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Pod Warriors 20: The Rise & Fall Of Halloween Havoc
48 Plays2 years ago
The Pod Warriors are back! Seth & Jordan discuss the highs and lows of all 12 WCW Halloween Havoc events and answer your listener mail!
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Transcript
Return of the Pod Warriors
00:00:16
Speaker
The Pod Warriors are back. For the first time in a long time, we are recording a Pod Warriors episode. This one is going to be all about Halloween Havoc. That track you guys heard right there, that was the intro music to the first ever Halloween Havoc way back in 1989. We're going to go through every single event WCW put on. But first, let me introduce my main man, the other half of the Pod Warriors, Jordan. What's going on, dude?
00:00:39
Speaker
and you ain't shitting. It's been a long time since we did one of these. We just looked at it before we started recording. It's been three months since we did a pod warriors. We haven't been missing an action though. Obviously we've done the goal line and stuff since then, but yeah, man, it's been a long time since we done with these people probably thought we were, we were just done with this.
Episode Frequency and Quality Discussion
00:00:57
Speaker
It was just over after 19 episodes.
00:01:00
Speaker
If we had OG fake kid come on for San Diego Comic Con and we just peaked, man, it could never go anywhere. It could never get any higher from there. It just dies after that. Once you have a 70 year old man on here, the show just dies. Yeah, he actually killed us off. It was like when David Arquette won the world championship in WCW.
00:01:19
Speaker
But now, like I said, we've been busy doing the goal line. So me and Jordan have still kind of been scratching that podcasting itch. So I was actually surprised as it had been three months. But we've always said that the podwares is like the HBO prestige drama of the Chick Foley show feeds. Sometimes HBO will go a year and a half between seasons on shit like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, we're not here just to put out episodes, just to put them out. We make sure we study up on these topics and we want to put out good quality content for you. We don't want to just be like every other podcast and just throw some shit at the wall and hope it sticks. We want to make sure these are special.
Debate on WCW's Premier Pay-Per-View
00:01:58
Speaker
don't be mad at us we'll get it rolling again we just life's busy man we the last time we recorded was july and man after summer gets over and school gets back in it's just busy all the activities yeah it's it's a lot
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, the yeah, Jordan's actually got us kind of sketched out. It's basically like a whole season worth of episodes, man, with some of the concepts that he come up with for us to do. And yeah, not to go too much into detail, because some of the some of the half baked ones that we had before are going to actually end up being released. But there's no shit been times where like
00:02:32
Speaker
We've gotten to the point of having like a format done and kind of having this thing like fish boned out what we're going to do for an episode and you know a day or two ahead of time just both of us kind of mutually decide like you know what this one's not quite ready for for prime time and we got to go let marinate a little bit longer and come up with a way to present the stuff that's really going to make it hit so
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, we are dedicated to just giving you guys something special because these are it's not a regular thing. So we want to make sure if we're throwing something out with the pod warriors name on it that that it connects. And with that in mind, this week we are going to be talking about Halloween Havoc. I think, you know, you can go back and forth. Eric Bischoff has said that it was kind of their biggest show it and bash at the beach. I think the traditionalists always think Starrcade.
00:03:14
Speaker
was WCW's biggest show. But I think between this, Bash at the Beach and Starrcade, that was kind of their big three. In your mind, what do you think was WCW's premier pay-per-view?
Jordan's WCW Event Preferences
00:03:24
Speaker
So it's hard to disagree with Starrcade and Bash at the Beach just because of how big those were. I always liked Great American Bash too. I felt like they put on good shows.
WCW's Great Ideas vs. Poor Execution
00:03:37
Speaker
Halloween Havoc is just always going to be my favorite though. I mean, this is my favorite time of year. The sets and stuff we'll go into. It just always seemed like they put max effort into these shows. I mean,
00:03:50
Speaker
Yes, arcade always had max effort as well, but I just, I felt like they, they made so much effort to make these shows look cool. Um, just all the presentation and everything around them. So yeah, I'd probably agree with you on the big three. Like I said, I liked, uh, I liked great American bash and I also really liked, um, hog wild. I thought that was like one of the coolest ever. I just, yeah.
00:04:15
Speaker
I just think that as usual WCW, they didn't quite execute the way they should have. It just, it was just lacking something. I don't, I don't know what it was, but it just always seems like they were lacking and they had great ideas. It just, they could never deliver. Yeah, exactly. It seemed like they were always could kind of get it like 95% right. But there was always something that was either just a little bit off or a little bit hokey on damn near everything WCW tried to do, even when they were on top.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, when, when we had the money and I was like, it's no joke. They were neck and neck. And what eventually killed it is WCW's lack of producing just quality content every week. It just, it went downhill so fast. And that was when WWE was on the rise. So it really, it speaks to, I mean, we've talked about WCW a lot on these podwares episodes. So, I mean, obviously we like it. Um, it's just,
00:05:13
Speaker
A lot of the times it just didn't live up to the hype.
Merchandise Mention: Chick Foley Discount
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I love WCW, man.
00:05:21
Speaker
You know the nWo days were cool too, but I really love like late 80s early 90s WCW some of that stuff is really fun And we're gonna get into all that we're gonna go through all of the WCW produced events and then answer some listener mail at the end Do want to remind you guys use code chick Foley to save 10% at ringside collectibles for any wrestling figure purchases and with that out of the way I think we're ready to
Review of Halloween Havoc 1989
00:05:42
Speaker
get into it man. Yeah, let's do it
00:05:44
Speaker
Alright, so starting way back, 1989, the original Halloween Havoc. So this took place in Philadelphia at the Civic Center had an attendance of 7,300. Quick disclaimer, all my attendance numbers, whatever was on Wikipedia is what I went with. I'm sure Dave Meltzer will, you know, depending on the year either say it was, you know, 650 people higher or 700 people lower.
00:06:06
Speaker
Just to keep it uniform, we went with Wikipedia for the number. The tagline for this show was settling the score. Not a whole lot of Halloween theme, really, man. It had some kind of cheesy graphics to start off with. That song you guys heard at the start of the episode. No special set or anything that would end up being what was so... Halloween Havoc was so well known for. What memories do you have from this show, Jordan?
00:06:34
Speaker
Um, also we got to note this was an NWA show. This was presented by NWA. Um, so yeah, this is a, this is an interesting one. Um, I don't have a ton of memories of this. Obviously I remember the main event. Um, I remember the road warriors wrestling on this, but that's, that's really it. This is like, not a, I mean, it's not a fantastic show by any means. So, um, it's just kind of there. Like you said, no special set, nothing really sets this apart from everything else.
00:07:04
Speaker
it does have a bitchin poster it's the the road warriors with the black shoulder pads in front of a jack-o'-lantern so the poster is really really cool and it's still got a great logo so whoever was doing their graphic graphic design back in the day was knocking it out of the park but yeah the only the only match of note from this show that i would tell anybody to go back and watch is that main events the thunderdome cage match if you if you dig back in the archives uh... we've done a watch along episode for this specific match i think that was
00:07:31
Speaker
2021 we were doing some has a series of Halloween Havoc watch along so you can find it but this is going to be a babyface Ric Flair teaming with sting to take on Terry funk in the great mooda inside the Thunderdome cage. Yeah, the Thunderdome cage concept was absolutely awesome. Did it always deliver did they always do it properly? No, but I mean,
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, remember, this is 1989. Like, dude, look at how cool this is for 1989. I mean, the coolest thing we've got to this point was a blue steel cage. So like, dude, this is innovative, man. Like, definitely innovative. Again, here's where we get into the thing of WCW had great ideas. Did they always execute them? Absolutely not. But the ideas were there, man. This idea was great.
00:08:16
Speaker
So this thing is basically like a mix between a regular steel cage, the elimination chamber, and hell in the cell. It actually goes around the outside of the cage, so you could still fight at ringside. The top of it angles in, and then it's wired up with quote unquote explosives and electricity and pyro and stuff at the top of it. And they had some cargo netting and stuff, like army-style cargo netting around the top that I think ends up actually catching on fire at one point in the match. Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
That's definitely the takeaway of this match is when it catches on fire And for some reason they had like ropes you could swing from stings got a spot where he like swings from the rope like freaking Tarzan It's kind of batshit crazy, but it is a fun match dude. Was there ever another Thunderdome cage match?
00:09:05
Speaker
Not that I can think of. I don't think there was, man. I don't think so either. We're going to see this structure reused again in a couple years. But I can't remember there being another.
Highlights of Halloween Havoc 1991
00:09:12
Speaker
I think this was a one and done, which is weird because it is a pretty badass match. And like you said, it looks super impressive. You just Google image Halloween Havoc Thunderdome. It's very cool.
00:09:22
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's absolutely awesome, but yeah, it's just, like I said, dude, another one of those things, like great concept, just never could execute it properly. Um, and I don't think it helped that the cloth on top of it started on fire. That pretty much killed this. I would think the, uh, how w who do you think was the WCW Mark working in WWE during 2020 that when they came up with their, their revamped pandemic presentation, decided to call up with Thunderdome.
00:09:52
Speaker
I mean, that's a great question. And only one that you would know the answer to. It's got to be Triple H, man. Triple H is a big fan of all things in W.A. and W.C.W. So yeah, maybe it was him, man. But yeah, that's like I said, go out of your way to watch this one. It is a really fun match and one and done as far as that gimmick goes, which is surprising because it is pretty cool. Any other closing thoughts on Halloween Havoc 1989? No, man, it's just the start of everything Halloween Havoc. So got to talk about it.
00:10:20
Speaker
Alright, so 90 we're heading to Chicago, we have an attendance of 8000. So attendance is up a little bit this year. Catchphrase this time is terror rules the ring with the main event of sting versus Sid vicious for the WCW Championship.
00:10:35
Speaker
We're getting there with the set. All right. You got a little bit of jack-o'-lanterns and stuff. And the main part of the stage is the giant WCW logo with a WCW jack-o'-lantern on the inside of it. So the stage is growing ever so slowly. This is another one-match show, you know, so often with NWA and WCW. It ends up being, you know, a Sting or a Ric Flair match, being the one that you're writing home about. And that was the case this year, too. Do you remember the gimmicky finish of Sting and Sid Vicious in this one,
00:11:05
Speaker
I sort of recall it, but I mean not incredibly well. I don't retain things as well as you do. I'll refresh you guys' memory. So, Sid Vicious is fighting against Sting. We see, you know, there's not any real close-up shots of Sting. Sting looks a little bit off.
