NWA Halloween Havoc '89
by Sean Swift

Hello...the name's Sean Swift. You may recognize me from my short stint with Wrestleline, or by my posts at Squared Circle, These Days, CRZ (once in a blue moon), and some other places. Then again, you probably don't. ::smirk:: At any rate, all you really need to know about me is that I much prefer old-school professional wrestling to the WWF style of sports entertainment.

Halloween Havoc 89: Philadelphia Civic Center
Hosts: Jim Ross and Bob Caudle.

If you were to view this tape, the first thing you'd be struck by is the absence of an overblown introduction (a la the WWF, not to pick on them or anything). It's right into the ring for the intros to the opening contest.

1. Captain Mike Rotunda vs. Tom "Z-Man" Zenk Quick timeline reference for you, since I live to give. That's "Captain" as in "of the Varsity Club", not as in "of the pirate ship. Arrrr!". Anyway, the first two minutes are filled with excitement, let me tell you. Stalling, headlocks, and shoulderblocks. Standard opening stuff, but why do they show that and THEN clip the match? If you're going to clip, why don't you clip the stuff that has no bearing in how it's going to end? Anyway, one cute picture-in-picture style clip later, we come back to Rotunda hitting a vertical suplex. Ross tells us that may be all, which is a stretch even for 1989. It's not a Rotunda match without the rope-assisted abdominal stretch, which is exactly the kind of useless filler that you expect a clipjob to take care of. By the way, that becomes a problem through the rest of the tape. That goes on for a while, but hey, Rotunda should be rested enough to do something awesome, right? Errr...here comes an extended rear chinlock. Nevermind. Rotunda misses a dropkick, allowing Zenk a brief comeback. A little dose of cheating reverses that for Rotunda, but milliseconds later, Zenk rolls through a flying bodypress to get the win.

Question! ::raises hand:: Question! If that's what you're going to show us, why did you bother including the match at all? Obviously, I can't tell you how good the match was as a whole, but the ending sequence there was a bit clunky and ham-handed. (Zenk def. Rotunda, roll-through, 4:15 aired)

To give you an idea of how rabid the crowd is, even this got a healthy reaction (boos for both guys, but it's something, right?)

2. Midnight Express and Steve "Dr. Death" Williams vs. The Samoan Swat Team/The Samoan Savage Ahh, here we go! The Midnight Express and Williams! They won't clip this, right? Wrong! They show us Cornette's usual introduction of his guys, and the Samoans throwing firesticks around to the theme from "Halloween" (the coolest moment in either show, by the way). That's nice, but you show that and then clip the match? Hell, you show the opener, and then clip this? What were these guys smoking?

Anyway, they clip ahead to Beautiful Bobby-in-peril. The Samoans work him over with nothing interesting (including a long nervehold segment). The Savage hits a side slam (hey, a wrestling move!), but then Fatu (I think) comes back in with another nervehold. The Savage misses a pump splash (he seems to be the only one on that team who's trying), allowing the hot tag to Dr. Death. It's lariats and press slams for all, with the Philly crowd going apeshit the whole time. Everyone's in now, and that's where the action picks up, highlighted by a nice enziguri from Stan Lane. However, for the second straight match, the finish comes out of nowhere. Lane stands around (facing Cornette, who's up on the apron), waiting for the Savage to remember that this is when he's supposed to go into the end sequence. Once Lane and Cornette discuss the World Series, the stock market, Einstein's theory of relativity, and who they like in the NFL that year, the Savage finally nails Lane with a flying forearm, sending him headfirst into Cornette's tennis racket. That gets the pin, and now you can look for Andre Agassi to be heading to a wrestling ring near you.

I didn't get the structure of the match at all. Just as it was starting to get interesting, it's over. Not to beat a dead horse, but why'd they clip this? The only non-"WCW were a bunch of retards" explanation I can come up with was that the Samoans did ALL nerveholds, ALL the time. (Savage pinned Lane, tennis racket shot, 5:10 aired)

3. The Cuban Assassin vs. "Wildfire" Tommy Rich This match is the second in the growing list of clipped matches that they should have just binned in the first place. Even by 1989 standards, NOTHING interesting happens in entire match. Tommy Rich, heavyweight champion in 1981, conqueror of Harley WOOO, BY GOD! Race, comes up with punches, lots of armbars, and nothing else. The Assassin is competent, but extremely vanilla in his own offense. That combines for some real edge-of-your-seat stuff, believe me. The Assassin misses the same type of cross-body that Rotunda tried, and falls victim to the Thesz Press. Whee. If you're going to crib a finish, that's one thing. But, mimicking the finish from two matches ago? Are you kidding me? (Rich def. The Assassin, Thesz Press, 5:10 aired). You can live your whole life happily without ever seeing this match.

