Dark Pegasus Video Review: Halloween Havoc ’92

Halloween Havoc ’92 by J.D. Dunn October 25, 1992 Live from Philadelphia, Pa. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura. Opening Match: Ricky Steamboat vs. Brian Pillman. Pillman just turned heel at the Clash prior to this. Ricky’s gonna learn him a lesson, though. Steamboat does a nice spot where he plays dead and drags Pillman down into an armbar. It’s weird to see ECW’s Hat Guy in the front row years before ECW was ECW. The fans get all over Brian for sucking, so he falls to his knees to counter an Irish Whip and just blindsides Steamboat. Hey, turnabout is fair play. Pillman acts like a jerk with the hair-pulling and scratching, but he gets a facepop for a tilt-o-whirl headscissors. Steamboat blocks a superplex but jumps right into a dropkick. Pillman grabs a sleeper, but Ricky rams him into the buckle. Steamboat chops Pillman until he begs off and ducks out for the sympathy of the future ECW peanut gallery. Steamboat tosses him back in, allowing Pillman to nail him on the way in. Duh. Steamboat comes off the top with a sunset flip (off-the-top was reinstituted). Pillman reverses, but Steamboat reverses the reversal and gets the win at 10:24. Pillman made a great heel here, and matching him up against das uberface was a good idea to solidify his heel status. ***1/4 Bill Watts announces that Terry Gordy has been fired, so Steve Williams picked Steve Austin as his substitute. Rick Rude filed a lawsuit to prevent him from wrestling twice. Big Van Vader will now wrestle Nikita Koloff for the U.S. Title. U.S. Title: Vader vs. Nikita Koloff. Everyone else is banned from ringside. Jesse has the gall, THE UNMITIGATED TEMERITY, to question Jim Ross’ story about Vader having a Super Bowl ring. Indeed, Ross was slightly exaggerating as he says Vader has a Super Bowl ring from his time with the L.A. Ram. In fact, he *was* a member of the Rams NFC Championship team, but they didn’t win. This is a big ol’ slugfest with Nikita occasionally trying to go up-tempo. Vader is actually pretty quick too and avoids a Sickle on the outside. Nikita hits the post and injures his arm. Vader finishes the squash with a powerbomb at 4:32. A lot of people interpreted this as a message to Koloff, but Koloff was on his way out anyway to deal with family issues and Watts thought it counterproductive to have him go 50/50 with the former world champ if he wasn’t going to be part of their future. ** NWA/WCW World Tag Team Titles: Barry Windham & Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Williams & Steve Austin. So after all that investment in the Miracle Violence Connection, Gordy left the promotion to avoid the political conflagration between the major Japanese feds. See, the Steiners were New Japan’s top foreign team, and the MVC were All Japan’s, so when they feuded in America, it was a big deal. New Japan made overtures to Gordy and Doc, so Gordy dropped out of the feud completely out of loyalty to Giant Baba. Interestingly, highly disregarded Dustin Rhodes was actually a better wrestler at the same point in his career than highly regarded Cody Rhodes. Anyhoo, Windham and Dustin were having problems at this point, and they had to change strategies to adjust for Austin. Austin and Rhodes presage their singles feud with a nice sequence. Austin finishes it with a kick to the gut, but there’s an awkward moment where he doesn’t know what to do. Hint: STUNNER! Windham wins a slugfest with Doc but misses his flying lariat. Barry plays face-in-peril for a long period, and we see why Barry isn’t great for that role as he falls backward from mid-ring and still manages to make the tag. See, too tall. Rhodes tags in and gets clobbered by Doc. That was the finish of their last match. Instead, Dustin assumes the face-in-peril role. Wow. Two heat portions. Must be a special night. I should point out that Austin is getting progressively over with the crowd. They work in the false tag spot to distract the referee while the heels toss Dustin over the top. The ref gets bumped and falls on Dustin. Windham rolls up Austin only for Doc to nail him with a clothesline. New referee Nick Patrick counts three, but Barry’s not the legal man as Randy Anderson points out. The match continues above Jesse’s objections. The match has two minutes left, though, so they just keep trading nearfalls until time expires at 30:00. This was pretty good in parts, but they could have just as easily done a 20-minute time limit and trimmed some fat. Barry seemed to play the face-in-peril forever while Austin took him to the mat. ***1/4 Paul E. Dangerously gloats about Rude retaining his title. That brings out Madusa to take credit. Dangerously and Madusa suddenly start re-enacting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? until Dangerously gets mad and fires her. Paul E.’s misogynistic rant is the stuff of legends. “The only reason I picked you was because the other hooker had a previous engagement.” He says he can kick her ass because he’s a man and she’s a woman, so Madusa kicks him in the head. Dangerously dares her to try again and then runs off. He’s a real man. This is a precursor to ECW’s many man/woman fracases. Sting spins the wheel for a spot in the Showcase Showdown. It lands on “Coal Miner’s Glove,” sending a