00:11:23
Speaker
Sting looks a little bit taller and a little bit, you know, a little bit less muscular than we remember. But in a short match, Sid Vicious pins Sting to seemingly win the WCW championship. And suddenly, in something that can only happen in WCW, the real Sting comes stumbling out from the back. He had been attacked by the four horsemen before the main event. You know, he beats Barry Windham's ass and then comes back and ends up beating Sid and retaining the championship. It's just, it's like something out of a freaking Scooby-Doo episode.
00:11:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's I do remember that now that you just said that. Yeah, it's again.
00:11:58
Speaker
WCW. God, this isn't a one match show that you got to remember, dude, Stan Hansen ended Luger's 523 day reign as United States heavyweight champion. So I mean, that is a big thing that happened on the show. Is it a great match? Absolutely not. But still kind of meaningful in the long run. I barely, I didn't have no recall of that whatsoever, man. I forget about Stan Hansen really being around WCW at this time. Yeah. I mean,
00:12:26
Speaker
dude, it's 1990. So I mean, we're not going to remember a lot of this. I'm sending this to Jordan right now. Again, we'll kind of give you guys some visual prompts because we are hitting the way back machine. If you just Google image search, Barry Windham sting, it'll come up and it's almost kind of nightmare fuel. Look at that picture. I said, I mean, it looks close enough to, like I said, it wasn't super obvious that it wasn't the real sting.
00:12:48
Speaker
That pictures after some of the paints wore off a little bit, but but yeah, I mean in a way It's kind of surprising that he looked as close as he did to the real sting, huh? Yeah I mean they did a good job with it, but good god that picture is absolutely awful Yeah, it's just it's like one of those ones like you can't really explain it just something about it Just throws you off dude. I think in crawling feeling yeah, it's not good
00:13:12
Speaker
Alright, let's go to 1991 we're in my, my current home state Chattanooga, Tennessee got attendance of 8,900. This is a good one. This is kind of when we're really starting to get into our, you know, the Halloween habits that I remember and love 89 and 90 were kind of like
00:13:29
Speaker
They were kind of like little appetizers if you want to do a Halloween Havoc marathon. Now we're getting into the real meat of the meal. So this is in Chattanooga. The catchphrase for this one is an evening of terrifying destruction. And we're going to play a quick sound clip for you just to let you know why that tagline was so appropriate for this event. The crowd here going crazy in the opening moments of Halloween Havoc. Captain is Jack. He thinks standards in there, but it's Abdullah.
00:14:00
Speaker
cactus jackpot it was Rick Steiner but Abdullah my gosh think
Notable Matches of Halloween Havoc 1993
00:14:07
Speaker
about what he's experiencing he's getting cooked and I think he's well done guys
00:14:16
Speaker
The freaking Chamber of Horrors match. What pops into mind? Just kind of hit us with some stream of consciousness thoughts on the Chamber of Horrors match, Jordan. Well, the first thing that pops into mind is when Mick Foley, our cactus jack, is climbing the cage and the switch keeps falling down. It keeps going down, and yes, keep pushing it back up. I know. At one point, I think a ref tries to duct tape it up.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah again like we said the ideas are always there with the execution is just like community theater I think this one blows my mind most because LG gante was in this match and like they were trying to put him off as a big thing at this time absolutely horrible I just
00:15:02
Speaker
This match is not good. Just so we're all clear here, this is not a good match. We reviewed this on one of those Patreon episodes, too. I think we ended up releasing all those on the mainstream. This is another one. If you go back and look, you can find this in the archives as a watch alone. I mean, it has good people in it, but the overall match itself is absolute dog shit, mainly because what we just talked about, the Switch kept falling down.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's so this is Chamber of Horrors match. It's a four on four steel cage match. And the only way to win is to get your opponent into an electric chair in the center of the ring and then set the electric chair off. And yeah, in their defense, the pyro at the end was pretty cool. I thought the pyro on Abdul kind of delivered it was it was miles better than, you know, the Moxley Kenny Omega exploding deathmatch.
00:15:48
Speaker
I mean, I'm not going to disagree with you there. It was definitely better than that. But that ain't saying much.
Hulk Hogan's Era in WCW
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's a low bar. But no, I thought the ending for as hokey as it was, if I was a fan in attendance, I would have been like, OK, I feel like I got my money's worth out of that. But let's talk about the real meat of this show, the fact that we had strongman Bill Kazmaier against Oz, who is also known as Kevin Nash. Let's talk about the fact that that actually happened on there and Bill Kazmaier won.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, Kevin Nash did not have a very auspicious start in WCW. So here's something interesting, man. Speaking of Kevin Nash, the, so I'm looking at the original poster for this show up on top. It's got Lex Luger against Ron Simmons, you know, the WCW championship match. Um, but then it's got the chamber of whores basically presented as the co-main event four on four. The face team is there staying El Gigante. Um,
00:16:40
Speaker
and the Steiner brothers. So listen to this man the basically the entire heel team was switched out between the time this promotional poster was released and the time of the event so on the on there it's got the diamond stud aka Scott Hall who wasn't a match but then it's got for his partners
00:16:57
Speaker
Oz, the previously talked about Barry Wyndham and one man gang, who I don't even remember being in WCW during this time. Obviously Oz got bumped out of the match. They ended up pretty much upgrading everybody. It ends up being Abdul of the Butcher, Cactus Jack, and Big Van Vader, along with Scott Hall. That's pretty badass team. I mean, there's some serious freaking talent in this match. I'm with you. I do not remember one man gang being in WCW at this point, but you are exactly right. They definitely upgraded that team by a lot.
00:17:25
Speaker
I mean really this match dude like it'd be hard to put together a more
WCW's Outlandish Booking Decisions
00:17:29
Speaker
star studded four on four. Everybody except El Gigantes in the Hall of Fame from that that was in that match and I don't know I got a soft spot for it. It is stupid like the you know Cactus Jack climbing up and being in position and he was supposed to be like he was like you know showboating for the fans before he pulled the lever but it took so long for Rick Steiner to get a duel in there that
00:17:47
Speaker
it's just it breaks all suspension of disbelief man, they just they should have come up with a more organic way to get to the ending of that match. One thing to note though, they've got an additional use out of the Thunderdome cage so if you look, this is the same cage that they use from the Thunderdome goes around the outside of the ring, and then it angles up at the
00:18:10
Speaker
at the top of it, it angles inward to kind of just enclose everybody. But I guess, I don't know if they thought it would look cooler or if they didn't want it to be so obvious they were reusing it. If you look, they have spray painted it black for this event. And I am of the belief that they spray painted it less than like 12 hours before the show because if you watch that match again, the guys are getting black shit all over them, dude. Like I remember whenever
The Rise of the NWO Era
00:18:34
Speaker
we watched it,
00:18:36
Speaker
for that watch along I'd watched it I think the day before just kind of prep and you know get my thoughts together and I kept seeing like dude where does this black stuff Oliver all the wrestlers I was you know it's nobody that really had face paint on besides staying and it was on everybody and then that's when I realized because you could see it start like this it still looks wet from where they painted it so yeah just again just debbie early 90s WCW in a nutshell got that WAP that wet ass paint
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, I need a wet paint sign on there. So we do start to get some good classic Halloween Havoc stage design. It does look like something. I mean, I sent you the picture way back when we were doing the research. I sent you again, Jordan, so you got it nice and handy. Yeah, I got it.
00:19:16
Speaker
Okay, yeah, so it looks like something it definitely looks like something out of again, community theater, right? It looks like something from like a high school play, the kids drop, but it's cool, man. It's got like, you know, like a spray painted backdrop of a haunted house, you got some, you got some gravestones with the typical like, you know, puns, like you'd see in somebody's front yard, I kind of dig this stage.
00:19:36
Speaker
My favorite part about it is the little bit of pyro that's coming out of the WCW sign above the door. Just really sets it off, doesn't it? Yeah, man. The other big gimmick on this show was the reveal of the Halloween Phantom. There was this guy who had been terrorizing the baby
Guerrero vs. Mysterio: A Legendary Match
00:19:55
Speaker
faces of WCW for a few weeks and ends up being how they debut Ravishing recruit. Solid. Real solid. Yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
Not the greatest way to bring him in, but I did like the new meaner, tougher presentation he had as opposed to just being like the pretty boy he was in WWF. They did give him a little bit more character in WCW. I'll give him that. He was definitely a little bit more edgy than he was in WWE, but there really ain't much else to say about it, is there?
00:20:24
Speaker
No. Another hidden gem on here, Steve Austin versus Dustin Rhodes, which is crazy. You think Dustin Rhodes is still pretty damn active in the wrestling scene nowadays, but him and Steve Austin have a really, really good match in the mid-card of the show. This match, I do recall. This was a really good match. I'm glad we definitely brought this one up on here because it's worth the watch. All right. Anything else on Halloween Havoc 91? I think that's it, man.
00:20:50
Speaker
So we will go
Hogan vs. Warrior Rematch Disappointment
00:20:51
Speaker
to 92 which features one of the worst main adventure ever going to see on a major pay per view. We're back in Philly, attendance of 7000 and the iconic concept that the tagline for this show spin the wheel.
00:21:06
Speaker
make the deal. I mean, how cool was that when they first unveiled this when we were kids? Again, WCW had the right minds in charge of like coming up with gimmicks. This is absolutely incredible. This is still one of my favorite things to this day. Yeah. I remember being so hyped up, like seeing all the WCW Saturday nights on the way to this event, just, you know, just being enchanted thinking
00:21:29
Speaker
What are they gonna come up with, man? I mean, so the list is, you know, it sounds like some of the most badass matches you could have. Texas Bull Rope, Spinners Choice, Russian Chain Match,
Goldberg vs. DDP: A Glitch and a Hit
00:21:39
Speaker
the Dog Collar Match, I Quit, Barbed Wire, Cage, Lumberjacks, freaking Prince of Darkness, which I didn't even know what that was at the time, but I was like, dude, that sounds freaking amazing. Texas Death Match, the Coal Miners Glove, and First Blood. Now, all those sound awesome, except for the Coal Miners Glove Match. Which one did Cactus, or which one did Sting and Jake Roberts end up landing on?
