Fall Brawl '94

Legacy Review

Fall Brawl '94

September 18, 1994 from the Roanoke Civic Center in Roanoke, VA

Commentary: Tony Schaivone and Bobby Heenan

WCW gave Hulk Hogan millions in guaranteed money, put the world title on him in his very first match with the company, were almost literally rebuilding the company around him.....and he's already taking PPVs off. Welcome to the new WCW.

 

During commentary's stand up open, which Mean Gene has been sitting, er, standing in on the last few shows, Okerlund says that he'll be talking to Hogan later in the show.....via satellite from Venice Beach. The crowd boos that.

WCW World Television Championship: Johnny B Badd def Lord Steven Regal (c) (w/Sir William) in 11:08- Regal first won the TV title at last year's Fall Brawl and, other than a one month blip where Larry Zbyszko took it, has held it since. Meanwhile, Badd has slowly and clearly been improving in the ring but had been unsuccessful in multiple opportunities at both the TV and US titles and was still titleless in his 3 year WCW career. Regal's got the rare alternate powdered wig look back tonight. Someone got the preorder exclusive code. Usual Regal stalling at the start before the lockup. Regal works out of an arm wringer and switches to a headlock. Leverage fight and Badd puts the arm wringer on again. Regal's had enough of that, casually wrapping up in the ropes. They go speed, do a series of counters, Badd hits a dropkick and drop toe hold. Regal monkey flips out of the corner. Badd hangs on to the knucklelock and works it into a hip toss. Regal sunset flip. Badd rolls through into a jackknife cover. Regal counters that and Badd does another drop toe hold into the ARMBAR. Badd with an airplane spin! Regal rolls out. Badd tope suicida! He tries another dive in the ring but Regal dodges and Badd crashes into the ropes. William chokes him with his cane. Regal starts laying in the European uppercuts and turns the aggression up to 10. He hooks on an arm scissors and gives Badd a lot of ground and pound. Oh, there's the Blacktop Bully again. Yay [/sarcasm]. He's still just "that crazy fan" to commentary. More European uppercuts and a cover for 2. Badd starts a comeback and hits a kneelift for 2. Huge European uppercut response from Regal. Badd tries punching back, so Regal ducks into a drop toe hold and locks on a mat full neslon. Badd powers out but runs into a back elbow. Slugfest with Badd coming out on top and he gives Regal an atomic drop. Backdrop and the momentum has fully shifted. Flying headscissors. Regal begs off and uses Badd's tights to pull him to the floor. Badd sunset flip back in. Regal tries to use William's cane, a finish they've done before, but the ref kicks him off. Badd gets a 2 count. William holds Badd and gets taken out. Badd roll up for 2. Armdrag from Badd but Regal dodges the follow up elbow. More uppercuts. After a few Badd ducks, grabs a backslide, and gets a 3 count to finally win his first title! Hell of a fun match. Regal would switch to the tag division after this. The original plan was to pair him with up and comer Jean-Paul Levesque (a guy you might know now by the name The Man with Three H's that's doing a bit of high level work in WWE), but after WCW let Levesque go he was teamed with veteran Bobby Eaton as the Blue Bloods. ***1/2

Commentary cues up a full recap of the last edition of The Hulk Hogan Show, also known as the last Clash, with the masked man attack and injury angle. In the aftermath of that Flair had started showing up with his own belt claiming to be the real world champion (an echo of his awesome WWF entrance in 1991), and for that he was suspended, a convenient excuse for him to not be here tonight when Hogan wasn't either. During all this there's multiple chants of "We want Flair" from the crowd. So to recap, the crowd has booed Hogan and chanted for Flair.

