DRAFT STRATEGY AND DEFENSE:
JT Rozzero:
Favorite Pick: The luxury of drafting #1 delivered in spades in this draft as I feel I easily got the greatest match in Havoc history in Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero. Getting Ric Flair & Sting vs. Arn Anderson & Brain Pillman all the way back at the end of round two was equally as great value as that is a super fun match with a classic storyline angle baked in.
Least Favorite Pick: I guess Doom/Steiners. It is a fine, hard hitting match but it feels a bit bland. Even in a shallow draft like this, you hope for more bang for your buck at this point.
Defense: As I said above, this was a shallow draft pool as there are only so many great Halloween Havoc matches. And I got the best one. By far. I also backed it up with three strong picks right after, giving me one of the best top four of the draft. Oh, did I mention I got REY MYSTERIO VS. EDDIE GUERRERO?
Best Draft Not My Own: I really like what Trent Williams did early on, he has a strong top of the draft for sure, featuring the classic Randy Savage/ Diamond Dallas Page battle. Tyler Kelley and Jake Williams also had strong showings.
Logan Crosland:
Favorite pick: As with most of my drafts so far, my favorite pick was my first. That pick being Vader vs. Cactus Jack from the 1993 show in a Texas Death Match. This match is as hard hitting as they come, as Cactus and Vader do about everything short of killing each other. While it may
not be the most technical match on the list, I believe it is one of the best if not the very best in Halloween Havoc history.
Least Favorite pick: My least favorite pick of this draft was the tag title match from 1998 between Buff Bagwell and Rick Steiner vs. The Giant and Scott Steiner. This match was nothing more than another screw job on behalf of the NWO, which at that point had started to reach the point
of overkill. Bagwell turns on Rick part of the way through the match, only for Rick to still win the match and the titles all by himself. This was nothing more than a stupid plot device in a feud between the Steiner Brothers that wasn’t all that good.
Defense: I definitely wanted to start this draft off with a bang and get what I thought to be the best match in the history of the PPV, which I believe I got with Cactus and Vader. I won’t lie to you from there I needed a little help, so I looked to match ratings from multiple sources. While I knew some of the matches I wanted I could get, like the hidden gems of Nagata vs.
Dragon and Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers. Overall I believe I got a good mix singles and tags, as well as a good mix of title and non title matches.
Best Draft Not My Own: I’m going to go with Steve Riddle on this one, as I really like his first two picks of Ric Flair and Sting vs. Terry Funk and Muta and Steiners vs. Nasty Boys. Those are superior tag matches in the company’s history. He was able to mix in some solid matches the rest of the way and while I believe I had the best draft I think Steve had the next best.
Trent Williams:
Favorite Pick: Randy Savage vs. Diamond Dallas Page (Las Vegas Sudden Death Match) from 1997. The Randy Savage and Diamond Dallas Page feud (which was one of several feuds under the overarching WCW vs. NWO feud) was the 1997 feud of the year for WCW. These two had an intense feud that began at Uncensored in March when Savage revealed that Page and Kimberly were married and that Kimberly had posed nude in Playboy magazine. Page wasn’t happy at all about this as he didn’t appreciate Savage letting the entire world in on his private life, during the same segment Savage would attack Page and spray paint both Page and Kimberly. The Halloween Havoc match was the blow-off to their feud that had lasted off and on for eight months with each of them getting a win on the other in PPV main event matches (DDP won a No DQ match at Spring Stampede while Savage won a Falls Count Anywhere match at Great American Bash). The matches between DDP and Savage were must-watch matches and would always have the crowd super invested and in a frenzy. This Havoc match had everything that you would want in a Diamond Dallas Page vs Randy Savage match as they brawled all over the arena, used everything around them as weapons including the camera, and involved both Kimberly and Elizabeth in the match. Despite Savage delivering multiple elbow drops onto the previously injured ribs of DDP. The testicular fortitude of DDP wouldn’t allow him to stay down for the ten count as he would always reach deep inside of himself and find a way to his feet. It would eventually take a baseball bat to the ribs courtesy of Hollywood Hogan (who was dressed as Sting) to keep DDP down and allow Savage to win both the match and the feud. The fact that this match wasn’t the match of the night shows just how stacked the Halloween Havoc 1997 card was. While in a perfect world it would’ve been great to have DDP win the feud the fact that he lost didn’t hurt him at all as he got a major rub for being able to hang with the Macho Man in three knockdown drag-out type matches. This feud would be the launching pad that made DDP go from just another guy to one of the most important and most beloved babyfaces in the company.
