Random Network Reviews: Fall Brawl 1996

WCW Fall Brawl 1996
September 15th, 1996 | Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina | Attendance: 11,300

In the midst of their boom period, WCW held their annual Fall Brawl event. As usual, it was headlined by War Games but with a bit of a twist. It wasn’t just two factions or teams this time. WCW was on one side and the newly formed nWo was on the other. This is just the second PPV in the post-nWo era and would really Kickstart the angle that was supposed to lead to their downfall the following year. It is the fourth of eight Fall Brawl Pay-Per-Views.

“You want a war? You’re gonna get one.” Those infamous words by Scott Hall started the video package, which recapped some of the nWo build, including the recent concerns that Sting joined them. Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes handle the commentary duties. The fourth man on each of the main event teams has yet to be decided.

Diamond Dallas Page def. Chavo Guerrero in 13:07
DDP is on the verge of breaking out pretty soon. Page and Eddie Guerrero had issues over the BattleBowl ring but we get Chavo instead of Eddie here. Chavo is still a few years away from his infamous “Pepe” gimmick. Chavo takes to the skies early but none of it looks particularly crisp. Though he’s mostly new to WCW, Chavo maintains the advantage for a while. DDP turns it around though the crowd doesn’t seem to care enough about Chavo to really give him any sympathy. Chavo avoids the Diamond Cutter and begins to rally. He springboards in with a clothesline but again, it looks awkward. They make use of the two ring setup for Fall Brawl as DDP launches him over into the second one. DDP brings the crowd to their feet with an awesome looking spinning powerbomb for a near fall. Even though he’s the heel, the crowd pops hard for the Diamond Cutter, which ends things. Not a bad opener. They worked hard but Chavo seemed nervous on several spots. The middle was a bit of a drag too. Megastar DDP was coming. **½

Mean Gene led the viewers through a video package that recapped the nWo angle.

Submission Match: Ice Train w/ Teddy Long def. Scott Norton in 7:17
By this point, it felt like this feud had been going on for a year. Teddy Long looks like he ate another Teddy Long. It’s amazing how much skinnier he looked later in his career. Maybe he kept using his old suits from his fat days, which is why they were so baggy. The weirdest thing about this match is that A) not many guys used submissions at this time and B) neither guy was really a submission expert. Ice Train applies the first, a camel clutch, but is uncomfortable so he moves to a chinlock before giving up on a submission completely. Dude, that’s the point of the match. The crowd might as well be sitting on their hands. Train locks in an armbar as the referee uses a microphone to ask if Norton gives up. Tapping out wasn’t a thing yet. As Norton gets near a win, Long gets on the apron and distracts him. Train applies the full nelson and Norton taps out, so I guess I was wrong about it not being a thing yet. Dull, plodding and boring. It’s a shame since I didn’t hate their tag team. *

Mexican Heavyweight Championship: Konnan (c) w/ Jimmy Hart def. Juventud Guerrera in 13:45
During Juvi’s entrance, he trips backward over the steps and it was great. Mike Tenay joins commentary to save them. Konnan is already in full Cholo mode. Tenay plugged this being a big man against a small man and Konnan proves him right with a vicious release German within the first minute. He then just tosses him over and outside like a rag doll. Juvi fires back with a suicide dive. They go through a very contrived spot where Juvi tries to springboard off the guardrail, but does so in such slow fashion that Konnan just stands there and watches. Luckily, he powerbombs him outside to make up for it. Konnan backdrops Juvi onto the ropes of the second ring before powerbombing him hard back into their ring. Juvi, like Chavo earlier, seems a bit nervous and it hurt some of his spots. Schiavone calls a sunset flip attempt a backslide because he’s a moron. Juvi comes close on a few rollups but looks way overmatched. He does score on a 450 splash which was his highlight. Konnan hits the power drop, which is basically a second rope Outsider’s Edge variation to retain. They worked hard throughout this, though they may have gone too quickly at points and it led to some sloppy moments. It felt like an exhibition of moves rather than an actual match at times. ***¼

