The Halloween Havoc Experiment Part 3: Halloween Havoc '91; An Evening of Terrifying Destruction

So, hopefully this is week three of my experiment of watching all of WCW's exciting Halloween Havoc series. Do remember that my ramblings are just as much a writing exercise for me as they are a hopefully enjoyable reading exercise for my small audience. If you haven't followed them before please check-out Wrestlecrap.com or OSWR.com on your internets of YouTube. They are much more detailed than me. The former has a great write up on this very PPV that should make an appearance in the weeks leading up to Halloween, while the latter has covered Havoc '95 which I'll eventually get to. In the meanwhile...do enjoy the best graphics that 1991 had to offer...looks like a rehash of '90 to me.

Again, it may be the Mandela effect, but I think TBS used this on the Tom and Jerry Halloween Special too.

Another nice poster with a Halloween feel for 'An Evening of Terrify Destruction!'; It's a bit of a long subtitile to be honest, I'm pretty sure they do away with them before too long.

This time the announce crew is Tony Shiovone and Jim Ross with Eric Bischoff and  Missy Hyat doing the backstage stuff. No outfit for Tony or JR this year, but Missy and Eric eventually appear dressed up...but first earlier today...we see guys arriving at the areana. A regularly dressed Eric had quick interviews with Cactus Jack and Abdulla the Butcher who both did a lot of nonsense. Eventually Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham pull up, and Windham's arm is taken out by the Enforcers--

 They drive to the hospital. The injury takes Windham out of the Chamber of Horrors Match, but Dustin returns to take on Stunning Steve Austin later in the night.

Eric Bischoff as Dracula and Missy Hyatt as a flapper girl. She was cute in the getup. The pair of them especially Missy, spend most of the night looking for the 'WCW Halloween Phantom'

1991 was a good horror year with Silence of the Lambs winning the Oscar. A few other scary movies included Cape Fear, Freddy's Dead, Child's Play 3 and Earnest Scared Stupid...and don't forget 'Cool as Ice'. In music Paula Abdul, R.E.M., U2 and Bryan Adams were big that year. I really like 'Baby Baby' by Amy Grant...it doesn't seem that old. In TV, it was a little stange for debuts. You have things like Dinosaurs and Home Improvement that don't feel all that dated, but then you have something like 'The Statler Brothers Show'...all due respect as I love them in the GTA games, but doesn't that feel older than dirt? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_in_film

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1991

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1991

                                                 The Chamber of Horrors Match:

El Gigante, Sting, and the Steiner Brothers vs. Abdullah the Butcher, The Diamond Studd, Cactus Jack and Big Van Vader (12:33)

They didn't waste any time going for the gimmick match this year. This makes '91 better than the others because you get to the good stuff right away. The production values on this thing are infamous. There is a cartoonish, amateur "graveyard" set in the entry way with a lot of inside jokes on the tombstones...speaking of tombstones:

El Gigante  (January 31, 1966 – September 22, 2010) possibly better known as Giant Gonzales in his abysmal WWF(E) run.

Big Van Vader (May 14, 1955 – June 18, 2018) one of the greatest big men in wrestling. Only recently lost him as of my writing. He was dominant in WCW--until Hulk Hogan showed up to ruin it, and had something of a push in WWF(E), but was never as big here as he was in Japan. Most fans say it was the Hogan factor that more or less did him in. Still well known and respected among fans though. 

The rest of the crew are still with us as of this writing. Every wrestling fan knows Sting and the Steiners. The Diamond Studd was an early gimmick by Big Scott Hall who is best known by that name or his WWF(E) character 'Razor Ramon', Abdullah the Butcher was legendary during the territory days and this bleeds into this time frame. Often called a "garbage or hardcore" wrestler he was very entertaining. Cactus Jack of course is one of the many personalities of hardcore legend Mick Foley who went on to become Mankind and Dude Love in WWF(E). 