Loser Leaves WCW Match: Kevin Sullivan (w/Dave Sullivan) def Cactus Jack in 6:08- The former tag champs have suddenly had a disagreement so all encompassing that one of them has to leave the promotion. Or to put it another way, the firings have begun as WCW reshapes their roster for this new era. Nice pop for Jack. Evad has the full Hulkamaniac gear on again. Sullivan throws his robe off, Jack meets him on the floor, and we're on. Jack's run into the barricade and flips back into the first row. Sullivan joins him and the fight continues on the crowd side of the barricade for a bit. Jack takes over in the ring but they struggle to get on the same page in what they're doing. They go back out and Sullivan gets posted. Jack pulls the ring mat up and hops up to the second rope to deliver the full size Cactus Elbow. Evad stops him. Sullivan gets up and slams Jack off the second rope all the way down to the bare concrete floor! Foley bump. Then Sullivan slams him again on the concrete for good measure. In the ring Sullivan attacks Jack's famous half ear, an injury he'd only had about a year at this point. Jack gets a back elbow and elbow drop for 2. Back out again. Jack sets up a piledriver but Sullivan backdrops him, again onto the exposed concrete. Foley's giving full value on his way out. Running clothesline from Sullivan and Jack takes one more bump on the concrete. Jack tosses a chair in the ring Terry Funk style. On the floor he goes for a chairshot but Evad stops him. Sullivan gives him a stair shot. Back in now it's Sullivan with the chair, but Evad also stops him from using it. Jack charges, Sullivan dodges and Jack hits heads with Evad, and Sullivan rolls him up for 3. Cactus Jack's WCW career is over. He was already doing some work for ECW and would continue to as well as some other US indys over the next couple of years. He'd also work some of the most famous hardcore matches ever with Terry Funk in Japan before moving over to WWF in '96 as Mankind. Also somewhere around this time, I can't remember exactly when, Sullivan would take over as WCW's head booker and a dramatic drop in quality would follow. The match was decentish purely through Foley's crazed bumping. **

Mean Gene is with the Stud Stable backstage. Col. Parker says something but honestly I can't understand a word of it. And I'm from the south. Well, Texas. We're independent from the rest of the south. Commentary has been mentioning all night something was up with the US title, now we're going to find out what. Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel is in the ring as Steve Austin is announced. After that Ricky Steamboat comes out carrying the US belt, but in street clothes. Bockwinkel announces, with Austin in his face the whole time, that due to injury that no one is sure of the severity of yet Steamboat can't wrestle tonight, and he's giving the title back to Austin. Austin is thrilled. Steamboat cuts a promo saying he hopes to be back sometime and Austin's facial expressions during it are priceless. As I mentioned in the Clash review, this was the end of Steamboat's full time career. He wouldn't wrestle again until his 2009 short WWE comeback. Austin says Steamboat saved himself from an ass kicking, and tops it off by saying "Hell of a match!". Hah! Austin says that's it, he's the champ and he's done for tonight. Bockwinkel says wait just a gosh durned minute, you're scheduled to wrestle and we've got an opponent for you. He tells Gary Michael Capetta to introduce him over Austin's objections, and it's.....the WCW debuting Hacksaw Jim Duggan! Austin is not happy.

 

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan def "Stunning" Steve Austin (c) in :35- Austin keeps protesting but Bockwinkel says to ring the bell and it does. Three different times. Austin tries to leave. Bockwinkel drags him back in. Duggan hits the 3 point stance tackle, covers Austin, and pins him for the title. And I just about flip my table over. I get Duggan being popular still, I get it, but how in the holy hell do you put him over the clearly rocketing to stardom Austin IN BARELY 30 SECONDS? You have to be completely clueless to look at Austin at this point and not realize what that man is doing, and what he was capable of. And here's one of Hogan's buddies coming in, cutting his legs straight off. Might as well have him come in with a chainsaw and cut his legs off for real. It's insane, ludicrous, ass backward, moronic booking that I still can't believe it happened. NR match, MINUS FIVE STARS booking

...SERIOUSLY, DECREPIT COULD BARELY STILL WORK JIM DUGGAN BEAT RAPIDLY HITTING PEAK STEVE AUSTIN FOR THE #2 TITLE IN 30 SECONDS WHAT THE HELL OK OK OK, I'm OK. My calm was damaged but I'm good. Shiny. Let's move on.

