Week Three: WCW Fall Brawl 1995
Welcome back to Pops & Botches: Monday Night Rewind, a look back at the Monday Night Wars through the lens of someone who didn’t really live through them. Before we begin, I need to give a HUGE shout out to fellow Steel Ring Poster Bachur, whose SmackDown Six recaps you should absolutely be reading, for the amazing artwork that now graces the Monday Night Rewind banner. We like to keep it in the family here at SRP.
Previously on Nitro, we saw the straight up air raid Alex Wright performed on Sabu, heard the first real shots of the Monday Night War, and felt the crushing disappointment of a 90’s Hulk Hogan main event. Now it’s time for Fall Brawl 1995, headlined by…a 90’s Hulk Hogan main event. Far more importantly, however, is the co-main event of Arn Anderson and Ric Flair colliding in an absolute masterpiece of a match. I can’t wait to get to that entry, y’all. BUT FIRST…
POP: Epic Voiceovers, Adorable Baby Announcers
I spent a little time dabbling in 98/99 Nitros, and the intros for the PPV’s then (at least as they were presented on the Network) were just this weird mashed up mess of video clips with generic butt rock playing over them.
Fall Brawl 1995, on the other hand, opens with a super dramatic, gravelly voiceover guy threatening us with “a continuous bombardment of excitement.” My dude, I have been bombarded with literal rockets. I will take your exhilaration barrage and ask for more.
Now, dear readers, do me a favor and LOOK AT THIS BABY FACED SON OF A GUN. My aforementioned dabbling was deep into the nWo storyline, and Tony had already aged, like, twenty years because of it. My next regular experience with Mr. Skeeavone was his membership in the AEW announcer booth, and at that point, he actually HAD aged twenty years. So firing up this pay-per-view and being blessed with the appearance of this young, fresh-faced adorable little shit? POPS FOR DAYS.
THE FULL GAMUT OF EMOTIONS: Brian Pillman is Sick of This Shit
The first match of the card is Brian Pillman, who sure seems to love opening shows, versus Johnny B. Badd, who sure is a lot prettier than the WWF ever let him be as Mr. Sable, for the right to be “the mandatory opponent for the WCW US Heavyweight Champion,” or, in words literally any person not named Michael Buffer would use, is a Number One Contender match. The match itself is…interesting.
The story throughout is Brian Pillman’s slow burn from handshaking babyface all the way to full on, biting heel. He and Johnny are extremely evenly matched, so when Pillman can’t put it away like he did against Jushin Liger, he starts taking shortcuts and resorting to dirty tricks. Despite this, the match goes all the way to a time limit draw, and this is where everything goes off the rails.
As Buffer starts calling that the time limit is coming up, the action really picks up. Both men start throwing themselves into high impact moves, with all sorts of dives to the floor, powerbombs and piledrivers most vicious, double axe handles from the top turnbuckle being countered with picture perfect dropkicks. They’re trading two-counts back and forth, they’re making brutal submission attempts, and then…time runs out. It’s not even in the middle of the ref’s count. Johnny kicks out with five seconds left, but Pillman doesn’t even start to put him in a backslide until Buffer is on “one” in the countdown. The crowd’s reaction is, to put it politely, reserved.
Buffer jumps on the mic and announces that the WCW Board of Directors “must have a winner for the mandatory challenger,” so they’re going to “sudden death overtime.” If you must have a winner, then why the hell did you allow an opportunity for a tie? Don’t announce a time limit, guys. It’s pretty easy. Also, if you’ve JUST ANNOUNCED that there must be a winner, why in the name of fuck is the ref still making ten counts while both men are down!? A match that was really entertaining to that point just gets completely shit on by unnecessary overbooking.
To make matters worse, after all that drama, all that back and forth, even when both guys try to make the most of it and put on an entertaining “second half,” Johnny B. Badd gets the pin after a random mid-air collision of concurrent crossbodies. It’s such a disappointing roller coaster.
POP: Bobby Heenan Yells at Kids
I legitimately laughed out loud at the Brain just suddenly shouting “HEY, SAME TO YOU, KID!” in the middle of Tony Schiavone trying to send it to Mean Gene, so he gets his own Pop.
POP: Ric Flair Promos
Ric Flair cuts an emotional promo about how he grew up in the wrestling world with Arn Anderson, traveling and living with him, ruling the War Games with him and the other Horsemen, and how he loves him so much that he has to beat his ass. Flair could cut a promo about the cold leftovers he had for lunch and make it entertaining, so him talking about the tough love he’s going to show Arn is pretty much magical.