00:22:00
Speaker
The worst one, coal miners glove. I just... The coal miners glove. How do you do this and not rig it to be like one of the most badass matches ever? A coal miners glove match? Really? Like... Again. I didn't even know coal miners were... That's not even like a... I didn't even know that was a thing. Like are coal miners gloves really that freaking badass?
00:22:19
Speaker
I don't know if we need a coal miner to write if you're a coal miner or no coal miner have them right in we need to know what's up with this but yeah so Tony Schiavone swears up and down that they did that wheel for a shoot and they were ready to do any match that came up which I mean I guess that would explain it a little bit how they ended up having that happen but why would you let that be a shoe why would you not gimmick that wheel so have it land on
00:22:40
Speaker
you know the anything dude freaking barbed wire match or i quit match you know yeah you you needed this to hit and be good and instead like you just said it might it might be the worst main event ever i don't even think it's it's a maybe i think it is the worst main event ever it's so bad
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, I hate I mean it ain't so much about the coal miners glove. That's lame already. But any I always hate the pole match gimmick, dude. It's just it just it's never I mean, has there been a good on a pole match? I would. Oh, no, that was a forklift with Judy Bagwell. Judy Bagwell. I mean, yeah, that's what gets mentioned is like this. This and the Judy Bagwell match get mentioned is for when you start bringing up like the worst gimmick matches ever created.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, I don't ever recall a good one pink slip on a pole Yeah, they're never good. It's just not good man The end this one's made worse dude. Like if you look at the pictures from this like the pole was like gigantic I Mean it's like I would have been scared shitless dude If I if they told me I had to climb up to the top of that cuz I mean if you slip you could end up falling all the way to ringside Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. Yeah. What a great concept all to be absolutely horribly delivered
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, just Google image search, you know, Halloween, have it coal miners glove match. I'm sending this picture. Look how Jordan, look how fucking high sting is right there. Yeah, dude, he's like six feet above the top rope and he's not even still not to the top of it yet, man. That's the crazy thing. Jake Roberts has admitted that, you know, this was not a good time for him. His whole run in WCW, which
00:24:18
Speaker
I before the bell ring was pretty cool man Jake was an awesome heel dude you know his last his last stretch in WWF in 91 and 92 was great and then the character work was awesome coming in but I'm pretty sure he was you know he'd be the first to admit he's kind of blissed out of his mind he's just kind of an oblivion as a as the match starts and it's not a well-worked match at all sting does everything he can to just keep it professional and try to give the fans something to be happy about
00:24:45
Speaker
ends with the snake being involved in another just super hokey finish thing you know supposedly knocks the snake into Jake's face you can see Jake like lining it up to bite his cheek like it's it's just embarrassing dude me and Sheena watched the show a couple weeks ago uh watched the whole thing and yeah this was definitely a low point in in professional wrestling isn't this pee stain Jake Roberts too isn't that what we noticed when we watched this match back is the huge pee stain right on the front of his trunk
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, he has a wet area and a suspicious part of his trunk.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, it's not great. The rest of the show is a, is a bore too, man. Like there's, you know, Rick Rude has like a 30 minute match with, I want to say maybe Masahiro Chono, um, that is just, it just goes on and on. It feels like they're in a chin lock for about an hour and 15 minutes. There's a couple of tag matches that WCW was bad back in these days about having like 24, 25 minute tag matches that
00:25:43
Speaker
You know, aren't really, you know, I'm not opposed to having a long tag match, but these are like, they kind of just keep going. You know, you get your tag formula, right? Like babyface gets beat down, makes a hot tag, come back. You have a little brew, haha. And then you get to the finish. They basically just run through that cycle of events like three different times before finally getting to the finish. And it just, it'll put your ass to sleep real quick.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, dude, there's a tag match with a 30 minute draw on this. It's very Wyndham and Dustin Rhodes with the titles versus Austin and Steve Williams, and it goes to a 30 minute draw.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah, which that's great. All four of those guys are awesome, but I don't want to see them in a 30 minute tag team draw. And I think that one, man, I want to say the very end of it, like nobody's even going for the finish, right? It's not even like a good draw where like somebody gets a three count at the last second or somebody kicks out at the last second. I think it kind of ends with them just standing around and the time runs out. That sounds about right. All right. Let's hit the beverage break.
00:27:02
Speaker
All right, I had to hit you guys with some classic Ghostbusters action right there. Jordan, what did you think of Ghostbusters Afterlife from back in 2021? I didn't hate it, man. I actually didn't think it was bad at all.
00:27:12
Speaker
Um, they put decent people in it and yeah, I enjoyed it. I thought it was good, man. I thought it was good too, man. I thought it, I honestly thought it was kind of like the perfect ending to the Ghostbusters saga because it didn't really get the proper enough it deserved from the first two. And the one with the females, um, from I think 2016, that was just a debacle. I don't think that was a horrible movie, but I think.
00:27:34
Speaker
for trying to cash in and kind of rewrite some of the Ghostbusters history. It wasn't great. So I liked it. I'm a little skeptical that they got a sequel coming out for it, though, because I felt like it was I don't think you could have done it much better the way that would end it up. It doesn't sound like it's going to end there either is the problem. It sounds like they're going to.
00:27:50
Speaker
take this cash cow for all it's worth, which I get it with movies nowadays. Yeah. You got to milk it dry, dude, dude. One of the coolest things was when they, it was a, when they did the all women's movie and they brought back ecto cooler for like three months. Like, can we do that again, please? Yeah, that would be sweet dude. What are you drinking tonight? Speaking of which.
00:28:12
Speaker
I am drinking a Brewdog Hellcat. That's the Iron Maiden beer, right? Yeah, this is one of my favorite IPAs of this year, honestly. Yeah, it's a good one. It's just a smooth IPA. It's 6%, so it does the job. Yeah, I got a six pack of that during one of my trips down to Texas for work earlier this year. To be honest, I got it just off the can. The can art looks freaking amazing, but it ended up being a really, really damn good beer.
00:28:39
Speaker
I'm doing a bloody beer man. I got a bushlight mixed with some Bloody Mary mix. We were originally planning on doing this this morning, but I ended up having a couple of things I had to do around here and stuff. So we just pushed it to make it nighttime recording. No one thought the vibe, you know, again, pod wars episode, it's got to be special. And sometimes late at night, you just get the, that's when the energy level is right for, uh, for recording a good podcast, man. So, um, but it's still stuck with the, it's kind of like a brunch staple. If you don't want to do a mimosa or a Bloody Mary, you can hit the,
00:29:06
Speaker
the bloody beer man. I'm a big fan of these. I'm using some some zing zing Bloody Mary mix with a Bushlight. Are you a fan of the bloody beers Jordan? I don't do Bloody Mary's or bloody beers just never been a fan of it. I just prefer my beer just as it is. I don't need anything mixed with it. You don't like a Bloody Mary dude? No, I do not absolutely hate him.
00:29:26
Speaker
What is it? You don't like vodka? I don't know. Cause I like both of those things like separately. Like I love tomatoes and tomato juice is fine to me. I just, for some reason don't like it together. And I've tried to get over it and do it numerous times. Cause I thought it was just like a thing of, Hey, I tried this when I was 21 and it just wasn't for me, but no, I've tried it numerous times over the years and it just does nothing for me.
00:29:51
Speaker
That's interesting, man, because I know you like you're like, you know, kind of like cool, like out there foods and stuff, dude. And I feel like I just feel like one of those like big outrageous Bloody Mary's would be like right up right up your alley, dude. You know, once I'm talking about they got like 15 garnishes. Yeah, we have one of those places here that is like world renowned for Bloody Mary's. And yeah, I just I can't do it.
00:30:13
Speaker
You got like an olive, like a jalapeno, a big cocktail shrimp, like a little mini cheeseburger, like another smaller Bloody Mary. And it's just all like, yeah, this one right there. This one has like a chicken wing, a burger, a jalapeno popper, a candied bacon. I mean, it just has everything on top of it. But yeah, I just I can't do it. I don't know why.
00:30:34
Speaker
I couldn't find any here man so i'm hoping it's not it's something that's not in distribution in tennessee and virginia i used to get the old bay buddy mary mix and that's what i would do on my bloody mary's and my bloody beers and it was excellent you can't find that there that's weird because we can get it here so that's really weird
00:30:50
Speaker
I mean, you know, I'm out here in the boonies, dude. I'm in like the freaking the country hood, dude. So, yeah, I hit two liquor stores and a Kroger. So, I mean, it wasn't the most exhaustive search ever, but I did look for it and I could not track anything down. Zing Zing is pretty good too, but I love old back. Yeah, it's good. All right. You know, the Bloody Mary, that was kind of Ric Flair's drink of choice. I think any drink was Ric Flair's drink of choice, bro.
00:31:16
Speaker
I heard Anderson have a good story, man. He said they used to travel private on the Crockett's private jet. And the nights after a big show, they'd go out and just get blitzed until 5 in the morning and be flying out at 8.30. And he said that everybody else on the plane would be sitting up in first class and just looking like death warmed over. And then he said about two minutes before the plane's taken off, Rick would come in, decked out in a suit, looked like a million bucks, saying, bloody Mary's all the way around, make mine a double.
00:31:44
Speaker
I always crack up thinking about that story. Yeah, that's great. All right, let's get into what's in the mix for the best match ever on a Halloween Havoc show. Halloween Havoc 1993, we're down in New Orleans for this one. 6,000 people keeping the spin the wheel, make the deal tagline. This time it actually, I don't know whether it was gimmicked or not, but they got it to land on Texas death mats, probably the best gimmick they had. And we get one of the best death matches ever. Vader in Cactus Jack in the main event.
00:32:13
Speaker
I mean, can you honestly pick two better people for a death match? Like, dude, if you're like spinning a wheel, like you're praying it lands on Cactus Jack and Vader, like, there's nothing better than watching these two beat the shit out of each other. Vader is just an absolute monster and Cactus Jack is clinically insane. So yeah, this was a perfect pairing for this kind of match.
