Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger and Arn Anderson vs. Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and nWo Sting – Fall Brawl (9/15/96)
Fall Brawl 1996 was the very first WCW pay-per-view I ever watched. I was a lifelong WWF fan who had only recently come back to that fold and was now tempted by the white hot nWo angle as well as the familiar stars of my childhood crossing promotions for the first time. I borrowed a tape of the show from a friend, and as this was in the days before all of us figured out how to preset VCRs, he had the Mean Gene-hosted pre-show on loop for about an hour and a half, meaning I had plenty of time to familiarize myself with all the aspects of the WCW/nWo feud I had missed (as well as the set-up for the Ice Train/Scott Norton match). As an introduction to War Games for a WCW neophyte, the match wasn’t anything special; no blood, nothing to really showcase the gimmick beyond the whole man advantage thing, and none of the particularly brutal in-ring work that had made the match legendary, despite the efforts of Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. However, as a gateway to familiarizing a stalwart WWF watcher with a product he could dig, it was pretty top-notch; getting to see Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in their new settings, getting reacquainted with Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger, seeing Sting perhaps for the first time and really digging into the nWo storyline when it was at its best and most unpredictable. – Ben Morse
The nWo (Buff Bagwell, Kevin Nash, Syxx, and Konnan) vs. The Four Horsemen (Chris Benoit, Steve McMichael, Ric Flair, and Curt Hennig) – Fall Brawl (9/14/97)
At this point, the New World Order vs. WCW feud was reaching its ending point but before it could come to its conclusion they needed to have a War Games with the New World Order and WCW’s stable, the Four Horsemen. Leading into the event, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson had been recruiting Curt Hennig, who had just signed with the company, to compete in the match. After several weeks, Hennig accepted Anderson’s spot in the Horsemen. By the way, the promo Anderson cut for that segment was tremendous, and is worth seeking out if you have not seen it.
The names used for the match aren’t of the highest quality. The New World Order consisted of Kevin Nash, Syxx, Buff Bagwell, and Konnan. Aside from Nash and maybe Syxx this was the B-team for the group at the time. The Horsemen consisted of Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Steve McMichael and Curt Hennig. The match is memorable due to the fact that Hennig turned on the Horsemen after being the last man to enter the match. He hit Mongo with handcuffs and helped the New World Order attack the Horsemen. Hennig would proceed to slam the cage door on Flair’s head and for the next couple of months the two would feud as a result. – Bob Colling
Diamond Dallas Page, Roddy Piper and The Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart and Stevie Ray vs. Kevin Nash, Sting and Lex Luger – Fall Brawl (9/13/98)
I was back to being a WWF diehard who just watched WCW on the side at this point, but for a lot of my friends who had come into watching wrestling for the first time via the nWo boom period, this was the final straw to push them in the other direction. After an undercard that featured Chris Jericho beating up a Goldberg midget and Buff Bagwell faking a neck injury for what felt like a half hour, at the very least the star power of this main event seemed to offer potential—which it quickly failed to deliver on. The rules were a convoluted mess as there were ostensible teams, but only one guy could win – the prize being a World title shot he couldn’t share. Also irritating was how much they built up said title shot despite having announced earlier that Sting, one of the participants, was already getting one the next night on Nitro. I remember virtually nothing of what happened during the match itself other than Hulk Hogan and Stevie Ray knocking out six other guys, including their own partner, Bret Hart, with a slapjack, leading to Warrior making a two minute appearance to chase Hogan backstage and then DDP recovering to pin Stevie, the guy we all knew was going to get pinned the minute this thing was announced. – Ben Morse
Sting, Booker T, Goldberg, and KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) vs. Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, and The Harris Brothers (Don and Ron) – WCW Nitro (9/4/00)
Okay, I cannot hide this secret any longer. Probably my biggest guilty pleasure as a wrestling fan was Vince Russo’s New Blood era in WCW in 2000. It rightfully gets blasted by historians as nonsensical, over-stipulated garbage where everyone feuded and no one knew why. But I just loved it. There was always something going on, the noise was loud, and you knew there was some makeshift Russo twist at the end of every show. War Games in September of that year put all of those traits together, both in good ways and bad. It was only WarGames by name: Instead of the two-ring cage, you had one ring with the same Triple Cage that they used at Slamboree and the greatest movie of our generation, Ready 2 Rumble. It had similar team rules, but the WCW Title was on the line. You had to take the title from the top cage and walk out of the door on the ground floor to win. Believe it or not, there was a story. Kevin Nash was the champion under Russo’s wing and they assembled a team that would prevent the faces from walking out with his title. After that, things get blurry. Jeff Jarrett has a buzz cut, silver boots and blacked taped fists, making him look like an intergalactic MMA fighter (and a bad one, at that). Scott Steiner is wearing the most high-tech nose guard I have ever seen. Russo comes in wearing a hockey jersey, a helmet and a baseball bat. Mark Madden and Jeremy Borash are color commentators. Ernest Miller, the Harris Twins, and Kronik appear somehow. And in the Russo twist, Bret Hart costs Goldberg the title by swinging the cage door in his face and Nash wins the match. It wasn’t as much “The Match Beyond” as it was a match beyond all logic. It was awful without shame and impossible to look away from. But remember: that match garnered a 3.6 rating, a full point better than what Raw does today. Don’t say you didn’t watch it, because you probably did. – Andrew Riche