Chris Benoit def. Chris Jericho in 14:36
It is the first ever Pay-Per-View match for Chris Jericho. Benoit was way over since the show is in Horsemen country. They come to their feet just seeing Jericho get slammed down by his hair. Benoit places Jericho in the Liontamer, making me think that’s where Jericho got the idea for it. At one point, Jericho tries a high risk back elbow and nearly breaks his neck on the apron. It legit scared me. He was fine though and moved to doing a powerbomb that Konnan would have been jealous of. They trade vicious chops before Benoit works the ribs. Mike Tenay should have stuck around because commentary is lost at times. Benoit hits the diving headbutt for two. I can’t help but cringe seeing him do that move now. We get some fast paced rollups and strike exchanges. Jericho nails a tombstone and instead of covering, he plays to the crowd, who wants no part of him. Jericho follows with a clothesline and top rope Frankensteiner for near falls. Benoit crotches Jericho up top and wins it with a huge back superplex. Really good work from both guys, though they’d of course best it in the future. It was a strong start for their rivalry. Both guys put in a big effort and the story of Jericho’s high risk style backfiring was well done. The problem was white meat babyface Jericho trying to get over against a Horsemen in Carolina. ***¾

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Rey Mysterio Jr. (c) def. Super Calo in 15:48
In ten years, Mysterio will be World Champion in WWE and clearly bulked up. Mike Tenay is back to shame the rest of the booth. A fan shouts “BORING” while Calo gets in offense. Who told Calo that his look was good? I get that it is based off of a rap group but he looks absurdly dumb. After being hot for Benoit, the fans are back to mostly quiet here. Calo keeps things slow outside of using the ropes for leverage on a powerbomb. He also nails a solid looking somersault outside though he can’t kept Rey down. Calo continues to keep things grounded until Rey gets an opening and delivers a somersault of his own outside. They do some work in both rings, which I appreciate. If they’re going to give you two rings, why not make the most of it? Rey gets in a lot of high flying stuff to build towards the finish. Calo misses a dropkick and lands awkwardly. Rey triple springboards from one ring to the other and into a rana that allows him to retain. Mysterio saved this as he was far and away the better performer. It wasn’t bad, though I’d consider it easily the worst Rey PPV match up to this point in his career. The finish was the highlight for sure. ***

WCW World Tag Team Championship: Harlem Heat (c) w/ Col. Robert Parker & Sister Sherri def. The Nasty Boys in 15:31
Commentary quickly notes that this will be nothing like the previous two matches. No kidding. I like Harlem Heat but most of the PPV matches I see of theirs from the Sherri/Parker era were garbage. The Nasty Boys are the “masters of CLUBBERING” according to Dusty Rhodes. While they clubber Stevie, Heenan calls it WORLD CLUBBERING WRESTLING. The teams go at it for what seems like forever and almost none of it is interesting. Each time the Nasty Boys get close, Sherri gets involved, while Parker limps around with his cane. The crowd does seem pretty invested though. Alicia Fox has ruined the Scissors Kick for me. Watching Booker wind up for it here made me cringe until he connected and I remembered he does it correctly. Knobbs ends up with the hot tag and hits some shit looking offense. Again, they come close to winning only for a Parker distraction to set Sherri hitting Knobbs with the cane. Harlem Heat retains and I’m just so happy this ended. As expected, this dragged on and felt longer than it was. However, the guy and fans seemed motivated, which helped. **

Done with commentary for the night, Mike Tenay interviews Randy Savage. Savage says that he’s going to hit a grand slam tonight before heading to Halloween Havoc to rip Hogan’s black heart and WCW Championship from him. Not one of Savage’s best, mostly fine though.