00:32:35
Speaker
They're both kind of their physical athletic peaks right here, too. You know, I mean, Vader hadn't had all the injuries come up and and Mick Foley had, you know, still his bump card still had a whole lot left on it, man, because he was really kind of I'd say within like the first year of his time in WWE, like he really started to go downhill physically, but he's still moving around great. And yeah, this is just a brutal, violent match, man. Like they had a series of them in 1993 that were really good. And this this was their masterpiece. Yeah, it's a.
00:33:04
Speaker
All I remember is just like how hard the chair shots and stuff like that were in this match. Like there was one that always stands out to me. I don't remember if it was on the ramp or it was in the ring, but I just remember cactus hit Vader so hard in the head that it dented the chair in and you could just like, you could see the dent when he went to swing the chair again. He just hit him so hard with it.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, there's that spot where Vader does like the... He's got Cactus Jack on his back, kind of putting him like a sleeper and he just goes flat back, dude, just crushes him. Cactus Jack has said that Vader did not want to do that spot because he thought he was going to kill him or hurt him really bad, but he had an insurance policy that he was trying to get paid out. And so he was specifically wanting to get injured by that spot when they did it. I don't think it actually got him hurt bad enough to do it, but there's no way that didn't just crush something in his body.
00:33:57
Speaker
dude how does that not crush your ribs doing that exact spot like if vader says it's too dangerous like that should tell you something because there wasn't a lot too dangerous for vader no hell no the set design on this show is is awesome man you got some graveyards on the stage um you got this big kind of looks like kind of like beat up wood with like the longhorns coming out the side of it and you got the wheel for spinning you got these giant spooky looking cactuses um you guys will see it in the uh
00:34:27
Speaker
the cover art for this week's episode but really really nice stage design here the best they've had so far yeah they absolutely crushed it with this stage design it's just it's perfect all right and this definitely marks like a a real like bold line point of separation on this show um looking back probably should have put the the beverage break right here because moving into 1994 guess who is now on the scene boy
00:34:53
Speaker
This is not the American man, the real American whole Kogan. We are on the downhill slide as the as the kids say nowadays. Yeah, there's still some fun to be had, but it's it's now it's like WCW with the WWF flavor sprinkled on top of it for really the rest of the way out, you know, until that the NWO shows up. So we're Halloween having 1994 big show. I think this ended up being one of their biggest paper views they ever did.
00:35:21
Speaker
We're in Detroit 14,000 people in the house. This is the highest attendance we've had so far and it was Hulk Hogan defending his WCW Championship that he had won at the prior pay-per-view the the bash at the beach and he's defended against Ric Flair who's put his career on the line in this one in the main event inside a steel cage the The tagline was witness the terrifying rage in the cage now. It's interesting man Ric Flair is putting his career on the line here But this is 1994 man. I thought he just had his last match in 2022
00:35:52
Speaker
I mean didn't Ric Flair put his career on the line like 27 times in the last 30 years Yeah, I think he was back within like three months this time But nonetheless, you know fun cage man, I mean For a whole coding cage match. It was about as good as could be expected yet Sherry Martell getting involved She took some pretty crazy bumps off the off the top of the cage It was I thought the main event was actually good fun as much as Hogan and flair sounds like a snooze fest at this point
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's, dude, I don't know, man. There's just something that, there's just something about Hogan defending the title against me, putting the career on the line that just, it never, never feels right to me. Cause you just know Hogan's going to win. Like Hogan must pose and it just sucks, man.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, Hulk still, when he showed up to WCW in 94, he was living like he was Hulk in 87, man. Just doing the standard Hulk Hogan formula, which those fans really hadn't seen at that time. It was cool at first, but the WCW and WAFans, they always had been slightly more hardcore than the WWF audience. And they got tired of it, man, to the point to where if it wasn't somewhere up north, Ric Flair was getting a lot of cheers in their feud, just because that was their guy. They didn't want to see Hulk come in and do the Hulkamania stuff on Ric.
00:37:13
Speaker
yeah man it's just we've talked about hogan so many times i mean i just i feel like we're kind of just running it through the mud now but i mean we obviously know our feelings on hogan it's just
00:37:26
Speaker
And at this time, none of us wanted to see him win. It just, at this time I was over Hogan. I mean, even being 10 years old, I was, I was just over it at this point. Once, once he lost to the warrior and all that stuff, I just, I don't know, man, it just, the whole commandia thing just wore out. It's welcome for me when I was a kid at this point.
00:37:45
Speaker
I feel that man. His influence is definitely felt up and down the card because one thing about Hulkman, you know, for whatever you want to say about him, he does look out for his friends and he has gotten a lot of people jobs in WCW. You had a hacksaw Jim Duggan going over Steve Austin in the mid card.
00:38:02
Speaker
honky-tonk man is actually on this card and the main event we see John Tenta after the match we see John Tenta debut as the avalanche and this masked attacker who has been just assaulting the Hulkster and kind of stalking him for weeks finally gets unveiled you remember who it was Jordan
00:38:20
Speaker
I do not. Brother Brudai, Brutus the barber beefcake is back as Brutus the butcher and rides this heel turn all the way to the main event of Star K. The main event of Star K 94 was Hulk Hogan defending against Brutus beefcake. You know, they tried to play it up as this was just such a betrayal. The problem was, man, it was never really like kayfabe that Brutus and Hulk were tight until like his last six months in WWF when they teamed up at WrestleMania nine. So even though they were,
00:38:48
Speaker
best friends in real life. It really wasn't that well established with the fans. So this was just like a random WWF mid Carter turning on him. And we're, you know, they expected the fans to accept this as the main event for one of the biggest shows of the year. Yeah, man. It just, I mean, dude, anything involving brother broodai in the main event is not good. Like I love Brutus, the barber beefcake just as much as the next person. But come on, man. Like, are we serious with this?
00:39:19
Speaker
His WCW run is just something to behold, man, from freaking Brutus the Butcher to the booty man, the Zodiac, the disciple. I really want a disciple figure. I thought his look as the disciple was cool as hell. One warrior nation with a second person and one warrior nation.
00:39:41
Speaker
But yeah, anything else in your thoughts on 94 before we move into another Detroit classic Yeah, let's just go ahead and move into the classics
00:39:51
Speaker
So one thing, they definitely took one more thing on 94. They took a step back on the stage design. It was really just the WCW Saturday night set that somebody stopped at Spirit Halloween on the way to the show and spent $175 on Halloween decorations and threw them up over the Saturday night set for some reason. Yeah, this one was good.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, 95 with similar as far as the set goes, man, just kind of like the Saturday night set spiced up with some some Halloween elements. But this is, you know, it's so cartoonish, man. But at the same time, you could make an argument that this is like the, you know, the Halloween Havoc to watch if you're only going to watch one of them in Halloween Havoc 1995 tagline is there's nowhere to hide.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's some stuff. Let's wait before we get to the main event. So first off on the undercard, one thing I want to mention, Johnny be bad in diamond Dallas page, open this one up. I feel like they opened up the, they were the opening match on every single 1995 WCW pay per view. Can confirm these guys, uh, they love the opening match more than anybody.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah, trading the TV title back and forth. They were always pretty good matches, but yeah, John to be bad and just starting out diamond Dallas page. Interesting footnote. We have Sabu's only pay-per-view appearance in WCW was on this show. Yeah, we had a very short run in 1995 and got canned for just being too freaking wild. And he wrestled Mr. JL, also known as Jerry Lynn.
00:41:17
Speaker
Yeah, we had what was, you know, honestly has become just like a joke. It's happened so often. Rick Flair betrayed Sting once again to rejoin the Four Horsemen. Like how many times do we how many times do we see that storyline play out over the years? Yeah, this was definitely just something we saw like once or twice a year. It was like when the big show was turning heel every other month.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's like sting at some point like you kind of lose sympathy for staying and you're just like dude You're a fucking idiot for even believing this for one second, man. Yeah, not good. All right, let's get to the main event It's actually a two-parter. So this was a man versus man machine versus machine but this was another one that if you get in the archives you can find a watch along we did this so it starts off with a a monster truck battle that takes place on top of Cobo Hall there in Detroit and
00:42:06
Speaker
with the giant and Hulk Hogan in a monster truck battle, man. What's some of your takeaways from the truck fight? Oh, man, do we really need to go too in depth with this? It was a five-minute truck fight and it should have been about a minute and a half, if that.
00:42:24
Speaker
It was not good TV. No, it was absolutely dude. What was WS WCW is infatuation with monster trucks at this point. Like there was a monster truck on every other show at this point. I feel like Goldberg had one macho man had one. Like, yeah, there was always some monster truck elements. Yeah. You know, Medusa man, my girl, she ended up being a monster truck driver after she left the wrestling world. Wow.
00:42:50
Speaker
Could have used without get it gone without knowing that information. But thank you boost news news news But yeah, so they have this monster truck battle It's just complete nonsense and then they get out of the trucks and have a little skirmish And it ends with whole Kogan throwing the giant off the top of Cobo Hall Supposedly into a river down below Again, God whole Kogan really was a piece of shit. God, dude, like
00:43:19
Speaker
Also the, that whole thing from start to finish is, is probably one of the worst TV spots of all time. Like the monster truck match itself is terrible. And then that ending just makes it 10 times worse. All bad.
00:43:34
Speaker
I think they should start a new thing this year. Like each year for the David B Hall of Fame, they should pick one segment that was just so bad that gets inducted into like the Hall of Shame each year or something, man. Like, and I think this would be a good choice for the first one to make it. Yeah, that would be a cool one for sure.
00:43:53
Speaker
But yeah, so the giant, we see the whole, we see Hulk Hogan basically commit at a minimum, I'd say manslaughter, if not, if not just straight up homicide. But yeah, we saw the giant get thrown off a building and then, you know, 15 minutes later, it's time for the main event, which is Hulk defending the WCW championship against the giant, you know, he's somehow supposed to brush off getting thrown off a building into the river.
