It's been a little while since I've posted a Gimmick on this site, and so I thought I'd give you all this doozy. One of the most absurd WCW matches of all time, by far, the Chamber of Horrors Match from Halloween Havoc 1991.
So that's not too weird (even though the pairings are sort of odd, like Gigante and Sting). But whatever. Only that's not all. At one point in the match a smaller cage drops into the big cage with an "electric" chair inside of it. The whole point of the match? Get one of the four guys you're fighting into the chair, and "electrecute him" (obviously not really) using a switch somewhere else in the cage. No pin falls or submissions...just total ridiculousness. To add to to it, the referee has a camera on his head. What do they call it? The refer-eye camera. Niiiiice WCW.
I won't tell you what happens, so you'll have to watch the video yourself. I will tell you that the ending of the match is rather shocking (ha ha ha).
This video shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, as even the start of Hulk Hogan and The Giant's feud was based in ridiculousness. However, until now I hadn't realized how extremely crazy all of the events of Halloween Havoc 1995 were, and so I'd like to post them here so that everyone can truly understand the absurdity that was WCW and the Hogan-Giant Feud at Halloween Havoc '95 (Many thanks to the Powerdriver Review for this One).
Okay, so I guess The Giant's original beef with Hogan was that Hogan had defeated Andre the Giant many years back. Doesn't totally make sense that all Wrestling Giants are related (Are John Tenta and Jose Gonzalez brothers?), but whatever, that's the least ridiculous part of all this.
Anyways, so one day Hulk is chilling outside of Monday Nitro on a motorcycle. And while he's giving an interview to Mean Gene in front of all these fans, The Giant suddenly arrives in a monster truck. Everyone runs out of the way, but The Giant runs over Hulk's motorcycle over and over again. Then Hulk kind of whines and beats the side of the monster truck while The Giant laughs maniacly. Already weird.
So this leads to a monster truck battle between these two guys on the top of a building at Halloween Havoc '95. The battle itself is kind of lame, but after it ends The Giant attacks Hogan and tries to throw him off the roof. And in the melee (at one point Hulk kind of slows his attack to let the Giant climb up on the ledge, it's too cute), Hulk accidentally pushes The Giant off of the building. Nooooo!
It's okay though. After another match, Hogan comes in to his scheduled fight with the Giant, explaining to everyone that, whoops, The Giant fell. Except don't worry, because all of a sudden The Giant enters the arena. They fight for a while before an absurd amount of interference, which culminates in a previously mentioned gimmick, that of The Yeti coming in and giving the Hulkster a big old hug. As if that wasn't ridiculous enough, the match then goes in favor of the Giant (they give Hogan a disqualification because his manager Jimmy Hart originally knocked out the ref, even though Hart hit Hogan while the Ref was down) AND he gets to keep the belt (because apparently Hogan's contract said that he could lose the belt on a disqualification).
And that's how it happened. Why the WCW lasted beyond it's first show is beyond me, because it seems like every second they were coming up with some totally absurd gimmick like this.
In 1999, boy bands were heating up the pop charts, and the WCW was in shambles. That's the perfect situation for a gimmick, and so the world was introduced to 3 Count, three dudes who danced around on green circles in the ring and lip synced one of two terrible songs. I found this song in better quality, as well as their entrance video/theme, but I don't think you'll want to click on either of them as they are just as bad as this stuff.
The action flies slow and elderly in this match up of Hollywood Hogan and (the awful) Eric Bischoff versus Diamond Dallas Page and (wtf) Late Night Personality Jay Leno.
A better question than why is WHO at WCW kept making these awful personnel decisions? David Arquette at least had some youth on his side during his title run. But Jay Leno fighting? That's just...yeah I don't know either. Not that Eric Bischoff was ever really meant to fight either. They both look equally winded at points in the video.
Parts 1 and 2 of the video can be found here (1) and here (2). If you actually want to watch the whole thing.
Our site had almost 500 unique visitors today, which has got to be a new record. (Note: Actually not a record, we've had more on this site. However we eclipsed over 10,000 views, congratulations to us) To celebrate, I'm posting another Gotta Love a Gimmick for today.
From the sad but true file, I bring you video of WCW Champion David Arquette. Yes, that David Arquette, the one of Scream fame was, for a short time, the World Heavyweight Champion of the WCW. He won it in a tag match with Diamond Dallas Page where the person to get the pin would be given the title (the video above is the end of that match). Arquette only wrestled as champion twice though, once (sort of) defeating Tank Abbot, and once in a triple cage match at Slamboree during which he betrayed DDP and lost the belt to Jeff Jarrett, finally ending an unnecessary wrestling career.
The best part? Arquette's theme song is "We're Not Gonna Take It," originally by Twisted Sister but covered here by Bif Naked.
In the early 90's, WCW decided to start a bitter feud between Hulk Hogan and a new character, The Giant (Paul Wight). There are probably a million ways to introduce a new character that don't suck. But then, it wouldn't be as unintentionally funny if it didn't involve Hulk Hogan wandering through a cave and speaking terrible dialogue. Regardless, enjoy this clip, as it is hi-larious.
Want some more Hogan-Giant nonsense? Well here is a clip of The Giant running over Hogan's motorcycle with a monster truck (it gets real good near the end) and here is a clip of Hogan accidentally throwing The Giant "off a building."
It may seem like a joke (and the actual "wrestling" is sort of a joke), but Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman actually had a short lived stint in the WCW. In this match, Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman battle Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone. Malone isn't too good a wrestler, but Rodman has got some moves.
If you want a little more NBA/WCW crossover action, check out this video of Rodman and Hogan battling The Giant and Lex Luger.
Yeah, it makes about as much sense to me as it does to you. But in another 90's ratings prayer, WCW hyped the arrival of Robocop at a Pay per View Event. He shows up, walks down the ramp to "rescue" Sting from a "steel" cage by "tearing" the door off, and then walks away with Sting. And then never appeared again. Okayyyy...
WCW tried, for a long time, to be as popular as the WWF was.
Bringing former WWF wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, and Paul Wight over was a good decision.
Establishing a new nearly 8 foot tall Yeti (mummy) character whose first appearance includes dry humping them champion Hulk Hogan (the real 'action' begins at 0:32) was not such a good decision.
Came across this video looking for silly gimmicks. Dustin Rhodes got tired of playing Goldust in the WWF and wanted to go back to WCW and be himself. Well WCW told him he had to be this stupid character called Seven. Dustin entered the ring as Seven, but expressed pretty clearly that he wouldn't put up with gimmicky nonsense. Turns out the whole speech was actually scripted, but needless to say Seven didn't exist for a long time.
In the early 90's, World Championship Wrestling was looking for just about anything to be able to compete with the World Wrestling Federation. While guys like Sting were a hit, some things missed, and the all time greatest of those misses has to be the Shockmaster.
Fred Ottman was great in his reign as Typhoon in the WWF. But just watch this video and I think you'll understand why the Shockmaster never made it big in the Wrestling World. Not that he would've anyways with that ridiculous outfit.
