Fall Brawl

Fall Brawl was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and was held in the month of September from 1993 through 2000. The name was derived from the fall edition of Clash of the Champions, called "Fall Brawl". It was considered by many as WCW's answer to the World Wrestling Federation's annual Survivor Series pay-per-view event due to the main event WarGames match held during most of the Fall Brawl shows. World Wrestling Entertainment have owned the rights to Fall Brawl since they purchased WCW in March 2001 and although they have not produced the event under the main banner, Ohio Valley Wrestling did use the "Fall Brawl" name during the time it was a WWE development territory.^[1] In 2015, All WCW pay-per-views were made available on the WWE Network.

Fall Brawl dates and venues

1993

Fall Brawl 1993: War Games took place on September 19, 1993 from the Astro Arena in Houston, Texas. The match between Ric Flair and Rick Rude was originally advertised as an NWA World Heavyweight title match, but on September 1, WCW withdrew from the NWA. WCW kept the Big Gold Belt that represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the time and renamed it the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship. In the WarGames match The Shockmaster forced Kole to submit to win the match for his team.

1994

Fall Brawl 1994: War Games took place on September 18, 1994 from the Roanoke Civic Center in Roanoke, Virginia. Ricky Steamboat was originally scheduled to defend the WCW United States Championship against Steve Austin, but he was suffering from a back injury and could not compete. As a result, Austin won the United States title by forfeit. This was Steamboat's last appearance in WCW as he was fired shortly thereafter and decided to retire from the ring. Following the announcement that Austin was the new champion WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel declared that Austin would defend his title against a mystery opponent. As Austin was protesting the decision, saying he would not wrestle again that night, Hacksaw Jim Duggan was revealed as the mystery opponent.

In the triangle match Vader pinned The Guardian Angel in the first part of the match. The second part, between Vader and Sting ended in a 15-minute time limit draw. Referee Nick Patrick declared the match would continue with an overtime period of five minutes. The overtime period expired with no decision, so Patrick declared the match to be in sudden death to determine a winner. Vader won the match in sudden death when a masked man attacked Sting while Race and the Guardian Angel fought at ringside, distracting Patrick; Sting had knocked Vader down first but Vader got up before Patrick turned his back to the action and declared Vader the winner. As per a pre-match stipulation Vader became number one contender for Hulk Hogan's WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

According to Dusty Rhodes on The War Games DVD, Col. Rob Parker had suffered diarrhea during the final moments of the War Games match.

1995

Fall Brawl 1995: War Games took place on September 17, 1995 from the Asheville Civic Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

The pre pay-per-view portion of the show was broadcast live on WCW Main Event. During Main Event Eddy Guerrero made his WCW television debut in a match against Alex Wright. The match ended when Wright requested that referee Nick Patrick stop the match after Guerrero suffered an injury. The #1 contender for the WCW United States Championship match between Johnny B. Badd and Brian Pillman originally ended in a 20-minute time limit draw, but the referee allowed the contest to continue until there was a winner. Before Cobra's match against Sgt. Craig Pittman, an army cadet came to ringside to deliver a message from Pittman. Pittman then made his entrance by rappelling from the top of the arena, and attacking Cobra from behind.

As a result of his team winning the WarGames Match Hulk Hogan got five minutes alone in the cage with The Taskmaster. During those five minutes, The Giant interrupted and attacked Hogan, injuring his neck. In the match Lex Luger was a replacement for Vader, who had left the promotion a week prior to the event. The substitution was announced on the previous Monday Nitro.^[3]

1996

Fall Brawl 1996: War Games took place on September 15, 1996 from the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Hollywood Hogan came to ringside late in the match between Randy Savage and the Giant, right after Savage had hit a flying elbow on Giant. Savage left the ring to chase Hogan, then was attacked by Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, who knocked Savage out with a chair. Referee Nick Patrick was arguing with Giant while this all was going on and didn't see anything, and Giant pinned the fallen Savage after the rest of the nWo carried him back to the ring. Due to the tension caused by the nWo's presence in WCW, a modification to the traditional WarGames Match rules was made. Instead of both teams coming to ringside before the match, each side stayed backstage and the participants entered from there one at a time. nWo Sting and Hollywood Hogan forced Lex Luger to submit as nWo Sting had the Scorpion Deathlock locked in and Hogan held him down with a front facelock. Due to Team WCW doubting his allegiance, Sting abandoned Luger, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson shortly after entering and the match became a 4-on-3 handicap match. After the match Randy Savage came out to attack Hogan, only to be beaten down by the entire nWo. Miss Elizabeth was also attacked after she came down to plead with Hogan to stop.

