I always had a thing for this PPV series and according to the buy rates so did a lot of other fans, the Halloween Havoc franchise drew strong PPV buys even in the dark days of WCW when NOBODY was buying their PPV's. I thought about trying to watch through some of the shows on WWE Network so I started a thread to post what I think about them. What are some of your favorite moments or matches from this series? 

Halloween Havoc was pretty instrumental in my becoming a WCW fan. Being in New York, my first exposure to wrestling was obviously WWF, but there would slivers of WCW in my life through mags, a George Napolitano picture collection book. At some point I started to watch WCW Saturday Night (I think we didn't have cable, and then we did, and that was the only thing stopping me before). Anyways, the WCW style was a real alternative to what the WWF was doing, and in a lot of ways more fun. Halloween Havoc is a perfect embodiment of that. Being a kid, there's an event called Halloween Havoc, they spin a goddamned wheel, it was all very exciting.

I think Havoc '92 is the first I saw in real time. I was so hyped for Sting vs. Roberts. First off, Roberts came in, in a very modern way. It was the first "He doesn't even work here!" I had seen. Then they were spinning said goddamned wheel. In retrospect, a Coal Miner's Glove match is fucking terrible, but I'll be goddamned if I wasn't totally hyped about it beforehand. What is a coal miner glove anyway? I had no clue.

Havoc '93 is stacked looking at it now. Ordorff-Steamboat, Austin-Rhodes, Sting-Sid, Flair-Rude and Vader-Foley. Regal-British Bulldog was on it too, if that's your sort of thing (Spoiler: It was a draw, like every fucking Regal match that year).

Havoc '94 is memorable for the wrong reason, with the Steve Austin getting squashed by Hacksaw Jim Duggan, completely dismantling all the good work they had done (or Austin did himself really) up to that point. It was over after that. There was no coming back.

Havoc '95 is hilarious. The whole Hogan-Giant fiasco, and WCW fully committing to Hogan's 80's revival shitshow. Also, motherfucking Sabu live on Pay Per View way before Barely Legal.

I was so pumped for Havoc '96. The nWo was really starting to hit its stride, and Hogan-Savage, which would have been laughable six months earlier now had a renewed vigor to it. It was also really well done with the nWo going over so strong. DiBiase in the crowd, introducing nWo members, who would then gang shitkick a WCW member. I think this is also where Nash killed Harlem Heat on the mic. "What part of Harlem do you come from, hicks?" Something to that effect.

Havoc '97 of course had arguably the greatest match in WCW history (Rey vs. Eddie). Wiki tells me DDP and Savage wrestled, which was probably good. I can't imagine anything else was.

Havoc '98 is memorable for all the wrong reasons too. Miraculously, with one of the most stacked WCW cards ever (Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner, Hall vs. Nash, Hart vs. Sting, Hogan vs. Warrior, Goldberg vs. DDP), only one match was actually good, and nobody saw it because they ran out of time. Just a disastrous period for WCW.

I'll leave Havoc '99/2000 alone because I don't remember much about them.

Of all the PPVs, Halloween Havoc was my favourite growing up, surpassing even Wrestlemania which didn't capture my imagination until Wrestlemania X-7. Held at the MGM Studio in Las Vegas the shows had an energy to them look nothing else and were always presented as big deals. The first Halloween Havoc I had the pleasure of watching was the infamous one that ran over-time. Since I had to wait until the VHS copy, the show was heavily edited down and a few matches were either clipped or not shown altogether. Such classics like Wright/Finlay, Saturn/Lodi and Wrath/Meng were cut from the tape leaving a show which featured a lot of matches that sounded great on paper. Bret vs Sting, Hall vs Nash, Steiner vs Steiner (with the Giant doing a missile dropkick, which blew my mind) and even Jericho vs Raven captured my imagination. The only match that didn't make any sense to me was Hogan vs some guy called the Warrior. I had never heard of the Ultimate Warrior before, so when I saw some roided up guy with tassles coming to the ring I was as excited as watching a Bryan Adams match. On top of all that you had my two favourite performers, the loud and perrenial underdog Diamond Dallas Page taking on the phenom Bill Goldberg for the championship match. One of the reasons why it took me longer to gravitate towards Pro Wrestling was because of how farcical it could be. I couldn't suspend my disbelief when I would see bodybuilders sell a woman's shoe to the back of the head, especially not after the success of Austin Powers. So when I just saw two guys like DDP and Goldberg give it their all in the ring, I was well and truly hooked on the product and I wanted to see more of that. I also couldn't wait to see who Rick Steiner would pick as his new tag team partner. Would it be Meng? Would it be Wrath? The Barbarian would be a neat tag team partner as well...