Least Favorite Pick: MIA vs. Perfect Event from 2000. This was an easy choice to make as any match that involves both Shawn Stasiak and Chavo Guerrero (FUCK CHAVO!!) has to be an automatic least favorite match. The only guy I actually like in the match is Lash LeRoux as I have never been the biggest Chuck Palumbo fan either with the exception being his tag run with Billy Gunn.
Defense: The quantity of good to great matches in Halloween Havoc history is quite sparse so it was more important than ever to make sure you pick strong matches within the first 3-4 rounds as the match quality drops quite significantly after that. I was the third to pick in this edition of draft wars and I was hoping that with picking so early I would get one of the two first-round picks I wanted, but unfortunately, the two that picked before me chose both of those matches (Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero and Vader vs. Cactus Jack) so I had to go try and find the best match I could which was Randy Savage vs. Diamond Dallas Page. After my first pick, people started picking all the matches that I wanted so at that point I changed my strategy to make sure I have a match from the majority of the top stars of WCW, which I think I succeeded in as I have matches from Sting, Goldberg, Luger, Flair, Vader, Sid, & Booker T. I will say my only downfall in this draft was not picking a better cruiser-weight match because when I think cruiser-weight the names Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux are not the names I instantly think of.
Best Draft Not My Own: JT Rozzerro. JT pretty much won this draft with his first pick of the famous Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio match from 1997 as that is an all-time classic match and probably in the top 5 best WCW matches of all time. JT didn’t just rest on the fact that he had that match on his roster as some of his other picks were great as well Lord Steve Regal vs. British Bulldog, Doom vs. Steiners, and he even picked up the only Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage one-on-one match in WCW up to that point. Also, the fact that he had the balls to be the one that picked one of the worst matches in WCW history with Hollywood Hogan vs. The Warrior shows that he has so much confidence in the rest of his picks that he doesn’t believe that abomination would hurt his chances of winning this edition of draft wars.
Jacob Williams:
Favorite Pick: I really liked where I was able to get Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio, right before the options kind of drop off pretty significantly in quality. Fantastic cruiser-weight bouts are a staple of WCW, so I wanted to get at least one great one, and this excellent opener from Havoc 96’ certainly scratched that itch.
Least Favorite Pick: Not that much was expected at this point in the draft, but I’ll go with Reno vs. Sgt. AWOL just for that fact that I had to sit and decide that THIS was my best option. Rounds 8-10 were truly a Chamber of Horrors.
Defense: So obviously this is the most shallow draft in terms of match quality thus far. To work with that, I knew I wanted to grab some good to great matches in the early rounds. Since I knew there wouldn’t be many stellar matches after that, I opted for interesting match-ups (Sting vs. Bret Hart, Jim Duggan vs. Steve Austin) which are cool on paper, even if lacking in work rate. Plus, I have a match with THE SHOCKMASTER.
Best Draft Not My Own: This is a tough choice. JT definitely took advantage of picking first in a thin draft and probably has the best roster based on match quality. Jennifer, while maybe not picking the greatest string of work rate matches, did an awesome job of conveying the #FSJ goofiness of WCW and the Halloween Havoc brand.
Tyler Kelley:
Favorite Pick: Arn Anderson vs. Dustin Rhodes from 1994. Getting that match in round 4 felt like a steal in this draft. I am also happy to get the Halloween Phantom vs. Tom Zenk match in round 6, as Paul E.’s promo to launch the Dangerous Alliance angle is fantastic, and it gives me a match with a Halloween angle.
Least Favorite Pick: Bill Kazmeir vs. Oz is dreadful, as is P.N. News & Big Josh vs. The Creatures, but at least they’re awful in a “because WCW”/ Wrestlecrap way.
Defense: This was the toughest draft for me, because the great matches were so few and far between. That said, I did the best I could, grabbing DDP-Goldberg off the top for the big match feel and followed it up with a very good Doom-Horseman tag. From there I took the best match possible and tried to get as many names associated with WCW as possible (Eaton, Arn, Dustin, Steamboat, Jericho, Flair, etc.) At the end I was shooting for awful but funny rather than just dull.
Best Draft Not My Own: Honorable mention to Jennifer Smith. I wanted to grab some signature Halloween Havoc Wrestlecrap, but Jenny took the Position (cheap plug) of grabbing both the Hogan-Giant beautiful disaster from ‘95 and the Chamber of Horrors match with her first 2 picks cornering the market on Wrestlecrap. But the lack of Daddy Arn matches means she couldn’t have achieved her goal, so instead, I’ll go with Jacob Williams. I love Jacob’s first three picks (Luger-Pillman, Windham & Rhodes vs. Austin & Dr. Death and Malenko-Mysterio) and being able to get Ice Train, the Shockmaster and the Equalizer in one match was also quite a feat, so Jacob gets my vote.