…wat: Dog Bites Snake
Cobra, a man in camouflage pants, is scheduled to fight Sergeant Craig “Pitbull” Pittman, a man in camouflage pants and a tanktop. Instead, a Marine wearing his cover indoors but not his blouse comes out and gets yelled at by Cobra so Sgt. Pitbull can RAPPEL FROM THE RAFTERS TO SNEAK UP ON HIM (pictured). Cobra gets choked out with a literal bandolier of machine gun rounds (2010 Daniel Bryan sheds a single tear), barely gets any offense in, and taps out in under two minutes. It was a thing.
…WAT: Psychic Motivation
Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff lost a match to Randy Savage on WCW WorldWide. Gary Spivey, of the Psychic Companions Network (the full title of whom Orndorff is very deliberate in using), showed up to give him a pep talk. WCW cameras were set up in the locker room for some reason, so we get this Lucha Underground-ass segment randomly inserted into a 1995 WCW pay-per-view. Look at that hair and tell me he couldn’t have given Famous B a run for his money.
POP: This is Not My Beautiful DDP
I’m so used to underdog-ass, working class hero DDP from 98/99 that seeing him come out as a heel was a legitimate shock. I should have known that he would be great at that, too. This match against Ultimate Warrior the Renegade, for the World Television Championship, is saved by Page’s character work and slapstickery. Look at this headbutt-to-flop transition. Genius.
DDP manages to win the Television Championship here, and I will always Pop a DDP championship win, ridiculous pink bodysuit heel or forever-ribtaped face.
BOTCH: Romance Angle Distractions
The highlight of the Tag Team Championship match between Harlem Heat and Bunkhouse Buck/Dirty Dick Slater (team name: Dirty Buckers) is Sister Sherri’s amazing coordinated outfit, because as entertainingly hard-hitting and violent as the action is in the ring, it’s all just a framing device for Sherri and Colonel Robert Parker’s romance angle. Maybe I’d be more invested in that if I’d been following the apparent shenanigans all along, but without them, it’s just annoying.
The angle is done no favors by being the crux of the finish, serving as the distraction to keep the referee from noticing the Nasty Boys running in and costing the Dirty Buckers the match. Harlem Heat wins the belts, but at what cost?
(Your ship. Your son.)
POP: Halloween Havoc ’95 is Coming!
I have heard so much about this PPV (specifically the monster truck and manslaughter-related bits), and I am so excited for just epic levels of shitshow. I’d also like to point out Tony Schiavone promoting it as “exclusively on Pay-Per View!” while we stare at an ad telling us to “watch for it on videocassette.”
POP: Arn Claps Back
We get a quick recap of the last few months of Arn and Flair’s break-up, a godsend to latecomers like me, and then Arn absolutely tears the house down with a fiery promo that somehow manages to one-up Ric’s. He loves Ric, but when a family member is screwing up, you’ve gotta do something about it, and the only something that’s going to solve this is a whuppin.
He concludes with what might be in the top five mic drop lines of all time: “Win, lose, or draw, trust me, I’m gonna respect myself in the morning, and you’re going to respect me.” Goosebumps.
POP: Family Feud
Finally, we get to the meat and potatoes of the show. This match was, beginning to end, absolutely amazing. I’m a huge fan of the high-flying, ridiculously fast paced matches of Pentagón Jr, Rey Fenix, Ricochet, or Private Party. I love the flippy shit. If I could have hooked up and put Lucha Underground directly into my veins, I would have.
The storytelling abilities, both in-ring and out, of Arn Anderson and Ric Flair are such, however, that I found myself as invested in this match as any of the most breakneck matches in AEW today. I could not look away from the screen for fear of missing something that could completely change the dynamic of the action.
WCW adds a great touch to highlight the importance of this confrontation by showing other wrestlers in the crowd, who presumably came out JUST to watch this, since this is the first we’re seeing of them out there. The camera shows us Brian Pillman, the American Males, and Big Bubba, among others. This match has brought out all ends of the locker room. This match is history.
We see Ric start out actually fighting fair, which is itself something of a miracle; they don’t call him the Dirtiest Player in the Game for a lack of hygiene. Ric Flair respects Arn, though. Those weren’t just pretty words or lip service he gave us earlier. He really does love Arn, so he wants to try and beat him fair and square. He hits a double axe handle from the top turnbuckle to the floor, he so desperately wants to win this on the up and up.
Ric Flair is Ric Flair, though, so as Arn continues to fight back, even slapping Flair in the face for his attempts at his usual shenanigans (Ric is SHOCKED that someone isn’t playing the role he expects from his opponents), Ric slips further and further into his usual trickery. At one point, he begs for mercy from his knees, only to low blow Arn as soon as the ref is halfway distracted (to which he immediately pleads ignorance/innocence).
Then, all of a sudden, those wrestlers in the crowd come back into play when Brian Pillman jumps the barrier, climbs up on the apron, and starts yelling at Flair. Flair dismisses him out of hand, which is the wrong move, because Pillman responds by socking Ric right in the jaw. Flair returns the favor, which is SUPER the wrong move, because Pillman then kicks him right in the back of the head, setting Ric up for Arn’s DDT and the 1-2-3.
