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Building the Ultimate Halloween Havoc Card: A Puzzle Game

November 1, 2019 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
Hulk Hogan Ric Flair Halloween Havoc Image Credit: WWE

Building the Ultimate Halloween Havoc Card: A Puzzle Game

-In the spirit of the season, I figured this would be the best time to tackle WCW’s Halloween Havoc. This is one of the best names ever for a show and always had fantastic sets/entrance set-ups. The fact the WWE never opted to use this show has been a loss for the entire wrestling industry. Halloween Havoc started out under the NWA banner in 1989 and had an annual run until 2000. That gives us a total of 12 matches.

–The rules of this puzzle game, for those that may be reading for the first time, are as follows: 1) You must pick one match from each year of the show 2) No wrestler can appear more than once 3) Any title that was defended during the history of the show, must be represented with a match. In the history of the show the following titles were defended: NWA World Title, NWA World Tag Titles, NWA US Tag Titles, United States Title, TV Title, Light Heavyweight/Cruiserweight Title, WCW World Title, WCW World Tag Titles, WCW Hardcore Title, and WCW World International Title. I will note that one of the titles won’t appear on the card as I had to kick one to the curb to make the puzzle work.

1989: NWA World Tag Titles: The Fabulous Freebirds (c) vs. The Dynamic Dudes (11:28)

-The NWA Tag Titles were defended at this show and only one more time in 1990. The 1990 show also featured another tag match that I had to use, so it made things kind of easy. This isn’t a particularly good match, but is remembered for the crazy crowd heat. The Philly crowd roasted the Dudes while cheering everything from the heel Freebirds. It is rather impressive and helped elevate what was a rather mundane tag match. The Birds won the match and based on the crowd reaction looked like the biggest stars of the show.

1990: NWA US Tag Titles: The Steiner Brothers (c) vs. The Nasty Boys (15:24)

-Now this is where we ran into a dilemma. The US Tag Titles were only defended once and that is on this show. That seemingly made this an easy call, but I soon realized the NWA Title was defended here and only 1 other time: 1992. If I took this match, then I was forced to take the NWA Title match in 1992. That seemed all well and good until I realized who was involved in that match, but we will get to that in a bit. As for this match, this is the match that put the Nasty Boys on the map. I remember watching this as a kid and loving this match. It isn’t as great as I remembered, but it is pretty good and as mentioned made the Nasty Boys. It made them so much that they quickly jumped to the WWF and became their Tag Team Champions.

1991: Bobby Eaton vs. Terrance Taylor (16:00)

-This was the final match I picked for this card and with all my title matches accounted for, I just needed a non title match to finish. This was peak 1991 WCW as my options were full of some horrible choices: Van Hammer vs Doug Somers, Big Josh and PN News vs The Creatures being the worst. There was also a match featuring Oz and The Halloween Phantom, but both of those guys were saved for later matches. Thankfully, this is a great match between two pros that know how to work a crowd and wrestle. Bobby Eaton is severely underrated and Taylor is a pro’s pro so it is no surprise they delivered here. A quick note as the WCW Light Heavyweight Title was defended here and there is some debate that it should be counted as a separate title from the Cruiserweight one, but through some research it seems the WWE considers them in the same lineage, so I will go with that since they own the title.

1992: NWA World Title: Masahiro Chono (c) vs. Rick Rude (22:23)

-Now this is where I realized I had an issue with getting every title on the card. As mentioned since I had to use the US Tag Titles this was the only other spot where the NWA World Title was defended. The issue is the match includes Rick Rude and he is also involved in the one match where the WCW International World Title was defended (1993). That left me with the decision that one of the US Tag, NWA World, or International World were going to get left off the card. I think I made the right choice as nobody cares about the International World and 1993 features one of the greatest matches in Havoc history. Speaking of greatest matches in Halloween Havoc history, this is not one of them. Rude and Chono both looked unmotivated and it leads to a slow match that feels like hours instead of 23 minutes. The issue is that by all accounts these two delivered a classic in Japan for this same title (I never saw that match), so I have no idea what happened here other than neither really cared or there were injuries involved.  Just a horrible match!

1993: Texas Death Match: Big Van Vader vs. Cactus Jack (15:59)

-There are two matches I think of when I hear “Halloween Havoc” and both of them made this card. This is the first one and is one of my favorite matches as this feud was fantastic. The story behind this match is made all the better if you read Foley’s first book as he talks about hoping Vader crushing him would have injured him enough to end his career. Thanks to a spin of the wheel this became a Texas Death match and it didn’t disappoint. This was just a crazy brawl in a time where it wasn’t common place, but was starting to take hold thinks to Jack and ECW. I love this match and some dump on the finish, but it was fine. Go out and watch this match if you’ve never seen it as it is a forgotten classic. As mentioned this show also featured the International World Title being defended with Rude facing Flair, but thanks to it having Rude in it, I couldn’t pick it. In the end it works out for the best as I get this Vader/Jack classic and get Flair for the following year.

1994: WCW World Title: Retirement Match: Cage Match: Hulk Hogan (c) vs. Ric Flair (19:25)

-Now this match has all the star power you could want and it is also a great match. Nobody was buying the retirement stipulation as it was just a case of WCW trying adding stakes to the match since this was the 3rd between the two since July. Their match at Bash at The Beach was very good, but they were able to top that with this one. Just a chaotic and fun match with crazy crowd heat.  It also features Sherri taking some good bumps and Mr T actually doing a decent job as the special ref as he even keeps Hogan from cheating. I really like this match and enjoyed this series as it was mind blowing to 13 year old me to see Hogan vs Flair.

