Dark Pegasus Video Review: Halloween Havoc ’90: Terror Rules the Ring

Halloween Havoc ’90: Terror Rules the Ring by J.D. Dunn October 27, 1990 Live from Chicago, Ill. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Paul E. Dangerously. Opening Match: The Midnight Express (w/Jim Cornette) vs. Tommy Rich & Ricky Morton. Rich is subbing for Robert Gibson, which is kind of sad because this is the last Midnight Express match. Corny and Stan Lane would leave WCW to form Smokey Mountain. Rich doesn’t really even figure in much. Ricky opens with Bobby, and they do a criss-cross. Ricky gets a huracanrana, but the Midnights catch him with a weird doubleteam slam maneuver. Morton posts himself and plays Ricky Morton. Cornette adds a racket shot for good measure. The MX set Ricky on the ramp and hit the ROCKET LAUNCHER ON HIM! The announcers think Ricky is crippled, but he kicks out. Eaton works in a spiffy slingshot backbreaker. Corny adds another racket shot. On the outside, Ricky gets a huracanrana, but Cornette kicks him in the ribs. Back in, Bobby hits the Alabama Jam (legdrop off the top), but he asks for a KO count. Ha ha ha! What a douchebag. The Midnights go for the Rocket Launcher again, but Morton gets his knees up. HOT TAG TO RICH! Rich cleans house but goes up and gets blasted by the tennis racket behind the ref’s back. The Southern Boys come down dressed as Cornette and make fun of him. That allows Rich to recover, steal the racket, nail Lane, and get the pin at 14:02. Nothing wrong here. Just good old-fashioned tag wrestling to get the fans into it. I’d be surprised if Rich’s contribution to the match was over 60 seconds. ***1/4 Sting says he’s worried Sid Vicious’ butt will overload his “you know what.” Um… I don’t even want to think about it. The Black Scorpion comes out to the stage, kidnaps a fan, and makes her disappear. Oh, but then they reappear on the other side of the stage. IT’S A SHOCKING SWERVE! Sting tries to make the save, but the Scorpion tosses the “fan” into him and runs off. Let me get out my checkbook right now. The Renegade Warriors vs. The Fabulous Freebirds (w/Little Richard Marley). The Renegade Warriors are Chris and Mark Youngblood, brothers of the late Jay Youngblood. The Freebirds beat up Alan Iron Eagle, a friend of the Renegades, to set this up. Mark throws a lot of chops, and Chris adds a flying double clothesline. The Freebirds toss Chris, allowing Little Richard to get in his cheepshots. Ross and Heyman’s argument about bias is pretty funny. The fans start chanting, “DDT” because they hate the babyfaces. Chris blocks the DDT, drawing the ire of the crowd. Garvin cheapshots him to keep control in the Freebirds’ corner. Mark escapes and gets the hot tag. The Warriors clean house and drag Marley into the ring. That cause the ref to miss the O’Connor Roll, and Hayes sneaks in with the DDT at 12:37. The crowd loved the Freebirds here and hated the Youngbloods with a passion. Thankfully, the Freebirds were in control for most of the match, salvaging it at least somewhat. * Ric Flair, Sid Vicious and Arn Anderson come out to say bad things about Sting. Arn has a great line (as usual): if you wanna go out through the back door, the life you save may be your own! Say, where’s Barry Windham? Hmm. U.S. Tag Team Titles: The Steiner Bros. vs. The Nasty Boys. Big-ass brawl to start. Scott belly-to-belly superplexes Saggs. The Steiners hit the Doomsday Bulldog and cover, but Knobbs nails Scott with a chair as he’s covering. That only gets two, but Scott plays face-in-peril now. The Nasties take over, and Knobbs kills the crowd with an abdominal stretch. They get back in it as the Nasties hit a spiked piledriver on Scott. Rick comes in behind the ref’s back and nails Saggs with a chair (turnabout is fair play, as Gorilla used to say). The Nasties cut off the tag, though, and Saggs turns Scott over into a Boston Crab. Scott powers out, but Knobbs cuts off the tag again and applies a camel clutch. Scott powers out again, avoids a charge, and tags in Rick. Rick and Scott clean house, but both of them get tossed. Rick sneaks up to the top and hits both of the Nasties with a double clothesline. Scott trips them up and finishes with the Frankensteiner at 15:22. This is the match that put the Nasties on the map, and they signed with Vince soon after. They kind of remind me of the Bushwhackers in that they were hardcore brawlers in the NWA, but when they jumped to the WWF, they lost a bit of their edge – relying on spots like the Pit Stop and goofy Jimmy Hart as their manager. ***1/4 Scott stops off for an interview and gets jumped by the Nasties, who are dressed as concessioners. NWA World Tag Titles: Doom (w/Teddy Long) vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson. The Horsemen want all the belts, so this was a given. Simmons and Reed destroy the Horsemen, who can’t even come close to competing with the champs’ power (or speed even). Flair chases Teddy Long around the ring, and Teddy slaps the taste out of his