collective shiver down the spines of the fans. NWA Heavyweight Title: Masa Chono vs. Rick Rude (w/Madusa). Masa Chono chooses Kensuke Sasaki as his special referee. Rude chooses Harley Race. I guess Madusa got custody of Rude, which would be a bad business move on Paul E.’s part. Rude wins a coin toss, so Race is your inside official. The fans turn on this before the opening bell, chanting, “We want Flair.” Rude and Chono then proceed to turn in the match I want to see Larry Sweeney bust out in ROH one day, just to start a riot. It’s all chinlocks and side headlocks. Chono goes for his STF, but it’s just more of an ST with no F. Rude PICKS THINGS UP… with a sleeper. Somewhere, ten minutes get mercifully clipped. The fans get distracted by something going on in the audience, providing the first pop of the match. Rude misses a missile dropkick. Chono charges Rude but bumps Harley to the floor. Sasaki goes over to check on Race, and Chono tosses Rude on both of them. Back in, Rude hits the Rude Awakening, but both refs are on the outside. Rude goes up and misses a kneedrop, so Chono slaps on the STF for the submission at 12:58 (shown of 22:23). Sasaki declares Chono the winner, but Race overrules him and DQ’s Chono for throwing Rude over the top. Wow. I didn’t think it was possible to suck any more, but the finish actually dragged the match down farther. Race gets in Sasaki’s face, so Sasaki unloads a righteous ass-kicking on everyone, solidifying his status in Philly. The last two minutes of the match aren’t so bad, but the previous 20 (I’ve seen the full contest) are some of the most tedious ever captured on celluloid. 1/2* And it’s not over yet! WCW Heavyweight Title: Ron Simmons vs. The Barbarian (w/Cactus Jack). Ross notes that Burt Reynolds is a Ron Simmons fan. Well, then he *must* be over. You mean Evening Shade star and possible wax statue Burt Reynolds likes Ron Simmons?! Now I *have* to give you my money. Jesse endears himself to the Turner family by gloating about the Braves’ loss. You know the problem with this match? Simmons is actually a decent wrestler with someone to work with, but Barbarian has never really had to *wrestle* in his career. He’s a great brawler, and a perfect squash wrestler, but once it gets beyond formula both guys are lost. Barbarian locks in the shinni no make (called as such by Jesse). Simmons gets out of it and hulks up, but he goes after Jack. That allows Barbie to attack him from behind and hit the diving headbutt. Jesse: Unbelievable, the Barbarian coming within an eyelash of becoming the WCW Champion. Did no one in WCW see the problem with that sentence? Simmons kicks out and catches Barbarian with a fluke powerslam at 7:13. This was a PrimeTime Wrestling-level match. ** Funny moment as Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura are explaining the rules of “Coal Miner’s Glove,” and Jesse idly threatens to climb up and get the glove to use on Ross, and Jim snipes back, “I doubt you could make it up the pole!” Also, JR, master of kayfabe, notes that WCW has researched anti-venom for Jake’s cobra, should he try to use it. Coal Miner’s Glove: Jake Roberts vs. Sting. Actually, Coal Miner’s Glove gets a bad rap because the wrestlers just aren’t willing to sell the concept. The idea is to make the crowd think that the glove could, as one eloquent reviewer once put it, “fuck a n*gg* up” if it fell into the wrong hands. The suspense then comes from the battle to get this mystical überweapon. Instead, guys started no-selling the glove, and it just became one guy hitting another only with a glove on his hand. Michael Jackson could do that. Jake goes for the glove immediately, but Sting catches him and slams him. Sting goes up, but Jake yanks him down. That was pretty stupid of Sting, really, because he saw Jake looking right at him. Sting misses a dropkick, and Jake drops a series of knees to his back. It’s hard to believe this is only a year after the Savage incident because Jake looks ten years older. Sting posts Jake in one corner and goes up the pole. Jake catches him and backdrop suplexes him. Jake hiptosses Sting to the apron and goes up, but Sting crotches him on the top turnbuckle. Jake takes him to the outside and gives him a chairshot. So… slow. Jake chokes Sting out with his wrist tape. Jake gets the DDT to wake up the Philly crowd. Jake goes up, but Sting recovers (way too quickly) and swings around the pole, knocking Jake down. Sting goes up as Cactus Jack runs down and gives Jake his “cobra” and snake-handlers glove. Sting grabs the Coal Miner’s Glove and hits Jake, causing the snake to bite Jake instead. Sting gets the pin at 10:30. You can guess how much the Philly fans were impressed with that ending, especially since it was obvious that Jake was just holding the (relatively) tiny snake up against his face. Jake would never appear on another WCW PPV. 3/4*

The 411: It started out well enough with a good match from Pillman & Steamboat and the tag match, but it rapidly went downhill after that. I like Simmons, like his future co-hort Bradshaw, he wasn't really built up as a threat to the title before he got it. He just came in, laid out challenges, and won it. Plus, as this PPV demonstrates, he didn't have the greatest set of opponents. Thumbs down.
Final Score:  4.5   [ Poor ]