WCW Halloween Havoc 1990

"Halloween Havoc" 1990, back when WCW was alive and well, Sting was WCW's
equivalent to Hulk Hogan but unlike
Hogan, the Stinger could match hold for hold and move for move with the
best of them and in 1990 they didn't get any better than Ric Flair who
Sting had just beaten for the World title at "The Great American Bash" 1990.
Flair was understandably irate at his loss but rather than face Sting in a
rematch Flair decided to let one of his allies take care of him, but this
ally of Flair just happened to be a near 7 foot 330
pound monster by the name of Sid Vicious! Sting had never faced anyone like
Sid before and with this being his first title defense on PPV, many thought
he had no chance of surviving Sid. Meanwhile Ric Flair may have been booked
to team with another Horseman, Arn Anderson to battle the current tag team
champions Doom(Butch Reed and Ron Simmons) for the gold but The Nature Boy
was secretly playing psychological mind games with The Stinger under the
disguise of The Black Scorpion who would show up often during Sting's
matches and interviews taunting the newly crowned champion, claiming to be
from Sting's past and often demonstrating his black magic to intimidate
Sting and his army of little stingers. Elsewhere in WCW, Lex Luger was the
reigning U.S champion and was
booked to face Stan "The Lariet" Hansen-a sort of precursor to Bradshaw(The
Acolyte version not the Ted Dibiase rip off JBL!). Hansen was a legitamatly
rough worker and
had a vicious clothesline which he dubbed "The Lariet"-today this is known
as "The Clothesline From Hell". Would Luger fall victim to "The Lariet" or
would Hansen end up like "Mean" Mark Callous(A young Undertaker wrestling
as an evil texan giant) did at the previous PPV "The Great American Bash"
1990.
The U.S tag team titles were up for grabs also as The Nasty Boys(pre
cursors to The Dudleyz) challenged The Steiner Brothers(in their heyday, i:e
before Scott discovered steroids and when he was actually a technical god
not the lethargic wreck that stank up the ring in the WWE during 2003).
Also on the card was The Fabulous Freebirds taking on Mark and Chris
Youngblood who called themselves The Renagade Warriors and finally
the greatest tag team in history in my opinion The Midnight Express would
compete in what
would be their final PPV appearence together against Ricky Morton(one half
of the Midnights greatest rivals the Rock N Role Express) and former NWA
Champion Tommy Rich. There were other matches but i'm going by the VHS
released in the UK
which only featured the six matches mentioned above.

The PPV begins with a decent enough Halloween themed opening video. A
younger, slimmer Jim Ross and a younger, slimmer and less bald Paul E
Dangerously(dressed as a vampire) are on commentary and these two had such
a great chemistry, second only to the WWF's Bobby Heenan and Gorilla
Monsoon. Tony
Schiavone(dressed in full Halloween attire) interviews Tommy Rich and Ricky
Morton before their match with
The Midnight Express.

Tommy Rich and Ricky Morton defeated The Midnight Express in a good but not
great opener. The Midnights work together as brilliantly as ever and even
as heels they were way over with the crowd drawring monster pops but Ricky
Morton really should be teaming with Robert Gibson and then we'd have
proberbly had another Rock N Roll Express vs Midnight Express classic.
Unfortunatly Gibson is injured thanks to The Freebirds, hence Tommy Rich as
Mortons partner. Rich pins Lane when The Southern Boys(Tracey Smothers and
Brad Armstrong)come to ringside
dressed as tennis clowns to distract James E while Tommy Rich hits Stan
Lane with Cornettes rackett. This was the end of The
Midnight Express but Bobby Eaton went on to become a moderately successful
singles
wrestler and World TV Champion the following year before returning to his
tag team roots in 1992 teaming with Arn Anderson in The Dangerous Alliance
led by Paul E Dangerously-a group that introduced the world of wrestling to
a certain
Stunning Steve Austin. This was a good opening contest but not a fitting
end to one of the greatest tag teams in wrestling history 7/10

Tony Schiavone interviews Sting but The Black Scorpion strikes again and
displays some his black magic to scare the kiddies and ringside. This was a
really awful storyline but the worst was yet to come when at the following
PPV Starrcade 1990 Sting battled The Black Scorpion who had one of the
silliest ring entrances of alltime featuring a dozen men dressed as The
Black Scorpion and a space ship coming down to reveal "The One True Black
Scorpion". Anyone who followed WCW at the time knew that the Scorpion was
Ric Flair because the match at Starrcade with Sting was just like any other
Sting/Flair match except Flair wasn't strutting in the ring during that one.

