renegade gets back in the ring, Muscle holds onto his leg and DDP gets the Diamond Cutter for the win. I’d much rather DDP as champ then Renegade so I’m all for this. Better than I expected but still a lot to be desired. **
Diamond Doll doesn’t seem happy with the way DDP won the title, which makes sense because they’ve got the whole DDP mistreating her angle going on. I will say having not watched a lot of WCW before, I didn’t realise how fine Kimberly is/was so good on her.
Match Four
WCW World Tag Team Championship Match
Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater (c) w/Col. Parker vs. Harlem Heat w/Sister Sherri
I thought the action between these two teams was really good actually. They tried hard and I like both teams, but much like the opener, I think the length hurt the match. They could have had a nice 10–12-minute match but I think this one going 17 minutes had a negative impact by the end of it. Nothing really overly exciting as the first 12 minutes just happens, and initially there’s no control segment until Buck cheap shots Booker’s knee. Booker plays face in peril well but due to Harlem Heat not really being faces, the crowd isn’t great which takes away from the match. As Stevie gets the hot tag, we see that Parker and Sherri are making googly eyes at each other. Sherri crawls into the ring and Parker leaps over the ropes for some reason, at least it was amusing. Col. Parker the cruiserweight, lets go. Anyway, they start making out which apparently distracts the referee because he’s a perv. Booker and Buck brawl to the outside and Slater prepares to use the loaded boot on Stevie, but The Nasty Boys come down and hit Slater with his own boot to get revenge for something that’s happened before I started watching. Or it happened not on Nitro. Anyway, that’s enough for Harlem Heat to get the pin and regain the tag titles. **1/4
After the match, Parker and Sherri keep kissing and it’s clear neither team is happy about their managers getting it on. Harlem Heat’s celebration is ruined as they talk to Sherri, but she claims it was all a ploy to help them win. The former champs are mad at Col. Parker who is forced to walk up the ramp looking distressed. Mean Gene catches up with them on the ramp and Buck is mad, but Parker tells him he’ll get them another shot because he’s the greatest promoter in the world. After sending them to the back, Parker tells Gene he’s torn between being upset at losing the titles but being in love with Sherri.
A pretty awesome video package airs to hype Flair/Anderson which is next.
Mean Gene interviews Arn Anderson in the back. Double A says he always calls a spade a spade and he’s either loved with a passion or hated with a passion. Arn talks about everybody having a family member that you sometimes needed to grab and shake because words don’t work anymore. His stomach is in knots and his heart is pounding in his chest. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous because he has to trade fists with somebody, he loves more than god himself. Flair’s been a brother to him when he didn’t have one. Arn says unfortunately they have to trade fists because when he wakes up and looks in the mirror, he needs to answer to himself. All a man can ever do is stand up to his word, right or wrong. Arn gives his words that he’ll give Flair all he’s got. Win, lose or draw, Arn will respect himself in the morning and Flair will respect him to… I thought the Flair promo before was good, but this was tremendous from Double A. Great promo.
In another nice touch, to show how big of a deal this match is to the other wrestlers, we see Brian Pillman, the American Males, Col. Parker, Alex Wright, Eddie Guerrero (fuck yeah), The Nasty Boys and Big Bubba in the stands to watch the match.
Match Five
Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair
I’ll try not to mark out too much for this one, but right from the get-go, the psychology set here is awesome. This is such a big deal for Arn, being the less successful of the two, whereas Flair is a little more arrogant. Arn offers his hand for a handshake, showing respect, but Flair slicks his hand through his hair and lets off a WOOOOO. Kind of makes it feel like Arn is treating this differently, whereas Flair is treating it like just another match. After a tie up and some brief work, Arn gets Flair back though, by taking Flair down amateur style and rubbing Flair’s face in the mat. As they get up, Flairs in shock and Arn lets out a little WOOO of his own. Awesome. Anderson’s facial expressions throughout are just fantastic as well. Arn is on top in the early stages, with Flair trying to get to the knee, but Arn is able to constantly thwart him. Flair begins getting frustrated that he isn’t able to have his way with Arn, which is maybe the way he expected things to go. Arn works on the arm and Flair’s usual tricks don’t work but then he pulls out something new. After the typical Flair corner bump and walk on the apron, as Arn charges at him, Flair drops down and low bridges Arn to the outside. Awesome move by Flair, and potentially one Anderson didn’t expect so wasn’t ready for. Flair then comes off with a Double Ax Handle sledge from the top rope to the floor which is pretty rare. Flair’s selling of the arm throughout is good enough, and then when Flair finally is able to work on the leg, Arn’s selling is amazing. As a heel who is usually one doing the damage, I feel like Arn doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to show his limb selling, but it was amazing here. Eventually, Flair gets the Figure Four on and screams that Arn has nothing, even spitting in his face. Arn manages to turn it and the fans pop like crazy, but Flair makes the ropes. Flair tries the hold again, but Anderson gets an Inside Cradle for an epic near fall. Anderson’s leg then crumbles, and Flair hesitates, until Brian Pillman comes from nowhere and yells at Flair to finish him. Flair is annoyed at Pillman, and you can hear him tell him to fuck off, and then Flair goes to turn away, but Pillman hits him in the back of the head. This is the opening for Arn to land the DDT and holy shit, Arn actually wins. I don’t think this is a perfect match, but I absolutely loved it anyway. Could have been better with a legitimate finish, but still top-notch stuff from two of the best. ****
The crowd reaction afterwards is very loud, but it’s also very split because people in North Carolina are always going to love Flair. A bunch of the other wrestlers who were watching the match chase Pillman to the back, as commentators wonder if this was Arn and Pillman’s plan all along. Which is interesting in itself, because it’s definitely something you could see Flair concocting.