00:44:17
Speaker
Nice of him to swim back to shore and give us a really good main event because, yeah, it's really great. Why do you think they got the monster trucks up on top of that building? Would they have to like crane those up or what? I mean, you would imagine because there's no other way to get them up there. So think about how much trouble they went through just to fucking make this happen. This wasn't like something easy where it's like, oh, well, you know, we could just try this if it didn't work out. No big deal. Like there had to be some serious effort, man. They probably had to shut down like a city block to make that happen.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah. And they put a ton of effort and you could not tell by the way it was presented. No, it was horrible. So yeah, somehow we see the giant, his hair's not even wet, man. That's the one thing that always bothered me about this. I feel like you could almost just laugh at it and say, oh, this is just dumb wrestling. If he at least would have come with like, you know, he should have shown up in his like, you know, the same clothes, looking a little disheveled with the hair soaking wet, but he's looking like a million bucks, man. He's looking like he showed up for the first match of Monday Nitro.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, this is just miserable booking. But again, they had ideas. They just never were fully realized. Yeah. And then we actually see the giant in his first actual match. He defeats Hulk Hogan for the WCW championship and just a horrible match dude. Like one of the worst matches you could ever see. It's really impossible for us to put into words just how bad this matches, but you still need to see it because we have one of the most iconic debuts of a wrestler of all time.
00:45:48
Speaker
When the yet for Ron Reese comes out and him and the giant basically gang bang whole COVID until he can no longer continue. And, uh, and the giants awarded the belt. I mean, it's a double bear hug. Like, so just imagine what a double bear hug would look like. One of them's the giants bear hug and hope from the front and the yet a is bear hugging him from the back. And the yet a is getting a ton of, uh, movement with the, in the pelvis region as he's doing it.
00:46:14
Speaker
Oh, God. Yay. Yeah, it's just that this whole thing is just an absolute debacle. It's nothing about it is good. I don't know. The more we talk about Halloween havoc, the more I realized there was way more bad than there was good, like fucking terrible.
00:46:33
Speaker
It's the nostalgia, dude. It is. The set design and the good stuff shines. I feel like the bad stuff was always bad. It was at least so bad it was entertaining. It was never just WWE 2018 bad. That's true. You're right. There's still some watchable aspects to this and the sets definitely make it. I agree with you there.
00:46:58
Speaker
So a couple of Yeti questions, dude. Why was he the Yeti when he was a mummy? A Yeti is like an abominable snowman, right? Yeah, sure was. So why was he a mummy? I don't know. Dude, again, who the hell was making these decisions that were like, all right, man, we're going to wrap him up like a mummy and call him the Yeti? Like, dude, good god, WCW, do better.
00:47:26
Speaker
We need to have Eric Bischoff on the show. Is there a way we can make that happen so we can just shit on him for an hour? I think this was a Kevin Sullivan brainchild. Kevin Sullivan was still the lead booker at this time, which makes sense when you saw how much play that the Dungeon of Doom got during this time. Did we never get a WCW yeti action figure?
00:47:48
Speaker
Not that I can recall. I don't think we did, man. No, I don't think so either. That is crazy, dude. He's such a... I mean, he's right over there with Shockmaster as far as like, you know, so bad it's good wrestling characters. I would never call Yeti dressed like a mommy good, but man, those are your words, not mine. How has Yeti Coolers not tapped him for like a promotion to break into the wrestling market?
00:48:15
Speaker
Um, I don't think that's the way you want to break into the wrestling market, but I don't know, man, that's just, that's just me talking. You're telling me you wouldn't pop dude. If you saw a commercial for Yeti coolers and they had the Yeti on there dressed as a mummy, like sipping a cold one. Whether or not I would pop and whether or not other people would pop is two different things. I'm a degenerate wrestling fan. Like normal people would be like, what the fuck is that?
00:48:42
Speaker
Is there a WCW wrestler that you could think of that you want to action figure of more than the Yete? Cause I'm starting to think about it, dude. And like, I think Yeti's like probably my number one, dude. Yeah, he's definitely up there. I just think it'd be so, such a cool toy, dude. They did the, they got the mummified Chris Jericho monsters figure. So they know how to do a mummy figure. Yeah, this would be, this is definitely up there. I'd love a chronic two pack too, but this is up there.
00:49:10
Speaker
You know, NECA did their, they had a series of all the universal monsters. It came out last year, man, and I heard him announce the mummy. I was really hoping that he would be close enough to pass for a Yeti in the collection, but unfortunately, he really didn't. The NECA universal mummy didn't look much like the Yeti at all. Not at all.
00:49:32
Speaker
I do got a little pro tip for you guys while we're on WCW. It's not Halloween Havoc related, but the NECA, I don't know why I said Funko, the NECA RoboCop fits in perfect with your WCW stings if you want to recreate that other awesome WCW idea. Yeah, there you go. And there's another tip from Seth.
00:49:52
Speaker
All right, so 1996 another another line in the sand, you know, we talked about 94 Holt comes in between 95 and 96. Was there anything historically significant in wrestling that happened Jordan? No, not at all. What could possibly have happened between those two years?
00:50:08
Speaker
new new new world order we got the heel turn of hollywood hogan man that shocked the wrestling world and it's we're literally you know basically three months off of it um going into halloween habit hulks the wcw champion at this point we're and we're also in vegas where the show would be at for its last five years it ended up just being a
00:50:29
Speaker
a staple. That was kind of like the WCW thing back in those days. They liked to run in there. They're big shows at the same place. They would always have Halloween havoc would always be in Las Vegas. A bash at the beach would always be, you know, neither it bounced back and forth to like Orlando and Tampa, Florida and star cave was always in DC.
00:50:46
Speaker
So really, really, this is a fun show. You start to get close to the the famous stage designs. It's got the Slim Jim. This has got the alien thing or it's like I'm supposed to be an alien or like a monster wrestler, but he's holding up the Slim Jim logo because Slim Jim is all about this one and we'll get into it, man. But we're in Vegas. The tagline was a night of terror and suspense.
00:51:08
Speaker
attendance 10,000. Um, we'll talk about the, the big thing on the undercard was that we saw the outsiders when the tag team belts from Harlem heat, uh, for their first of seven WCW title wins. Yeah, this was a, this was a start of something really special here. So, um, I'll, whatever I have to say about Hulk Hogan is whatever, but
00:51:30
Speaker
Hogan main eventing again, um, as would be a theme moving forward, but yeah, it's definitely a historical might. I mean, outsider is one of the greatest tag teams ever. Um, this is kind of where they got really going. So.
00:51:45
Speaker
So this is the main events Macho and Hulk Hogan, which made sense anyways, because Macho Man was probably the number two baby face in WCW at the time, aside from Sting. But did you know that this was actually a contractually obligated match?
00:52:00
Speaker
I did not. So I'll give you guys a quick history lesson. Macho Man had a very unique first contract, that first three year run that he had in WCW from 94 through the end of 97. So when he left WWF, he brought his Slim Jim endorsement with him. That endorsement wasn't through WWF, it was direct to the Macho Man.
00:52:23
Speaker
And the way his contract was structured, his first three years in WCW, he was actually getting paid by Slim Jim. Slim Jim, basically, it was almost like a three-way deal. Slim Jim was paying for him to wrestle on WCW in exchange for ad time and in-show promotion stuff for the Slim Jim brand. And one of the things of his contract was that at some point in the three years, he would have a main event match on pay-per-view against Hulk Hogan. And this was when they decided to cash it in.
00:52:51
Speaker
I'm assuming the Slim Jim people remembered how big of a cash cow that WrestleMania 5 match was on pay-per-view and how much attention it got. But yeah, and that kind of crazy man that Slim Jim was the ones paying Macho Man those first couple years. I mean, it makes sense, dude. He wasn't for Macho Man. I don't think Slim Jims would still be around, to be quite honest with you. He definitely really launched them into the mainstream. Need a little beef, need a little spice.
00:53:19
Speaker
Yeah, I still, I still love a slim gym, dude. Are you a slim gym guy? Oh yeah. Slim gyms are amazing. Which one do you go for, man? Do you like the OG? Like the monster, like double thick, like the Tabasco flavor. What's your slim gym of choice? I like the, the spicier ones. I always go for a hot. So just what about the thickness? You like their original? I like the original girth. I'm not a, I'm not a big girthy one. So yeah, I prefer the original girth.
00:53:45
Speaker
Yeah, I go for the original too, dude. I feel like the original just gives you that snap, dude, because that's really what you want on that, dude. You want that snappy bite with a little bit of spice. I'm not going to get a whole mouthful of the processed meat that's inside that casing. Say that three times. But yeah, they fight in the main event. Obviously, it's typical NWO schmaws at the time. But the big thing at the end of it is that Roddy Piper debuts.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah, this is a, again, another cool moment. Dude, it's just, it is kind of wild to look back and just see how many stars swap between the two companies, isn't it? Like, and, and we're not like talking like just like middle of the line stars. We're talking like main event talent is switching shows. Like it's pretty incredible, honestly, when you go back and think about it.
00:54:37
Speaker
What was wild because Piper really had it wrestled in WWF for, um, for about five years, man. Like, you know, he was at, um, or about four years, I guess he had his big match with Brad at WrestleMania eight. And then he was kind of doing commentary. Um, you know, he had the Hollywood backlot brawl with Goldust, but his last run at WWF was the
00:54:57
Speaker
You know, he was the president or commissioner, whatever they were calling it at that time. I think it was president. I remember he turned it back over to Gorilla Monsoon right before WrestleMania 12. So Gorilla could screw Brett and that fucking Iron Man match debacle.
00:55:10
Speaker
But yet to me, man, at the time, dude, it was out of my just ignorant youth. I didn't realize what the big deal was about Piper showing up because I kind of remember Piper is like the zany dude that, you know, I thought it was cool when he won the intercontinental championship at David W.F. But I really didn't realize how big a deal he was back in the in the mid 80s feud with Hogan when really he was kind of like the number one heel in the company.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah, dude, it's, it's crazy because I honestly thought the same thing. I thought that like Piper was just like a mid card act and never really like, I don't know. He just never really hit my radar. Like you just said as like someone who was really moving the needle, but
00:55:47
Speaker
Dude, this dude was loved by a lot of people and oh, yeah, I guess I just if you go back He was booked so strong like Hogan never beat him dude. Like he hardly ever lost on TV He was I imagine it made my pain the ass to work with backstage But he if he ever lost it was always by DQ like if you go back he very rarely got pinned That's why you know, Brett says it made him whenever he he pinned Roddy Piper at WrestleMania 8 Yeah, I know but like when you're thinking back to this time, I mean obviously we're
00:56:13
Speaker
11 12 years old like I mean I just don't like recall like Piper being a big deal like I just I don't know maybe I just blocked that out of my memory but yeah I just don't know I'm with you too man I think it was the time because really it was I mean the time when he was biggest was
00:56:28
Speaker
like prior to really WrestleMania three, you know, I mean, he has his first retirement match against Adrian Adonis at WrestleMania three. And I think his, a lot of his biggest moments were even, you know, prior to WrestleMania one. So I think for looking back now, I realized why it was such a big deal.
