Halloween Havoc 1993

Date: October 24, 1993

Location: Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana

Announcers: Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura

The Setup

After an excellent TV match six months earlier in which Cactus was powerbombed on the floor (and a dropped amnesia angle), Cactus Jack finally had a singles PPV match with Vader. Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal was a disaster in the ring in 1992, but it did draw. This seemed like the perfect feud to do this with again. 

The show also featured Rick Rude defending the newly dubbed WCW International World Title against Ric Flair in a rematch from Fall Brawl, and Sting was facing Sid Vicious in a battle to see who was the real franchise of WCW.

The Business

The show did 100,000 PPV buys according to Wrestlenomics, down almost 40% from last year’s Sting vs. Jake Roberts match. There’s no question that the booking of Cactus after their April TV match hurt this one quite a bit. 

Prowrestlinghistory shows 6,000 in attendance, but only a $30,000 gate, which means heavy paper in New Orleans. 

The Results

Ice Train, Charlie Norris, and The Shockmaster def. Harlem Heat (Kole and Kane) and The Equalizer in 9:45. They did a lot of constant tags to keep the action moving and the guys fresh, but the problem is that there wasn’t a lot of talent in the match. I’m sure the Equalizer was a great guy and is a wonderful HS football defensive coordinator, but he was involved in a lot of embarrassing shit. There was a spot where Norris was supposed to back off on a spot where they shoulder-blocked each other, but he paused, then fell back, and it looked more like he was doing his racist Native American dancing. Almost any time Equalizer had to bump, he exposed the business. The finish came when Shockmaster had Booker in a bearhug and dropped to his own knees, ending the match. This always sucked as a finisher. This was really awful stuff. 1/2*

Paul Orndorff def. Ricky Steamboat via Count Out in 18:35. Yoshi Kwan was hurt, so we got Orndorff as a replacement, in the “Thank God” moment of the show. The Assassin was recently paired with Orndorff, so that was a big part of the story. First, Assassin distracted the ref after a Steamboat flying bodypress, costing Steamer the victory. Then, near the end, Ricky was on the floor, and Assassin loaded up the mask and headbutted Stramboat in the back of the head. This caused the countout. The match was good, albeit a little longer than it needed to be, but well-worked by two pros. **3/4

WCW World Television Championship: Lord Steven Regal (C) and Davey Boy Smith wrestled to a time-limit draw in 15:00. They did some chain wrestling early, with strong counters from Bulldog, actually getting over with the southern rasslin crowd, but Regal went into a lot of long holds that just zapped the crowd. It was also obvious it was going TLD because the announcer started making calls every five minutes, which likely didn’t help. The Bulldog comeback was very late and not terribly exciting. Regal actually kicked out clean from a powerslam, which was pretty surprising. Bulldog took forever to hit a piledriver, and the ref took forever to get into position to count as the time limit expired. This started with potential and then dragged to a halt. *1/2 

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: Dustin Rhodes (C) def. Steve Austin in 14:23. This was slow and didn’t have a lot of heat. It’s not a bad match, but it may have been the worst I’ve ever seen these two have with each other. The crowd finally got into it when Dustin went for a bulldog and Austin crotched him on the turnbuckle. It picked up some after that, but never hit another gear. They did a spot where the ref counted three when Austin had the ropes for leverage, but the ref waved it off because he apparently saw the rope grab in hindsight. Austin was trying to get the title when Dustin rolled him up and won, even though it looked like Austin kicked out early. *3/4

WCW World Tag Team Championship: The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags) def. 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell (C) in 14:38. This was the best match so far. Bagwell sold and did a good job, while Scorpio was free to hit a lot of his aerial stuff, including a pescado onto both Nasties on the floor. The Nasty Boys did a good job getting heat on Bagwell, and also damn-near killed him when it looked like Sags was supposed to help Knobs hot shot Marcus, only he completely missed the top rope and tumbled to the floor. A big pier-six erupted, including Teddy Long and Missy on the apron. Scorpio hit the 450 on Knobs, but Sags blasted him with a boot. *** 

Sting def. Sid Vicious in 10:41. This wasn’t technically crisp or anything like that, but it was a fun match that the crowd stayed into. It was defintely a step above their Halloween Havoc 1990 match, and they even did some brawling in the crowd. It had its rough Sid moments, like when he put a bearhug on Sting and had enough space in his arms and Sting’s body to drive a car through. But there were fun Sid moments like hitting a chokeslam on Sting (rare in 1993) and playing to the crowd. It sounded like the crowd cheered for both men at different points. The finish brought this down, as both men stood by Col. Parker while he was on the floor. Both men had black boots, so Parker, for convenience, grabbed Sid’s leg instead of Sting’s. Never mind that Sting had long neon green tights going all the way to his boots, but Sid got rightfully pissed at Parker. Sting took advantage and got a roll-up win. Good may be a stretch, but this was better than I remembered. **

WCW International World Heavyweight Championship: Rick Rude (C) def. Ric Flair via DQ in 19:22. This was better than Fall Brawl, but still not good. The main reason it was better was that it was much shorter. Rude sold his leg a lot and was liberal with the chinlocks. Flair hitting his own Rude Awakening got a big pop. Terry Taylor was a special outside enforcer for the match for reasons I don’t remember, and I suspect they weren’t important. There was a ref bump, and Rude brought an object into the ring that Flair ended up using. Taylor was counting three, but Randy Anderson (the original ref) claimed to have seen the object used on the floor and called for the DQ. What did it even accomplish to have Taylor be the enforcer? **

Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal/Texas Death Match: Vader (C) def. Cactus Jack in 15:59. This Texas Death match stip had the thirty-second rest period between the pinfall and ten-count. It seemed like all that time would have hurt the match, but it didn’t in the slightest. They worked this so much better than WWE LMS matches because they weren’t constantly trying to milk every count into a flat finish. Instead, they opted to beat the shit out of each other and work stiffly, which is fine by me. Both men bled, and Cactus right under the eye from a stiff Vader blow. They brawled in the crowd; on the floor, on the ramp, and into the set of fog and headstones to give it the creepy monster effect. Vader hit Jack with a chair and DDT’d him on top for a cover. Cactus recovered before the rest period expired and suplexed Vader so that both had to beat the ten-count. As both men were getting up, Harley Race used a stun gun he had previously disclosed to the cameras far earlier in the match, on Cactus, so that he stayed down. There was blood, stiff blows, and a lot of crazy moves. I hated the finish and am wholly unclear on why this couldn’t be a title match if the champ were going to win anyway. ****1/4

The Recommendation

This was a very thumbs in the middle show. The main is worth seeing, and the tag title match was good, but there was too much that felt like filler here to call it a strong show.