Back in the day when there weren’t 500 PPV’s on a year from every company, the then National Wrestling Alliance debuted Halloween Havoc, a show with a spooky theme for the obvious reasons… but usually the only thing spooky about it was that the bookers managed to one-up themselves every year in bad storylines, matches, and gimmicks. Following is a detailed account of some of the lowest points of the shows history (with a few highs), with the notable exception of 1993, since that show has been unavailable to me for years.



1989: Thunderdome Cage Match – Sting & Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk & The Great Muta
With an undercard of so many highs and lows, it was up to the main event to make the show a success. With an interesting gimmick (for it’s time) and Bruno Sammartino as the special referre, everything was pointing towards a positive outcome… so naturally Bruno barely figured into the match until the last 30 seconds. However, the match succeeded in being entertaining and booked well enough to not hurt anyones heat. Most of the match was brawling in or around the ring, with Flair/Funk and Sting/Muta pairing off for the most parts. After about 25 minutes, the ring seconds (Ole Anderson and Gary Hart) got into the ring, and a brouhaha broke out, causing Hart to accidentally throw his towel, awarding the match to the good guys.


1990: World Championship – Sting © vs. Sid Vicious
Although this was the main event, the main program going into the show was the on-going nonsense between Sting and the mysterious Black Scorpion. Earlier in the show, the Scorpion pulled another one over on Sting, haunting him and fans eye site once again. The nonsense didn’t end there. Late in what was a surprisingly decent match, Sting and Sid brawled backstage… but when Sting returned, he suddenly grew 3 inches and gained 50 pounds! Sid ended up pinning the bogus Sting (Barry Windham), but the match was later restarted and Sting wound up retaining his belt.


1991: Chamber of Horrors Match – Sting, El Gigante, the Steiner Brothers vs. Big Van Vader, Cactus Jack, Abdullah the Butcher, the Diamond Studd
Hmmm… I’m noticing a trend settling around Sting at this annual event. In the most bizarre match to date, all 8 men were to battle inside an oversized cage, and the focus was to strap one member of a team into the “Chair of Torture” and throw the “fatal switch.” Yup, a match ends when someone is sent to the electric chair. The match wasn’t bad enough with pointless brawling, but the match was plagued with horrible camera angles, and midway through the match, the switch had fallen into the on position. Naturally, the camera caught Cactus Jack fixing it. The finish came with Abdullah the Hutt being strapped in (barely) and sizzling like a cheap steak.


1992: Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal – Sting vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts
Out of all the losers so far in this list, this match had the most promise to be good. Sting was in the prime of his career and no one knew psychology more than Jake Roberts. So what does WCW do? Book a match so incredibly lame, no one would care one way or another how good it was… for the record, the match sucked. What sucked more is the fact out of 12 possible match types, the worst one was “randomly” selected. A Coal Miner’s Glove Match. For those unfamiliar, it’s your basic “goofy object on a pole” where the point of the match is to incapacitate your opponent long enough to climb a large pole in the corner and retrieve the object. Sounds lame in practice, and even lamer when watching it. Sting ended up getting the glove, KO’ed Roberts, and won. Post-match, Roberts attempted to unleash his snake on Sting, but it ended up biting him instead… kinda. Jake simply held it up to his face since the snake opted not to play along for the most part.


1994: World Championship – Hulk Hogan © vs. Ric Flair… Featuring Hogan’s Best Friends!
As much of a Hogan fan I am, I can simply not stand his run in WCW from 1994-2000. He became an egotistical asshole overnight it seemed… more so than what he ALLEGEDLY did in the WWF. With such a high profile main event, nothing had to be done to make it better… unless you’re Hulk Hogan. Action #1: Hire MR. T to be special referee, a guy who hasn’t been famous since about 1987. Action #2: Book the match so incredibly lop-sided against him, he made everyone else in the ring look so bad. Action #3: Have the masked man disguised as the Black Scorpion unmasked as his best friend, Brutus Beefcake. Action #4: Have John Tenta (formerly Earthquake in WWF) run-in after the match to do a beat down. Add to the fact the show featured Hogan buddies the Honkytonk Man, the Guardian Angel (formerly Bossman) and the Nasty Boys, and you have a show booked completely to Hogan’s whims.