00:56:45
Speaker
for older fans. You know, it'd be akin to like a returning legend coming back nowadays for us, but I'm right there with you as a kid. I was just like, Oh, that's cool. I didn't, it didn't seem like the type of thing that should be like ending a pay per view. Yeah.
00:57:00
Speaker
definitely did not. That's why I'm saying like, it's just wild to me. So yeah. And then it leads to the main event in Starrcade 96. Roddy Piper beats him, but in a non-title match, just, I mean, how, how would the fuck do you have it be non-title in the main event of your biggest show of the year? How does that happen, dude? Dude, I think me and you could literally do a WCW retrospect. And I think how the hell did that happen would be,
00:57:27
Speaker
words uttered about a million times. I think we could do a whole fucking separate podcast, dude. Do you have a whole season today? Yeah, this is just the WCW way, man. They do the weirdest shit. Again, they have good concepts, they have good people, and they just never knew how to execute it, man. It's sad.
00:57:51
Speaker
I am looking forward to that ultimate edition, Roddy Piper figure that's coming out from this run, because I think we talked about it on that San Diego Comic Con episode, our last pod warriors that, you know, despite us not being huge fans of that run, that is a very, very cool figure with the icon shirt. Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be really cool.
00:58:10
Speaker
All right. Other than that, I really got not much else for Havoc 96, man. Nope, we can move on. So 97, we get the payoff from a year earlier. This is going to be Hogan versus Piper in a steel cage match. Still got the Slim Jim sponsorship going. The model for this one is snap into the madness. This is in front of 12,457 people. So attendance is up a couple thousand. You know, this is 97, it's probably 97 and 98 are really WCW's peak years.
00:58:38
Speaker
You can see that because business is up big time still in Vegas. We'll get to the main event, man. But first off, this has I'd say you could probably it's between Cactus Jack and Vader. How are we having 93 and the opener from this one Ray Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero for best match in Halloween Havoc history. This is honestly one of my favorite WCW matches period. This match is just dude for a 14 minute match. This is absolute wrestling perfection to me. It's just it's so good.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's definitely the best cruiserweight match ever. If you just Google top 10 wrestling matches ever, you're going to see this one come up on a ton of lists. It's a masterpiece, man. It's got a lot of luchador in it, but it's not a luchador match, if that's what you're thinking. These guys just work a solid cruiserweight style match with some great storytelling. Eddie grows an awesome heel. Ray Mysterio the Never Say Die babyface.
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah, like go out of your way. If you're only going to watch a few matches off our recommendations, definitely make this one. Yep. Yeah, this is a, this is a fun one. It's just for the fact that it's the opening match to it's just, it's incredible. It's so good.
00:59:50
Speaker
It can be fully recreated in figure form as well the Elite 67 Rey Mysterio and then the Hall of Fame Eddie Guerrero and that Eddie Guerrero is actually getting a re-release in the Monday Night Wars Ultimate Edition line coming up next year. I'm okay with that one getting a re-release honestly because I mean it's an iconic figure from an iconic match so I'm fine with it.
01:00:13
Speaker
We've only had two mullet Eddie figures also, dude. We had in the Hall of Champions line, they had the original babyface Eddie Guerrero and like the singlet. And then we had that one, man. Like we are very light on on Eddie Guerrero mullet figures. Yeah, this is a this is a well needed one to just Eddie with the mullet was always it just hit different, didn't it? It just it always felt different when Eddie had the mullet. So yeah, yeah, I was a bigger fan of mullet Eddie than I was short haired Eddie, even though he obviously had his best success with the short hair.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, the set design we're getting close to it. We're basically one year away from the peak iconic WCW set design, but we have that same like alien monster wrestler guy's face with the Halloween Havoc logo, Slim Jim branding all over the place. So very cool stage.
01:01:00
Speaker
Main event, we have Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper and one of the tallest steel cage matches I've ever seen. It almost looks like the Thunderdome cage without the enclosure at the top. It goes around the ring. I sometimes wonder because this took place just a couple of weeks after that incredible hell in the cell, bad blood match between Shawn Michaels and Undertaker. So I wonder if maybe they thought, we got to
01:01:23
Speaker
We got to do something crazy to answer that because this is just a huge cage like feeling that picture I sent you Jordan where macho man's about to jump off the top of that axe handle like that's a hellified jump. Yeah, it's that's definitely about as high as you can possibly get on a cage. So yeah, it's a it's cool. Like I said, it's just we are on a run of the Hogan must be in every main event, unfortunately, so
01:01:49
Speaker
And this is another one that ends up in just the NWO Schmaz dude, fans booing him like, I think the NWO was still over at this point, but I think you're starting to get into a little bit of like go away heat with these guys by now. Yeah, it was a, it was getting to the point that I can remember watching this show and I was just kind of to the point where I'm like, dude, do they really need to be involved in every single angle? And it just, it was not over with me at this point anymore.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, and we're two months away from staying once and for all, triumphantly beating them and putting a perfect end to that story so they can move on to something else. Yep. That's all I got, man. I don't have anything to add, dude. You just put it so eloquently.
01:02:31
Speaker
If only that's how it actually went, man. Of course they botched that. Again, going back to WCW being so close, dude. What I still think is probably the best bill to a match ever with the year and a half long bill to Sting versus Hollywood Hogan. And then it just ends in a fuckfest. Yeah, it's just not great at all.
01:02:51
Speaker
All right, moving on to 1998. We're still in Las Vegas. Attendance is down a little bit. You know, we were at 12,400 a year before. We're down to 10,600 this year. Tagline is the night when good battles evil. So three matches I wanna talk about. First off though, the set. So this is where we are at the peak set. You got the WCW kind of columns on one side, NW on the other, and we got that like monster alien thing holding the giant inflatable pumpkin surrounded by tombstones, man. Like how iconic is that giant pumpkin?
01:03:21
Speaker
Dude, when we talk Halloween havoc, this is what I picture. Like this entrance is the, to me, this is just me. Non-Wrestlemania, this to me is the greatest entrance ever made. Like it's just period. Like this is my favorite entrance ever. I just, I love everything about it. It's absolutely perfectly done. I just, I don't know how you can make this any better, honestly.
01:03:46
Speaker
I think if they would have done a crowdfund for this instead of Nitro Stage, man, I think it may have got us across the finish line. Yeah, I just I feel like, again, we've talked about the crowdfunds and stuff. I just I feel like they'd be better off if they let us vote on what we wanted. And dude, I just don't know how this would not win. Like, I mean, anybody you talk to list like this is what you picture when you picture Halloween havoc is this entrance. Like, I don't know anybody who does not think this is the greatest Halloween havoc entrance.
01:04:16
Speaker
Honestly, I feel like in a lot of ways this would be a little bit easier to execute in that nitrous stage You don't got a ramp or any real platform or anything like they kind of just it's kind of just set up on the ground in the entrance way Yeah, it could be cool Maybe maybe one of our friends who's into like the 3d printing can can tool something up for us will do that would be sick the other thing is is so since they ran MGM brand each year like they they set this up specifically for that arena so they could keep using it so and
01:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and you kind of it was it probably made a lot easier to kind of just build on what you did the year before You know because you definitely see that when you start going back and watching doing the research for these shows in sequential order Yeah, it just kept getting better
01:04:56
Speaker
All right, but you got three masters we want to talk about. So first off, this one's in the mix for me for like all time disappointments, dude, which again, I know we've been, I got to remind you guys, man, we love WCW. I know we've been bagging on them a lot on the show just because they just failed to deliver in a lot of big spots. And here's another one, man.
01:05:14
Speaker
Sting and Bret Hart going one on one on pay-per-view I remember being so you know 13 year old Seth was so freaking excited for this match Even though Brett's coming up on a year in WCW at this point and to say it's it would be kind if you only described it as underwhelming
01:05:29
Speaker
But I'm still thinking like, all right, dude, this is where it's going to turn around. And again, this ends up being a schmaz sting. You know, Bret Hart beats up Sting with a baseball bat after a ref bump. This was one of those dream matches you always thought about, right? When Pro Wrestling Illustrated would do the little fantasy issues of WWF versus WCW, Sting versus Bret Hart was always in there. And it was just so sad that once we finally get that match, this is what they ended up giving us.
01:05:53
Speaker
to be a theme here back to back matches because yeah this is this is a sad excuse for what we thought we were getting it's 15 minutes but honestly man the way they did this match I would have been fine with it being 10 minutes it just it was not it for me it should have been on nitro dude if this is what they were gonna do they should have had to be on nitro and then you could have the real match on pay-per-view sometime down the road but no use crying over spilled milk man then we get you know this is another one that
01:06:21
Speaker
In the mix for worst match of all time, dude Like if you look if you google like top, you know top five worst wrestling matches ever There's a good chance it's gonna be on the list the rematch of one of the absolute best matches ever right now You know, I'm looking at a beautiful custom commissioned painting from from the extra cooler of that right now Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior Eight years later running back the classic from WrestleMania 6 at Halloween Havoc Jordan I'm gonna let you talk on this one man. You're the big warrior fanatic out of two of us man. What went wrong here?
01:06:52
Speaker
everything dude, everything went wrong. You knew they weren't gonna let Hogan lose twice to where it just everybody knew that going into this match. Did I think it would be this much of a shit fest? No.
01:07:07
Speaker
this actually is Warriors only singles match on WCW pay per view. So yeah, that should tell you everything you need to know about this match. It's just, it's so bad, man. And there's just nothing redeeming about this match. Again, I talked about Hogan has to be involved in everything and
01:07:28
Speaker
I just, I know that when warrior came over to WCW, that was one of the caveats. Like you have to wrestle Hogan again and he has to be you and
01:07:39
Speaker
god dude. There's just nothing positive to say about this match at all. Just the whole thing is bad. I mean, dude, even if you take away from the fact that warrior looks like shit in this match, like, even if you take all that away, the match itself is just still still pure garbage. Like there's nothing good about this match at all. I mean, do you think this has any redeeming qualities at all?