The Fabulous Freebirds(Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin) defeated The
Renagade Warriors(The Youngblood brothers) in a dull match. The Renagade
Warriors look like Tatanka's long lost ancestors and The Freebirds win with
their trademark DDT-The lame "Rolling" version! You know the one that looks
more like
a suplex rather than the implant of pain Jake Roberts used to utilise.
Boring match 3/10.

Tony Schiavone interviews The Horsemen and although we al know Sid sucked
in the ring, noone can deny he looked the business!

The Steiner Brothers defeated The Nasty Boys in a great match that was a
mix of wild brawling and the trademark Steiner power moves. Rick Steiner
busted Jerry Saggs open with a steel chair during the match and he bled
hardway! The finish came when Scott caught future "Hogan Knows Best" star
Brian Knobbs(looking like wrestlings equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne nowerdays)
in his Frankensteiner-today known simply as a hurricanrana. A great,
underrated match that is worth tracking the video down for 8/10. After the
match The Nasty Boys ram Rick Steiner's shoulder into the post before
attacking Scott during an interview with a plastic tray and a bunch of
food!!!
This should have led to a great feud but The Nasty's left WCW for the WWF
soon after to
become the WWF tag team champions and open the door for Bret Hart to become
a singles sensation.


The Horsemen(Ric Flair and Arn Anderson) wrestled Doom(Ron Simmons and
Butch Reed) to a double countout in an average encounter which has more
boring moments than anything. This match would lead to a much better
rematch which was a bloody street fight at the following PPV
"Starrcade"(WCW's Wrestlemania) in which Barry Windham would replace Ric
Flair and team with Arn to have one of the most underrated brawls in
wrestling history with Doom. A mostly boring match that only really picked
up at the end only to be letdown by the double countout ending but it was
worth it considering the classic match this feud would produce at
"Starrcade" 1990 6/10.

Stan Hansen cuts an awful promo in which he tries to scare the kiddies by
spitting tabacco on a pumpkin and showing his tabacco stained teeth as
close to the camera as he could.

Stan Hansen defeated Lex Luger to become the new U.S champion in another
average
match. Luger actually looked quite decent here which is suprising to say
the least! Luger displayed some great athleticism for a 6.5 275 pounder and
even unleashed an awesome dropkick during the match. Hansen won when Dan
Spivey(future WWF hall of shamer Waylon Mercy) tried to interfere while the
ref was down but failed however Hansen hit Luger with his trademark Lariet
and got the three count 5/10.

Tony Schiavone interviews Doom's manager Teddy Long who looked and talked
exactly the same 15 years ago as he does now! Jim Ross and Paul E are with
Missy Hyatt who predicts Sid will win the title tonight. Hyatt was WCW's
"Diva" at the time and i strongly reccommend the WCW event "Beach Blast"
1992 for Missy's greatest moment!

Sting defeated Sid Vicious in a dull main event that mainly consisted
of Sid throwing Sting around the ring and applying rest holds. The ending
of the match was totally ludirous too with Sting and Sid brawling backstage
until the camera lost
track of them. Sting and Sid soon emerged back down the rampway but
something was wrong! Sting had miraclulously gained a few pounds and grown
a good five inches taller plus his face paint which had been almost lost in
the battle with Sid had somehow reappeared untouched. Sid pinned "Sting"
but then another Sting appeared however this one was the 6.2 250 pounder
with the partialy removed face paint the fans had been watching for the
entire match! It turned out the Sting that Sid pinned was Horseman member
Barry Windham imposting as The Stinger and the real Sting had been tied up
backstage by The Horsemen in about 3 seconds so Sid could pin the fake. The
real Sting splashed Sid in the corner and rolled him up for the pin to end
a dull match 4/10.

"Halloween Havoc" 1990 was a pretty average show with only one must see
match(Steiners/Nasty Boys) and the opening contest(Rich/Morton/Midnight
Express) was the only other match that wouldn't have you looking at your
watch or pressing the fast forward button. The interviews/skits are good
for a laugh though especially the abysmal Black Scorpion stuff. On the
whole i give this PPV
5/10-A pretty poor score but if you see it selling cheap dont pass up the
chance to see the great Steiners/Nasty Boys match.