WCW Superbrawl III

Date: 02/21/1993

Location: Asheville, NC

Announcers: Tony Schiavone & Jesse Ventura 

The Setup 

This match was the third Vader-Sting match in a trilogy that began the previous July at the Great American Bash, with this one a strap match without the WCW title on the line, despite Vader being champion. Barry Windham was challenging the Great Muta for the NWA title after turning heel in November, and Muta won the title from Masa Chono at the Tokyo Dome in January. This PPV also marked Ric Flair’s triumphant return to WCW in what ended up being an announcer role for the Muta-Windham match. They did not have enough time to heavily advertise his appearance because the WWF (likely on purpose) made mistakes in the paperwork for Flair’s release. Bill Watts also quit/was fired just days before this show. 

The Business 

Wrestlenomics has the show at 95,000 buys, tied for their third-lowest all-time to date with Starrcade ‘92, and only trailing Beach Blast ‘92 and the Great American Bash ‘92 (the latter also headlined by Vader vs. Sting) in their history. While Sting vs. Vader in the King of Cable finals didn’t headline Starrcade ‘92, it was on the show, and that match combo was on three of the four lowest amounts of PPV buys in company history at this point. As good as the matches were, they never drew. 

Prowrestlinghistory reports a total attendance of 6,500 fans, which is more than good by 1993 WCW standards. Word of Flair returning was out there, which likely helped in Asheville.

The Results

Brian Pillman & Steve Austin def. Erik Watts & Marcus Bagwell in 16:34 **1/2 

2 Cold Scorpio def. Chris Benoit in 16:57 ***3/4 

British Bulldog def. Bill Irwin in 5:49 *1/4

Falls Count Anywhere Match: Cactus Jack def. Paul Orndorff in 12:17 ***1/2

SMW Tag Team Title Match: Rock n Roll Express def. Heavenly Bodies (C) by DQ in 12:52 ***1/2 

US Title Match: Dustin Rhodes (C) def. Max Payne by DQ in 11:28. * 

NWA World Title Match: Barry Windham def. Great Muta in 24:10 1/2* 

Strap Match: Vader def. Sting in 20:54 ****1/2

Notable Happenings

Sting and Vader beat the shit out of each other in the main event, particularly with the strap itself. I liked their Starrcade match slightly better, but this was still phenomenal and a tremendous end to their three-match PPV feud. I’m slightly unclear why this match was non-title if the champ retained anyway, but don’t let that take away from the awesomeness presented here.

This show was Ric Flair’s first PPV appearance after leaving the WWF. They couldn’t have picked a better city than Asheville. Flair was trying to put the NWA title on Windham after the latter’s first world title victory, but Barry freaking out was a great way to begin their story subtly. 

As mentioned, Muta won the NWA title in Japan on 01/04, and this was his only major defense of the title on American soil. For a guy the WCW fans once practically begged to turn babyface, the promotion really did nothing to maximize this title run in the slightest. Muta didn’t help with a sluggish performance here against a stud like Windham, but I digress.

The Rock’ n’ Roll vs. Bodies match felt very much like an old R&R’s vs. Midnight Express match, only shorter. This pairing also worked perfectly in Asheville, the city of many JCP TV tapings. The crowd was so into the brief return of the R&Rs to their television. 

Scorpio got the super-rare “win with one second left in the time limit” over Benoit.

This was Austin and Pillman pre-Hollywood Blondes, as the duo hadn’t teamed long yet, but they were still already very good. Watts and Bagwell weren’t a team that needed a sixteen-plus-minute match, though. 

Thank God, Max Payne eventually changed his gear. Despite his successful amateur background, the blue singlet didn’t complement his otherwise goth look. It was brief but horrible. 

The Good, The Bad, The Underrated

The Good: The diversity in the in-ring work. Not only was the wrestling outstanding, often throughout the snow, but there was such a good mix. There was the bloody physical main eventq, the southern tag R&R match, the wild FCA brawl, and the Jr. heavyweight-style Scorpio match.

The Bad: Barry Windham vs. Great Muta has to be on the Mt. Rushmore of most disappointing in-ring big matches of all time.

The Underrated: Babyface Cactus Jack. This was Foley’s first big show wrestling as a pure babyface, and he was outstanding. You have to give Bill Watts credit for seeing something no one else could imagine.

Backstage Notes

Bill Watts was relieved of his duties as EVP a few weeks before for extremely racist statements made in the Pro Wrestling Torch, including, “I got into business to discriminate.” Superbrawl III was also the company’s first-ever PPV without Jim Ross on the call, as he was demoted to sales briefly before heading to the WWF.

British Bulldog made his unannounced debut after not being seen in the US since he lost the IC title to Shawn the previous October. What they missed later was pushing a guy who was never once in the WWF title picture while there, and who only beat Bill Irwin in WCW, into WCW title matches with Vader, which was a mistake. Pushing Bulldog that hard was very TNA-ish before TNA was a thing, by pushing the WWF lower-card guy straight to the top.

Ron Simmons was initially scheduled for the US title match with Dustin, but a shoulder injury necessitated the last-minute replacement of Payne. We likely would have been much better off with Simmons. 

Rating: 8.0/10.0

Honestly, as far as show quality is concerned, we could have done without the US and NWA title matches, but an excellent main event, paired with some good undercard matches, made this a tremendous show. As bad as Watts’ WCW could be at times, he had a good Clash and PPV under his belt right before leaving. He started building momentum with Scorpio, Benoit, the Blondes, and some established guys. Still, alas, he was thrown out on his sizable ass as it looked like he was starting to figure things out.