01:08:01
Speaker
other than just morbid curiosity man I do like the Warriors look I thought his gear and stuff was very cool face paint was cool but no man this one is just horrible you know that WrestleMania 6 match Pat Patterson booked that thing out for them move for move that was like a
01:08:19
Speaker
There was no calling it in the ring or improvising. That was a straight up. Every single match, every single move was set up, which makes sense because it is a perfect match from a storytelling perspective. And I don't think that was the case here. I think this one was just Hulk making a busy win. Dude, I still firmly believe, man, that the whole reason they brought him back was just Hulk's ego was out of control at this point. And I think they brought him back just so he could get his win back, dude.
01:08:46
Speaker
I don't know. Warrior had stated that on some of the documentaries on him. That was his belief. And I agree, man. Because he's only there for three months. They paid him all that money. And literally, after this match, I think he maybe has one more appearance on Nitro after this, and then he's gone.
01:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, this is his only match. His only singles match in WCW is this one right here. It's a shame, man. It really is. There's not much good to say about this at all. It's sad, man. This is definitely the downfall of... I mean, he was already in his downfall, but this is just capping it.
01:09:21
Speaker
horrible man. This is not had a couple more matches on some, some weird Indies and stuff. But for all intents and purposes, yeah. Like this is the ultimate lawyer's last match. Yeah. This is his last major match. And he, of course it's losing the whole Kogan cause why not? Cause Hogan's a douchebag and yeah, it's just, it sucks, man. There's, we watch this match again. You guys can go back and listen to us talk about it, but
01:09:45
Speaker
This is like a sad match for me because like I love the lawyer and this is just not him at all. And just hoping the whole vibe is gone, man. Like the even like from the entrance and everything, it's like the energy is just not there that even when he came back in 96 and WCW in WWE or WWF at the time, even though that ultimately was not a success, like the vibe was still there. It still felt like ultimate warrior when he comes out at WrestleMania 12 and squash his Triple H, you know.
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at least there was some of it left like they weren't completely ripping it all off at that point, but there's nothing left of it at this point.
01:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, very bad.
Technical Difficulties and Speculations on Goldberg's Streak
01:10:21
Speaker
We'll go to a high note after this really, really good main event, man. Unfortunately, there were some technical issues and about 75% of the pay-per-view audience ended up having their pay-per-view feed cut off and did not get to see Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg. And they actually aired it during the first hour of Nitro the next night. And for a while, it held the record for the most watched match ever on cable TV, the rebroadcast of this one.
01:10:45
Speaker
I think there's, you know, me and Jaybone watched this on episode coming down the aisle a couple of weeks ago. I think you can make a strong case that this is Goldberg's best match ever. This is a fantastic match. You're 100% right. This, this redeems the show a little bit from the two previous matches because those were both, we already talked about them, but yeah, this is very good. I agree with you.
01:11:08
Speaker
I yeah, I think it's between this and his match against Brock at WrestleMania 33 that like six minute just streaking like straight up sprint I think those are probably the two best Goldberg matches But yeah, dude, this is a really really good match man DDP is just as over as it gets as a babyface
01:11:27
Speaker
Dude, I said this on coming on now I stand by it man if I could go back in time this is, it's probably my number one thing I would change from wrestling history but it's up there dude. I think I have DDP when this match you know he hits that awesome diamond cutter out of nowhere off the jackhammer. I think you could have I think that'd be a perfect way to end the streak and take some of the pressure off that.
01:11:47
Speaker
And you can have Goldberg win it back the next night on nitro or the next, the next pay per view, right? Like get it right back. But I think it gets the diamond cutter even more over as like you will not kick out of this move. Um, it makes diamond Dallas page, you know, a world champ and elevates him. And I don't think Goldberg would lose anything, man. I don't think there was no shame in taking a diamond cutter out of nowhere and getting pinned.
01:12:06
Speaker
Well, it would have been better than the way they did in the streak. So, I mean, I just. Yeah. With the Tays, with getting Tays by Scott. Oh, exactly. Yeah. Just ruin the whole thing. I think this, I think Goldberg streak would have, would have aged so much better as well. If that's how it ended, right? If the ending was an awesome match, a Halloween habit where DDP hits the diamond cutter on him. And then you could, if you really were hell bent on doing that finish with Kevin Nash, you could still do that at star cave, but then that doesn't have to be how the streak ended, right? Like that can just be, you know, a time where Kevin Nash cheated to be,
01:12:36
Speaker
to beat Goldberg. Yeah, I agree. It just, they ruined the streak with the way they ended it. But yeah, really cool match. Like I said, I would, for various reasons, I would watch all three of the ones we talked about off this show, Bret Hart, Sting, Hogan, warrior, and Goldberg and DDP, because they're all three pretty historically significant.
WCW Attendance and Popularity Decline
01:12:53
Speaker
And this is kind of the last of our major Halloween Havocs, man. You ready to dive into the last two years as WCW hit the death spiral. These two are so bad.
01:13:04
Speaker
So going back, we are at, so I'll tell you this dude, so 99, we're still in Vegas. All right, so 97, we had 12,400 people, 98, 10,600. 99, we're down to 8,464 people in the stands. The tagline for this one is when our inner animals come out to play.
01:13:27
Speaker
Does that get you hyped up for wrestling if you hear like that's the that's the tagline for the show? No, it does not. And this show definitely fell a suit on the terribleness. This is so bad, dude.
01:13:39
Speaker
We're deep into the Vince Russo era of WCW. On this show, Hulk Hogan lays down for Sting. I still cannot figure out. I tried, I don't remember that happening. I was pretty much totally checked out on WCW by this point. And it was hard on doing research to find any like kayfabe reason for why Hogan laid down to Sting to give Sting the world championship. This is kind of eight months or 10 months after the finger poker doom. They're still doing dumb shit like this.
01:14:09
Speaker
you know they would do something like this again at bash to the beach 2000 so I don't know why Vince Russo web having guys just lay down at the opening bell to get pinned.
01:14:18
Speaker
But he does it, so Sting beats Hogan that way to become the WCW champion. And then in the main event, him and Goldberg go one-on-one and Goldberg beats Sting for the championship, which is, here's the weird thing, man. So in that match, before the match, the announcers were talking about how it's actually non-title. It's just a grudge match between Goldberg and Sting. But then when Goldberg wins, he's awarded the WCW championship.
01:14:41
Speaker
Dude, this whole thing from that Hogan thing on, everything after that is God awful. I hate the DDP and Ric Flair Stroud match. I hate that match. I don't know why, what it is, but there's just something about that match that just does not sit right with me. Goldberg and Sid Vicious is not great. I mean, it's a seven minute match. So that's the other than Goldberg.
01:15:05
Speaker
wins the WCW United States title two matches before this and then comes out and beats Sting in three minutes to win the world title like my god dude Vince Russo like dude not bad at this point like the roster is still strong and
01:15:25
Speaker
I just, I don't get it, man. Oh yeah, dude. I mean, you got Hulk Hogan, Goldberg, Sid, Sting, Bret Hart. Like you have enough main eventers to go around, man. And obviously that's what sells the show. It's just, the booking is just atrocious, dude. Dude, the undercard people are great on this. Like obviously we can't mention some of these names because of things they did, but I mean, dude, you still had Bret, you still had Luger.
01:15:48
Speaker
you saw it Eddie Guerrero, you had the Harlem heat like this is just the names I just named off is a good enough roster to carry you like God dude, Vince Russo, whatever was left to WCW. It just he just crumbled it in his hands. I really don't even like watching these these two shows like and I love Halloween havoc, but these are not these to me are not even part of the
01:16:18
Speaker
of the anthology. Yeah, we're circling the drain. We're about five months away from WCW being completely dead for two that how we have it 2000 still in Vegas attendance is down even more. We're down to 7500 people. What's up with this poster date? It's called that they're calling the show the unveiling the future of professional wrestling is here and now.
01:16:38
Speaker
Staying is on the front with his like arms outstretched. It's like he's got like smoke coming off of him like he just got off the freakin You know blackstone griddle like what what's going on with that poster dude? I don't know but everything I said about the roster in 99 Completely ignore for 2000 because this is absolute dog shit
01:16:57
Speaker
I didn't even write down any matches from the, uh, from the show. There was just, it's just a nothing burger of a show. How about these pictures of the ring apron? Look, they finally ditched the classic logo, dude. Look at that. So terrible, dude. Just weird. Like it just screams like year 2000, like the font and everything. And look who the show was sponsored by WCW backstage assault. I told you all you need to know.
01:17:22
Speaker
That logo just screams like somebody logged into like PowerPoint and made this forum in two minutes.
01:17:29
Speaker
Yeah. WCW backstage assault for those don't remember that was their wrestling game that famously did not have a ring. It was nothing. It basically was nothing except backstage brawl mode from WWE 2K. And then look at the set. They ditched the set to just go with its generic. It looks basically a copy of the raw Titan Tron. I got that picture there. I think that's Chavo Guerrero and maybe Lash LaRue or somebody. I can't remember if it was the ring, but look at how just, you know, the year before we get, they kept that same awesome set with the pumpkin and now we have the most generic set ever.
01:17:58
Speaker
with that awful logo. It's just, yeah, you could tell that the buzzards are circling at this point. Yeah. I think you said everything that needs to be said about this show. I really don't like talking about this one. The end of WCW is just depressing to me.
01:18:13
Speaker
So starting in 2020, Papa H, Triple H threw us a bone and we started getting a revival of Halloween Havoc, man, with NXT.
NXT Revives Halloween Havoc
01:18:23
Speaker
It was a TV special in 20 and 21. They actually made it like a full-fledged pay-per-view last year. It's back to being a two-part TV special this year, but how have you felt about the NXT Halloween Havoc revival?
01:18:35
Speaker
It's enjoyable to get some nostalgia, right? I mean, yeah, they've been decent shows. I mean, you're never going to be able to hit on on what they what they did in the early 90s. Like I just I think it's impossible to get that feeling back. Like you can't you can't just relive that. So I have enjoyed these. But I mean, for the most part, like they've just been kind of shows for me.
