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WCW Battlebowl 1993



So I'm down to the penultimate PPV in my look back at WCW events from 1993 and after enduring the torture of Halloween Havoc, this time the show being reviewed is Battlebowl. This show took place on November 20th from Pensacola, Florida. It was a rather odd gimmick PPV in which tag teams were formed via a 'random draw' to face off against one another and the winning tag teams would advance to a Battle Royal later on in the main event. What was on the line in the main event? Nothing. Yep. Anyways we'll get to that.

We begin by being introduced to Tony and Jess on commentary. Alas, no Bischoff tonight. They put over how crazy and exciting the stipulations of Battlebowl are and introduce us to Mean Gene and Flair's valet, the French maid, Fifi, who would do the draws to form the tag teams. Throughout the night we would get a running gag where Mean Gene was essentially trying to get into Fifi's French stockings. She seemed quite keen on the old fox so I guess the one guy that can top Space Mountain is good ol' Mean Gene. Wooooo! The first match drawn was...

Cactus Jack and Vader vs Kane and Charlie Norris

It was actually Kole aka Booker T who was drawn and not the other Harlem Heat member but for some reason Kane fought instead. Jack and Vader renewed their hostilities from Halloween Havoc and brawled before the match but Harley Race, Vader's manager, managed to get them to work together eventually. Vader and Jack got the win and advanced to the main event Battle Royal when Vader hit a powerbomb on Norris which made him fall on his ass in the process.

Verdict: It was fine

Paul Roma and Erik Watts vs Johnny B. Badd and Brian Knobbs

These were the next tag teams drawn and surprisingly the match wasn't anything special. Knobbs won for his team by grabbing Watts's tights although it actually looked like he grabbed a handful of Watt's Knobbs.

Verdict: A smash and grab, mostly grab, victory.

The Shockmaster and Paul Orndorff vs Ricky Steamboat and Lord Steven Regal

This was an interesting move to pair Steamboat with the man who took his World TV Title and proved to be one of the most enjoyable tag matches of the night. A nice touch involved Regal and Orndorff, when they would be in the ring together facing off, shaking hands as they were the two heels. This pissed off Steamboat and the fans but was very funny and something I'd like to see more of in today's wrestling when heels square off.

Interestingly Ventura made reference to the Shockmaster's epic fail of falling through a wall from earlier in the year. The most interesting Ventura remark of the night though was when he remarked to Schiavone something along the lines of 'things aren't so bad Schiavone, you could be indicted'. This was around the time Vince in WWF was dealing with his steroid court case issues.

Anyways the finish came when Regal looked to hit Shockmaster with a cane but Steamboat stopped him and clubbed Regal with it, allowing Shockmaster to hit a big splash for the 1-2-3 and advance his team.

Verdict: Enjoyable match

Flair/Vader promo greatness

They showed a clip from a press conference promoting Starrcade next month. Vader was there in a suit which with his mask looked a ricockulous combo. Vader didn't have his title with him as usual. Flair challenged Vader to a title vs career match at Starrcade. Just take it from him Naitch, he doesn't wear it. Maybe it doesn't suit his mask/suit ensemble. The interaction between Vader and Flair was great here. For example...

Vader: 'What do you bring to the table?'
Flair: 'Ten World Titles'.
Vader: 'Not Enough'.

Vader: 'You want to put your head on my wall? Bring it on.'
Flair: 'If you want my head on your wall you better come and get it.'
Vader: 'You got it'.

I can't do it justice but trust me this was more enjoyable than many of the matches. The next tag teams drawn were:

The Equalizer and Awesome Kong vs King Kong and Dustin Rhodes

Match was short which was good. Nothing much to report here except the two Kongs (who were a tag team) refused to fight each other so it was like a 3-on-1 match for Rhodes. The Kongs butted heads allowing Rhodes hit the bulldog on Awesome and get the win, advancing his team.

Verdict: Like a fart in an elevator. Bad but brief.

Sting and Jerry Sags vs Ron Simmons and Keith Cole

Crowd chanted 'We want Sting' and he was very over. Sags was enjoyable playing the heel. Finish came when Sags tagged himself in after Sting hit the Stinger Splash on Cole and he got the pin with a flying elbow to advance the duo. Afterwards Simmons turned heel by beating the sh*t out of Cole which got pretty much zero reaction since no one cared about Cole.

