The Hidden Good in WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

For about two years, WCW was on top of world: record television ratings, record revenue, record attendance. Combining the perfect storm of a once-in-a-lifetime storyline in the New World Order and smaller-sized wrestlers performing feats of athleticism rarely seen in a wrestling ring in the United States, World Championship Wrestling did what no other promotion was able to do: topple the World Wrestling Federation. In fact, for half of 1996 and all of 1997, Nitro, WCW’s Monday night offering, had beaten RAW, WWF’s Monday night show, in the ratings every week.

By the time Halloween Havoc arrived in October 1998, the 84-week streak had long ended (it ended in April when a teased Stone Cold Steve Austin-Vince McMahon world title match ended the run). The two programs spent the spring and summer jockeying for position as the go-to wrestling show on Monday. In the early summer, RAW, which had been closing the gap since the run-up to Wrestlemania XIV, gained victories, albeit narrow ones, over Nitro. The tide turned once again in August and September on the large shoulders of the Ultimate Warrior’s early appearances in WCW. It flipped to the WWF for the remainder of its head to head battle in October, save for one Monday night.

That night was the night following Halloween Havoc, when WCW forced to re-air the PPV’s main event between Bill Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Why so? The PPV, usually scheduled for three hours, went three and a half hours. Though WCW brass convinced some cable providers to clear the time, most did not—or could not, as many had to drop the broadcast at 11pm ET. The company was also forced to issue millions of dollars in refunds.

There were twelve matches on the supercard, though only nine were shown on the home video release (Wrath versus Meng, Alex Wright versus Fit Finlay, and Saturn versus Lodi were all cut out of the home version). The show is famous—or infamous—for the Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior rematch from Wrestlemania VI. While their WWF match was meticulously worked out in detail to hide their glaring weaknesses, their WCW encounter…well… I’ll let others do the talking for me.

KB’s Wrestling Reviews: 

F. This is one of those matches that the best explanation as to why it sucks is to say “did you watch the match?” Neither guy was capable of putting on a decent match to save their lives at this point so they gave them fifteen minutes on PPV. The ending was bad, the big spot of the match was bad, the whole thing was bad. I don’t know who besides Hogan thought this was a good idea, but they need to be shot otherwise. This was an atrocious match and definitely one of the biggest bombs I’ve ever seen.

Jack Bramma of 411mania: 

…one of the worst matches of all time. This match proves a lot of things but first and foremost, Pat Patterson is a genius and never let it be doubted. Hogan is such a lazy heel during this period and this match that it's pathetic. He coasts so much on personality and promos (even if they are good) that it's sickening. Of course, Warrior had no idea what he was doing either and at several moments just openly stood around having no clue what to do next. And Nick Patrick was another in the line of sacrificial refs left to look incompetent because of unmotivated horseshit by the workers. I'm not going the negative full monty because I can imagine a worse match than this, I just hope I never see it. -****.

Jack didn’t, but Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter did. It’s one of just four matches Dave gives the “minus five stars” treatment.

Mr. Socko’s Pro Wrestling Review: 

The phrase train-wreck gets banded around far too often these days, but if you were looking for a match to show wrestlers how not to do it, this would be it. To pick the worst moment is almost impossible, simply because there are so many. Was it when Hogan tried to throw a fireball in Warriors face, only to see the lit bit of cloth harmlessly fall to the ground? Was it the fact that you see about 3 moves and that most of the match was made up of Hogan and Warrior holding hands? Is it when Hogan says: "I'm killing you!" and Warrior responds: "You're killing me!"? What about when Hogan trips over the ref? Or perhaps it was the fact that this piece of shit would be Warrior's final match in WCW?

This was far from the worst show WCW put on. But in a company where virtually all its top talent skewed older (while their biggest competition the WWF skewed younger—in fact, the following month, they would put their world title on a 26-year old Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, at the time, the youngest world champion in its company’s history) and had creative control written into their contracts, two nWo factions, a slew of talent desperately looking to crack the glass ceiling, and a popular world champion booked in the undercard, this show was perhaps the most glaring sign to date that WCW had problems that money alone wasn’t going to cover up.

The good news: at least Goldberg versus Diamond Dallas Page was good.

Here’s what is and what isn’t worth your time. If the link’s in bold, watch it. If it’s not in bold, watch at your own risk.