4. World Tag Team Title match: The Freebirds (C) vs. The Dynamic Dudes Ahh, the Dynamic Dudes. They're the greatest comedy tag team ever...too bad they were supposed to be super-faces. The Philly crowd boos them out of the building, and bursts into rabid cheers when the first notes of "Freebird". For those that don't know, you could say that wasn't what WCW had in mind. The 'Birds were great in the "dickhead heel" role, and drew massive heel heat everywhere else on the planet. Meanwhile, the Dudes were shoved down everyone's throat as a babyface tag team, but failed miserably. Hmm, maybe it was the irritating day-glo trunks, combined with the fact that they were trying too hard to get people to like them. Nah, couldn't be.

It sure is nice listening to Jim Ross act like an actual wrestling announcer, rattling off the exact date and place that the Freebirds won the titles. I much prefer that to the "STONE COLD! STONE COLD! OH MAH GOD, STONE COLD!" bullshit of the present.

Anyway, you must be shocked, but they decide to clip this match, too. In their defense, it wasn't anything you'd put on a compilation tape, to put it nicely. However, there's some interesting stuff going on here. We come back to the Dudes working over Garvin, in what I guess is a "heel-in-peril" segment. I imagine that upon hearing the reactions, they simply inverted the intended match sequences. If that's the case, that is some amazing adaptability there. The Dudes actually prove to be decent heels, with some nice work by Ace in particular (kicking at the extended hand of Hayes, for example). Ace very nicely takes out both 'Birds with a combined headlock takeover/headscissors takeover. After that, though, it's all Freebirds. My favorite spot in the match is the transition to the offense for the 'Birds: Ace rolls up Garvin in a prawn hold. Garvin's kickout sends Ace right into a sweet shot from the left hand of Hayes, drawing the biggest pop of the night up to that point.

Once you get past that, the rest of the contest is mainly the Freebirds gleefully cheating to the delight of the fans. The Dudes briefly come back, only to fall prey to yet another variation on same ending that's been happening all night. They set up Garvin for the Wipeout (double-team slingshot backdrop suplex), but Hayes grabs the legs of Ace. That allows Garvin to fall on top of Douglas for the win...at least this variation was inventive. This wasn't a classic wrestling encounter, but it's worth seeing for the phenomenon of the greatest face pop for a heel this side of Stone Cold Steve Austin. (Garvin pins Douglas, Wipeout counter, 5:24 aired)

Damn...it just occurred to me that HH '89 was one hell of a bad night for Jim Cornette. 0-2 has got to hurt.

Now, we finally get a respite from all this sucking.

5. The Steiner Brothers vs. Doom The story here is that a fan falls in love with Rick Steiner, and then breaks his heart. This woman (Woman, oddly enough) then brings two big scary guys in plain black masks to ensure that Rick's destruction is complete. If you weren't a fan back then, they were later unmasked as Ron Simmons and Butch Reed. If that still doesn't help, Ron Simmons is Faarooq now, and Reed, well, he's not worth knowing about anyway.

The tone is set immediately with the Steiners jumping the masked men before the bell. Twenty seconds in, they're hitting released German suplexes in stereo. Translation: We mean business. BIGTIME pop for that, not surprisingly. The next few minutes consist almost entirely of Doom getting their heads Steinerlined off, including one absolutely VICIOUS Steinerline to the back of Simmons'(I think) head. Doom bails to the outside, nicely conveying the idea that they aren't the Steiners' superiors in strength and power, and need to re-think their strategy. It's little things in that vein that make a good match great, in my opinion. Even better, they show that the Steiners aren't vastly superior in that regard either just in the simple fact that Doom doesn't have to cheat to swing momentum in their favor. The first time, the Doom guy (this is why I hate teams who look exactly alike) counters a headlock with an inverted atomic drop. The second time, he escapes an armbar and hits an Ace Crusher.

The Steiners re-take control, and Scott again busts out an insane release German. Doom's starting to understand that they have to do something NOW if they're going to win the match, so this time, they do cheat to gain the transition. That ushers in the face-in-peril bit. Normally, those segments bore me to tears, but Doom keeps it interesting with crisp, credible power moves and double-teams, with a minimum of restholds. Scott gets the red-headed stepchild treatment for about six and a half minutes, then manages to tag Rick. The Steiners reassert dominance, tossing Doom around at will. This causes Doom to go to their final trick, as Woman stuffs an international object into one of their masks. Rick takes an object-assisted headbutt, allowing Doom to get out of there alive, stolen win and all. Rick getting pinned was a necessity for the storyline, as I'm sure he got a big win back the next time they met. Overall, this is a very fun match, and a prime example of why you don't need an abundance of flashy moves to craft an enjoyable wrestling match. (Doom guy pins Rick, object-assisted headbutt, 15:25)

6. US Title match: Lex Luger (C) vs. Flyin' Brian Pillman Hey, remember when Luger was over and could wrestle and stuff?

Anyway, I love this match, too. If you take the standard Japanese-style "champion beats the underdog, but the underdog shows his fighting spirit" match, and sprinkle in more offense for the challenger, you have this one in a nutshell. The basic story is kept simple: Luger dominates with size and power, but underestimates Pillman on several occasions. Pillman, on the other hand, uses his speed, takes advantage of Luger's mistakes, and almost wins just by determination alone.

