World War 3 '95

Legacy Review

World War 3 '95

November 26, 1995 from the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, VA

Commentary: Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

This is the last of the three new or returning PPVs on the WCW calendar this year, the first November PPV in two years (the stand alone Battlebowl in '93 being the last). The main thing going tonight is due to the controversy surrounding the Hogan/Giant world title match at Halloween Havoc, the belt has been held up and a new champion will be crowned in the first ever THREE RING SIXTY MAN World War 3 battle royale. Because why have two rings when you can have THREE. WCW is also re-strengthening their partnership with New Japan ahead of what's planned for this year's Starrcade. I'll get into that more as the show goes on.

After the usual opening stand up from Tony and Heenan (where Heenan classically changes his pick to win the title three or four times in a couple of minuets) we go to Mean Gene with the still mustacheless and black clad Hulk Hogan along with Sting and Randy Savage. Thanks to the betrayals of Lex Luger and Ric Flair, in completely separate incidents, these three guys are all back on the same page and better friends than ever. Hogan takes the black off and the red and yellow is back brother. He tosses the black gear in a bucket and it lights on fire! Is Papa Shango in the house tonight or something? Sting and Savage get their quick bits in, then Hogan continues to promo as the fire keeps going and the smoke starts becoming a problem. Sting tries to fan it away and gets a bottle of water to pour on it. Hogan says reports of Savage's hurt arm are greatly exaggerated and he's 100%. We'll see. Then, Hogan pulls out what he calls a "rag sheet", which is a copy of Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer. See kids, back in the days before the internet things were printed on paper instead and you had to wait for it to be mailed to your house. I know, it's amazing we survived. Hogan runs down the "rag sheet" for getting everything wrong (well.....), says the internet is where all the real and correct news is now (well....), and tosses it into what's left of the fire. 95% of the audience has no idea what he just did or what he's talking about. The other 5% always believe Uncle Dave when he says "plans changed".

WCW World Television Championship: Johnny B Badd (c) def Diamond Dallas Page (w/The Diamond Doll) in 12:34- This is a rematch from Halloween Havoc where Badd took the title from DDP. To add some zest to the rematch, the Doll (Kimberly Page) has finally asserted herself against DDP and put her services on the line as well. Missed opportunity for a Kimberly on a Pole match. Lockup break shenanigans at the start set Badd off and they brawl on the floor. DDP gets posted. Badd crossbody back in, DDP reverses it for 2. Samoan drop from Badd and he works a headlock for a bit. DDP goes to the hair pulls. Badd flips out of an arm wringer and does his own tit for tat hair pulling, then dodges a charge and DDP goes over the top to the floor. Badd plancha! DDP hides behind Doll, pushes her into Badd and punches him. Back in Badd does a Bret bump and DDP hits a back suplex. Badd tries a flying headscissors but DDP turns it into a pancake slam. DDP wants a 10 but the Doll refuses to hold up the card. Badd grabs a kick, spins DDP, but DDP gives him a clothesline for 2. Badd dodges and DDP posts his shoulder, then DDP misses a kick and falls on his head. Badd goes into comeback mode with DDP selling like a wild man. He catches another DDP kick, spins him again, ducks the clothesline and hits his own. Badd wants a 10, and he gets it from the Doll! A 10+! Guess it was in the Tokyo Dome. Badd sit out powerbomb for 2. DDP back elbow and he tries a leverage pin for 2. Tiltawhirl slam. Badd flying headscissors. DDP gets his knees up on a slingshot splash. Gutwrench gutbuster for 2. He goes for another one but Badd flips out and tries to hook up a German suplex. DDP back elbows out of it. DDP tries a tombstone. Badd reverses and hits it for 2. The Tutti Fruiti punch sends DDP to the floor. Somersault plancha! The slingshot legdrop hits, and that gets the pin! Doll is stunned and slowly gets in the ring. She gives Badd a hug, but also shoots DDP a worried look. Good match, much better than Halloween Havoc. Both these guys were on the upswing as far as consistently putting on good matches. ***

Back to Mean Gene for some hotline shilling. "You thought you heard the last of WWF's steroid scandal? You heard wrong! We have a bombshell report from this past Wednesday's New York Post!". Yes, he really did say WWF directly. And we can just look on the Post's website to see......oh. Badd and the Doll join Okerlund and Badd, the gentleman, says he'll give the Doll some time to decide what she wants to do in the future.

