Dark Pegasus Video Review: Halloween Havoc ’93

Halloween Havoc ’93 by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Oy. We open with one of the scariest opening promos ever: a bunch of kids trick-or-treating at Tony Schiavone’s house. Thank God he shaved that moustache he had back in the 1980s or else he’d have to post a notice in accordance with Megan’s Law. One of the little bastards doubts that Tony can be scary, so Tony rips his own face off and turns into a giant monster. He was actually much creepier before doing that. Okay, so here’s the problem with this: the girl complained throughout the skit that they were going to miss Halloween Havoc. It was live on the 24th. Who goes trick-or-treating on the 24th? October 24, 1993 Live from New Orleans, La. Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura. Opening Match: Shockmaster, Ice Train & Charlie Norris vs. The Equalizer & Harlem Heat. ::shudder:: Five of these guys suck. The other one is Booker T. Well, okay, a young Stevie Ray (Kane) is okay. Shockmaster, for those who don’t remember or haven’t paid attention to Wrestlecrap, is the man formerly known as Tugboat and Typhoon. He was supposed to have some sort of Stormtrooper gimmick, but he tripped and fell through the set on live TV, thus killing the gimmick out of the gate. Ice Train looks like the black Scott Steiner and is about half as mobile. Equalizer is Evad Sullivan. This is horrible and ends mercifully when Shockmaster catches Kole (Booker) in a bearhug and just falls over with him into a spinebuster at 9:44. DUD Terry Taylor says he lobbied to become the special guest referee for tonight’s WCW International World Heavyweight Title match between Ric Flair and Rick Rude. Ricky Steamboat vs. Paul Orndorff (w/The Assassin). This was supposed to be Steamboat vs. Yoshi Kwan, but Kwan is injured. The match is long and boring despite both guys being pretty-good-to-great. Ricky tries a flying bodypress from the ramp, but Orndorff just gets out of the way. To the floor, Ricky works over Orndorff’s shoulder using the ringpost. Jesse objects and then finally admits “I just don’t like Steamboat.” Ricky is getting pretty heelish in his offense. Steamer gets distracted by the ref, so Orndorff jumps him to take over. The Steamboat bridge sequence leads to Steamboat catapulting Orndorff into the corner. They fight, and Steamboat falls to the floor where the Assassin loads up his mask and headbutts Ricky for the lame countout at 18:33. Long-ass match for that finish. ** WCW TV Title: Lord Steven Regal (w/Sir William) vs. The British Bulldog. Davey Boy doesn’t even look like he wants the title. Regal doesn’t want to touch Davey Boy because he’s a filthy Manchesterite. Cool psychology early as everyone expects the Bulldog to try to overpower Regal or for Regal to dominate on the mat, but Davey Boy effortlessly escapes from all of Regal’s holds. Regal escapes a Mexican Surfboard and pummels Davey with stiff uppercuts. Long weardown hold from Regal. It works in the context of the TV Title time-limit. Plus, it looks painful as hell. Davey Boy powers out of an STF into a Fireman’s Carry (!), but Regal lands on his feet and nails Davey from behind. Davey wakes up with 60 seconds left. Sir William tries to interfere and gets knocked off the apron. POWERSLAM! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Regal kicks out! Davey Boy sits and ponders for a bit before coming up with the piledriver. ONE, TWO, THRE-oh, time expires. D’oh! This was a perfectly decent, if uneventful, match. **1/4 Vader spins the wheel to come up with the gimmick for his match against Cactus Jack. Aw, shit. It lands on bra-and-panties match. Wait, no… Texas Death Match. Cool. U.S. Title: Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin (w/Col. Rob Parker). Austin is still technically part of the Blondes at this point, but Brian Pillman is MIA. Austin is already highly entertaining at this point, slapping Rhodes in the face and then scurrying to the floor. Well, it’s the *way* he scurries that is so entertaining. The entertainment end there as it’s all just Austin kicking Rhodes’ ass. You’d think that would be fun to watch, but Austin didn’t yet have a can-opener for the whoop-ass. Dustin makes a comeback and goes for the bulldog, but Austin crotches him on the turnbuckle. Sizeable pop from one section of the audience. They exchange rollups for a bit, and Dustin pastes him with a right hook. Austin suckers Rhodes in and puts his feet on the ropes. ONE, TWO, THREE! Oh, but the ref decides he saw the feet on the ropes. Dustin schoolboys Austin for the win at 14:25. After the match, Austin nails Rhodes with the title belt. Austin looked right at home as a singles player, but the match was boring. *3/4 Recap of Bagwell & Scorpio upsetting the Nasty Boys for the tag team titles, which I think was taped sometime in 1991 but aired the night before this show on WCW Saturday Night. WCW Tag Team Titles: Marcus Alexander Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio (w/Teddy Long) vs. The Nasty Boys (w/Missy Hyatt). Jesse, ever the smartass, notes that Missy got a haircut in the interim between last night’s match and this one. Tony explains she got it done especially for this event. He also confirms that Missy is their escort, prompting Jesse to quip “an escort service” is a perfect job for Missy. Bagwell grabs Missy and kisses her. Ewwww. The champs dazzle the Nasties (and the crowd) with their aerial stuff early. Bagwell gets dumped to the floor behind the ref’s back and takes a nasty bump on the apron. No pun intended. Missy slaps Bagwell in retaliation for the kiss. The Nasties go to work on Bagwell’s back, and boy is that