Verdict: OK

Stunning Steve Austin and Ric Flair vs Maxx Payne and 2 Cold Scorpio

Now this was a hell of a draw in hindsight. The Nature Boy and the future Rattlesnake teaming up. This match was great fun as Austin and Flair struggled to get along with Austin being his brash self and Flair being the slick cool veteran. Finish came with Flair making Payne tap to the figure four.

Verdict: Good fun

Ravishing Rick Rude and Shanghai Pierce vs Marcus Bagwell and Tex Slazenger

Another tag team were paired off against each other here with the future Godwinns on opposing sides. I still can't get over the awful brilliance of the name 'Shanghai Pierce'. The future Godwinns did end up going at it unlike the Kongs earlier. Finish came when Rude hit the Rude Awakening on Slazenger. After the match the future Godwinns shook hands and made up which the fans didn't like. This is another thing it would be good to see more of in modern wrestling - heels teasing a split but actually making up and becoming tighter.

Verdict: Fine

Road Warrior Hawk and Rip Rogers vs Davey Boy Smith and Kole

So Kole aka Booker was called out twice and this time he actually participated. Rogers was a comic, goofy figure and Hawk laid him out before the match. The match was short and the finish came when Hawk military pressed Rogers on to Kole who got the pin. Poor Booker T had a tough year in 1993 having to job to Shockmaster and this guy.

Verdict: Short and OK

Hawk and Rogers were the last team to qualify for the Battle Royal and so we had the 16 men necessary for the main event. Schiavone explained beforehand that since WCW had a connecting ramp, being thrown over the ropes and landing on it did not mean an elimination. It was later claimed in the match by Ventura that this made it harder for the guys involved since only 3 sides could be used to land an elimination. This makes sense from that point of view, but from the fan's point of view it was not very satisfying to see guys get thrown over on the ramp and be allowed back in. I felt that took something away from the match. Ventura and Mean Gene both predicted Vader to get the win in the main event which was to come...

16 man over-the-top Battle Royal

As noted earlier there was apparently nothing riding on this match. Not a title, not a title shot, so it was basically just for pride. This presented some logical holes like why would some tag teams want to pair off against their regular partners, or guys in feuds want to team up, so as to wind up in a battle royal later where there was absolutely nothing at stake? As well as guys not being eliminated when they went over and hit the ramp, you had guys as usual going through the ropes at times, so this must have been tough to follow for the live crowd and it was tough at times for the announcers.

The final moments of the match saw Rhodes do well eliminating the Nasty Boys almost by himself before Austin got rid of him. Hawk eliminated Rude and was then thrown out by Vader and Austin. The final four left were Vader, Flair, Austin and Sting, which is a pretty good final four it must be said.

Flair and Austin went at it and did not team up like earlier in the show while Vader and Sting battled. Race ended up taking Flair through the ropes and Vader splashed him on the ramp which led to EMTs coming down to take Flair away. All four guys ended up on the ramp outside the ring but were still technically in the match, but with Flair taken away Vader and Austin worked on Sting. The Stinger battled against the odds and tossed Austin over as he ran at him. Austin had hit the ramp initially but then slid to the floor so it was deemed he was eliminated. This led to Vader and Sting as the final two. Sting put Vader on the turnbuckle and charged him but Vader moved and Sting crashed to the floor so Vader won the match. :eek:

The crowd were stunned into silence by this finish and I found it a bit head-scratching. I mean, Vader's the World Champ (even though he refuses to wear his title for some reason) and with no title matches on the show I felt a babyface win would have been the best move. It felt like a waste to award the win to the guy that two of the commentators picked as their favourite and who was the World Champion anyway. I can only think that perhaps they wanted Vader to look strong ahead of the match with Flair at Starrcade. The real problem in truth for me was the match didn't seem to have much at stake in the first place.

Verdict: A poor pay-off which left a bad taste.


Overall show verdict: This was a strange one. It's a gimmick PPV with no title matches on the card but instead a series of tag matches leading to a Battle Royal with nothing on the line in that bout. In terms of match quality most of the tag matches ranged from fine to good but I was left with the feeling that nothing much was accomplished in the end except for making Vader look like a big scary bad ass. The problem with this is Vader was the World Champ and most viewed him as a big scary bad ass anyway.

Having said all that, on the plus side, in contrast to Halloween Havoc, we did get decent finishes to the matches and some fun moments. Thus I find it tough to give it a thumbs down verdict. The bizarre rules however and the anti-climactic finish stop me from giving it a thumbs up verdict. I therefore give Battlebowl '93 a thumbs in the middle. Not a disastrous show by any means but could have been so much better.