 

Taped Fist Match: Big Bubba Rogers def "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in 9:21- It's pin or KO rules for this one. I can't remember what the beef is here and commentary doesn't bother to give any kind of recap. Duggan attacks Rogers from behind out of the crowd during Rogers' entrance. He's got his 2x4 on a rope slung around his shoulders. He loads up for a 2x4 shot in the ring but the ref gets in the way and Rogers begs off. Clotheslines from Duggan and Rogers goes 360 and out again. They switch rings and Rogers' head gets jammed in between two rings' ring posts. Duggan jumps off the apron but Rogers dodges and Duggan crashes into the guardrail. Rogers beatdown in the ring. Rings. They swap again. Duggan tries to punch back but Rogers cuts him off with an enzuguri. Rogers gets a roll of tape out and puts even more on his fists than there already was. Toru Yano is throwing things at the TV shouting about the waste of tape. Heenan even says he should be using it to tie Duggan up. A Duggan shoulderblock puts both guys down. Now Rogers uses the tape to tie Duggan to the ropes. Yano is now yelling that he's doing it in the ring, not outside. I guess we can't have everything. Rogers pounds Duggan down until he literally runs into Duggan's held up fist. There's a scene in Blackadder that's just like that. Except that's an intentional comedy. Duggan backdrops Rogers to the floor and frees himself. He hits the 3 point stance clothesline. VK Wallstreet (Mike Rotunda in a legally acceptable variation of his old IRS WWF gimmick) comes out with a chain on his wrist. Duggan cuts him off with a 2x4 shot, but the chain gets in the ring. Rogers gets the chain, wallops Duggan with it, and gets a 10 count KO. Very not good. 3/4*

 

Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto (w/Sonny Oono) def Mayumi Ozaki and Cutie Suzuki in 9:15- Professor Mike Tenay joins the call for this joshi puroresu exhibition. He rightly points out this is a cross promotional battle. Ozaki and Suzuki wrestled for JWP while Nakano and Hokuto were with All Japan Women's. The heels do the Suzuki-Gun jump before the bell. On a wrestler named Suzuki. Nakano tosses Ozaki around by the hair. Akira hits an elbow off the top to Ozaki's back. Both heels let Ozaki get within a finger's reach of getting a tag to Suzuki to tease the faces. Nakano also bites Ozaki's hand, and does some more hair tossing that gets Suzuki in the ring to protest. Another heel double team for 2. Nakano no sells some Ozaki strikes and puts her down again with one shot. Ozaki gets a springboard forearm on Hokuto, then a DDT and gets the tag. Suzuki dropkick for 2. Single leg crab. Ozaki cuts off Nakano coming in and also puts her in a single leg crab! The crowd is really into it, thanks to a combination of great wrestling and superb heel work the first part of the match. After the hold breakups Suzuki works on Hokuto's knee and puts her in another half crab. Nakano breaks it up. The faces try a double team but Suzuki wipes out her partner. Nakano powerbomb. She goes up top for a moonsault but Suzuki dodges it. The faces hit a series of double stomps off the top rope and cover Nakano for 2. You can't take down a kaiju that easily. The faces hook up for a double suplex but Nakano suplexes them both instead. Hokotu misses a splash off the top. The faces set her up for a double suplerplex but Nakano pulls them both down. Hokuto crossbodys them both off the top. The faces hit stereo hurricanranas and both cover for 2! Clotheslines off the top. Ozaki half dragon suplex for 2. A Hokuto German suplex drops Ozaki right on her head. Nakano chops and covers. Suzuki makes the save. The faces duck a Nakano double clothesline but run into a Hokuto missile dropkick. Nakano holds both faces on the floor. Hokuto comes down on them with a somersault senton off the top! Heenan loses it seeing that. A doomsday device from the heels hits. Nakano hits the guillotine legdrop off the top and it's over. Damn good joshi stuff. ***3/4