mouth! DAYUMMN! Simmons steps up and dares Flair to do something about it, so Flair backs off. Simmons pastes Flair with lefts and rights. FLAIR FLOP! To the corner. FLAIR FLIP! He takes out the cameraman on the apron and lands on the ramp. Simmons stalks Flair on the ramp as Reed and Anderson slug it out. Finally, Arn stops short to avoid a backdrop and elbows Simmons in the back of the head. He puts Simmons in a Boston Crab, and Flair adds a knee to the back of the head. SPINEBUSTER! Big pop for that. Flair kicks Simmons’ leg and locks in the FIGURE-FOUR! Great heel work by Arn as he baits Reed in and then puts the boots to Simmons behind the ref’s back. Simmons powers it over, but Arn tags in. Flair bounces off a shoulderblock attempt, but they take Simmons to the floor to cut off the tag. Sunset flip by Simmons, but Flair tags in. Everything in this match is just so simple, fluid and beautiful (in its way). Simmons hits a flying shoulderblock and tags in Reed. Reed cleans house. Arn goes for the piledriver, but Reed goes up top and hits a flying shoulderblock. ONE, TWO, THRE-Flair makes the save. Arn slips off Reed’s shoulder and spikes him with the DDT. ONE, TWO, THRE-Simmons makes the save with a double ax-handle. Simmons covers. ONE, TWO, THRE-Arn kicks out. The two teams spill to the floor, slugging it out until the DCOR at 18:16. Doom was ON in 1990. This was total power, strength, and athleticism versus experience and outright evil. Everything the Horsemen did was so smooth. It was almost like second nature. Doom also turned in a great performance, never resting for a minute. Good stuff. The ending would set up an inferior match at Starrcade. **** Stan Hansen spits some chaw and has threats for Lex Luger. U.S. Title: Lex Luger vs. Stan Hansen. Hansen attacks, but Luger fights back and chases him out of the ring. Hansen tosses Luger into the post and throws him back in. Stan pummels Luger but misses a charge and posts himself. Luger slugs his way back as Ross points out that strategy won’t work. Hansen slugs back against Luger and knocks the referee down. He sets up for Western Lariat, but Luger hits his own to cut him off. Luger covers, but there’s no ref. Danny Spivey (Hansen’s protégé in Japan) runs down and tosses in the rope and cowbell. Hansen wraps up the wrist and charges, but Luger backdrops him over. Luger signals for the Torture Rack as the ref stirs. Luger tries to soften him up with a clothesline, but Hansen simply nails him with the Western Lariat at 9:30. Like most Hansen matches, this was the opposite of “a thing of beauty.” The title switch is odd because you’d think setting up a battle of best friends would be a great way to make some money at Starrcade. Then again, what they did was just as good. ::cough:: ** NWA World Heavyweight Title: Sting vs. Sid Vicious. Trash talk to start, and Sid tricks Sting into turning his back. Yes, someone was outsmarted by Sid. Sting no-sells a backbreaker and goes for the Scorpion Deathlock. Sid bails and thinks things over. Vicious misses a corner charge, and Sting rides him down into an armbar. Sid blocks a sunset flip but stops to gloat and Sting completes it for two. Sting reverses a whip but misses the Stinger Splash. Sid pummels him on the apron but turns his back and Sting comes off the top with a flying crossbody. ONE-no! Sid kicks out and tosses Sting to the apron. That sets up a running clothesline. Sting misses an elbowdrop but kicks his way back and hits a flying bulldog. YEE-HAW! Sid brawls with Sting all the way down the ramp but stops to leave him there. Sid poses in the ring, but Sting gets a running start and DIVES over the top with a missile shoulderblock. He dives out on Sid with a pescado. They brawl back to the dressing room as the Horsemen come down to distract the referee. “Sting” chases Sid back to the ring and goes for a bodyslam, but Sid falls on top for the pin and the title at 11:47. NEW CHAMP! The crowd is in shock as the fireworks start to go off. Oh, but here comes the real Sting to chase off the fake Sting. Sting nails Sid with the belt, hits the Stinger splash, and finishes for real with the inside cradle at 12:45. Turns out that dastardly Black Scorpion used his magicery to create a fake Sting… and it nearly worked. It would later turn out that the fake Sting was Barry Windham, which makes sense in the larger scheme of things. So, yes, long before there was an nWo, there was a Fake Sting. Sting carried this one nicely, but Sid looked lost at certain points (like forgetting to sell the armbar while he’s yelling at fans). Sometimes, he just stopped wrestling and wandered around the ring for a bit. I actually like the booking here, though. **1/2

The 411: Okay, so the Black Scorpion will go down as one of the worst gimmicks in history, but the idea was actually pretty good (even if it started as a joke). The execution… well, not so much. I'll call this one a solid recommendation for all the good tag matches. Thumbs up.
Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]