World War 3 '97

World War 3 (17,128)

Match 1- The Faces of Fear def Glacier & ‘The Cat’ Ernest Miller

TV Title

Match 2- (c) Perry Saturn def Disco Inferno

Segment- Mean Gene interviews The Giant regarding his broken hand. The Giant says he is still capable of winning the main-event, 60 man Battle Royal!

March 3- Yugi Nagata def Ultimo Dragon (If Ultimo Dragon wins, he gets 5 minutes alone with Sonny Ono)

Tag Team Championships

Match 4- (c) The Steiner Brothers def Steve Regal & Dave Taylor

Segment- Mean Gene interviews J.J. Dillon. Dillon says he has struggled to offer Raven a contract, and now he only has 24 hours to sign one.

Match 5- Raven def Scotty Riggs (No DQ Match)

Match 6- Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael def Alex Wright

Cruiserweight Championship

Match 7- (c) Eddie Guerrero def Rey Mysterio

United States Championship

Match 8- (c) Curt Hennig def Ric Flair (No DQ Match)

Match 9- Scott Hall def 59 other men (World War 3 Battle Royal)

Analysis

Matches 1 & 2

The Faces of Fear defeated Glacier and Meng in the opener. Miller ran towards Meng in the corner, and used him as a springboard as he ran up and off him, and hit a diving crossbody to The Barbarian outside of the ring! A really cool spot, and with a touch of irony perhaps, Miller actually looked FAR better than the actual trained wrestler in Glacier for this one. The match was fine for what I was, but outside of Miller’s crossbody spot, it was an otherwise boring and uninspiring matchup.

Up next however we saw the TV Title on the line, as the champion Perry Saturn successfully defended it against Disco Inferno. I really liked Saturn as the TV champion, and this match was the perfect example as to why. He'd probably never be a world champion, but was a solid worker and could deliver decent matches in spots like this. However this wasn't the best example, but you can probably blame Disco Inferno for that as much as anything. These two guys just didn't gel unfortunately. I was happy that Saturn retained, but the match as a whole disappointed.

Match 3

Next we saw Yuji Nagata defeat Ultimo Dragon, saving his manager Sonny Ono from spending “five minutes alone” with Ultimo Dragon per the stipulation. As a side note, the “5 minutes alone” gimmick always sounded bizarre to me. A fine match I guess, even if Nagata was a bit sloppy at times. Ultimately (haha, get it) I just didn't care about this match, or what perverse things Ultimo Dragon wanted to do with Sonny Ono for 5 minutes.

Match 4

Tag title action next as The Steiner Brothers took on Steve Regal and Dave Taylor. This match wasn't as stiff as I expected, but it was still a physical, old school 90’s hard hitting match! It won't be winning any MOTY awards, but a fun watch all the same and the first semi-interesting match on the card so far. I'd like to see these guys run it back, as on paper, it should have been a firecracker!

Match 5

A ‘Raven's Rules’ match was next (essentially no DQ/No Count-Out) as Raven defeated Scotty Riggs. WCW didn't use a lot of weapons at this point, making little things like chair shots far more impactful. I say that because the focus of the entire match was a single chair and how it was used. There was a double count-out spot that transitioned into a cover by Riggs, but that was the only memorable moment of the match for me. Raven was Mr ECW, so I would have liked the no DQ nature to have been slowly ramped up with the use of more gimmicks. But this was purely an angle match sadly, as Raven got on the mic as he hit repeated DDT’s on Riggs, questioning why he didn't “listen” and join him sooner. I get this was character development for Raven, so you either liked it or you didn't. The Flock carried Scotty Riggs to the back post-match. This would have been fine on an episode of Nitro to progress the angle, but personally I thought it was a cheap move to put this on PPV and disguise it as some kind of no DQ/Hardcore match.

Match 6

Goldberg was set to face Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael, but Goldberg was taking a nap backstage, courtesy of big man Mongo himself! At least that saved me the headache of doing the maths on what Goldberg's ACTUAL winning record was at this point (13-0, discounting House shows and dark matches. Although he did actually LOSE his 3rd professional contest to Chad Fortune, during a dark match on an episode of WCW Saturday Night) Anyway, Alex Wright accepts the challenge and gets his ass kicked. This was simply a lazy re-run of a match we had JUST SEEN on Nitro! Come on Eric, you’re better than this surely.

Match 7

Finally! Rey Mysterio took on Eddie Guerrero for the Cruiserweight Title and AT LAST we saw a contest that was PPV quality. A few really well timed near falls in this one, and as a match it was obviously good because…well it's Rey and Eddie! Yet for me, it never quite clicked into its highest gear, but that's only from the perspective of just how good these guys are. I never actually rated their match at Halloween Havoc as 5 stars, purely on account of how short it was. Yes it was VERY good, and also better than this one. But as a direct comparison, this was still a solid 3.5-3.75 star match in my eyes, and easily the best of the night so far! Eddie retains off a frog splash for a 3 count.

Match 8

Curt Hennig faced his blood rival Ric Flair for the US Title. This was a much slower match with more emphasis placed on psychology, but it was probably Hennig’s best outing during his WCW run so far for this very reaosn. An enjoyable contest that saw Hennig retain, after clocking Ric Flair with the U.S Title for the 3-count.

Main-event

It would be simply insane to attempt my play by play, Royal Rumble style coverage to review this one. So I'll talk about the winner and give my general thoughts on the match instead. Now, I do realise just because I don't enjoy something, it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. But this had NONE of the drama of the Royal Rumble (one of the Rumble’s standout features was the anticipation of who would enter next) and generally, Battle Royal’s are NOT GOOD matches anyway. Add the fact this one had too many men, as well as an additional 2 rings, and the whole thing just becomes messy. Scott Hall was the winner and here is how it all unfolded! Scott Hall, ‘Hollywood’ Hogan, DDP and The Giant were the final 4 men after Hogan was revealed as a ‘surprise’ entrant of sorts. But wait…IT'S STING! Sting chases away Hogan with a bat, eliminating him before dumping The Giant over the top rope, awarding the match to Scott Hall by default. Sting lifts his mask to reveal…it was actually Kevin Nash all along and a ploy by the nWo to ensure one of their men won the match. The nWo kicked the shit out of DDP, as the PPV goes off air. I wasn't a huge fan of this finish as it felt anticlimactic, and the crowd seemed pretty flat for it further proving my point.

Summary

This was a POOR effort from WCW as far as a PPV is concerned. The 60 man, 3 ring set up was always a cluster fuck to shoot as well as being a visual eye sore, so for me personally, they've lost the main-event before the show has even started. For the card to actually be GOOD, you needed a really strong undercard and a good dramatic finish to the Battle Royal. Outside of Rey/Eddie and Hennig/Flair, the matches were either bad, uninteresting or average at best, and the finish to the main-event was pretty shoddy. I still feel as if 2 stars is slightly harsh as a final grade, because I can understand that some people would have enjoyed this card. But factoring in the underwhelming end to the PPV, my final score is still a mark below average (2.25 Stars)