 

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: Kensuke Sasaki (c) (w/Sonny Oono) def Chris Benoit in 10:01- I mentioned earlier WCW and New Japan starting to work together more often again. In fact, WCW had just done a two show joint tour with New Japan in Japan called WCW World in Japan, and in the main event of one of those shows Sasaki upset Sting to win the US title. Meanwhile, Benoit was coming back to WCW from New Japan, this time for good. In fact, he had just filled the final gap in the reformed Four Horsemen, who now consisted of Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Brian Pillman and Benoit. On a pure talent level that's easily the best Horsemen group outside the original '80s combinations (Flair/Arn/Ole Anderson/Tully Blanchard is the original, but Flair/Arn/Tully/Barry Windham is probably THE best and most remembered). Too bad it didn't last long. Interesting pairing here as Sasaki is the obvious foreigner heel, but Benoit and the whole Horsemen group were also heels so the crowd really doesn't have anyone to go for. Benoit comes out aggressive early. Sasaki hits chops in the corner. They fight for mat leverage. Benoit gets a drop toe hold and goes into some arm work. Susuki backdrops out. Test of strength. They fight for leverage in the knucklelock for quite a while. Benoit wraps Sasaki's arms into a straitjacket. Sasaki fights out with clubbing blows. Hard slams from Sasaki. Some woman in the crowd is shouting for, or at, Benoit at the top of her lungs and literally echoing around the whole arena. They go speed, Benoit slides under, Sasaki kicks and gets a press slam. He goes for a Boston crab but Benoit flips him over. Sasaki goes to the floor. Benoit TOPE SUICIDA! Back in Sasaki hits a suplex. Benoit works a headscissors. Sasaki powerslam for 2. Benoit grabs a waistlock and it's time for ROOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLING GERMANS....no, Sasaki cuts it off after two! Clothesline! Benoit reverses and hits a tombstone. The headbutt off the top hits! Benoit is staggered and can't cover right away, giving Sasaki time to kick out. Chops from Benoit. Hurricanrana off the top! Sasaki kicks out! Sasaki grabs a kick and plants Benoit. He puts on his dragon hold submission but Benoit quickly gets to the ropes. Benoit hits a clothesline, no effect. Sasaki hits a STIFF clothesline, much effect. He hits the northern lights buster and gets the pin. Slow start, good closing stretch and a pure New Japan style match, but other than shouty woman the crowd wasn't into it at all. **3/4

 

"The Total Package" Lex Luger (w/Jimmy Hart) def "Macho Man" Randy Savage in 5:29- This is Savage's revenge match for Luger's turn to the Dungeon of Doom. Remember, Hogan guaranteed Savage's arm is totally absolutely fine brother we made it all up brother. In his prematch promo Savage also says the arm is "one million percent". I guess that's a bit more than 100. But it's still all taped up when he takes his jacket off. Savage attacks Luger as he's getting in and is all over Luger to start. Pillar to post beating. Luger gets a boot up in the corner. Savage ducks a clothesline and hits his own. He puts on a half assed Boston crab and Luger easily gets to the ropes. That was almost as bad at Rock's Sharpshooter. Luger goes to the floor and into the guardrail. Setup slam back in. The top rope elbow hits! But Jimmy Hart is on the apron distracting the ref. Savage throws Luger at Hart. On the floor Luger reverses a whip and Savage goes into a ring apron. Tony mentions on commentary that despite Luger's turn, he's still going to team with Sting on Nitro tomorrow night because he and Sting are best friends forever no matter what. Luger puts on the Torture Rack on the floor! He lets go to beat the count, then rolls a dead Savage back in. Luger hooks on an ARMBAR on Savage's hurt arm. Savage isn't moving at all and the ref calls it. Bleh. After the bell Luger hooks the arm again until Sting comes in and asks him nicely to let go. Luger does and leaves. *