The match, which appears to me to take place in the same style of steel cage as was used in the inaugural Halloween Havoc except now with a smaller cage inside containing an electric chair, is just a total mess as you have heard/expected. The rules were supposed to have the two teams fight each other until one man is strapped into the chair. At that point another man pulls the switch to win. Unfortunately, it looked like every man for himself a lot of the time and the 'kill switch' kept falling down. They also introduced the Refer-eye cam which was an extra large piece of headgear that shot awkward footage and made the refs look...special?

Eventually, Cactus accidentally fries his own teammate Abdullah. There were "Ghouls" on the exit ramp with a stretcher to help the eventual loser to the morgue, I guess, but in the end Abdullah was revived by Cactus. Abdullah then attacked Cactus and the Ghouls, but eventually they all made their way off stage. What a mess, but you need to see it! * (as a match)...***** (as a train wreck). 

....off to a fantastic start I'd say!

Big Josh and P.N. News vs. The Creatures (5:16)

This tag match features a lot of people that you probably don't know so well. I use Wikipedia for everything information wise, and here we go P.N.News in this gimmick is a "rap master". Remember wrestling is often behind in trends and this is the case here as P.N. is a lot like the Fat Boys, MC Hammer or Will Smith of positive rap fame. He has a shape similar to Bam Bam Bigelow and has a lot of his move-set if I remember correctly. Believe it or not P.N. still wrestles on the indy circuit today under the name of Cannonball Grizzly. Big Josh (July 27, 1957 – June 28, 2013) was a lumberjack gimmick for wrestler Matt Borne who is probably best known as the original Doink the Clown in WWF(E). Borne was an excellent wrestler and it's easy to tell when he stopped being Doink. This lumberjack gimmick doesn't do much. The Creatures were a masked team probably used exclusively for Havoc. The only info on Wiki says that one of them was a wrestler better known as 'Jumpin' Joey Maggs (July 1, 1969 – October 15, 2006).

The match was really nothing. You couldn't get away with this on a PPV nowadays, and probably not on a regular weekly episode. Big Josh and P.N. News more or less squash the creatures. *

Bobby Eaton vs. Terrance Taylor with Alexandra York of the York Foundation (16:00)

With all due respect to the gentlemen involved...16:00!! We've seen Bobby before in his more famous role as one half of the Midnight Express. He isn't so bad as a singles wrestler and he's in good shape here. The York Foundation was supposed to be a stable of wrestlers led by Mike Rotunda in a new gimmick, Michael Wallstreet. Rotunda, who looked a bit like Michael Douglas, was going to be a take on the character Douglas played in the 'Wallstreet' movie...from 1987 again, wrestling is always behind on trends...The character was to be rich something along the lines of The Million Dollar Man and he'd be managed by Alexandra York--better known as Marlena/Teri, the manager of Goldust in WWF(E)--who would use her super laptop computer to analyse opponents and lead her men to victory. Anyhoo...Rotunda left for WWF(E) wherein he teamed famously with the Million Dollar Man as Irwin R. Schyster (I.R.S.) as a part of Money Inc. Meanwhile WCW was left holding the bag with the York Foundation and decided to repackage a lot of their mid-card guys to be York Foundation members including Terrance Taylor. Terrance--A.K.A. The Red Rooster in WWF(E) and Terry Taylor in the territories--was a pretty good worker. Unfortunately, the Red Rooster gimmick in the WWF(E) was memorable for all the wrong reasons and he was never able to get over it. 

Eaton gets the win here in a pretty solid match. The problem is that it's too long and again sitting in 2018 and looking at angles that you know are going nowhere is kind of tough. One striking thing to me is that the Midnight Express is already done at this point. This is when the Mandela Effect is strong because I could have sworn they lasted longer than '91. I give the match **.

Johnny B. Badd (with Teddy Long) vs. Jimmy Garvin (with Michael Hayes) (8:16)

For the third Havoc in a row we get the 'Birds doing some work and popping the crowd. This time they are decked out in Atlanta Braves gear and Michael Hayes is pretending to have a broken arm.

