Fall Brawl '93: War Games: WCW Finds One Great Match and Seven Ways to Lose the Crowd

Ricky Steamboat and Lord Steven Regal wrestle as if they know the rest of the card is going to need rescuing. Steamboat's taped ribs give Regal an obvious target, and the match never forgets that injury. Regal drives elbows and knees into the body, stretches the ribs from different angles, and forces Steamboat to modify his own offense whenever a move hurts him as much as it hurts the challenger.

The finish completes the story rather than interrupting it. Steamboat survives Regal's technical control and finally appears ready to escape, only for Sir William's umbrella to strike the same injured area that has shaped the entire match. Regal follows with the German suplex and wins the Television Championship. Cagematch still rates this far above everything else on the show, and multiple retrospectives treat it as the sole must-see match. They are right.

Charlie Norris and Big Sky are placed directly after the best match on the card, which makes the contrast especially harsh. Big Sky has size, Norris has a recognizable character, and neither man has enough experience or momentum to make the audience care. The opening arm work draws boredom instead of suspense, and the match never develops a reason for the crowd to change its mind.

Big Sky misses from the ropes, Norris makes the expected comeback, and a bicycle kick finishes the bout in a little over four minutes. Nothing is technically catastrophic, but nothing belongs on a major pay-per-view either. Several reviewers describe the crowd as almost completely silent, and that apathy is more damaging than a spectacular botch would have been. The segment feels like filler from Worldwide dropped into the middle of a purchased event.

This unadvertised tag works better than its status suggests because 2 Cold Scorpio and Paul Orndorff know how to create movement whenever the match begins to sag. Scorpio's springboard offense and rotating crossbody give the crowd something visually different, while Marcus Bagwell is athletic enough to survive the heel control segment without exposing the structure. Orndorff provides the veteran timing that keeps the match from wandering.

The Equalizer is the obvious weak link. His offense is limited, and his refusal to stay down after Scorpio's 450 splash makes the clean finish less satisfying than it should be. Orndorff accidentally knees his own partner, Scorpio capitalizes, and the babyfaces win at the exact moment the crowd is finally engaged. Then the heels immediately attack them afterward. It is decent midcard wrestling undermined by WCW's instinct to take the payoff back.

Ice Train and Shanghai Pierce are asked to fill a pay-per-view slot with a match that barely has enough substance for television. Pierce at least understands how to organize a simple heavyweight structure, and Tex Slazenger's presence gives the heel side a reason to attempt interference. Ice Train has size and raw strength, but his timing is visibly underdeveloped and the exchanges rarely look comfortable.

The finish arrives after an attempted double-team backfires and Train hits a powerslam that looks more dangerous than impressive. At three and a half minutes, the match is too short to become a long disaster, yet it still exposes the larger problem with the card: WCW is using a major event to audition wrestlers who are not ready for the position. It is developmental television dressed as pay-per-view content.

Arn Anderson can structure a long tag match with almost anyone, and Paul Roma is athletic enough to contribute when the pace rises. The problem is that WCW gives the Nasty Boys nearly twenty-four minutes and asks them to carry long control segments. Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags are effective in short, chaotic brawls; extended bearhugs and slow heat sections expose exactly what they do not do well.

The title change is also damaged by WCW's production schedule. Future television had already been taped with the Nasty Boys as champions and Missy Hyatt as their manager, so the supposed surprise was widely known. Anderson's spinebuster briefly creates energy, Roma follows with the splash, and Sags interrupts with the elbow that allows Knobbs to take the belts. The finish is functional. The journey is exhausting, and the result feels administratively inevitable rather than dramatic.

Cactus Jack is one of the few wrestlers on the show carrying a story with genuine emotional momentum. His return from the Vader attack, the fake-amnesia angle, Harley Race stealing his bag, and the promise of revenge have at least given the audience something to follow. Unfortunately, the opponent is Yoshi Kwan, a deeply stereotyped character played by Chris Champion that has aged horrendously and was questionable even in 1993.

The match itself is short and mostly functional. Jack brawls, Race tries to interfere, Kwan accidentally hits his own manager, and the double-arm DDT ends the bounty hunt. Jack regains the bag and immediately turns his attention back to Vader, which confirms that this bout exists only as a checkpoint in the larger feud. Foley's promo and the Halloween Havoc setup are more compelling than anything that happens between the bells.

Ric Flair and Rick Rude should be a dream match. The crowd cares about Flair, Rude has strong heel material with Fifi, and the newly renamed championship gives the bout historical stakes after WCW's split from the NWA. The problem is the pace. Long arm holds, bearhugs, sleepers, and stretches of almost motionless control dominate the first half, and the audience audibly drifts away while two great wrestlers spend far too much time killing the clock.

The final ten minutes are better. Flair hits his own version of the Rude Awakening, Rude survives near falls, the leg work finally leads toward the figure-four, and the crowd wakes up. Then Fifi distracts the referee, Rude uses brass knuckles, and the title changes hands. The result matters because it gives Rude his first recognized world-level championship. The match should have been half as long. Instead, history arrives exhausted.

WarGames begins with the correct people. Dustin Rhodes insists on starting despite injured ribs, Vader attacks the weakness, and Dustin bleeds after being driven into the cage. Sting's entrance lifts the pace, Sid adds size, and Davey Boy Smith produces a few excellent power spots against Vader. For a while, the basic WarGames formula is enough to make the match feel more substantial than most of the undercard.

Then the structure deteriorates. Harlem Heat are still finding their identity, Sid becomes background noise, and too much of the action turns into generic punching and stomping in crowded rings. Shockmaster enters last, cleans house for barely two minutes, traps Kole—future Booker T—in a bearhug, and gets an immediate submission while the other heels essentially watch. The finish drains whatever escalation the match had created. It is not unwatchable, but for WarGames standards it is a major failure.