NWA Halloween Havoc 1989 – Settling the Score (10.28.89) review 

 

October 28, 1989 

 

We’re in Philly at the Civic Center. Dubbed the “nation’s most historic arena”. Naturally it’s been demolished. The Yanks can’t be having history! I’m surprised they haven’t demolished the Crysler Building or Mount Rushmore. The building has hosted an assortment of crazy shit over its existence including a Beatles concert, Martin Luther King Jr spoke there, Rolling Stones played there on during their third American tour back in ‘65, Pope John Paul II spoke there, Nelson Mandela spoke there. Two Philly NBA teams played here. The fight scenes for Rocky V were shot in the building. It had a pipe organ, built in 1931, that was removed and sold off when the building closed. The limestone frieze was thankfully saved but it boggles the mind that such a historic building would be just torn down.  

This show did an ok 1.77 buyrate, around half of Survivor Series’ numbers. It confuses me that more people weren’t watching the product in 1989. It was clearly a superior product to the WWF. It wasn’t even close. Hosts here are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle. Because we’re in Philly, expect heel fans. I am very excited to hear their reactions this evening.  

 

Mike Rotunda vs. Z-Man 

What a shitty opener this is. Rotunda is still in Varsity Club gear, despite that whole thing having disappeared. Both guys get heavily booed by a crowd not interested in seeing either of them. Philly is like a whole crowd full of guys like me at that one Summer Sizzler, where I got smashed beforehand and screamed abuse at everyone.  

 

A bland heel and a bland babyface. In Philly. What’s the worst that could happen? As it turns out; apathy. The in-ring screams **. Just a nothing match, which I will have forgotten about by the time the next workers hit the ring. They give it nearly 15:00 too. I’m asleep, brrrrrother, let’s go home. This is so boring it reminds me of MSG undercard time limit draws from 1984. Zenk rolls through a crossbody for the win. The pop is people relieved it’s over, followed by boos. This sucked.  

 

Sidenote: this match was so boring I took two days off to recover. Although, I think I also had COVID so maybe that was partially responsible. It wouldn’t be the first time Mike Rotunda had wrestled a match so dull I wanted to stop watching wrestling forever though.  

 

We return with Bruno Sammartino. He had been working for the WWF up to 1988, a year after his official retirement. Suddenly, he started to disapprove of the WWF’s brand of wrestling. Maybe he saw one too many guys shooting steroids into their buttocks. One of his main concerns with the WWF related to rampant drug use among the roster. It is worth noting that many guys from his era are now dead and a lot of them were drug related deaths. Bruno is here to shill the NWA and says the Thunderdome is a “very dangerous match”. Given his powerful pro-NWA shilling here, it’s surprising he didn’t pop up in WCW more often. Although a lot of shambolic stuff he criticised the WWF for also becoming prevalent in WCW.  

 

Midnight Express & Steve Williams vs. Samoan Swat Team & Samoan Savage 

Savage is Tama, aka the Tonga Kid. Wait, Tama…Tonga? Damn. I never saw it. It was right there. This should be a logical continuation of the Cornette-Heyman rivalry, but the Samoans dumped Paul E and replaced him “The Big Kahuna”, which is Sir Oliver Humperdink. He moved over to the NWA with Bam Bam Bigelow but now Bigelow has left and Humperdink is still here. He had nothing else to do.  

 

The heel-face dynamic works here because the crowd don’t like the Samoans and both Midnights and Dr Death are just cool. Doc gets a lot of love. He’s in there smacking people around and the crowd erupts for everything. It’s awesome when wrestling is like this. You can see why ECW ran Philly. They ate the sport up. JR is on fire here, giving us background on all the workers without detracting from the action.  

“That’s an intense man right there”. The match is tight. Everyone looks good. The Samoans do feel like generic bad guys but they’re not boring. There’s no denying the star of the piece though; Doc. He’s 29 here and wrestling has finally clicked for him. For anyone concerned they’re not getting better in wrestling, 5-6 years in, look at Williams. It took him 7 years to get good but as soon as he found wrestling, he got insanely good almost overnight. Oddly enough, he barely wrestled in the US after this, departing to AJPW in 1990 and staying there for a decade until the Bart Gunn incident. 

 

For those thinking this is a throwaway match Bobby Eaton makes a point of getting the heat over by taking a hip toss on the floor. It makes a “SPLAT” noise. It’s quite sickening. Eaton was an outstanding bumper. Way ahead of his time. In fact, almost everything Eaton did was great and ahead of its time. His selling is beautifully subtle. He does something here where he reaches for the ropes, doesn’t get there and face bumps. I’ll take that over that goofy fucking face plant Flair does any day of the week.  

 

After Eaton is done with selling school, Doc comes in for the hot tag and boy howdy does he deliver. The intensity is elite. Stan Lane ends up getting a tag and he collides with Cornette and loses. Karate! Eaton should have dumped him and tagged with Doc. That would have been an unreal tag team. ***½ 

 

Cuban Assassin vs. Tommy Rich 

This should also be a no brainer on the heel-face dynamic because you can’t cheer Cuban Assassin. The trouble comes with the time this is allotted. Cuban Assassin is a jamoke and nobody should be taking him over 5:00. JR notes Tommy Rich had been in “relative obscurity” in the mid 80s but had a banger with Lex Luger at Clash 8. We get a minute in and the crowd chant “Tommy Rich sucks”. Haha. Philly, never change.  