War Games hype video package and then Mean Gene explains the rules.
Match Six
War Games
If Hogan’s team wins, he gets five minutes in the cage with Kevin Sullivan
Hulk Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage and Lex Luger w/Jimmy Hart vs. Meng, Kamala, The Shark and The Zodiac w/Kevin Sullivan
I will start by saying from what I have seen, this is pretty easily the worst War Games match in history. And it’s probably not overly surprising considering it’s built around Hogan and The Dungeon of Doom, which despite having it’s moments, was a pretty mediocre stable in terms of in ring action. Sting/Shark start things off, and there’s some good brawling between the two, and Sting even busts out a cool diving Lariat between the two rings. Sting slams Shark once and hurts his back and then playing on that, when he tries it again, Shark lands on top of Sting because he didn’t have the strength left. Good back work from Shark for a while, and the crowd is into it. Sting gets the Scorpion Death Lock, but then Zodiac comes in to interrupt. It’s actually clear that Sting tries really hard to make this match okay throughout. The face team in general is better than expected, as Savage tries hard and keeps the pace quick as well. Luger is a few levels below but still solid here, and Hogan is awful but luckily, he only works a few minutes of the match. The issue for me here is that they probably chose the worst two men to work the entire match for The Dungeon of Doom. Shark and Zodiac were both well and truly passed it by this point. There’s just a bunch of generic offense/cage stuff with nothing really interesting happening until Zodiac ducks and Luger accidentally Clothesline Savage. Randy gets up and they start fist fighting, which further plays on the point made on Nitro where Savage doesn’t trust Luger. Sting tries to stop the fight but then the buzzer goes off and Meng comes in and just takes them all down because he’s awesome. Meng’s throwing karate offense all over the place and it's the most enjoyable thing in the entire match. Hogan comes in with power because apparently, he’s a cheating coward now and he blinds all the heels with the powder. Hogan’s in and the faces basically dominate from here. In an awkward moment, Hogan just walks into the second ring and Zodiac follows. No real flow to the move, it just clearly happens to set up the finish but looked really strange. Anyway, Hogan throws Zodiac into the cage a bunch of times, before applying a shitty Camel Clutch to get the submission win. Worst War Games match. **
Kevin Sullivan tries to hurry away after the match because he wants no part of Hogan, but Doug Dillinger and other members of security force him back. Sting ends up grabbing him and throwing him back into the cage with Hogan. Hogan beats on Sullivan for a few minutes but it’s not exciting at all. Dull and boring stuff. Could have been better with some blood from Sullivan here but it wasn’t to be. After the beating, The Giant makes his way down, and throws the referee away, before getting into the cage and showing athleticism to leap over the top rope multiple times. The Giant no sells Hogan’s punch and chokes him down to his knees, before snapping his neck. Brutal ending, and a terrific ending angle for the PPV, with The Giant looking unstoppable, exactly as he should. The babyfaces run back out but Giant and Sullivan leave. On commentary, they act like Hogan may never wrestle again, and the hilarious thing is the fans were basically cheering the entire time. Anyway like I said, a good finishing angle.
For how good Nitro has been in the first two weeks, PPV was a bit disappointing. Outside of Flair/Anderson and maybe Pillman/Badd, everything else felt below average. The positive is booking wise it still feels like a lot of stuff here is heading in the right direction. Harlem Heat got the tag titles back, DDP is a much better TV champ then Renegade, and The Giant looks unstoppable here. Below average PPV, but I guess is still has left me somehow excited to see what happens on future Nitros.