The Giant def. Randy Savage in 7:47
Since this is WCW, the Giant comes out to the Dungeon of Doom theme. Finally, someone figures it out and plays the nWo theme as Savage pounces on Giant. They brawl outside a bit until Giant takes over and wears down Savage inside. The crowd looks away from the match, maybe due to a fight or something, and commentary makes note of it, suggesting there could be some controversy out there. They then spend other moments watching for a run-in from the ramp. They know the deal. Savage impressively slams the Giant to a THUNDEROUS pop. This brings out Hulk Hogan to distract Savage after he nails the big elbow. Hogan goads him to the entrance and, of course, it’s a trap. Hall and Nash beat him up with a chair, while referee Nick Patrick, who has been in the nWo’s pocket, ignores it all. Why would WCW assign him to this match? Savage is rolled inside for the easy pinfall. Giant put in the effort and the crowd was hot at points, so this was better than a lot of the stuff both guys would produce (outside of Savage’s DDP feud) within the next two years. **

Mike Tenay stands by with Team WCW, consisting of Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Lex Luger. They question Sting’s motives. Arn says that WCW lost an icon. Sting walks in and pleads his case, saying it wasn’t him that attacked Luger last week. Luger refuses to believe him, despite Sting ALWAYS believing in him being a shady piece of his shit throughout his career. Sting walks off saying he’d see them in a while.

War Games: Team n.W.o. (Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall & “Sting”) def. Team WCW (Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Ric Flair & Sting) in 18:!5
The focal point of the match is the Sting angle and whether or not he has turned on WCW. For the first time, the rest of the teams stay in the back as opposed to ringside. Arn Anderson and Scott Hall kick things off. They’re good choices to start since Hall still cared at this point and Arn was always solid. They trade stuff for the five minute interval and of course, the heels win the coin toss. Out comes “Big Sexy” and the numbers game proves too much for Arn. Now the intervals go down to two minutes so Arn doesn’t have to take a beating for too long. Luger evens the score and it works well since he’s a good hot tag person. He gets to hit the SCREAMING CLOTHESLINES! Things calm down for the final minute and nobody has an upper hand. Hogan is out next, saving the surprise member for last. Hogan does not get hot tag stuff as he ends up getting his ass kicked by Arn and Lex for a few seconds. The heels turn it around and hold serve. Ric Flair is next to a THUNDEROUS ovation. They chanted “we want Flair” before he even showed up. He gets in one ring and calls them over to him. Hogan goes first and, in a great twist, Flair gets to mostly no sell. He brings out the brass knuckles and lays into all three members before strutting his ass off. “Sting” runs out as the final nWo member causing commentary to pretty much become depressed. The crowd seems deflated as he beats up Team WCW. They dominate the faces until the real Sting shows up and the confused crowd pops. Sting goes after his fake doppelganger first before hitting every heel in sight. Sting does the work by himself before looking at Luger and shouting “IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?” Sting walks out and leaves his guys underhanded. The nWo recovers and “Sting” puts Luger in the Scorpion Deathlock while Hogan applies a front face lock. Patrick calls for the bell to end it. Not the best War Games but certainly not the worst. Things moved along quickly, never got boring and kicked off the awesome Sting angle that would last more than a year. ***¼

The nWo continues the attack on everyone after the bell. Flair and Anderson take out the Outsiders as Randy Savage runs out. He corners Hogan, but the Giant and Outsiders are back and they take out Savage. Elizabeth runs out to protect Savage, who she apparently still loves despite her angle earlier in the year. She throws herself on Savage only to get spray painted on her back. Hogan and the nWo kill a ton of time just bullshitting.

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

This was a pretty good show. Usually WCW events feature a strong undercard and weak, lackluster efforts from the top guys. Here, the big nWo angle was still fresh and everyone was mostly motivated. Only the submission match was bad and the Tag Title and Giant/Savage matches were pretty bland. The rest of the show is solid. There was a decent opener, good matches in the middle (Konnan/Juvi, Benoit/Jericho and Rey/Calo) as well as a well worked main event featuring a major angle.