Sutter Cane back again with another installment of my trek through WCW. This time I'll be taking a look at World War 3 1995, the first ppv to showcase WCW's unique three-ringed take on the Royal Rumble. Will it turn out to be a great new take on the idea, or will it immediately devolve into an unwatchable mess? Will WCW step up their game at all to make up for the past 2 awful Pay Per Views, or will the streak of terribleness continue for the third month in a row? Let's dive right in and find out.
WCW World War 3 1995 (11/26/1995)
WCW is Live from Norfolk Virgina for the inaugural World War 3 Pay Per View
Hogan Savage and sting cut a promo to start off the PPV. Hogan reveals that he and savage have come back from the dark side and that they will never ever again question sting and that from now on they're totally going to be BFFs forever guys. Joking aside, it's not a bad promo.
Also as usual Macho Man can't stand still and ends up wandering around in the background while Hogan and sting do their bits.
Hulk then takes a shot at the dirtsheets saying that The Giant is going to win the title and that Savage has been working hurt. Not really sure what the point of that was, but whatever.
Video package of the continuing feud between DDP and Johnny B Badd that's been happening on WCW Saturday Night. Kimberly is going to be put up as a prize for their match at WW3 (her word choice, not mine). Progressive!
World Television Championship: Diamond Dallas Page vs Johnny B Badd (c) Winner gets the services of Kimberly
Is it just me, or are they counting the pins faster here than they do today? Seems like it's pretty much impossible to kick out at a 1 count.
man there really isn't a lot of room between the ring and the guardrail due to this 3 ring set up. Not sure I'd be all that comfortable doing dives to the outside if I were in that situaton, so kudos to Johnny B Badd.
DDP misses on a stomp by about a full foot. Johnny sells it anyway
DDP repeatedly heckling a female audinece member by calling her a bimbo to get some heel heat. Couldn't get away with that these days
Man it seems really weird to see powerbombs and piledrivers being busted out as regular moves without any fanfare.
Johnny B Badd hits the Badd day followed by a slingshot leg drop and picks up the victory and the services of Kimberly
the two hug in the middle of the ring and flirt a bit.
Solid match to start off the show, though it's probably not one I'll remember all that much down the line
Okerlund interviews Badd and Kimberly backstage. Badd offers her a position as his manager, but says she doesn't have to accept if she doesn't want to.
Taped Fist Match: Big Bubba Rogers vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan
this is going to suck isn't it?
Duggan ambushes Bubba during Bubba's entrance then attempts to hit him with his board before the ref takes it away.
Isn't Duggan supposed to be the face here? Cause he sure is acting like the heel.
the two end up brawling on the outside and make their way into one of the other 3 rings. apparently this doesn't count toward a count out.
It'd be a stretch to call this a wrestling match, since there hasn't been any wrestling here at all due to the gimmick
wow, Bossman busts out an enzuigiri. Nice
The announcers aren't actually aware of the rules of the atch they're calling. Nice.
Bubba tapes Duggan to the ropes. This isn't a no DQ match, so why exactly doss the ref allow this?
VK Wallstreet comes out to interfere with a chain wrapped around his wrist, but bubba stopped him. Bubba gets ahold of the chain, hits duggan with it when the ref isn't looking and picks up the win.
This match sucked. Taped fist matches always suck. On top of that there were several spots that just made no sense at all. Thankfully it's over now
Flair cuts a promo on his upcoming match with sting.
Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki vs Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto
They bring out Tenay for this match, and he promptly calls Japan "The Orient." Pretty Sure that's not the preferred nomenclature dude
I just can't get over Nakano's hair here. It's sticking up in the air like 2 feet straight above her head.
The athleticism in this match is awesome. Why can't modern women's wrestling be this good?
Nakano hits the guillotine leg drop and gets the pin
This is by far the best match of the night so far, and that's not a knock at ddp and mero's match earlier. This was a hell of a lot of fun and is going to be a damn tough act to follow.
US Heavyweight Championship: Kensuke Sasaki (c) vs Chris Benoit
Sasaki won the championship at a NJPW event from sting a little over a week before this event.
A lot more slowly paced than the previous match, and it's kind of suffering in comparison so far, even though it's by no means a bad match
Ooh, Benoit goes for a suicide dive, and hits his head on the top of the steel barrier. This does not seem like a safe set up.
far too many rest holds in this match.
Ugh, that flying headbutt Benoit does is just uncomfortable to watch. I don't think i need to mention why
Sasaki hits the northern lights bomb and picks up the victory, retaining the title
Not a terrible match, but not one of Benoit's best either. The match takes far too long to really get going and it ends up looking even worse given the match it had to follow
The Giant, Jimmy Hart and Kevin Sullivan cut a promo on the 60 man battle royal.