1995: The Monster Truck and World Title Match – Hulk Hogan © vs. The Giant
The Hogan Express continues, as he’s still the reigning champion after over 16 months. In an incredibly pore move, the Giant was billed as the long-lost son of the late-Andre the Giant. Shameful… to make matters worse, Hogan was, at the time, feuding with the Dungeon of Doom, a collection of the worst wrestlers and gimmicks in the company at the time… and most of them were employed because of Hogan. To explain the Monster Truck gimmick, the Giant ran over one of Hogan’s motorcycles with a Monster Truck at Fall Brawl, so here’s Hogan’s Revenge! After nearly 10 minutes of nonsense, the action spilled to the roof of Cobo Hall, where Hogan proceeded to knock the Giant off the ROOF. Logically, the Giant showed up for his match unharmed, and with the help of a heel-turned Jimmy Hart, and double teaming in more ways than one with the Ye-TAY (you have to say it like that for the impact in Tony Schiavone’s voice), won his first World Title, ending a long run of horror under Hogan’s reign.


1996: World Championship – Hollywood Hogan © vs. Randy Savage
At the time, Savage was in the middle of a feud with the New World Order, thanks to all the other main eventers fighting each other. In one of the goofiest moments in wrestling history, Hogan actually wrestled the match wearing a HAIR PIECE, left over from the set of 3 Ninjas: Something About a Rocky Mountain. The match, as usual for the two since 1990, sucked major ass, and once again, the New World Order reigned at the top of the mountain… until Roddy Piper showed up to talk trash for an hour to end the show. Good night, nurse.


1997: Cruiseweight Title vs. Mask – Eddy Guerrero © vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.
Finally, we’re back on the positive side of things. Although I consider this match a great one, I honestly don’t think it’s an all-time classic or even match of the year, solely for the reason it’s just too short (clocked in at 12 minutes, IIRC). The storyline and drama was great going into and during the match, but it ended too soon to really make it feel special in my eyes. Kudos to both men for putting on a great effort, because the crowd would need it for what would happen later in the show…


1997: Steel Cage Match – Roddy Piper vs. Hollywood Hogan
Also known as “Age in the Cage” to many fans and employees of the WWF at the time. This match was so bad it was just amazing how far both men dipped when it comes to ability to work a believable and watchable match. Although the match was no escape, but men fought to escape… and did. Then they fought to get back in… and to get back out again. Randy Savage did a run-in, nearly missing a 20-foot axehandle, and then 15 bogus Stings and a fan jumping the gate got their asses kicked by Hogan and Savage too. What a way to end another WCW pay-per-view… with a bunch of old geezers standing around, sucking wind, and pissing off all the fans.


1998: The Trilogy of Terror – Sting vs. Bret Hart, Kevin Nash vs. Scott Hall, and The Warrior vs. Hollywood Hogan II
Halloween Havoc ’98 had a chance to be great. It featured four top of the card matches that fans were drooling over to watch, and only one (DDP vs. Goldberg) actually delivered. Sting vs. Bret was so boring, that the 15-minutes it ran felt more like 2 hours, with a lame finish to boot. Nash vs. Hall sucked too, but the finish was even worse: After Nash knocked out Hall, he simply took a count-out loss. Then you have Warrior vs. Hogan. A match so awful you might go blind looking at it for too long, like an eclipsed sun. While their WrestleMania VI match was a classic, and planned out in great detail beforehand, this was not… and it sure as hell showed. Both men were desperatly trying to recreate the same match, except every move was botched, their timing off, the crowd boo’ed both men out of the building, Hogan fucked up the finish, and Horace Hogan gave Warrior the weakest chair shot this side of Lance Storm. Gladly, Warrior was gone soon after. Sadly, Hogan continued to manipulate his way to the top of the card in WCW.