1997

Fall Brawl 1997: War Games took place on September 14, 1997 from the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

During the WarGames Match Curt Hennig entered the match for the Horsemen last due to an apparent shoulder injury. Moments later Hennig revealed his injury to be a ruse and that he was on the nWo's side all along. The New World Order then handcuffed Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael to the cage and began assaulting Ric Flair. Kevin Nash took the microphone and repeatedly asked the helpless Horsemen if they wanted to give up, but McMichael refused and Benoit repeatedly spat in Nash's face. The Horsemen finally surrendered after Nash threatened to slam Flair's head into the cage structure with the door. McMichael, not wanting to see Flair beat up any worse than he already was, made the call for his team. After the surrender, Hennig slammed the door onto Flair's head.

1998

Fall Brawl 1998: War Games took place on September 13, 1998 from the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The match between Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner ended in a no-contest after Buff Bagwell pretended to re-injure his neck. As per a prematch stipulation, Saturn's victory freed The Flock from Raven's control; if Saturn had lost, he would have had to become Raven's servant. Chris Kanyon was also handcuffed to the ring. During the match, Kidman interfered on Saturn's behalf. In the WarGames Match Diamond Dallas Page pinned Stevie Ray after a Diamond Cutter. For the first time ever in a WarGames match, pinfalls were allowed. As a result of Page getting the pinfall victory; Page earned a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Halloween Havoc.

1999

Fall Brawl 1999 took place on September 12, 1999 from the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This was the first Fall Brawl not to have a War Games Match.

Berlyn was originally supposed to face Buff Bagwell, but the storyline was that Bagwell was late in arriving. In reality, Bagwell had refused to lose the match. Instead Berlyn wrestled against Jim Duggan. In the main event Sting put an unconscious Hulk Hogan in the Scorpion Deathlock after knocking him out with a baseball bat and Hogan failed to respond to his arm being raised three times by referee Charles Robinson. The outcome of the match played out due to large amounts of interference. Diamond Dallas Page was the first to interfere, attacking referee Nick Patrick and then hit the Diamond Cutter on Hogan. After Hogan kicked out Page attacked Patrick with the Diamond Cutter and took him out of the match. Bret Hart then came out to attack Page while Hogan forced Sting to the outside. Sid Vicious entered the ring to attack Hogan but was quickly taken out with the Big Boot. Hogan then intercepted a bat-wielding Lex Luger as he tried to interfere; Sting then took the bat after Luger had dropped it and assaulted Hogan with it. After the match, Sting and Luger celebrated in the middle of the ring.^[6]

2000

Fall Brawl 2000 took place on September 17, 2000 from the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, New York.

During the match between Lance Storm and General Rection, the Special Guest Enforcer Jim Duggan turned on Rection and joined Lance Storm's "Team Canada". The 10-person Elimination match was stopped after Paul Orndorff was injured during the match. The next night on WCW Monday Nitro, the match was resumed with the remaining competitors. Rey Misterio Jr. and Tygress won the match.

Elimination match order of elimination

• O'Haire pinned Konnan after a Chartbuster from Disqo (6:00)
• Reno pinned Disqo after a Snake Eyes (6:53)
• Reno pinned Vito after a Snake Eyes (8:43)
• Misterio pinned Reno after a Diving leg drop low blow with Guerrera's help (10:45)
• O'Haire pinned Guerrera after a Seanton Bomb (12:08)
• Orndorff pinned Johnny after a Spike Piledriver (13:28)
• O'Haire pinned Orndorff after he suffered a stinger while piledriving Jindrak (16:34)
• Referee Charles Robinson stopped the match two minutes later due to Orndorff's injury.

See also

• List of WCW pay-per-view events
• World Championship Wrestling
• Clash of the Champions

References