Hart starts to walk off after his part seemingly forgetting that the promo isn't actually over. He eventually realizes this and rejoining the group
Hugh Morris apparently debuted at some point. Not sure when
Video package recapping the Savage/Luger feud
Savage then cuts a promo on the match as well. Savage claims that his arm isn't actually injured
Randy Savage vs Lex Luger
Savage's left arm is taped pretty much all the way up
Savage then charges Luger as soon as he steps into the ring, and the start o this match isn't half bad
Savage hits the elbow drop, but Jimmy Hart is distracting the ref
Sting and Luger are apparently going to be teaming together on nitro. Maybe they'll finally explain what is going on between those two
Luger eventually gets Savage to tap with the armbar.
Luger refuses to break the hold, and sting comes out to have some words with him, and gets Luger to break the hold. I'm interested to see where this is going.
The match was pretty short, but actually quite entertaining while it lasted. Interesting to see that these guys can still put on pretty good matches when they're not up against other members of the dungeon of doom.
Video Package about the recent Sting/Flair feud
Sting vs Flair
Can't Really go wring with this match up
You know I' not really sure about how I feel about the way they're handling the battle royal, as the people who are having matches earlier in the night are also involved in the WW3 match. It's very different.
Flair has some words for sting before the match begins
Flair immediately goes into one of the other rings, which is interesting but rater random
and they cut away from FUCKING STING VS FUCKING FLAIR to show Colonel Parker and Sister Sherri. Why on earth would you do that? They're not even involved in this feud at all.
AND THEY CUT AWAY FOR A 2ND TIME TO SHOW THEM. FUCK YOU, WCW!
This match actually hasn't been nearly as good as I was expecting.
and then flair gets knocked on his ass by the ref, nice.
Sting doesn't really seem to be selling the figure 4 that flair locked in earlier in the match. This is more noticeable because at the same time Flair is still selling the damage done when sting reversed it
Sting eventually gets the scorpion deathlock on Flair, and Flair taps out.
Yeah, this match was outclassed in every single way by the match these two had on Nitro earlier in the month. The only thing unique about this one was all of the ring switching which didn't add anything to the match at all. The Match itself wasn't actually outright bad, but when these two guys step into the ring you expect something special, and they just did not deliver here.
Video package summarizing Hulk/dungeon of doom feud
Standard Hulk Hogan promo about the WW3 match
Bischoff warns us that the match may be nothing but chaos. Yes Eric, that's what I'm worried about
WORLD WAR 3 60 MAN BATTLE ROYAL FOR THE WCW HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
The Yeti now looks like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat
One Man Gang is in WCW? Didn't know that.
Michael Buffer Botch #3: He calls WCW "The WCW"
Damn, they really went all out on the pyro
Yeah this looks like it's as big of a mess as I was expecting
the 3 ring anything goes set up is absolutely awful, because it means that there are people on the floor that haven't been eliminated.
The one thing that really is working about it is how well the announcers are selling all the chaos
to make matters worse it seems that as soon as there are 10 men left in each ring (and when the chaos finally starts to sightly clear), everyone has to move into ring one creating a complete mess again
far too many instances of guys getting knocked over the top rope but staying in the ring. it ruins what drama there is since it's already really hard to follow anything that's happening, and it makes the prospect of seeing someone about to be thrown over less exciting
I think Eddie may have just eliminated someone
They've split the screen so that they have 3 different boxes covering the three different rings, but for the life of me I can't figure out which is which. The announcers keep saying things like "oh X is happening over in ring number 1" but I end up missing whatever they're talking about since the top lest box isn't covering ring #1 like you'd expect it to.
Eddie climbs to the apron for one of his spots, but then can't find a place to get back in the ring
Also it's odd how people who have been eliminated are still apparently able to legally eliminate others as ddp goes over the top rope and then after he hits the ground, pulls johnny b badd down too. odd
and now sadly, Benoit is out
wow, Eddie has lasted a surprisingly long time. I mean right now the people that are left are basically just all of the main eventers, One Man Gang, and Eddie Guerrero
and there he goes.
Holy crap Luger Sting and Giant are all eliminated at once
Savage is declared the champ after he eliminates One Man Gang, but hogan ended u going under the ropes. The ref doesn't acknowledge this though. Dusty Finishes suck.
Flair and savage have an argument about the finish of the match. It's apparently going to be resolved on tomorrow night's nitro.
So, my opinion on the very first World War 3 Match? It was a thing that happened. It was chaotic and basically didn't have any wrestling, and the coverage of it was awful, but it still wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and somehow I managed to avoid being bored. Doesn't even come close to holding a candle to the rumble though.
Final Thoughts: Overall this was a fairly solid PPV. It had a couple of slightly disappointing matches, but none that were actually bad save for the taped fist match, and that Japanese women's tag team match was great. Not sure if it would have been worth the 30 bucks to watch it live or not, but I certainly don't feel like I wasted my time with it.
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