SuperBrawl III: Sting and Vader Drag WCW Into a New Era

The opening tag asks four young wrestlers to carry more than sixteen minutes, and the result is better than the uneven reputations involved might suggest. Steve Austin and Brian Pillman already understand how to cut off the ring, distract the referee, and make ordinary tags feel like small victories. Marcus Bagwell supplies clean athletic bursts, while Erik Watts works hard enough to keep the crowd from completely rejecting the babyface side.

The match goes longer than necessary, but it rarely collapses. Austin and Pillman increasingly feel like the team with a future because their shortcuts are coordinated rather than random, and the finish reinforces that identity when Austin helps Pillman steal the pin on Bagwell. SuperBrawl III opens with competent, purposeful wrestling and a glimpse of an act WCW would soon formalize as the Hollywood Blonds.

2 Cold Scorpio and Chris Benoit wrestle like two men trying to prove that WCW's future can look different from its past. Benoit's compact strikes and snap offense give the match weight, while Scorpio brings an aerial vocabulary that still looks adventurous decades later. Neither man treats the athleticism as exhibition. Holds matter, counters matter, and the running clock creates a reason to accelerate rather than simply adding more moves.

The closing stretch is the key. Benoit becomes increasingly concerned with the time limit, which gives Scorpio the opening to catch him and secure the pin. That makes the finish feel like a strategic consequence instead of a lucky interruption. Contemporary and modern reviews consistently identify the bout as one of the show's best, and that reputation holds up. It is fast, inventive, competitive, and well ahead of what most American pay-per-view undercards were offering in early 1993.

Davey Boy Smith arrives in WCW with obvious star presence and receives the kind of reaction that immediately validates the signing. Bill Irwin is there to make the newcomer look strong, and he does the job competently by feeding Smith's power offense and giving him enough resistance to avoid a total squash. The vertical suplex, press slam, and running powerslam all land as expected, and the crowd is happy to see them.

There is not much more to the match. Irwin's offense never creates real danger, the result is never in doubt, and the six-minute runtime exists primarily to establish Smith before WCW's European tour. As an introduction it succeeds. As pay-per-view wrestling it is disposable. The historical value of Smith's WCW debut is greater than the competitive value of the bout itself.

Cactus Jack and Paul Orndorff understand that a Falls Count Anywhere match should feel less polished than the bouts surrounding it. Orndorff attacks the leg and tries to keep the fight under control, while Cactus repeatedly drags the contest toward concrete, chairs, and increasingly dangerous landings. The famous apron bump looks miserable even by Foley standards, and the match earns its violence because the crowd gradually begins rooting for Cactus to survive it.

The finish is wonderfully direct. Orndorff signals for the piledriver while the audience reacts to Cactus finding the shovel behind him, then walks directly into the shot that ends the match. It is theatrical without becoming convoluted, and the pop tells the story. The bout also helps cement Cactus as a sympathetic WCW babyface rather than merely an eccentric brawler. This is one of the card's most pleasant surprises.

The Rock 'n' Roll Express and The Heavenly Bodies arrive with history that exists outside WCW, and the benefit is immediate. Ricky Morton knows exactly how to absorb punishment and make every attempted tag matter, Robert Gibson understands when to explode into the ring, and Stan Lane and Tom Prichard work like a team rather than two singles wrestlers sharing a corner. Jim Cornette gives the match another reliable source of heat.

The action is classic southern tag wrestling, but it does not feel antique because the timing is so sharp. The only disappointment is the disqualification, which protects the rivalry at the expense of a clean pay-per-view conclusion. Even so, the match demonstrates why the late Bill Watts-era relationship with Smoky Mountain Wrestling had value. WCW borrows an established feud and, for twelve minutes, gets a crowd-ready story without needing weeks of its own exposition.

Maxx Payne replaces the injured Ron Simmons, which immediately lowers the ceiling of a United States title match that had been built around a more significant challenger. Dustin Rhodes still brings energy and sells the arm work with conviction, while Payne has a logical target and enough size to make the champion struggle. For stretches, the match resembles a workable television title defense rather than a disaster.

The problem is that eleven minutes expose the lack of chemistry, and the finish makes the investment feel pointless. Payne manhandles the referee rather than submitting, creating a disqualification that protects him without giving Rhodes a meaningful victory. The crowd cools noticeably compared with the stronger matches around it. This is the one section of SuperBrawl III where the emergency substitution and conservative booking combine to stop the show cold.

The Great Muta against Barry Windham sounds like a major championship match, and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship gives it legitimate historical weight. Both wrestlers are technically sound, the exchanges are credible, and Windham's eventual victory matters because it begins the final stretch of the title's relationship with WCW. Ric Flair's post-match appearance also plants the seed for the championship program that follows.

Yet the match is much less exciting than its ingredients. The pace remains deliberate for too long, several holds feel like waiting rather than escalation, and the crowd never reaches the level of investment the title change deserves. Windham wins cleanly enough, but the twenty-four minutes feel longer than they are. It is worth seeing for the history and the Flair interaction; as a standalone match, it is the card's biggest disappointment.

Big Van Vader and Sting have such clear physical identities that the strap becomes an advantage instead of a limitation. Vader uses it to control distance and drag Sting into punishment, while Sting turns the same tether into a weapon for sudden comebacks. The crowd understands every struggle toward the four corners because the match never forgets the core rule. Harley Race's involvement adds danger without swallowing the contest.

The final sequence is outstanding. Sting carries Vader toward victory, only to stumble over the referee just short of the last corner, and Vader immediately exploits the opening. The finish protects Sting's toughness while giving Vader a decisive strategic win. Reviews across decades consistently place this at or near the top of the card, and the reputation is deserved. It is violent, coherent, dramatic, and one of the strongest matches in the entire Sting-Vader series.