One thing you might not expect is that the guy nicknamed "Flyin'" doesn't do anything flashier than a flying bodypress or a springboard dropkick. Besides keeping in mind that this is 1989, it's also important to note that because the match is crafted so well, he doesn't need to. Luger has no problem selling for Pillman, which helps out quite a bit. Quite a few people these days should watch this match, and take notes. If this match happened today, Luger would squash him in three minutes. Not here, though. In fact, Luger's main transitions to offense occur when Pillman misses a high-risk move. I like how they build to the end, too. Pillman kicks out of just about everything short of the Torture Rack. Luger, almost out of sheer desperation, springs into a cover out of a Hotshot, and barely manages to hold Pillman down for three (this almost right after Pillman misses a top-rope front dropkick). I love the hell out of this match, and I think it's sad that people don't ever really talk about this one. This is one of the many vastly underrated matches that you can find from this era in WCW. Try and track this one down...it's worth it. (Luger def. Pillman. Hotshot, 13:18)

The Road Warriors vs. The Skyscrapers (Sid Vicious/Danny Spivey): This match had a lot going for it in terms of crowd heat, but the only reason you want to see this match is for a brilliant lesson in how no-selling doesn't help anybody. This is like a match with four Undertakers in it...it's that bad. Well, OK, I exaggerate a little, and there was some nice power stuff in there. However, these matches always suck, and I'll tell you why: Any time you have two teams whose entire foundation is built upon dominating others, the match falters because neither team is playing to their strengths. By definition, there can't be two teams completely dominating a match. And, when you have something like this where neither team is really willing to play ball, it compounds the situation. Sprinkle in the DQ finish, and you have a dish worse than the Cod Roe ice cream that I saw on Iron Chef once. (Road Warriors def. Skyscrapers, DQ, 11:36)

7. Thunderdome cage match: Ric Flair/Sting vs. Great Muta/Terry Funk This was a match that could not fail. Take four of the best workers in the world at that time, stick them in a cage, and tell them to go to town. Sure, it didn't deliver on its promise of being in an electrified cage, but that's what made the match better. When a match needs to rely on some item of gimmickry to stand out, how good of a wrestling match is it, really? That's why I always insist that Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka from White Plains, NY was the 1999 US MOTY, instead of the Hardy Boyz/Edge and Christian ladder match. On top of that, you had the awesome visual of Muta blowing mist to put out the fire that broke out, so there you go.

What's odd about this one is that it is extremely atypical for a match involving guys like this. There's no deep context to what they're doing in there, no carefully constructed transitions or sub-plots. Basically, it's a balls-to-the-wall brawl from bell to bell (alliteration rules!). It's a simple story of hate, as no quarter is given by either side at any point in the match. However, they do manage to work in a subtle bit of storytelling. Because the teams hate each other so much, and because of the very nature of an uncontrollable brawl like this, the straight tag-team matchup eventually morphs into a Texas Tornado-style match. Bruno Sammartino, the guest referee, lets this happen, primarily because even he can't control these four guys. Other than that, we're left to sit back and appreciate the intense effort the participants give us. There's no restholds, no pauses for breath. In particular, look for the several inventive spots they use involving the cage (if you want play-by-play, Shaddax has it covered already elsewhere on the site). You also can't help loving it when Flair has Funk in the figure-four, while Sting batters him repeatedly with top-rope splashes.

The stipulation that the match can only end when a second throws in the towel adds to the story as well. As the match progresses, you're left wondering what it's going to take to make the seconds (who both have personal stakes in the outcome) decide that their charges have had enough. If they had done it properly, it would have made this match an unforgettable epic. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome match, and I re-watch it periodically. However, they resort to a cheap screwjob ending, when Ole Anderson (Sting/Flair's second) nails Gary Hart (Muta/Funk's second), causing him to lose his grip on the towel, sending it into the ring. All of the effort and careful build to the finish results in a wholly unsatisfying, anti-climactic ending. That, ultimately, is what prevents this match from being one of the all-time greats. There was so much potential in this match...all it needed was a frantic build to a clean finish, and then you could stand it up against any AJPW classic there is. Sadly, it's just a very good match, and that's it. (Sting/Flair def. Funk/Muta, towel thrown in, 21:51)

While the undercard is a thicket of clipjobs and bad wrestling, the three good matches make this PPV worth adding to your collection. I shall hopefully see you all soon, as I plan on adding Halloween Havoc 90 if you enjoyed this one.

Later.

Sean Swift
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