1995: Sabu vs. Mr. JL (3:25)

-I had a few options to go with this one and could have stuck with my usual idea of getting star power on the show by including Savage vs Luger, but it was too short to be worth anything. Luger and Savage each had an earlier match on this show, but Savage squashing Zodiac and Luger vs Meng didn’t sound all that great. Instead I went with a rather odd match as most forget Sabu was ever in WCW. Mr. JL is Jerry Lynn (shocking I know) and he was a fine opponent for Sabu to showcase his craziness. As you can see they weren’t given any time, but Sabu wrestling on a WCW show headlined by Hulk Hogan is just the kind of crazy we were getting in the times of the Monday Night Wars. Johnny B Badd vs DDP for the TV title was an option, but there is a later TV Title match I liked better.

1996: WCW World Tag Titles: Harlem Heat (c) vs. The Outsiders (13:07)

-This was an easy choice for the WCW Tag Titles and is a fine match. The Outsiders were the biggest stars in the company and with Hogan being the one to carry the World Title, they were perfect to keep as a team and elevate the tag titles. Some will say they held the titles hostage, but really it did elevate the titles as now people cared about the tag title matches since Hall/Nash with the nWo angle were involved. This is where their reign began as they had a fun match with Harlem Heat in front of an engaged crowd. I have seen this match so many times and vividly remember the non wrestling spots: Hall spitting on Stevie Ray and then tagging out and Hall making out with Sherri. The finish saw the Outsiders use Parker’s cane to get the win to a big pop. Fun stuff here and an easy pick for my WCW Tag Spot. Rey and Dean had a very good CW title match to start this show, but that match never had a chance because of what happened the next year.

1997: Cruiserweight Title: Title vs Mask: Eddy Guerrero (c) vs. Rey Mysterio Jr (13:51)

-This is the other match I think of when people say Halloween Havoc. This is one of the greatest matches ever and you can make a case it is the greatest WCW match ever. This match is so amazing that they tried topping it for the next decade or so and could never match the magic here. Everything about this match is perfect and both have said they did things out there that they aren’t sure they could hit as seamlessly and smoothly again. To show how top heavy things were in 1997 you had this match, Hell In a Cell I and Austin/Hart I Quit match battling it out for Match of the Year. This match doesn’t get as much historical credit as the others mentioned, but it may be the better pure match. No other match had a chance on this show which kind of sucked for Page/Savage as they had a fun brawl to continue their rivalry. No matter though as nothing else was getting this spot.

1998: Television Title: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Raven (7:49)

-This is where we get my TV Title match and while short this was a fantastic match. Raven has always been one of my favorite wrestling characters and the man behind the character did a fantastic job with it. He was always a very good wrestler when needed and could do more than just a garbage brawl. This is kind of a hidden gem as they delivered a fun sprint in a rare heel vs heel match. I could have gone Hart vs Sting for the US Title to get them on the card and used the 1995 TV Title match, but I really like this Jericho/Raven match.

1999: United States Title: Sid (c) vs. Goldberg (7:11)

-I had to have a US Title match and after filling in most of this card, I had 3 spots to find a US Title. One of the spots didn’t have a US Title match so I started thinking I was going to have to move things around, but thankfully this match filled my need. It isn’t a very good match, but it is solid and does get Goldberg on the card. The crowd always popped for a match between these two as both are two of the most intimidating looking people to step in a ring. Actually when looking back this was nearly match of the night because of the train wreck that was this card. Goldberg won the match by TKO and then went on to SQUASH Sting in the Main Event for the WCW Title as Russo was now in charge and burning through all kinds of money matches in short order. This was also the show where Hogan went “shoot” and let Sting pin him before walking out on the company. Again I could have gone with other US Title matches, but this works best as this show was just bad and really this is one of the few good things from it.

2000: Hardcore Title: Reno (c) vs. Sgt AWOL (10:55)

-So we end this fondly remembered PPV on a down note as the Hardcore Title rears its’ ugly head and forces me to take this match. Again though the show was rather horrible and the pickings were slim, so being forced to pick this match made things easy. The WCW Hardcore Title didn’t last long (and neither did the company after this show) but was defended enough to show up on these cards. The good thing is the match is okay as the smoke and mirrors of the division at least gave them something to work with and it was 2 younger guys trying to prove something with the chance they were given on a PPV. That’s all you can ask for with the division and this show. It would have been more entertaining though if Normal Smiley was in the match though. As mentioned this show is bad with a horrible Main Event and is a sad way to see Halloween Havoc end it’s run. I still hold out hope the WWE will resurrect the name at some point.

-There is my card for Halloween Havoc and I think this may be the best one as far as in ring work that I’ve been able to piece together. There are two classics with Vader/Jack and Rey/Eddy plus one of Hogan’s best matches ever. Throw in some solid work with Raven/Jericho and Taylor/Eaton and some solid tag matches and this is a winner. The only real negative is the NWA Title match that is considered one of the worst in history, but sometimes that’s how these cards work. All totaled the matches clock in at 2:36:57 which makes for a good running time and even with entrances we are under the 3 hour mark. The biggest negative was I couldn’t find a spot for Sting which should be easy to do with NWA/WCW PPVs, but every time I thought I had a spot for him, a Title match was needed. I could have used him in 1990 with his match with Sid, but that would have taken away Hogan/Flair, Nasty/Steiners and forced me to use Rude/Flair International Title match which would have cost me Vader/Jack. Changing all that would have killed what I wanted for this card, so Sting had to be sacrificed. In the end I am happy with this card and now turn my attention to trying to figure out how to make Survivor Series work with so many multiple man matches and title matches. As always thanks for reading!