 

Rich, eager to counter the fans’ abuse, hooks an armbar and sticks in it. As if to say, “fuck you, all you’re getting is an armbar if you think I suck”. He breaks it up with a sunset flip, but they botch it, and the fans get angry about it, so we go back to the armbar. Ohhhhh brrrrrother. Tommy Rich later appeared in ECW as part of the FBI. Vaffanculo! Honestly though, this match is absolute dogshit and derails all the good faith Rich had built up at Clash 8. The comeback story of the year is over. DUD 

 

NWA Tag Team Championship 

Fabulous Freebirds (c) vs. Dynamic Dudes  

Oh shit, I wonder how Philly will react to a clean-cut, skateboard wielding, babyface tag team? WCW tried to get ahead of the reaction by putting Jim Cornette in their corner, but it doesn’t work. Maybe if they didn’t want them to get booed, they shouldn’t have dressed them like a couple of fucking dorks.  

The Freebirds are exactly the kind of sleazy scumbags who are cheered to the heavens by the Philly crowd. They’re so good here. Just scummin’ it up. If anyone comes out to Badstreet, Atlanta GA, I’m cheering brrrrrrrrrother. Johnny Ace has a degree in marketing if you wanted another reason to hate him. Let’s be fair, you probably don’t but hey, there’s another one. People who work in marketing are lower than pond scum.  

 

Shane and PS Hayes fuck something up early on. I’m not even sure what it was. If you think that improves the reaction to Shane, you’d be wrong. As wrong as someone who works in marketing and thinks that anyone likes them. The crowd erupt into a “Freebirds” chant and stand on their feet. “Freebirds have their share of fans here too” says JR. Yes, 100% is a share. Johnny Ace’s bullshit teenybopper offence fucking stinks. He is total shit. Read the room, Johnny, you fucking dickhead. 

 

Johnny fucks up a double team to yet more abuse from Philly. Hayes smacks him in the face to a huge pop. “A blatant cheap shot” says JR. Nobody cares Jim. Another loud “Freebirds” chant echoes around the building. Johnny fucks up another counter, by being in completely the wrong place. Good god, he’s fucking useless, isn’t he? The crowd get on the case of the Dynamic Dudes as they run through an ugly comeback and the Freebirds win anyway to rapturous applause. Amazingly the dead in the water Dudes carried on as a team until February 1990.  

 

Steiner Brothers vs. Doom 

Woman was Rick Steiner’s girlfriend (storyline) but turned on him and formed Doom. I guess this is one way of using the Steiners. Personally, I reckon they should have just let them wrestle seeing as they ruled.  

Doom are Ron Simmons and Butch Reed in masks. This is their big show debut. As you can imagine they’re hard-hitting big dudes and the Steiners are all fired up and hard-hitting too. Steinerlines for everyone!  

I’ve talked about the Steiners before, but they were awesome, Scott especially. Doom were an odd team. Neither of them was doing much in singles (Reed in particular) but they eventually clicked and became good as a team. Here they do a lot of generic heat and Butch Reed reminds me why I hated him in singles before this. Doom being in control does deflate the crowd, who’d been hot all night and were really into the Steiners.  

 

Comms ride Doom for their shoddy covers and Simmons puts zero pressure on the guy on the mat. It’s not a cover at all. Rick gets a hot tag, and we get into the DRAMA with Woman. She pops a foreign object into Ron’s mask and Doom wins via headbutt. I’ve never got that ‘loaded mask’ gimmick. Surely if there’s a hard object in that mask, you’re only going to hurt youself. This was much better when the Steiners were on offence. Call it **½ 

 

NWA United States Championship 

Lex Luger (c) vs. Flyin’ Brian  

This feud was originally Luger vs. Steamboat, but Ricky quit over pay, which is a prime example of WCW being dumb for letting him go after his 1989 run. Pillman is the replacement. If only the Luger-Steamboat feud had paid off here. It could have been special. Luger’s peak as a wrestler was 1988-1991. He’d grown into the business and was good at telling basic storylines. Then he got lazy and has a horrible reputation, which is deserved. Watch him in his in this ‘peak era’ though and you might be surprised.  

Luger is all about power and presence. Pillman is initially met by disinterest by Philly, but he does cool shit, so it doesn’t take long to win the crowd over. The intensity and chops do it. He’s a Steamboat sub! Luger does work soft but he’s careful to make sure he’s close to the mark, so it doesn’t look shit. The mid-section of the match is a little slow and Pillman works over the arm to try and take away Luger’s power.  

Luger doesn’t exactly sell during the armbars and spends most of his time arguing with the locals. Including Hat Guy, who is in attendance. The holes in Luger’s game are there for everyone to see. He still can’t take an armdrag and his elbow drops suck. Other workers would have sought to fill those gaps. Not Lex. That’s not to say he has a lot of issues. He misses a lariat and flies clean out of the ring. That looked awesome.  