 

Sting def "Nature Boy" Ric Flair in 14:31- Flair and the Horsemen pulled the wool over Sting's eyes yet again at Halloween Havoc so naturally Sting wants payback. Like all the other matches tonight this is starting in "ring 1", which is the middle ring. That's going to be important. Flair's raring to go during Sting's entrance. Nose to nose. Flair has a laugh and points at Sting, who tries to bite his finger like a great white shark. One punch from Sting puts Flair down and he bails. All the way into ring 2. He hits the ropes, struts, and shouts "Come on!" to Sting. Sting joins him, goes on the attack again and hits a press slam. Flair begs off. Eye poke! Measured shots from Flair and the first chops. Flair struts around. We have a true 50/50 split crowd for this. Flair and the Horsemen have hit that point where they've been so great for so long a portion of the crowd, even in these more innocent times, is going to cheer for them no matter what. Sting pops out of the corner with a clothesline. Mounted punches. A hip toss and dropkick hit and Flair rolls out again. Into ring 3! Again he shouts at Sting to come join him and Sting does. Col. Robert Parker and Sherri come out for some reason. They kiss so I guess it's to remind people that's still going on. Sting absorbs chops and pounds Flair down. Flair gets 360 clotheslined and takes his time recovering on the floor. I just noticed that Flair's missing a knee pad. Guess he got dressed in a hurry for this match. Sting no sells more chops and hits another press slam. They go outside and Sting hits the brakes on a guardrail whip, turns and charges, but Flair dodges and Sting crashes into the rail on the other side! Flair gets a chair but ref Nick Patrick takes it away. Back in ring 1. Flair chop. Sting goozle! Flair low blows to get out! Parker and Sherri are sitting in chairs on the interview stage now. That's the last we see of them so thanks for coming I guess. Flair hits some kicks to Sting's gut and a kneedrop. He struts around some more and flashes the 4 to some pretty good cheers. While Sting's getting up in the corner Flair sneaks up and kicks his knee. Close up your Trapper Keepers kids, we're getting on the bus to school. Flair struts around some more in super cocky mode as he picks Sting's knee apart. He tosses Sting out and they move to ring 3. Another knee clip. Back suplex from Flair for variety. The figure four is on! Flair's still in cocky mode and slaps Sting. Big mistake! That wakes Sting up! He reverses the figure four and Flair has to let go. See, I love that little thing. Instead of Sting fighting a long time before reversing Flair made the mistake of slapping Sting and that got Sting going again. Sting blocks a hip toss and backslides Flair for 2. Flair shoves Patrick. Patrick shoves back and Flair sells it! Sting chops Flair to no effect! Flair turns around and poses. Flair chops Sting. Also no effect. Flair bails back to ring 1 and begs off. Another Sting press slam. Clotheslines. Flair gets an eye poke and goes up top. Sting slams him off. Flair Flip! Apron clothesline! Sting goes for mounted punches again. Flair tries an inverted atomic drop counter but Sting blocks it. Sting superplex! The Scorpion Death Lock is on! Flair submits! Hell of a match. You can never go wrong with Flair and Sting. ****

Recap of the Hogan/Giant/Jimmy Hart contract clause controversy that got us to the world title being held up.

 