Just the one PPV from 1993 to get through now and it's the big one - Starrcade '93.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Due to a combination of the buzz over a possible Sting return and some boredom I've decided to check out some early nineties WCW, and for no particular reason I've settled on 1993. My aim is to work through each WCW PPV from the year.

Charisteas wrote: »

I've got a similar deal going on myself.

Call me crazy, but I decided to embark on a mission of watching every WCW Nitro and PPV from 1998. And because i'm only watching them for the first time in my life, it's almost like i'm watching three different products and following three different sets of storylines with this Nitro 1998 collection along with todays weekly dose of Raw and Impact.

jaykhunter wrote: »

How is this going? U should write up a quick review of each show when you're done, it'd be pretty cool to read about I've never seen those Nitros either

In a word - slowly. I'm only at April, and I think due to time constraints i'm going to finish up here.

Also, the Nitro episodes are 3 hours each, which I didn't realise before I started. Thought the shows were decent for the most part, despite them getting a lot of criticism, but maybe I just have a very pro-attitude era view of the wrestling industry.

But i'm only really watching these Nitro's to follow the storylines, not very interested in the quality of wrestling matches.

So I watched today - Nitro from March 30th 1998.

Crowd are $hit hot in Chicago (a sell out apparently) home of the Chicago Bulls, as they talk about building towards Spring Stampede.

Nitro girls open the show shaking their T 'n' A's as Tenay, Shivaone and Zybysko talk about current storylines - The main storyline is the dissension in the ranks of the nWo - Hogan and Nash seem to be building toward a feud as they both want to be leader of the nWo, but they will be a tag team at the next PPV against Piper and Big Show.

Wayne Enos and Mike Bloom Vs High Voltage was stopped when Big Show interferes and choke slams all 4 guys - crowd going crazy.

Roddy Piper comes out, says god bless harry carry (Who?!). He sarcastically says 'Hogan, my pal', spits out his chewing gum but it gets stuck on his bottom lip. LOL moment.

Anyway, tonights main event will be Piper Vs Hogan.

Perry Saturn with hair! (with Raven and his flock) over fit finlay by arm bar submission.

Okerlund plugs the WCW hotline - remember those?

Hollywood Hogan comes out, hes joined by Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Rick Rude, Mr Perfect, Virgil, and a few leechers. Cuts a promo on Piper and Nash.

Jericho comes out drinking a cup of water, cuts a promo on Dean Malenko calling him a quitter. He beats Marty Jannetty in a few minutes, and then cuts another promo on Malenko. This was the highlight of the show. Jericho drinks another cup of water, then picks up a 10 foot long sheet of paper, says that he knows 1004 holds, and starts reading them one by one. Except every third or fourth move he just says 'ARMBAR'

After the ad break, he's on 700 and something. Prince Ikea comes down, and Jericho runs out of the ring, and shouts up to the ref in the ring "GIVE ME MY HOLDS!" and the ref hands him down this 10 foot long sheet of paper which is all screwed up by this point, hilarious stuff!

We then got 4 matches in a row without interruption,

Ikea beat Glazer.

Juventud beat El Dando

Chavo beat a Hiyashi.

Raven Vs Buff Bagwell of the nWo was interupted when DDP chased Raven out of the building (raven had stole his belt last week)

Inferno beat a zombie-like Kidman

nWo music hits again, this time its Mr Perfect with Ravishing Rude against Jim Neidhart. Match ends when they handcuff Neidhart to the rope. Bulldog comes out to help Neidhart. Brian Adams gives a piledriver to Bulldog (a f*cking piledriver in the middle of a meaningless run-in) then Bret Hart comes out and takes out the nWo members.

Booker T and Chris Benoit goes to a time limit draw.

Physcosis and Dragon was a good match until another interference, this time from Ravens flock, this made no sense.

Goldberg gets the pop of the night, easily beats Big Boss Man. Saturn and his hair come down to get in Goldbergs face.

Michael Buffer is here, gets the crowd excitement for the first main event - Nash and a Mystery Partner Vs Sting and Luger. Before the match starts, Macho Man comes out, turns heel by attacking Sting from behind, and is revealed as Nash's partner.

Another interference, this time from Hogan, allows Nash and Savage to win. Crows through garbage in the ring (you just dont see that these days!)