 

The big take home is that both guys were good here and had their supporters. 1989 felt like a big turning point in pro-wrestling from the old timey heel-face structure and ‘heat’ to fans cheering for who they wanted*. The style changed too and became more aerial and exciting. Pillman misses with some high risk and Luger drops him with the Hot Shot to retain. This was really good. A nicely put together match that helped Pillman get over for hanging with a star like Luger. ***¼  

 

*This is open to debate and largely depended on what city the shows were in. Chicago, New York and Philadelphia had a habit of cheering heels that goes back before this. Thanks to TV and PPV, more people would see that crowd behaviour though and adopt it.  

 

Roadwarriors vs. Skyscrapers 

Skyscrapers (Sid and Spivey) debuted in the summer and haven’t lost. They’d never take a pinfall or submission loss in their entire run. Mainly because Sid got so over the team split up before the year was out. Spivey headed to AJPW and Sid joined the Horsemen. It feels crazy that they never had the Roadies beat them and send Spivey packing here or at Clash 9 or Starrcade. Guy who takes the pinfall leaves town or something? Hindsight is 20-20. 

 

They keep this basic, because of Sid, and run through some shoulderblocks and stuff where no one budges. As I’m writing this, Sid Eudy has just passed away, which makes me very sad. Sid was a special big man. Intense with an unbelievable aura. He rarely ever left his feet and got by on power and personality. The last of his kind. RIP. 

Sid was so chaotic in the ring. His selling and movement were, if I’m being polite, unpredictable. It speaks volumes that he could go out there and stink the joint out and people still adored him. WCW should have known to keep Sid in short, sharp contests and had him annihilate people.  

 

It’s sad that I’m writing this in 2024, and Spivey is the only man left alive from this match. The legacy of 80s and 90s wrestling is a trail of dead bodies. Teddy Long jumps in there with the key he uses to lock up Norman the Lunatic, and Spivey uses it for the DQ. This would lead to another contest at Clash 9 (against the Steiners) and then the Skyscrapers broke up.  

 

Thunderdome Match 

Ric Flair & Sting vs. Terry Funk & Great Muta 

 

“We don’t need another hero
We don’t need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome”  

Tina Turner, 1985 

 

“This is Stiiiiiiiiiing”  

Gary Michael Cappetta, 1989  

 

What is Thunderdome, I hear you ask? Two men enter, one man leaves. It’s a fight to the death. A place where Mel Gibson takes on a midget mounted on a muscle monster. Oh, the wrestling match? It’s a cage match. There’s no pins or anything. You have a “designated Terminator (!!!)” who throws the towel in. It’s Gary Hart for the heels and Ole Anderson for the ‘Horsemen’. The referee, watching out for towels, is Bruno Sammartino. JR gets to regale us with Bruno knowledge. Did you know he won the world title in 1963 and held it until 1971? Almost unthinkable in modern times.   

The cage itself is bigger than usual and is curved in at the top to prevent climbing out. The WWF would go a step further and create Hell in a Cell, but this cage gives us space to play around ringside, a key element of the Cell matches. However, because this is WCW (and Halloween), they’ve electrified the top of the cage.  

The cage catches fire, near the top, and Muta climbs up and MISTS THE FIRE. Immediately I have a beef with the rules because they tag in and out. There’s no DQ or anything. Just pile in there. Punch Bruno Sammartino in the face. Go nuts. JR mentions the “Bladerunners” the team Sting was in before WCW and mentions his partner, who has “not progressed” like Sting has. That’s Warrior, in case you missed Jim’s dig at the opposition. He’s not lying.  

 

The match is very silly. The props (spiderwebs, bits of tree) are unnecessary. They all work a bit cartoonishly for the environment. Muta and Sting climb up and Muta gets shocked, which causes Bob Caudle to rant about why you would bother going up there, just to get electrocuted? And he’s right. It doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t like Muta was in big trouble. Funk at least does something fun by climbing up and hanging there while Flair chops at him.  

Sting gets tied to the cage and the others go to town on Flair’s neck. Sting eventually saves so Muta heads up top again. This time they’ve turned off the electricity. It’s so funny they ran a live current through the cage. I respect it. “Watch Muta, watch Muta” shouts Jim as the camera cuts away from him. There’s a loud pop but I have no idea what happened. Bruno punches Muta out of the ring for some reason. Funk gets trapped in the Figure Four and Ole decks Gary Hart, sending the towel flying into the ring.  

 

This is one of those matches you have to see to believe but it could have been so much more. No one bled, they started out adhering to tag team rules and they didn’t use the cage enough. A spectacle, regardless of the glaring flaws. *** 

 

The 411: 

It’s not a bad show and it has a novel main event concept. There are a few solid matches on the undercard and apart from the boring opener and Tommy Rich, nothing outstays its welcome. It has the misfortune of existing on a 1989 run from the NWA that includes Great American Bash (Flair-Funk), Clash 9 (Flair-Funk) and the trio of Steamboat-Flair contests (Chi-Town Rumble, Clash 6, Wrestlewar). That said the Philadelphia crowd gives the show a little bump and I’d say it’s worth a look.