...and he picked a guy called Kenny Khaos. Of all the WCW booking moves, that was among the worst.

While the show is remembered as a disappointment, as a kid who didn't keep a tally of match ratings and was more invested in the story-telling, Halloween Havoc 98 was a huge success and it maybe one of my favourite WCW shows to this very day.

I never saw Halloween Havoc '99 or 2000 but I was so enamored with the scene that I can remember logging onto WCW.com and DDT Digest.com and reading about both like it was only yesterday. Halloween Havoc '99 may have been the biggest mark out of my wrestling year. It was either that show, or the episode of Raw in 2000 where Mick Foley was announced as the General Manger and I had tears of joy that my fan favourite was back and would finally get the last laugh over HHH. Not only did Goldberg beat that loud mouth goofball Sid to a bloody pulp, he then went onto beat Sting and become champion. I was so proud of my hero, I remember having to log offline so I could call my dad and tell him the big news. It was like watching your team win the Superbowl, I was so happy my guy won that I was prepared to just go all out and ask for every WCW related merchandise for Christmas. One day later, not only does Goldberg get stripped of the title, they eliminate him from some stupid tournament and my passion for WCW faded and never recovered. They had one chance at Starrcade '99 and they blew it, from there I basically read more about WCW than I actively tuned into watch.

Like '98, the card was stacked. Luger vs Hart, DDP vs Flair, Hogan vs Sting, Sid vs Goldberg and Benoit vs Rick Steiner were all big matches that held my interest. Unfortunately from what I heard, most of the matches sounded awful and the Hogan vs Sting match made no sense. Why did Hogan rip the fans off like that? I thought he turned over a new leaf, why was Hogan doing this again? Forget the White Hummer, that was the biggest mystery through out WCW history and to this day I don't really feel satisfied with the 'worked shoot' answer. Years later, I watched the Goldberg vs Sting match and if I had have seen it live, I wouldn't have been so excited. WCW downplayed the moment so much that it was pretty clear they had no intention of making Bill the guy again. Admittedly by this point, Goldberg had lost some of his luster particularly with older fans. I remember anytime I spoke wrestling with my cousin's they were far more interested in talking ECW, Sting or Scott Hall.

By 2000 my interest in WCW had well and truly waned. Vince Russo was all over the TV, they turned Goldberg heel, most of the good workers were now in the WWF and everybody fought in street clothes. Despite going to one of the Nitros in the build up to the show, my interest was minimal outside of the fact it was a Halloween Havoc show. I honestly can't remember much other than Goldberg main eventing with Kronik and beating them as well as a Sting v Jeff Jarrett match which actually sounded like a fun sports entertainment match. As much as Jeff Jarrett bored me as a performer, I had to admit his promos on Sting were actually good and I couldn't wait to see those two go at it. If memory serves, I thought the show was a lot better than it had been, especially with Russo seemingly off TV but I could be getting my timelines wrong.

The only other Halloween Havoc show I've seen in it's entirety is Halloween Havoc '96 which was apart of my WCW '96 marathon. Like other shows, it was jam-packed with Savage-Hogan, Outsiders-Harlem Heat, Luger-Anderson, DDP-Eddie and Mysterio Jr-Malenko. If you ask me, had it not been for the Slim Jim deal which meant that Savage-Hogan had to main event this particular show, that would have been my Starrcade main event. Piper-Hogan ended up drawing a monster buy-rate, but as a match that had so much history behind it, a babyface Savage v Hogan match had so much more appeal. Instead we got it on this show and the match reeked. Hogan made a fool of Savage and what should have been this huge moment in Mach's career was a real low-point. On the other hand, Mysterio Jr vs Malenko is my favourite match of their feud. While they had an excellent series of matches prior to the bout which really made the Cruiserweight Championship one of the most prestigious belts on the show, the matches didn't have much personality. Malenko was the ring general who would take you down to the mat while Rey was an unpredictible high-flier who could throw you off and just run rings around you. It was great, but when they added emotion and desperation into the mix, it raised the stakes giving their series of matches the trade off it deserved. Rey-Dean maybe one of my favourite feuds of the 90s and I liked how it ultimately culminated in '98 where Dean swallowed his pride and helped Rey stick one up Jericho at Bash at the Beach '98. I can't remember if they played that history up at all, but it certainly added to the division.