1999: World Championship – Sting © vs. Hulk Hogan
In the months leading up to the show, Hogan had turned face again, and brought back the red and yellow that some fans still wanted to see. At Fall Brawl ’99, the amazing happened… Sting turned heel. Kinda. The fans actually went wild when he nailed Hogan with a baseball bat en route to winning another World Title. So here was the rematch… or at least that’s what WCW was promoting. Hogan’s music played several times, but he didn’t come out. After Sting appeared, Hogan finally came to the ring, dressed in his street clothes. Then he laid down for Sting, and Sting retained the belt. Yes, it’s pretty much the Fingerpoke of Doom II, but on a show people paid $30 for. The crowd rightfully chanted “Bullshit” at the finish, which seemed to be a common practice in WCW for the time.


2000 – Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett
Sting is back once again, this time closing out the series as this would end up being the final Halloween Havoc before WCW was sold to Vince McMahon, but at least it went out on a low-light. Leading up to the show, Jarrett was questioning Sting’s attitude and passion for WCW, even going as far as mocking him by dressing up as Sting of Old. During the match, things got even more bizarre. Out of nowhere, a wrestler dressed up as Sting (circa Halloween Havoc ’89, according to Schiavone) ran in and got his butt handed to him. Then another came out, this time wearing a Sgt. Pepper jacket. Then another dressed as Crow Sting. Then another as Wolfpac Sting. Then, finally, to quote Stevie Ray on commentary, “Sting of the future” repeled from the ceiling, bad wig and all falling off, and got beat up as well. Finally, the match ended when Sting #4 nailed Sting with a guitar to end the nonsense and the incredible string of horrible booking thrown at Sting at this annual show.


After reading through all of these incidents, one shouldn’t be surprised WCW had always been on the verge of going bankrupt. If not for the New World Order angle of 1996, the death of the company wouldn’t have been post-poned for so long, thus freeing us of countless hours of torture feturing Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash and the rest of their crew of losers. But this also proves one thing: No matter how bad some things are, there is some good to be found.

Wow, that last Havoc sounded just like the Impacts after Sting debuted in TNA

Moowhahaha. You'd think that Havoc is Sting's annual playground of shitty matches, right? It could have been worse, consider:

-1989: Tommy Rich vs. Cuban Assassain
Have unknown masked guys EVER won on any card? Please speak up Red Demon, Shadows, Conquistadors, Executioner and The Pearl.

-1990: Junkyard Dog vs. Moondog Rex
Yes. JYD vs. a Moondog. In 1990. On a PPV.

-1991: Full of more crap than my grandpappy's outhouse, but I'd have to go with:
Van Hammer vs. Doug Somers.

-1992: Ron Simmons vs. Barbarian
For the WCW World Title. Yes. WORLD title and the BARBARIAN in the same sentence.

-1993: Ice Train, Shockmaster & Charlie Norris vs. Kane, Kole & the Equalizer (Dave Sullivan)
Although this card DID feature another "spin the wheel, make the deal" match.

1994- Dave Sullivan vs. Kevin Sullivan
The Sullivans EXPLODE!! A big lumbering, talent-less guy vs. a creepy guy in a speedo with a beer-belly.

1995 aww, fuck it, nothing beats a Sumo Monster Truck Match. The Goldberg Monster Truck WISHES it could have headlined a PPV... or even a Thunder,

1996- The Giant vs. Jeff Jarret
Jarrett, in his male stripper outfit, was booked as a babyface against the Giant. Ended when Ric Flair ran in and hit a cock-punch on the Giant.

1997- Alex Wright vs. Steve McMichael
Shitty match, with the only redeeming quality being a "Bill" Goldberg run-in

1998--okay, you got me. Can't top Hogan/Warrior II. Although I'm still hoping for Hogan/Warrior III. There were SO many unanswered questions, after all.

1999- Brad Armstrong vs. Berlyn
After a three week push, Berlyn is jobbed to .... Brad Armstrong

2000- Konnan & Tygress vs. Shane Douglas & Torrie Wilson
Didn't we learn our lesson, 20 years ago, from Sunshine/Scott Casey vs. John Tatum/Missy Hyatt? Mixed tags suck.

I had to limit my choices, reasons being it would've taken too long to remember all of that crap. I can't believe I forgot the "Sullivans" crap... based around Hulk Hogan. SURPRISE!