• After the opening video package (here is where you appreciate WWF’s superior production: anyone with a little knowledge in video editing programs could put it together in a couple hours), we get the PPV debut of the Nitro Girls. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Nitro Girls. But this is PPV. Time is money.
• The segment following is a Rick Steiner interview featuring Buff Bagwell.
• Chris Jericho versus Raven for the WCW television title is probably the second best match on the card. Chris Jericho equals buyrates and butts in seats are both true (as evidenced by his runs in the WWF/E). Chris Jericho equals rock and roll is debatable. But the match is good and the crowd is white hot and loud. Also loud, the entrance music. So loud, in fact, you can’t hear the commentators during Raven’s entrance.
• Following a Hollywood Hogan promo (are we watching Nitro or a PPV?), we get Meng vs. Wrath. (Wrath wins in about four and a half minutes. It’s Worldwide quality.) Well, if you were watching this on PPV, you would. For everyone else, Disco Inferno versus Juventud Guerrera in a #1 contender’s match for the cruiserweight title was next. It’s a pretty decent bout, though it’s also something that could have been done on Thunder or Nitro to prevent one of these guys from going twice in one night.
• Now would be a good time to point out that Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero all are not on this show.
• More Nitro Girls (good, but again, PPV people), then a segment with Scott Steiner, The Giant and JJ Dillon. That combined is about six lost minutes.
• Actually, about sixteen minutes if you count the Alex Wright-Fit Finlay match and Saturn vs. Lodi match that didn’t make the home video release.
• But a third (and final) appearance by the Nitro Girls did. So I guess that’s about 18 minutes that could have been used for something else…like a better match.
• And since we’re not, it looked as if Disco had virtually no rest at all as the cruiserweight title match between Disco and Billy Kidman is up. It’s an okay match. It doesn’t exactly set the world on fire.
• Also not setting the world on fire: the 2,454^th playing of Konnan’s music video which, thankfully, is cut from the home video release.
• Not cut from the release however, is the tag title match between Scott Steiner and The Giant and Rick Steiner and the returning Buff Bagwell. Steiner claimed his partner Scott Hall was injured (he’s not; he wrestles later), so The Giant subs in. Per the pre-match stipulation, if Steiner and Bagwell win, then not only they get the belts, but Rick vs. Scott is on. Oh, and Bagwell turns on Rick. Again. My head hurts from typing all that. Worth note, The Giant does a top rope missile dropkick. Of course, Steiner wins the belts by himself. He am the tag team champions.
• And as promised, though Scott tried to bail, we get some Steiner on Steiner violence. Bret Hart versus Owen Hart this is not. Oh, and Buff Bagwell in a Clinton mask.
• Scott Hall versus Kevin Nash should have been far better than what they delivered. Scott Hall played drunk and drugged on TV (and was drunk and drugged off it—still is more than a decade later, though he’s trying to get himself cleaned up with help from Diamond Dallas Page). The ending would drive anyone into complete rage (two powerbombs by Nash followed by a countout loss).
• Whoops: here’s your last appearance by the Nitro Girls tonight. In colored wigs, no less.
• Also in the “should have been better than what they delivered” category: Bret Hart versus Sting for the WCW United States Championship. Even Bret Hart hated it. That alone should tell you how bad this match was. Oh, and there’s the stretcher job for Sting post-match that eats some time.
• I’ve given the bold to Hulk Hogan versus Warrior for one reason: this is an all-time train wreck that it’s hard to look away from. For many people watching on the original broadcast, this was the last match they saw, and they didn’t even see the whole thing. See, because of all the time wasted (four Nitro Girls performances, three matches that belonged on Worldwide or Saturday Night, two long promo segments in the first half hour, and a music video), WCW ran over on their own PPV and lost millions in revenue because of it. And the crazy thing was they didn’t have to. WCW had no one to blame but themselves.
• Shame really because Goldberg versus Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW world title was the tits, bro. The good news is we all got to see it—for free—21 hours after the fact. Easily in the top 5% of Goldberg matches ever. 

There was so much right and wrong with WCW. On this night, a whole lot of that wrong was on display to produce an event that was a critical, financial, and a public relations disaster. They had the tools to fix the problems, but they never quite put them to use efficiently.