I could keep babbling all-day, I really need to check out some of the earlier shows and see how well they held up.

Top Matches According To Meltzer
Nasty Boys vs Marcus Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio - *** 1/2 - 1993
Vader vs Cactus Jack - **** 3/4 - 1993
Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan - **** 1/4 - 1994
Sting & Ric Flair vs Brian Pillman & Arn Anderson - *** 1/2 - 1995
Rey Mysterio Jr vs Dean Malenko - **** 1/4 - 1996
Yugi Nagata vs Ultimo Dragon - *** 3/4 - 1997
Rey Mysterio Jr vs Eddie Guerrero - **** 3/4 - 1997

Worst Matches
Rick Rude vs Masahiro Chono -*** - 1992
Dave Sullivan vs Kevin Sullivan DUD - 1994
Randy Savage vs Zodiac DUD - 1995
Meng vs Lex Luger -* - 1995
Alex Wright vs Steve McMichael -* 1/2 - 1997
Ultimate Warrior vs Hollywood Hogan -***** - 1998

Always liked Halloween Havoc and viewed it as one of WCW's Big Four pay per views (with SuperBrawl, Great American Bash & Starrcade being the others).

Yet the only one I'm 100% sure I've seen is 1989, which was one of my go to rentals back in the mid 90s. For starters, the Turner Home Entertainment version found in video stores had a great intro which I sadly cannot find anywhere. Then you get four quality matches to close out the show in...

Doom vs. Steiners
Luger vs. Pillman- US Title
Road Warriors vs. undefeated Skyscrapers- Grudge Match
Flair & Sting vs. Muta & Funk- Thunderdome Cage Match~!/Fan Fic-ish dream match

Main event was my fave of the four and I rated it super highly back in the day.

I wanted to see '93 in real time for Vader vs. Cactus and think I saw it on tape at some point but the only match I remember for sure is Vader/Cactus, which sadly doesn't hold up all that well in my opinion.

Then of course you get classics like Eddie/Rey and Goldberg/DDP in later years.

I loaded up 1989 Havoc the other night but I fell asleep pretty early on in the show. I remember watching it a few years ago and enjoying it. I skipped it and watched Havoc 1990 last night. I remember the VHS tape for this had such a dominant cover art:



Summer of 1998 my family moved across Texarkana Texas and the grocery store there had the fucking greatest video store with an unbelievable wrestling section that was fucking deep. I remember this was one of the tapes I first seen there. Just looking up that cover for this show brings back what it felt like to move to a new town and walk into a new video store and discover that they've got a bad ass wrestling section with isles of tapes you had been wanting to see or had never heard of. That one in Texarkana had just about everything though, I was seriously hyperventilating the first time we went there I was so stoked. What a great feeling. But then there were the shitty ones, like the one in Franklin Texas we moved to in 1999, they had a pretty sweet video store there with a great horror selection but they only had 2 wrestling tapes in the whole building, Survivor Series 98 and one of the UK shows from like 1999, which somebody had rented out and never returned the whole time we lived there.

But yeah I watched Havoc 90 last night and it was such a goofy show I got a kick out of it. Tony Shiavonne in the Phantom of the Opera outfit is so stupid it's hilarious. Paul E Heyman dressed up like a Vampire in the opening. The show was a breeze to make it through since I believe it was only 2 hours, it felt like less than 2 hours. Doom vs Flair and Arn was one of the matches I remember, sloppy stuff. The main event wasn't particularly good but it was cool. My favorite thing about this whole show is the dude in the crowd that has a tape recorder and throughout the show he's talking into the recorder like he's recording his own live play-by-play to listen back to it later. This is so fucking nerdy and old school it's almost too good to be true. I had a good time with this one.

Like Baker I viewed Halloween Havoc as one of WCW's major PPV's. It showcased WCW at it's most "creative" with all the, in retrospect, goofy gimmick matches in the early years. Still at the time the Thundercage, Chamber Of Horrors and Spin The Wheel Make The Deal matches were all highly anticipated and for the most part were fun to watch. Rick Rude debuting in 1991 as the Halloween Phantom was great as was the build to the Hogan/Flair cage match in '94. It was so good it further damaged Hogan further as a babyface as they went all in the several tributes to Flair. I wish I could find them somewhere. Eddie/Rey, Hogan's botched fireball and of course the sumo monster truck battle (where's my promised Giant falling off the building explanation Bischoff? ) are also all standout memories.

Always been surprised that the WWE never brought back the 'Halloween Havoc' name for the October ppv