01:19:01
Speaker
They I think they've done it justice though, man, and they're in their trivia set, you know They brought back spin the wheel make the deal that was cool crazy sets, you know, it's definitely you're right. It's not the original Halloween havoc It's kind of like somewhere between that and like the Halloween themed episodes of raw where you'd have like the trick-or-treat street fight and stuff, right? Yeah, but they have been pretty fun man. I did like last year that they had the cinematic match with Mandy Rose and the haunted house and everything
01:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that was very well done. So I've been a fan of it, man. And I'm excited to see what they do with it this year. The Chuckies Choice match was two years ago, right? That was 2021.
01:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. I know last year was the one. Yeah. I think they had the Chuckies choice then, but last year was the one they did the cinematic. I don't know if that was the Chuckies choice match though. The Chuckies, you know, Chuckies got the show on, uh, on USA. So that's, it makes it for an easy tie in with him and Debbie to be, and it was cool. A nice little touch of, uh, you know, a nod to the past. They got to, um, they got to rekindle the Rick Steiner, Chuckie feud from 1999 with a Brown breaker.
01:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's really great. All right, let's get into some listener mail. So Sam Rosenthal says pod warriors are back. Favorite Halloween Havoc card top to bottom show wise.
01:20:20
Speaker
Man, that's tough. There's not really a straight up like classic, right? There's no like WrestleMania 10, Great American Bash 1989 in there. You gotta pick and cheese. I think I'm going 93, dude. Because that's the last one that still felt like that early 90s WCW and you get that huge main event. I agree. That's probably what I would pick too.
01:20:41
Speaker
It definitely isn't 1998. I'll say that I like 97 a lot though, man. I think 97 was a fun one. And it, like we said, it has Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, which alone is worth the whole watch of the show. So just to be different, I'll go 97. Okay. Cool, man. The favorite Halloween Havoc or Halloween Havoc figure you want the most. We talked about it earlier. Yeah. It's not even close.
01:21:04
Speaker
Alright, and then he says as a side note, really miss all the special shows like this one with the entrance stages. Yeah, we talked about that a few times before man with the WCW for all their faults, they always went all out with the unique stages.
The Art of Unique Wrestling Venues
01:21:15
Speaker
I remember like Slamboree always had like the Western like okay Corral type feel to it. Obviously Halloween Havoc like yeah, that was that was one thing that WCW was really good at think about some of the bash at the beach sets. They always went all out to make their shows feel unique.
01:21:28
Speaker
I hate how far we've gotten away from the cool entrance stages and making a pay-per-view feel big. It just, using just the big TitanTron for everything to me is just, I don't know, man, it takes away from it to me. I mean, I feel- Maybe the bees do a great job with it too, man. COVID completely just made them mail it in.
01:21:48
Speaker
Ever since I mean, I feel like since I came I feel like this is like since I came back in 2014 They never really went all out for the paper I feel like that's something that died out like when they went to it seems like when they went to the network They dropped the budget on the pay-per-view sets. Yeah, that's true Which makes sense because I guess they weren't you know getting they were only at 10 bucks a month instead of the 50 or whatever it was Yeah All right, Zach Hertzer says favorite Halloween candy Reese's peanut butter cup
01:22:16
Speaker
I got to go mini airheads, man. I love getting some of the little miniature airheads. That's good, too. John Swallow, fellow pod foundation member, says coming down the aisle will be releasing their list of top 10 Halloween matches. What are your top three Halloween Havoc matches? I'll name what we can alternate, man. I'll go first. I'll say the previous you mentioned Vader and Cactus Jack. I mean, I'm going Eddie and Rey Mysterio. Just dude, I don't think you need anything other than those two to me like those two are just so perfect.
01:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, they're the real standouts man. Pretty much, you know, the ones we mentioned tonight were the standouts. The ones we mentioned in a positive light, the standouts. Yeah. Zach Hertzer also has the worst Halloween candy. I mean, I know candy corns almost become like a cliche as much as everybody hates it now. So I'll take that one out. I'll go with sixlets. You remember those things? Like they're like the little like kind of like an M&M type deal.
01:23:06
Speaker
I'm not going to lie to you, the thing that pissed me off more than anything when I got him is Smarties. Dude, and people would just throw those into your bag. I don't need 100 rolls of Smarties. That's what you ate when it was middle of June and you still had Halloween candy sitting in your dresser drawer. Yeah, I've never been excited to get Smarties, dude. I don't even know why they're even a thing. They're one step above medicine, dude. They're just chalky and just super sweet. We probably just really offended somebody by saying that.
01:23:37
Speaker
I always liked the white ones, man. For some reason, there'd be some times where I'd open up a pack of Smarties and I would only eat the white ones. I think they were like just pure sugar flavor. There wasn't any like kind of like fruit flavor added to them or whatever. No additives. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the Smarties either.
01:23:51
Speaker
When someone mentions how, Zach says, when someone mentions Halloween Havoc, what match or wrestler do you think of? I think Cactus Jack's the first one that pops in my mind. Just, you know, he was involved in the Chamber of Horrors match and then that, you know, the Halloween Havoc 93 match we go on and on about. So I think the first wrestler pops into mind for me is Mick Foley as Cactus Jack. I'm going to say Sting, just because Sting always kind of looked like he was ready for Halloween anyway with the face paint and everything. And he's on so many of these. I mean, he's on almost every one of them. So Sting for me.
01:24:20
Speaker
All right, Ryan Ferguson says, who would you want to see 2K cover in showcase mode next year? I don't even know who they've covered so far. This is a question for you.
01:24:32
Speaker
Uh, so they was going to be Hogan one year right before he got in trouble, but they still had all the characters in there. So you know, you know what showcase mode is, right? Where you basically play through somebody's career and they did Austin, they've done Cena. I mean, as a fan, it would be awesome to play through Brett's career. Like, you know, starting with the tag team stuff, going all the way through the, the screw job would be cool.
01:24:54
Speaker
So that would be my personal answer commercially. I think Brock, man, like, you know, we possibly, I don't know if it was straight up his last match, but it felt like that was possibly his last match ever when he went up against Cody at SummerSlam. I think there'd be a lot of me on the bones to do a Brock one because you could cover his ruthless aggression run and his, uh, his run nowadays. So I think Brock would be a cool one. Yeah, that'd be cool. The lovely pod wife, uh, Ari says favorite costume you've ever worn.
01:25:21
Speaker
Man, that's tough. When is the Kanye West college dropout beer on Halloween? That was a pretty big hit. It wasn't like a super pain in the ass costume either. I think probably...
01:25:36
Speaker
We went with a group of friends as like, uh, basically like, um, murderous clowns one year. That was probably one of my favorites. I did captain, I did captain Spalding. That was pretty damn good. Um, I did, uh, Bruno, um, Sasha Baron Cohen's character in the yellow, um, leader hose in one year. That was a definitely an eye opener. So I'll go with those.
01:26:01
Speaker
Alright, Tony B says with spin the wheel make the deal having to come back with NXT. Would you want to see any other havoc style gimmick matches make a comeback? And if so, which one? Bro, let's do Chamber of Horrors. Run it back. Run it back with the updated production values. I am all for it. I would be fine too if like they did. I know they brought back the Thunderdome during Thunderdome. I know, but I would be cool if they I think it'd be cool if they did like even a better Thunderdome. I think that would be awesome.
01:26:32
Speaker
I know about the Thunderdome Cage match. Yeah, I just think that would be cool if they actually made something of it, like make it meaningful, not just thrown together at the last minute. Because it seems like that's what those always are. Yeah, that was a cool match. All right, Jamie Willis. Definitely check out three points of articulation podcast. They got a really cool show. It says, if money wasn't a factor and you could wear any outfit for many arrests or for many time, which would you choose and why? So I'm assuming he means for a Halloween costume.
01:27:00
Speaker
What, what wrestler outfit would you take? I mean, it ain't even really, it's not going to be an expensive money one, but dude, if I had the physique to be warrior from ulcer or from a WrestleMania six, that's what I would be. I'm not doing that. Walked around in your orange underwear. Hell yeah.
01:27:20
Speaker
I think I'm gonna go Sean for WrestleMania 12 and I'm gonna have me like some sort, I'm gonna get with a mechanical engineer and have like a portable zip line thing with me. I have like a little pole I can prop up in the ground and climb up about 25 feet high and just zip line down while Sheena's dressed up as Vince McMahon, just basically freaking jizzing over the entrance. Oh my God, look at Sean Michaels. Oh my God, just the thought of that is really not good.
01:27:52
Speaker
All right, last question. Johnny JB says, not a question, but how awesome would it be if WWE or AWW had a show where the ring was surrounded by a pool or at a beach? Yeah, again, another nod to some of the cool innovative stuff WCW did. They'd have the spring break episodes from Club La Vila down in Panama. And they actually did a bash at the beach on the beach one year, which if you listen to Hulk Hogan, he claims over a hundred thousand people there for the show because it was free attendance.
01:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'd totally be all about it, man. I love wrestling in unorthodox venues, man. Think back to the early episodes of Shotgun Saturday and I, where they'd have them in nightclubs and stuff, man. Some of the stuff that we've seen Impact Wrestling do over the years. So I'd love to see them get a little bit more experimental and just change up the look, man, like Jordan talked about, dude. It just makes it fun when stuff looks a little bit different. It's not the same homogenized view every single weekend and week out.
01:28:46
Speaker
Bro, can, like, dude, there's an easy one here. Like, do a WC or a NXT pay-per-view at Daytona Bike Week and bring back hog wild. Like, come on, man. Just make it happen. That was so cool with all the bikes surrounding the ring and stuff. Like, dude, bring it back.
Future Podcast Plans
01:29:04
Speaker
Alright, and that is a wrap for the Halloween Havoc retrospective, man. Thank you guys again for all the support. Like I said, these will be coming your way at a little bit more routine basis. You know, we appreciate the support for all things Chick Foley and the goal line pod. We enjoyed his little side hustle. Yeah, man, Jordan hit us with some closing thoughts before we get out of here.
01:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for still supporting us. I know it's we've had a long woolen here, but we're going to get it back together. Probably do another Christmas special again this year. So if you've got any ideas for us on that, shoot them our way and we'll we'll we'll take it into consideration. But yeah, man, thanks for listening and have a good Halloween.