 

WCW World Tag Team Championship: Pretty Wonderful (c) def Stars & Stripes in 12:54- Stars & Stripes are Marcus Alexander Bagwell and former GWF top star the Patriot, who had just signed with WCW after working in All Japan since GWF folded. The Bully gets in S&S's faces on their entrance and finally gets ejected. The heels make a huge show of taking each other's clothes off. Interpret that how you will. And then the "Paula" chants let Orndorff stall some more. Eventually we get going with Roma and Bagwell, meaning the combined IQ in the ring is about the same number as your average baseball score. Roma gets the quick edge. Bagwell ducks clotheslines and hits a crossbody for 2. The faces work Roma's arm for a bit. Patriot catches Orndorff coming off the top and the faces work his arm for a bit. Speed run and another Bagwell crossbody, followed by a Patriot crossbody. S&S double hiptoss on Roma for 2. Orndorff grabs Bagwell from the apron while he's running the ropes and drops him. Chinlock slam from Roma. Orndorff gives Bagwell the dreaded boogie woogie elbow. It looked like Orndorff had a spasm in the ring. Seriously, you think the People's Elbow, the worm elbow or the ballin' elbow are over the top? The boogie woogie elbow is like all three of those combined, AND it predates all of them. Bagwell gets a sunset flip and reversal tradeoff for 2. Roma dropkick for 2. He hits the elbow off the top and takes a ton of time celebrating before covering. Well, it is Roma. The Patriot breaks the pin up, allowing Orndorff to dump Bagwell over the top rope behind the ref's back. Orndorff rams Bagwell's face into a cooler at ringside, supposedly Heenan's drink cooler. Then Orndorff picks the cooler up and dumps the contents on Bagwell! It's mostly ice, but judging by what was in there Heenan is drinking water and.....Hi-C? What, is he 7? Back in Bagwell fights out of an Orndorff piledriver. Roma cuts the tag off. Bagwell slowly pushes forward and they do the ref didn't see the tag spot. Patriot doesn't care and cleans house anyway. Orndorff piledrives Bagwell on the floor. The Patriot hits the full nelson slam on Roma, but the ref doesn't count and Patriot finally figures out what's going on. Maybe he couldn't hear the ref because of the mask? Orndorff rolls Bagwell in, Roma drapes an arm over, and the ref apparently counts 3 even though Patriot dives over the top rope to break the pin up and it looked like the ref only counted 2. Yet another messy finish in a WCW tag match. *1/2

 

Triangle Elimination Match to be #1 Contender for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Vader (w/Harley Race) def The Guardian Angel and Sting in 30:22- Triple threat matches weren't a thing yet, so this match has some really strange and unique rules. Commissioner Bockwinkel is in the ring and he hands all three guys a coin. They all flip at the same time and the "odd man out" gets a bye while the other two have the first "round" of this match. In this case Sting wins the toss and gets to sit out while Vader and Angel wrestle, then he gets the winner. There's even more complicated stuff involving the time limit but I'll explain all that when we get there.

FIRST FALL (Vader vs Angel)- Lockup and shoulderblock stalemates to start. Angel yells....something at Vader. That sounded like Sting's "I'm a great white shark" promo. Vader wants a test of strength. Angel goes for it. Vader gives him a knee maybe to the gut or maybe a bit south of that. He tries an avalanche but Angel pops out with a clothesline. Angel goes for a slam but can't lift Vader. Now Vader hits the avalanche. Angel ducks a clothesline and hits a side slam. Elbow drop to Vader's gut. He still can't slam Vader. Angel comes off the top but Vader moves and Angel clotheslines himself over the top rope. Angel dodges another avalanche and rolls Vader up for 2. Angel crossbody for 2. VADER CACTUS CLOTHESLINE! Awesome. The mask is off. The heels try a double team but Race gets hit. Vader is posted. Back in Angel hits an enzuguri and finally slams Vader. Cover for 2. Ref Nick Patrick manages to get himself knocked down. I mean, he was practically trying to be a third wrestler there. Boss Man Slam but no ref. Race comes in and headbutts Angel. Vader bomb! That gets the pin.