enthralling. Bagwell fights out of a bearhug and falls back into the tag, but it’s a false tag because the ref was busy with Saggs. The real thing follows moments later, and Scorpio cleans house. The moonsault block hits Knobbs, and Saggs’ attempt at breaking it up goes awry. Teddy and Missy get into it on the apron, so Bagwell gives Saggs and Missy the old double noggin-knocker. That earns him a scolding from the ref, so the ref misses Scorpio’s 450-splash on Knobbs. Saggs nails Scorpio with his loose boot, and the Nasties regain at 14:41. * Col. Parker and Sid Vicious vow to take Sting out. Why does Sid Vicious have the same look on his face that Dave Chappelle does when he’s imitating the drug-dealing baby on the corner? Sting vs. Sid Vicious (w/Col. Rob Parker). This is to decide the “franchise” of WCW. Sadly, Sting would be involved in another match to determine the franchise of WCW… six years later against Goldberg. Sting knocks Sid to the floor, shocking only the heels. They brawl into the crowd where Sting tosses Sid into the barricade. Parker grabs Sting’s ankle to distract him, and that leads to a chokeslam. And that chokeslam leads to the end of the world as we know it because Sid takes over and a vortex to a dimension of suck opens up, unleashing bizarre and horrifying creatures upon the world until Thomas Jane has to hole up in a supermarket. Bearhugs, chinclocks, more bearhugs. Sting claps his way out of a bearhug and hits an avalanche. Colonel Parker somehow mistakes Sid’s foot for Sting’s and yanks Sid down. Sid gets pissed and yanks him up to the apron, but Sting rolls Sid up for the win at 10:38. Horrible match with a bizarre ending. I don’t even remember what the explanation was because, but I assume it turned out to be intentional on Parker’s part because there is *no* way a human being could mistake Sid’s boot for Sting’s. If Stevie Wonder were managing at ringside and grabbed Sid’s foot, Ray Charles would say, “Son, I know you saw that.” 3/4* WCW International Heavyweight Title: Rick Rude vs. Ric Flair (w/Fifi). I don’t get the appeal of Fifi the maid. Maybe I’m spoiled by a decade of models-turned-wrestlers. Terry Taylor is the second referee. Flair dominates early and locks in the figure-four. Fans chant “Whoomp, There it is.” So in case you didn’t know where it was, that’s where it was. Flair smashes Rude’s ankle into the post. Rude blocks a sunset flip and gets two. Back to the floor, Flair comes off the top rope with a forearm. He tries again, but Rude nails him in the gut. Rude tries to use a chair, but Taylor stops him. Reverse chinlock burns some time. Rude hits a forearm off the top and remembers to sell the knee. Well, at least the psychology is good. Back to the chinlock. Ugh. This is like Rude’s awful match with Chono. Flair slugs his way back and grabs a sleeper. Rude is able to back him into a corner, though. Flair hits his own version of the Rude Awakening. The ref gets bumped, and Taylor stops to check on him rather than replacing him. Rude got screwed. Taylor finally hops in, but now he gets bumped. Rude takes the opportunity to put on some brass knuckles. Flair blocks and pastes Rude and then takes the brass knuckles for himself. He nails Rude and covers for two, but the original ref stops Taylor and says he saw Flair use the foreign object. That’s a DQ at 19:22. So boring, and it had a horrible ending. Looked like they were just going through the motions. *3/4 WCW Heavyweight Title, Texas Death Match: Vader (w/Harley Race) vs. Cactus Jack. Vader takes the headgear off right away, so you know serious shit is about to go down. Vader misses a left hook and takes out the ringpost. Cactus nails Vader with several chairshots. They brawl up the ramp where Cactus pummels him. Race tries to interfere, but Cactus steals his chair and knocks Vader into next week with it. Vader falls into his own mock grave, and we can’t see anything. The ref admits to being too afraid to go into the grave to make a count. Haha. That’s pretty good. Cactus emerges with a cut over the eye. Vader follows with a bloody forehead. Cactus levels him with a flying forearm and gets the pin. Vader makes it to his feet, but Jack knocks him off the ramp with a plastic Cactus and adds the flying elbowdrop for another pin. Vader is up again. This time Cactus sets up a table (or rather Nick Patrick does it for him). Cactus sends Vader into the table and gets two. Pretty hardcore stuff for the time. To the floor, Jack tries a sunset flip off the apron, but Vader blocks. Vader just starts haphazardly tossing Jack around. A cameraman catches Harley Race readying a tazer. Vadersault gets the pin, but Cactus is up. Cactus grabs a sleeper on the ramp, but Vader falls backwards and SPLATS HIM. We later found out that Jack suffered a ruptured kidney but didn’t want to stop the match for fear of being thought of as a wuss. Vader pins him, but Jack struggles to his feet and DDTs Vader on a chair. Vader manages to get to his feet, and so does Jack, but Harley tazes him behind the ref’s back. That gives Vader the win at 16:00. This hasn’t aged as well as some of their other matches, but it’s still a hell of a brawl. Foley’s bumps are unparalleled, and the only thing that brought it down was a poorly executed ending and the pacing due to the deathmatch rules. ***3/4

The 411: Vader and Jack have better matches elsewhere, so even the main event wasn't enough to save the show. Hell, a five-star classic probably wouldn't have saved this stinker. All the same problems of Fall Brawl - no effort, bad booking, nobody cares. Truly one of the worst stretches for any mainstream promotion. Thumbs down.
Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]