Now, in modern WWE, the run-in/distraction finish has been so run into the ground that we can predict with astounding accuracy when one is about to happen. The trope has become a crutch, and anything involved with it suffers. The finish of this match was different, though, likely due in large part to the absolutely masterful skills of everyone involved. The ending actually lent itself to adding an intriguing new wrinkle to the ongoing story, instead of just being a means to prolong an already tired feud.
It’s so much fun to not know where this is going, and I’m so excited to find out.
POP: Everything Leading into WOOOOAAAHHHH GAMES
The pre-taped Kevin Sullivan promo and accompanying recap was actually pretty entertaining in that train wreck sort of way I said I was expecting in the write-up for the first episode of Nitro. I’d definitely like to see all the ridiculous vignettes that led to this, just for shits and giggles.
The Hulkamaniacs’ promo, though? HOLY SHIT. They clearly did ALL the fucking coke before they went out to see Mean Gene. Even by Macho Man standards, this entire segment is just BONKERS.
Sadly, the match itself did not live up to the hype created by all of this.
BOTCH: Aimless Brawling Playdate
I know I could very well catch the business for this, but for as much as old school War Games were hyped up to me, this particular one was a serious let down. I really hope that it’s the exception and not the rule. I think I probably decided that it was a disappointment when I realized there was a man named Shark actually in the match, but the teams weren’t kept in shark cages.
Now, don’t let my overall disappointment fool you: in what will probably be a very recurring theme in these write-ups for quite a while, STING. CAN. GO, and his opening five minutes with Shark are pretty damn fun to watch. He hits an absolutely BEAUTIFUL flying clothesline from behind, going from one ring into the other in a spot of which it is INFURIATINGLY impossible to get a good screencap.
Unfortunately, five minutes is only five minutes, so the fun ends way too quickly. Zodiac comes in, and the entire match just turns into aimless brawling. I was reminded of when I watched the 1998 Royal Rumble and sat there dumbfounded as one Headbanger attacked the other, because apparently, they didn’t plan ANYTHING in the old Rumbles, but just told them to go out and punch stuff. At least the War Games teams remembered who’s on whose side.
There is a moment where it looks like some storytelling might start happening when Zodiac ducks a clothesline and Lex Luger accidentally clubs Macho Man in the back of the head. Yeah, it’s “Can they coexist!?” but it’s SOMETHING. Other than that, the entire match is blatantly plodding along in cruise control, just waiting for Hulk to make his entrance.
AND WHAT A FUCKING ENTRANCE. From my write-up on the previous episode of Nitro:
For being the supposed king of the babyfaces, Hogan sure was a raging dick a lot of the time. His opening strategy was to unfairly pin Luger in the corner until Lex cocked back with a closed fist…Last I checked, a white meat babyface like Hogan’s supposed to be shouldn’t be trying to get a cheap win by forcing his opponent to cheat.
And what do you know, here comes KING OF THE BABYFACES, immediately throwing pocketsful of ATTACK POWDER in his opponents’ faces.
Brain yells “The dirtiest, lowest, cheapest move I’ve ever seen in my life!” and he is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT RIGHT. Yeah, War Games appears to be a No DQ stipulation (they never actually said it, but hey, there’s a cage, all bets are off), but even the Dungeon of mother fucking Doom didn’t bring in foreign objects. What a lesson for all the little Hulkamaniacs: “Say your prayers, eat your vitamins, and also score lower on the integrity scale than Kevin freaking Sullivan.”
Hulk gets the win, because of course he does, and he gets it on Brutus “Zodiac” Beefcake, because of course he does. Kevin Sullivan gets dragged to the ring by security for his comeuppance with Hogan, who continues his super great track record of babyfacing by choking Sullivan with his wrist tape. Before Hogan can get too wound up in it, though, the Giant shows up and BREAKS HIS FUCKING NECK.
Well, twists it somewhat quickly, but this was before kayfabe was well and truly dead and buried. I would be willing to bet real money that some kid in that audience was convinced they had just watched the murder of Hulk Hogan, probably even more so if they were watching from home, since Tony and the Brain play it to the hilt. Sullivan and Giant retreat as the rest of Hulk’s team reappears (maybe pop back in while the big angry dude is only halfway to the ring next time, fellas?), and we go to credits with Bobby Heenan cackling like a madman over the fall of Hulk Hogan.
On the next episode of Nitro, we’ll have the fallout of Fall Brawl, and the first episode I’ve truly never seen any of. Join me for what I’m sure will be an hour long tribute to the life and times of one Mister Hulkadora Hogan, Esquire, and in the meantime, feel free to leave a comment or drop by our Discord to get into the live chats!