Main event is Hogan Vs Piper - you guessed it, another interference. The Disciple clocks Piper from behind allowing Piper to pick up a DQ win. Nash comes out, gets on the apron, and the crowd gasp. Couldn't understand why, but after watching it again, someone threw a box of popcorn or maybe a drink in the ring that landed on top of Piper and popcorn or drink went flying everywhere.

Nash picks up Piper, hold him for Hogan to punch, but Piper ducks and Hogan clocks Nash right in the kisser. Nash is pi$$ed, then Big Show comes out to check on Piper. Nash and Hogan get out of the ring, and show ends with them talking trash to each other even though they will be tag-partners against Piper/Show at the next PPV.

Overall - Decent show but too many interferences in the matches. Of which there were 14 matches I counted by the way.

nWo had too many members at this point, but Scott Hall wasn't on the show (dont know where he was)

The cruiserweight matches were awesome short matches, but they didn't seem to mean anything because there was no evidence of any storylines here. Just seemed like every week, the cruiserweights would be rotated to wrestler a different guy each week.

No hardcore matches despite ECW being hot at this time.

So i'm gonna give my Nitro viewing a break now. Just acquired the entire ECW hardcore TV from the year 1998, and i think those shows are only an hour each, so gonna give that a shot soon.

I honestly don't think there's a need for a new thread, what with the Network Thread and the Wrestling DVDs thread (obviously there's also the NXT, iMPACT, RAW, PPV etc threads). If you have something that doesn't fit into those categories or want to do a review-type-blog thing then grand. We'll leave it open and see how it does.

kronsington wrote: »

Good thread. I watched the Heyman documentary recently and found it to be very interesting indeed. I don't have the Network but have found a few good ones on The Wrestling Network site.
Not many though. Netflix carry some good WWE docs, notably one focusing on the Bret/HBK rivalry with both men participating. I've watched all of these now and am looking for more. Is there a doc about Lesnar?

HBK gets on my tits in that:

"I, yanno, did it, because, yanno, the thing was, yanno..."

Just started watching WrestleMania 12. Can remember the iron match but will be looking forward to seeing a few old faces in the other matches

rovert wrote: »

It is an interesting show from that POV. Austin credits Savio Vega a lot in terms of getting him out of the funk he was in coming off his injuries and transitioning out of the terrible gimmick he was initially lumbered with.

The Warrior-Hunter Hearst Helmsley match was most likely a hugely formative experience for Triple H.

Just watched piper and goldust. Back lot brawl. Piper was always stone mad. Sad to see 3 of the 6 competitors from the six man tag now dead. And surprisingly the snake isn't one of them.

Watching the AWA documentary for the first time an I must say it is refreshing to hear a non wwe revised history (well so far) . Not the normal talking heads which is great. Really enjoying it so far!

AWA doesn't get much props but they did produce a massive amount of talent

Ageyev wrote: »

Survival of the Hitman

The Bret Hart documentary made by Wai Ting and John Pollock. It's alright but doesn't add much that hasn't already been documented elsewhere. There's a cool bit where Bret watches the Survivor Series match onscreen.


Arena: Masters of the Canvas i

Kayfabe doc made by BBC about the painter Peter Blake painting Kendo Nagasaki. It's very cheesy and carny. Nagasaki had already removed his mask about 10 years previous.


Also watched the Royce Gracie and UFC 20 years documentaries which are alright.

Has anyone any documentary recommendations outside of the obvious ones?

Never heard of this before?

I found a nice channel on Youtube here where a guy has posted a bunch of Georgia Championship Wrestling videos.

I had a desire to check out some old school rasslin' so I decided to watch the episode from September 15th, 1979. This was a go-home show for an event that would take place the following Friday night at the Omni. Here's my review of the show...


The show opens with the legendary host Gordon Solie and he is interviewing Bobby Heenan who is criticising 'jive-talking hillbillies' so you know it's going to be good. The Brain is representing his client, Killer Karl Kox, who is the GCW Hevyweight Champion and who looks ancient. I researched it and at the time of this TV taping he was 48 years of age which surprised me as I thought he was in his fifties here. He was almost the same age as Bill Goldberg is today but Bill is undoubtedly in better shape. After his promo we have a match featuring the champ...

Killer Karl Cox vs Bill Allen

I know back then there weren't the aesthetic requirements for wrestlers that there are today but damn - this Bill Allen guy. Picture an overweight dude with a curly hairstyle similar to Tod Flanders and you have Bill Allen. This was a total squash match with Kox spending most of the match cranking Allen’s neck and finally finishing him with an elbow drop.