For those not in the know. The Braves blew up huge in '91 as they faced the Minnesota Twins in the World Series...they were and are my home team and they would go on to loose many World Series--what's the plural on that--before finally winning it all in 1995. They were considered the Buffalo Bills of baseball, but at least we finally got one. Anyhow, they had people doing the 'Tomahawk Chop" which became a big deal like the wave. Is it still PC to 'chop' today? I like in the UAE and have been away from the States for so long that I'm not sure what's offensive anymore.

Garvin's opponent, Johnny B. Badd, a "gay" Little Richard gimmick probably is offensive. To be clear he wasn't Goldust levels with the mind games and never did any "gayness" but the effeminate side was definitely the focus of early Johnny B. Badd matches. I think the "B.Badd" gimmick is much more fondly remembered than his Mark Mero stuff in WWF(E) which is a rarity when comparing what gimmicks are memorable between the companies. Mero may be best known for bringing in Sable--his ex-wife and wife of Brock Lesnar nowadays--into WWF(E) during that run. Sable legitimately became a bigger star than he was. Here he's managed by Teddy Long of Smackdown GM fame this time without the giant metal key.

This is a good match, and I always like the 'beautiful man' character (Goldust, Adrian Street, Vega from Streetfighter) and almost any incarnation of the 'Birds will be good for me, but as I mentioned before the Freebirds were getting long in the tooth, and for his part Johnny B. is just as green as the 'Birds are grey. The crowd was once again clearly with the Birds, and I do think Johnny was supposed to be heel, but he didn't get much in terms of 'heat' and he also played up to the crowd who seemed to already be warming to him. I can give it **1/2 and I'm being generous.

 

 Steve Austin with Lady Blossom vs. Dustin Rhodes for the WCW TV Championship (15:00)

If you don't know who these guys would become, then why waste time reading a wrestling review? Dustin Rhodes, the son of Dusty Rhodes and brother of Cody Rhodes, would go on to be Goldust in the WWE. He was a major star and still competes today. Steve Austin becomes arguably the greatest draw in wrestling history as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin--he was merely "Stunning" here. Lady Blossom was his wife back then and she is the one who came up with the "Stone Cold" name. I'm proud to say that I was a "Stunning" Steve Austin fan from the beginning, but I must admit that I would have never imagined him getting as big as he was or even having the "Stone Cold" gimmick.

A few things I'll mention here that we don't get too much today. Number one is a TV title which we could use today so badly. This title was defended once per week on TV. Back in the old days there would rarely be a title match on "free" TV. TV shows mostly featured squash matches between a star and a jobber. Feuds would be built and championship matches discussed, but you had to go to a house show or later buy the PPV for the payoff. Introducing a TV title had at least one good match--generally speaking--per week. They were very exciting and it gave guys a chance to do something. NWA/WCW and later ECW had great TV titles. The WWE should take notes and come up with one, especially having the network and everything. 

Number 2, time limit draws. In a good match, a time limit draw is another way to build someone up without lowering the other guy. It's another trick up the booking sleeve besides DQs and count outs. It should be used rarely, but that doesn't mean to not use it at all. The same goes for the old "over the top rope" DQ rule. It's just another way to finish a match and give us variety--if you are unwilling to to do the always preferable clean fall.  They do wrestle to the time limit draw here. The closing moments are very exciting. ****

Bill Kazmaier vs. Oz (3:59)

Kazmaier is a former pro-football player doing a "world's strongest man" gimmick. I have no lasting memory of him, but he seems like a good guy. Oz was one of many infamous WCW gimmicks for Kevin Nash--known best for his Diesel gimmick in WWF(E) and wrestling under his own name during the NWO angle and beyond. The Oz gimmick is based off of  'The Wizard of Oz' which Turner had the film rights to. He wore green wizard robes and sometimes an old man wizard mask. This is our second squash with Kazmaier going over with the "torture rack" style back breaker. I don't know if they were hoping to pair him vs. Luger in a feud down the line, but it never happened as far as I know. *

Van Hammer vs. Doug Somers (1:13)