SECOND FALL (Vader vs Sting)- Another round of this feud? Yes please. Lots of jawing before the lockup. Sting gets pushed out and pops right back up trash talking. Vader lays in shots in the corner with Sting no selling and hulking up. Vader hits him harder. Sting shoves and hits a dropkick. A little miscommunication ends with a Sting clothesline. Sting ducks Vader clotheslines but runs into a Vader tackle and drops down hard. Vader bomb! He goes up for another one. Sting gets up, kicks his leg and makes him drop back down. Vader potato shots and clothesline. He drags Sting to the corner again. Sting dodges another Vader bomb. He clotheslines Vader 360 to the floor. Vader lands on his feet! Nice. Race tries to suplex Sting right onto the announce team but Sting reverses and suplexes Race on the floor. Tony says he saw his life flash before his eyes. Back in Sting suplexes Vader and hits a splash off the top. He goes for it again but Vader gets his knees up. Corner slam and Vader goes all the way up top. Sting dodges the VADERSAULT. He sets Vader up in the opposite corner. Superplex! Elbow drops and a cover for 2. Samoan drop! Another Vader kickout. The Stinger Splash hits! Clothesline and another 2 count. Sting German suplexes Vader. Another 2. Vader is up with more potato shots. He tosses Sting out (with some difficulty) and Race gives Sting an apron shot. Vader short clotheslines. Sting hulks up in the corner. Clothesline. Vader rolls out, confers with Race, and gets back in the other ring. Sting goes up top and hits a diving clothesline across rings! Everything moves to ring 2. Another Sting clothesline off the top. Splash off the top! Vader kicks out again! Vader hits a back suplex for 2. Straight right hand. Vader comes off the second rope but Sting powerslams him. Scorpion Death Lock! Vader fights out before it's fully on. The 15 minute time limit elapses. The rules of this match are there will now be a 5 minute overtime period because there must be a winner. So what's the point of having a time limit in the first place? OT starts with more Vader potatoes and a suplex. Sting fights off a superplex. He bites Vader! Vader with a headbutt. He goes up top but Sting joins him and backdrops him off. Vader tackle and clothesline. Powerslam for 2. Splash for 2. After an obvious stall Vader hits a powerbomb as the OT time limit expires. Now they're going to sudden death OT, which means the first guy to get knocked off his feet loses the match. Vader's straps are down! Super cereal time. Vader pummels Sting, who uses the ropes to stay up. Sting punches back and Vader collapses into the ropes, which hold him up. The Guardian Angel decides now is a great time to run back out and grab Harley Race. They fight up the aisle with Patrick trying to stop them so he doesn't see Vader go down in the ring. The masked man from the Clash is back! He hits Sting in the leg! Patrick gets back, sees Sting is down, and calls for the bell. I have to say, all that was way too overbooked and convoluted for my liking. That was a long way to go to get a finish like that. I also thought that as great as Vader and Sting are, individually and together, they didn't really use the extended time they got well and the match started to feel like, as Bilbo Baggins might say, butter scraped over too much bread. What could have been an epic felt more like marking time until the screwy finish kicked in. Still, it's Vader and Sting so it's going to be good no matter what, and the first segment with Vader and Angel wasn't bad either. Give the whole package ***1/4

Mean Gene cues a up a "live" (clearly pretaped) interview with Hogan. Hogan's "hanging and banging" in the gym with his knee still taped up. Lots of boos from the crowd when he comes up on the screen. After a minute Jimmy Hart runs in with a phone and we go split screen with Flair on the other end, in Vegas with some adoring fans. One of the women is answering the phone for Flair. Hogan tells her to put Flair on, asks if she's Flair's training partner and says "I bet you give Flair a real good workout". Hey hey, let's keep it PG here. Flair takes the phone and claims that he's retired and couldn't be bothered with wrestling Hogan again. His "real world title" belt looks like a cheap Big Gold knockoff you'd get fleeced for $1000 buying on Ebay and realizing after you get it that it doesn't look anything like the real one. After some really bad back and forth arguing Hogan offers a deal- if Flair will agree to one more match Hogan will put his career on the line. Flair says that's good enough for him. It takes them 5 more minutes to really say it but that's the gist of it. After Flair gets off the phone Hogan starts taking his knee tape off and makes like it should be a secret between him and Okerlund that the knee isn't as bad as Flair thinks. Um, we're all watching you know! After some more commentary vamping Bockwinkel joins Okerlund and reads a statement from *looks up* board room level. The match having been agreed to with Hogan's career on the line, it will take place at Halloween Havoc with one additional stipulation- it'll be inside a steel cage! Okerlund: "WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING, MAN?".