The best thing about this whole thing was the promo work. Heenan cut a promo afterwards smoking a cigar and said he will smoke a cigar every time his man wins and that he'd already bought 150 cigars. We then were shown a video featuring Dusty Rhodes, looking pretty slim, and saying he wants the gold belonging to Kox. We cut back to Heenan who says the only gold Dusty’s going to get is when they put new fillings in his teeth.

Bobby Heenan was so great but I reckon you know that already.

We then get an Ernie Ladd promo which was good and from there a match between Ivan Koloff and Ole Anderson vs The Crusher and Tommy Rich.

Ivan Koloff and Ole Anderson vs The Crusher and Tommy Rich

The match broke down early and the bell rings for a double count out. Crusher cuts a promo afterwards saying at the Omni they will be in a cage versus Ole and Koloff for their tag titles and there will be no escape. Alright segment; it did its job.

A cheerful white meat babyface, Ricky Fields, comes along and just pops by to say he’s delighted to be on the card next Friday at the Omni and there’s going to be some of the best wrestling in the world. Well shucks that was awful nice of him to say. You don't see this type of thing nowadays but it was amusing.

Next we get Gordon Solie interviewing Stan Hansen and they analyse a match involving Hansen’s future opponent Blackjack Lanza.

Blackjack Lanza vs jobber

This didn't last long as Lanza takes out the jobber using his deadly finisher: THE CLAW.

It was funny how Hansen was very calm and measured when commentating on Lanza’s match but when it came time to hype his upcoming match he kicked up the intensity a gear and cut a fiery promo saying it was going to be the Claw versus the Lariat and the Lariat would win it for him. This was good and made me want to see the match which is the whole point of a promo. Simple yet effective.

Snake Brown vs Stan Hansen

Snake Brown had the hairstyle of Doc Brown from Back to the Future. You didn't need a time-travelling DeLorean to know how this one would go. Hansen won with the Lariat after a few minutes. I was curious to see how stiff it would be but it looked pretty safe actually.

Rick Oliver vs Bob Armstrong

The match never happened as Bobby Heenan returned and cut a promo on Dusty again and says Killer Karl Kox will keep the gold and retire as champion. Then he challenges Bob Armstrong - who will on Friday face another of Heenan's clients Toru Tanaka - to accept a martial arts challenge tonight instead of this Rick Oliver as a warm up for Friday. It will be a judo jacket match or something. Bob accepts because he ain't going to back down from a challenge by Heenan.

Stand-by match – Carl Fergie vs Chick Donovan

Longest match of the show so far. Started off dull, got a bit better near the end. Nothing special but fine. Carl Fergie is a cousin of Jerry Lawler I subsequently learned.

Ole and Koloff vs Jobbers

The Crusher and Tommy Rich were on commentary, scouting their opponents on Friday.

The match was basic with Ole working over the jobber's arm. The star of this was The Crusher who was was hilarious burying Ole and Koloff. At one stage Ole was struggling on the mat with trying to turn over a jobber. Crusher says:

'Look at these bums 'ere. Can't even get out of a little, simple hold that I seen put on guys when I was in kindergarten.'

Crusher had a lot of lines that sounded like he'd been using since kindergarten. At one stage he refers to 'Ole Jerkson and Ivan Dumb-koff.' He also criticizes their 'poopy holds'. The weird thing is his delivery was so great with that growling, gravelly voice of his that it worked. My favourite burial line of his, as he shakes his head:

‘How they got to be champions I’ll never know.’

He was very entertaining.

Bob Armstrong vs Doctor Judo

Yes. DOCTOR JUDO. They wrestled it like a normal match except instead of punches there were martial arts chops. Armstrong showed great babyface fire in his comeback which I liked as did the crowd. Armstrong won with a hold that Heenan afterwards complained was an illegal choke but which Solie explained was quite legal. Promo afterwards from Armstrong promoting Friday night at the Omni.


Overall show verdict:I liked the show and it got me interested in seeing the event they hyped: Friday night at the Omni. If I'd been around at this time and in the area I can imagine myself wanting to go see it. I actually looked for results online but couldn't find any.

Star of the show: I'd have to give it to Bobby Heenan who was fantastic. His stuff not only holds up well today but surpasses most, if not all, of it.

The Crusher was very good too and I can understand why he was such a legendary performer. Normally I don't like guys burying their opponents, but as the guys he was burying here were established guys who were the champs I can let it go; especially as it was entertaining.

Most of the promo work on the show was far better than today's stuff which is no real surprise.