Halloween Havoc 1990: Three Great Tag Matches and One Very Fake Sting

The final WCW match of the Midnight Express begins with the crowd treating Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane like stars. Morton does most of the work for his team, absorbing the familiar cutoffs and taking a Rocket Launcher on the ramp before repeatedly finding small openings to escape. Eaton and Lane look smooth because their control segment is built from constant motion rather than static holds.

Rich finally receives the hot tag deep into the match, only for Cornette's racket and the Southern Boys' interference to send the finish into chaos. Rich eventually uses the racket on Lane and scores the pin. The ending is cheap, but the match has enough pace, crowd heat and historical weight to earn a solid B.

Taylor and Irwin work a conventional singles match that never establishes a reason to exist on pay-per-view. Irwin controls with headlocks, a sleeper and heavy offense, while Taylor repeatedly tries to create short bursts of movement with dropkicks and quick pinning combinations. The crowd steadily loses interest.

The final minutes contain several near falls, but none feel connected to a larger story. Taylor eventually catches Irwin with a rollup for the pin after nearly twelve minutes. The wrestling is competent enough to avoid complete failure, yet the bout succeeds mainly at cooling a hot audience after the opener.

Storm gets most of the early offense, using clotheslines, a bearhug and basic power moves while Armstrong spends the match trying to create openings. The contrast should produce a clean underdog story, but several transitions are awkward and the crowd never accepts Storm as a meaningful threat.

Armstrong finally strings together a kneelift and dropkick before an attempted rollup goes wrong. He abandons the sequence and uses a cradle for the pin. Five minutes limit the damage, but the match feels like a television showcase placed on a pay-per-view without enough polish or purpose.

The Southern Boys provide the movement, using dropkicks and quick double teams to make the larger Master Blasters work at a faster pace. The Blasters answer with size and basic power offense, but their inexperience becomes obvious whenever the match asks for more complicated transitions.

Jim Cornette's presence eventually becomes the real story. He leaves commentary, interferes around ringside and creates the opening for the Blasters to steal the pin. The Southern Boys then attack Cornette after the match. Seven minutes are tolerable, but the wrestlers feel secondary to an angle designed to move Cornette out of the promotion.

The Freebirds spend much of the match stalling, posing and slowing the Renegade Warriors into an extended face-in-peril segment. The problem is that Chicago prefers Hayes and Garvin, so the structure produces the opposite reaction from the one intended. Every Youngblood comeback receives less enthusiasm than the heels' routine.

The match drags for nearly eighteen minutes before the hot tag finally arrives. Hayes eventually lands the DDT and Garvin gets the pin, which is exactly what much of the crowd wanted. The workers are experienced enough to avoid catastrophe, but the length, miscast roles and dead babyface comeback make this the easiest long match on the card to skip.

The match starts as a brawl and never loses the sense that both teams would rather hurt each other than impress anyone. Scott Steiner throws Sags with a belly-to-belly from the ropes, the Steiners use the elevated bulldog and the Nasty Boys respond with chair shots and a spike piledriver behind the referee's back.

The middle works because the Nasties repeatedly cut Scott off before he can reach Rick. Bearhugs and a Boston crab are less exciting than the throws, but each hold exists to delay the tag. Scott finally escapes and Rick explodes into the match with clotheslines and suplexes.

The finish returns to chaos. All four men fight, Rick attacks from the top and Scott eventually catches Knobbs with the Frankensteiner to retain the titles. The Nasty Boys continue the attack afterward, adding heat to a rematch that WCW never gets to deliver.

A- reflects one of the event's genuine highlights. The match is rough, physical and occasionally messy, but that roughness becomes part of its identity. The Nasty Boys leave the night looking far more valuable than they did entering it.

The match is built around headbutts, punches and the bone Moondog Rex carries to the ring. Junkyard Dog sells almost nothing, Rex struggles to establish control and the crowd treats the segment as a brief interruption before the championship matches.

Rex eventually reaches for the bone again, the referee becomes involved and JYD takes advantage with another headbutt for the pin. The bout lasts barely three minutes, which is merciful. It is not offensively complicated; it is simply low-energy filler without enough wrestling or story to justify its placement on pay-per-view.

Doom and the Horsemen establish the match as a physical argument over who controls the ring. Simmons and Reed overwhelm Flair and Anderson with power early, forcing the challengers to use tags, cheap shots and positioning instead of trying to win exchanges straight up. Flair's frustration becomes part of the entertainment.

The Horsemen eventually isolate Simmons and attack the knee, with Flair using the Figure Four while Arn contributes behind the referee's back. Simmons repeatedly survives and finally reaches Reed, whose hot tag changes the pace immediately. The final minutes become a sequence of saves, DDTs, clotheslines and near falls.

All four men eventually spill to the floor and the match ends in a double count-out. The finish prevents a satisfying conclusion, but it also protects Doom's championship while keeping Flair and Anderson strong for the continuation. The crowd remains invested throughout.

A- reflects a hidden gem carried by four wrestlers who understand tag structure at a high level. Doom look like legitimate champions, Flair and Anderson remain dangerous, and eighteen minutes pass with substantially more purpose than most of the card.

Luger and Hansen work the match as a straightforward heavyweight brawl. Hansen attacks with elbows, knees and a rough headlock while Luger uses power offense and short comebacks. The styles are compatible in theory, but several exchanges look as though the wrestlers are moving at different speeds.

A referee bump introduces Dan Spivey and the bullrope, though that interference does not directly produce the finish. Luger misses a charge and Hansen catches him with the lariat to end Luger's 523-day United States Championship reign. The title change is historically important, but the nine-minute match itself remains merely average.

Sting and Sid have enough popularity to make the building react, but the wrestling never develops the urgency of a world-title main event. Sid relies on slow holds and basic power offense, while Sting's comebacks are repeatedly interrupted before they can create sustained momentum. Long stretches feel oddly quiet for two of the promotion's biggest stars.

The finish begins when the fight moves toward the back and the Horsemen create confusion. Barry Windham returns dressed as Sting, attempts a bodyslam and falls backward with Sid on top. Sid receives the three count, fireworks fire and balloons drop as though a title change has occurred.

The real Sting then appears with rope around his wrist, exposing the substitution. The referee effectively resumes the match, Sting hits the Stinger Splash and wins the real fall. The concept is imaginative, but the execution asks the audience to understand too much after the apparent match has already ended.

F reflects a disappointing main event whose memorable finish is not the same as a good finish. The fake Sting becomes part of wrestling history, but it does not rescue twelve minutes of flat wrestling or the confusion surrounding the championship.