Our third squash match follows with Van Hammer--a heavy metal gimmick--vs. Doug Somers (September 22, 1951 – May 16, 2017)--a long-time performer from the territory days. Aside from watching Hammer act like a head-banging idiot with his prop guitar during the entrance, there's nothing to see. *

Brian Pillman vs. Richard Morton with Alexandra York for the WCW Light Heavyweight Title (12:45)

Ricky Morton is the second repackaged wrestler from The York Foundation to appear tonight dressing and acting exactly the same as he always has except for once in a while checking in with York and her supercomputer and going by the name Richard. He faces Pillman (R.I.P.) who at this point was due for a championship. This was the finals of a tourney to crown the first WCW Light Heavyweight Champion. The action is fast and good for the most part with Morton doing a little bit of heel stalling here and there. As I said for the most he doesn't work as a heel. BTW, in case the stable is done before the next Halloween Havoc, The York Foundation also repackaged Tommy Rich as Thomas Rich to much the same effect. He and Morton had been teaming during this time with Terrance Taylor as the stable leader. Morton has had good singles runs in the past including a memorable feud with Ric Flair himself. Brian for his part, has always been better as a heel for me, but he does a good job here eventually capturing the title. **1/2

The Halloween Phantom vs. Tom Zenk (1:27)

Squash match number four features Z-man (R.I.P.) vs. The Halloween Phantom who's identity remained a mystery up until the point he enters the ring for a savvy fan. The Phantom was of course the legendary Rick Rude (December 7, 1958 – April 20, 1999). The match is a squash to introduce Rude as a force to be reckoned with. He does all of his signatures and Tony Schiovone references the "rude awakening" finisher by name eliminating any "mystery" that may may have eluded near-sighted fans.  **

The Enforcers (Arn Anderson and Larry Zbysko) vs. The Patriots (Todd Champion and Firebreaker Chip) (9:51)

This match features one of my least favorite bookings in wrestling. The Enforcers--Anderson, of four horsemen fame and Zbysko, long-time rival to Bruno Sammartino--were the U.S. Champs, but this match is not for the titles. The Patriots were Todd Champion and his partner Firebreaker Chip. They aren't exactly stiffs in the ring, but again this is a case where our faces didn't go anywhere. The crowd is audibly cheering for Arn and Larry. Note: There are conflicting reports as to which belts were involved and who were the champs. I believe the Enforcers have the titles and they win the match over the Patriots, but the titles, whichever they were, were never on the line. I hate that. Why not put the title on the line? It's a PPV and the champs went over anyway. **1/2 for The Enforcers and their team work.  

~At some point in the night Paul E. Dangerously appears with Madusa--Alundra Blaze in WWF(E)--and they unmask The WCW Halloween Phantom revealing him to be Rick Rude to the surprise of people who missed the earlier match I guess.~

Lex Luger with Harley Race vs. Ron Simmons with Dusty Rhodes two-out-of-three-falls match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship (18:59) 

According to the Wiki, Lex Luger was supposed to be the face taking on the heel Mr. Hughes--in the same Wiki I found out that Hughes was also in the York Foundation at one point--but instead they made Hughes a bodyguard for Luger. Luger became top heel in the Flairless WCW and the powers that be looked for a hero in Ron Simmons. The corner man for Ron Simmons was the legendary "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes (October 11, 1945 – June 11, 2015) while Luger has Handsome Harley Race--another legendary champion from the 70's/very early 80's. 

This is a hard hitting affair and a really good match if you are into power wrestling. Simmons dominates the entire match and takes the first fall. There is a nice "screwy" finish for fall number 2 wherein Harley causes it to appear as if Ron Simmons threw Luger over the top rope. That's an automatic disqualification giving the fall to Luger. Tied at one fall each, Simmons dominates until Luger steals it to retain the title. At some point Dusty got his hands on Harley, but otherwise--aside from Harley really coming through on that second fall--the corner men didn't do all that much. I like power wrestling and WCW is coming up on an era that I find particularly enjoyable. I give this one ***.