World War 3 Battle Royale for the Vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship- So this is 60 men, 20 in each ring. There's also a "giant in each ring", with Hogan, the Giant, and the YETAY (who's now dressed up like a ninja for some reason) in separate rings. The rules are once a ring gets down to 10 men it will merge with the other rings until everyone left is in one ring. Now, we all know WCW has a sterling history of coming up with elaborate gimmick matches with crazy rules and then sticking by those rules to the letter and always executing these matches extremely well......no, couldn't even keep a straight face while typing it. They struggled to do two ring battle royales properly with Battlebowl, I can't see how three is going to be any better. Before the match there's a roll call of participating wrestlers as they come out. I'm not going to list them all here, suffice to say it's pretty much the whole roster, including a bunch of low level jobbers that I don't even remember. There's also a commentary team for each ring: Tony and Heenan for ring 1, Eric Bischoff and Dusty Rhodes for ring 2, and the hyperactive Chris Cruise and Larry Zbyszko for ring 3. I'll give it to them, the pomp and hype before the match starts is pretty good. But then the match starts and it's a sharp turn downhill. The entire thing during the 3 ring phase is shown in a 3 way split screen so it's almost impossible to see what's going on other than a bunch of guys flailing around. In theory the separate commentary teams are to let them focus more on what's going on in their ring, but in practice it makes it even messier because you desperately need commentary to figure out what the hell is going on and you're only hearing it for 1/3 of the action at a time. As big a mess as this thing is I'm not even trying to recap it all. It's a good 15 minutes before we start to get a good number of eliminations, which is way too long. Finally ring 2 gets down to about 6 guys, not 10, and they all go in ring 1. But TV keeps the THREE way split screen up for two rings, so now we're even more confused what's going on. A stretcher comes in at one point and wheels away Scott Armstrong of the Armstrong wrestling family in a neck brace. They're being real gentle with him so that could be a legit injury. When ring 3 gets down to, er, about 10 they slowly start to file over into ring 1. Good news, one ring means no more 3 way split screen on TV. Bad news, that ring is so full it's almost impossible for anyone to do anything. They've even got the referee inside the ring, which is a horrible decision in both real life practical and kayfabe terms. Lots of guys go out to fight on the floor too which doesn't help any. Luger and Savage even go over into ring 2 by themselves at one point. Slowly things get cleared out and I'll check back in with 10 men left in the match: Hogan, Flair, Savage, Luger (who's spent most of the match on the floor), Paul Orndorff, Arn Anderson, Eddie Guerrero, Sting, Giant, and the One Man Gang. Guerrero's sitting on the top rope holding a sleeper or something on Giant. Sting Stinger Splashes Giant and that almost sends Guerrero out but he saves himself. Hogan eliminates old rival Orndorff. Luger is still working Savage's hurt arm. Arn tries to dump Guerrero but he lands on the apron, pops up top, and hits Arn with a missile dropkick. Flair gets the figure four on Guerrero as the two Horsemen left work together on him. Arn hits Guerrero with the World's Greatest Spinebuster and dumps him out. Stinger Splash on Flair. Flair and Arn continue working together. Giant choke slams Savage. Flair goes up top. Sting slingshots Arn into that corner, knocking Flair off the top rope and down to the floor! Hogan clotheslines Arn out right after. Flair's pissed at being eliminated. But not at Arn. Luger and Sting double team Giant, pushing him to the ropes with double clotheslines. They get Giant partially over. Hogan comes over and dumps all three of them out! Giant pulls Hogan down under the bottom rope and they fight on the floor. Before that happened, Hogan and Savage had OMG dangling upside down and Savage gets him all the way over and out. Savage is the only one left and is declared the winner! Off camera because the focus is still on Hogan and Giant fighting. After he fends Giant off Hogan gets back in to argue, rightly, that he was never eliminated. But he, frankly, is such a Karen about it that the crowd turns on him much like his '92 Rumble hissy fit, though in that one he at least was eliminated. Okerlund tries to talk to Savage but Hogan makes sure everything is still about him as he argues his case over and over. Savage is awarded the belt and says he didn't see anything but he'll check out the video. Tomorrow night on Nitro, of course. Hogan finally relents some and he and Savage shake and hug. As expected, the match was a God awful mess in just about every way. Except the winner, Savage was a great choice. DUD

Thankfully there'd be no more title swerves and Savage kept the belt after this, and even better his feud with Flair was reignited for the next few months, this time for the world title. Hogan would continue his feud with the Giant and Dungeon of Doom in a non-title capacity until the big turn the following summer.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: Disastrous main event aside this is easily the best show WCW has put on this year. Almost every undercard match has something worth watching. The start of Nitro has really given them some focus that they had been sorely lacking most of the year, and would continue a general upswing in quality through a very interesting gimmick Starrcade and into the new year.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B-