Neil Trama:
Favorite Pick: When I couldn’t get Eddie/Rey or DDP/Goldberg, I eyed up Hogan/Flair. What more could you ask for in a mid-90’s WCW main event? Ric Flair, a steel cage, Mr T as a ref, a Dungeon of Doom run in. All that was missing was Sherri using a shoe.
Least Favorite Pick: Terry Taylor vs. Bill Irwin. I know it was late in the draft and pickings were slim but I took a match with Red Rooster and The Goon that went 12 minutes. I also took a Mongo match in the 4th round.
Defense: OK so all the cards on the table here…I’ve never seen a single WCW Halloween Havoc show. Nope. But I did this draft anyway. After every pick culled from the archives of Wikipedia, I muttered to myself “how bad could it be?” When considering voting for Neil Trama’s draft just ask yourself…how bad could it be?
Best Draft Not My Own: I’m voting for Trent. He has some matches early on that sound really good like Page/Savage, Pillman/Steamboat, and Rude/Flair. Then things devolve into crazy hoss battles like Vader/Guardian Angel, Goldberg/Sid, and Wrath/Meng (!!!) Also kudos to Jenny for having the most Jenny draft that ever Jennied. Chamber of Horrors forever!
Jennifer Smith:
Favorite Pick: Hogan vs. Giant from Halloween Havoc 1995, mostly because I also include the rooftop Monster truck match from Cobo Hall, Giant’s fall to his death (?) and the post match Yetttaaayyy double bear hug of wonderful awkwardness. Don’t @ me, this shit is fucking fantastic.
Least Favorite Pick: Tommy Rich vs. The Cuban Assassin, which I’ve never seen, but as many have stated, things were looking pretty grim at this point in the draft and I figure a Tommy Rich match is probably a DUD.
Defense: My love of 1995 WCW is well documented so my idea here was to draft the entire card. I figured no one else would think to do such a thing and I mostly pulled it off, minus the Sting/Flair vs. Anderson/Pillman tag team match. Plus, I got to add such gems as Chamber of Horrors from 1991 and Dave Sullivan vs. (my boo) Kevin Sullivan from 1994. I mean, sure you can watch the few legit great matches from Halloween Havoc but wouldn’t you rather be creeped out/amused by the Yetayyyy?? Of course you would!
Best Draft Not My Own: I liked Logan’s draft, in large part because of the Cactus Jack vs. Vader match and Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes from 1991. Shout out/fuck you to JT Rozzero for grabbing the other 1995 tag match that I wanted.
Steve Riddle:
Favorite Pick: I’m going to think outside the box here with my favorite pick and that is Rich/Morton vs. Midnight Express from 1990. While it might not touch anything that the Rock and Roll Express did with the Midnight Express in the 1980’s, this was still a surprisingly fun match as Morton and Rich had some good chemistry together and this would ultimately be the swan song for the Midnight Express. Considering there are not many midcard gems in Havoc history, this was a good steal to get in the 4th round and help make my card seem a bit respectable.
Least Favorite Pick: I am going to go with Jacqueline vs. Disco Inferno from 1997 which isn’t completely fair to these two because this was an interesting matchup, but it is not a good match whatsoever as it is pretty much all stalling from Inferno. However, this was the point in the draft where quality had left the building and it was just picking stuff to fill the card, and seeing what was taken after this I could’ve easily passed this over for something else.
Defense: So going into this draft, I knew that being at the end of the draft was not going to be in my favor because let’s face it, Halloween Havoc is not known in history for being great shows even by WCW standards. Knowing that many of the great matches would be taken even before I got to make my first pick, I wanted to front load with as many good matches as possible. Thankfully, I feel I was able to do that by getting Ric Flair/Sting vs. Funk/Muta and Steiners/Nasty Boys first, and then I tried to fill out with some solid matches like Rich/Morton vs. Midnight Express, Lex Luger/Ron Simmons, Dustin Rhodes/Steve Austin, and even that 3-Way tag match from 2000 which is surprisingly good. The second half of the draft was pretty much getting anything that was remotely worth getting which wasn’t much, but I feel that I did a solid enough job in building the best ultimate Halloween Havoc card.
Best Draft Not My Own: So going into this draft, there was one person in particular that I was looking forward to see how their draft turned out and that was Jennifer. I don’t think there is anyone else I know that can glorify 1995 WCW anymore than she can to the point that it makes you want to actually go back and re-watch it, so I am not surprised that she would make 1995 the main base of her draft. However, I never expected that she would basically draft the entire show aside from one match which coincidentally features one of her favorites. Add in some other infamous Havoc matches like the Chamber of Horrors, Sting/Jake Roberts, and Dave Sullivan/Kevin Sullivan, and she ends up encapsulating what Halloween Havoc was and that is why she had the best draft of anyone this go around.
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