I don't review these things move for move...as it's obvious to see. There are plenty of other guys who do that...and they do it on video so it's easier for viewer and pundit alike. But, I  do try to let you know a little wrestling lore if you're interested. Just keep in mind these 'facts' come from my shaky memory.  In WCW there were five distinct flavors:

1. The Territory Days: Crockett Promotions was a part of the NWA. TBS had a show called Championship Wrestling from Georgia which eventually became World Championship Wrestling. This kind of 'rasslin'...the best kind if you ask me...featured the stars of Crockett Promotions. This is where you get Ric Flair, the Horsemen, Dusty Rhodes, The Russians, Magnum T.A. and all the rest of your classic 70's -80's guys...they also picked up Sting, the Steiners, and Dr. Death among others when they merged with the old UWF. Overspending eventually led to the outright sale of the company to Turner Broadcasting.
2. Turner Days Pre-Hogan: This is where we are right now in these Havoc PPV events. Crockett had more or less sold out to Turner who still loved wrestling, and purchased the company. This is another great time if you ask me. Flair is missing for a while as he went to WWF(E) as the "real" world champion and even captured the WWF(E) title famously in the '92 Rumble. Without Flair, they turned to Luger, Sting and Ron Simmons. The Rasslin' flavor was still there and they'd yet to become WWF-lite. There was a lot of Wrestlecrap but a lot of good stuff too. A video game came out of this era as did PPVs as the centerpiece of money making. Pro-wrestling regularly won the cable time slot for Turner, but ultimately budgeting problems continued to plague the company.
3. Turner Days Hulk Hogan: This is a terrible time if you're a WCW fan. They really banked on ol' Red and Yellow Hogan and all his cronies. The heels--most prominently the cartoonish Dungeon of Doom--were all fodder for Hogan and friends, but WWF(E) let the Hulkster go for a reason. His act was stale and he was being booed out of the building. This was even worse in WCW during this time period as the Hulk had long expired his expiration date at this time...and it was far too early for nostalgia. This was more or less a money losing proposition until...
4. Turner Days Early Monday Night Wars: When they turned Hogan heel they had something and regularly beat the WWF(E). They really were hot at the time the NWO, Sting and Goldberg were huge stars. They were finally making big time cash here, but they used Turner like an ATM allegedly--over paying with guaranteed contracts, bringing in people who never wrestled, and stunt booking of celebrities set the stage for a great fall in spite of a lot of people making a lot of money at the time...and regularly beating Monday Night Raw.
5. Time Warner Late Monday Night Wars: When Turner sold/merged with Time Warner, WCW was a part of the deal. The big bosses didn't care anything about wrestling. The product at this time had never moved beyond NWO which had played out. Bringing in different bookers did nothing to improve the situation and eventually McMahon buys the whole thing and in essence, if not point of fact, shuts it down. In his defense, there was no way to rehabilitate the brand at this point which was running on past glories. In a way we should be glad that WWF(E) won these wars as had WCW won we may not have a national promotion today nor a network like WWE as the powers at Time Warner couldn't have cared less about our niche product. 

Joe Bob Briggs Memorial "Drive-in Totals": 

8- wrestlers no longer with us--R.I.P.
4- squash matches
1- Screwy "Dusty Finish"--2nd fall of the main event
1-Crazy Halloween Themed Chamber of Horrors
1-Future Icon of the Industry

My match of the night was Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes with the main event being a close second. The Chamber of Horrors match needs to be seen by as many eyes as can stand it. The show has that Halloween feel that you are looking for in a themed PPV, but the matches aren't that great, and as we get deeper into the Havocs they won't be getting any better. Most of the matches can be seen on the Tube and of course all the WCW ppvs are available on the WWE Network.

I recommend the show because it is a fun one, but you may take advantage of the technology of today by either fast forwarding the bad stuff or watching it in multiple sessions. I am doing the latter for reviewing purposes, but the former may be the way you want to go...three down...who knows how many to go.