 

War Games Match: "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes and The Nasty Boys def The Stud Stable (Bunkhouse Buck, Terry Funk, Arn Anderson and Col. Robert Parker, w/Meng) in 19:05- What started off as a little dust up between Dustin and Buck in the spring has turned into the Feud that Wouldn't Die. Not that it's been terrible, but it hasn't set the world on fire either. Meng was originally going to be in the match before the Rhodes' boys got a really good lawyer and made Parker contractually obligated to wrestle in the match. Dusty recruiting the Nasty Boys is another one of those gloriously bad Rifftrax level WCW mini-movies. Dusty's got matching gear with the Nastys tonight.

P1. Dustin and Arn- Funk hinted in the prematch promo that he wanted to be first in but Arn gets the final call. The brawl is on. Arn tries to switch rings. Dustin climbs to the top rope and dives down onto him. Arn blocks a cage shot. He switches rings again and Dustin runs him backward into the cage. An inverted atomic drop and big boot puts Arn over the top rope into the middle section. Dustin holds him upside down with Arn's head stuck between the rings! Eye rake from Arn for some breathing space. Dustin ducks a punch and backdrops Arn. Head of steam and Dustin dives across rings over both top ropes with a lariat! Bionic elbow. Arn covers his junk but Dustin still gives him a nut stomp. Another lariat. Arn counters a backdrop into a DDT. He chokes Dustin with his wrist tape. Dustin 360 sells a clothesline. He ducks an Arn enzuguri and puts on a half crab.

P2. Buck- After ref Randy Anderson fumbles the coin toss like a Broncos RB at the goal line in last night's game (Broncos vs Seahawks week 1 Monday night 2022 season if you're reading this in the distant future) the heels win advantage. I'm SHOCKED. That never happens! Buck takes it to Dustin, who were the original two that this whole epic feud started with. Double back elbow from the heels. Dustin gets run into the cage. The heels work Dustin's arm a bit then switch to a double crab.

P3. Sags- He charges in with a double clothesline...ish. A clothesline that hit the top of their heads. Powerslam on Arn. Sags backs Buck into the cage and throws Arn into it face first. Piledriver on Buck. Dustin hits mounted punches on Arn. Arn flop! Dustin hooks on a sleeper.

P4. Funk- Talk about a man that was made for War Games. During the countdown Funk throws a chair up in the air. Um, there's a ceiling on the cage you know, this isn't NXT War Games. Funk is nuts. Before he gets in Funk takes one of his boots off and as soon as he gets in starts hitting everything that moves with it. The faces take more cage shots. Funk puts Dustin's face right in front of his dad outside. He stomps but Dustin moves and Funk gets crotched on the top rope. Sags piledrives Funk between the rings and he falls all the way down the gap! 

P5. Knobbs- The heels meet him as he gets in and they get run into the cage all over the place. Arn gets cheese grated. That would look a lot better if anyone was actually bleeding. Knobbs gets a hold of Funk's boot and goes to town with it. So does Sags. Funk, as usual, is selling like crazy.

P6. Parker- He's understandably reluctant to get in. Buck holds Knobbs down for him and Parker comes in to take some shots. Arn hits the World's Greatest Spinebuster on Knobbs. There's two belts that have been taken off and turned into weapons, being swung like whips all over the place by both sides. Meng sees Parker taking punishment and wants in badly, trying to tear off a side of the cage.

P7. Dusty- The Match Beyond begins. Dusty's immediately attacked but he's got bionic elbows for everyone. Parker tries to bail but the Nastys grab him. Meng climbs the cage trying to get in. Dusty hooks Parker in the figure four while the rest of the team holds the other heels off, and after a minute Parker submits! Meng is furious and cradles Parker like a hurt brother after the match is over. Underwhelming for War Games but it was still fairly good. The psychology with the faces getting to Parker after forcing him in the match was solid, and it was definitely better than the previous years'. Gotta knock it down for a lack of blood though. That's a War Games staple. You've got two Rhodes, a Funk and an Anderson in a cage and *none* of them bleed? **3/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Outside the Austin US title debacle everything else is at least watchable, with a few good or near good matches in there. The crowd reactions to Hogan and Flair whenever they're mentioned or pop up are hilarious, the complete opposite of what WCW wanted. Like other recent WCW shows the flow is also very disjointed with a lot of long talking segments.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C