Halloween Havoc 98 Foreshadowed ‘The Sopranos’

There have been many events in the history of professional wrestling where the fans get so hyped up, but then the show ends in disappointment or unplanned controversy. After all, this is WCW we are talking about.

In 1998, ratings, merchandise, attendance, everything across the board was up. WWE was fighting back with the “Attitude Era,” beginning to string together some wins week after week in the Monday Night Wars. At Halloween Havoc 1998, WCW left its fan base with one of the worst tastes in their mouths, and arguably drove on of its many death nails into its coffin.

Let’s start with some news that was occurring around this time that would help make sense of this event:

Halloween Havoc 98 would feature the rematch from WrestleMania VI between Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. As mentioned in last month’s War Games piece, Warrior would return to professional wrestling and it was believed that he was paid and brought in only to lose to Hogan as a way to get the Hulkster some momentum back after dropping the World Heavyweight Championship to Goldberg in July. It didn’t take long though for Warrior to start asking for more money, though, demanding a new contract before losing to Hogan, one that would pay him similar money to the one that is set to expire. The issue was that despite WCW giving Warrior a new deal, he was only used a handful of times after this show. This is a similar situation to what Warrior put Vince McMahon in just before SummerSlam 91, where he told the boss to pay him a certain amount of money or he wasn’t going out for the main event (ironically, to team with Hogan). The difference in these two situations was that after Vince paid Warrior in order to “be a man of his word,” Warrior was fired from WWW and wouldn’t return until WrestleMania VIII.

The whole storyline between Hogan and Warrior leading up to their rematch was reportedly written by Jason Hervey, a former child star from “The Wonder Years” and also a close personal friend of Eric Bischoff (no wonder he got the job). This is the same storyline that produced the segment on Nitro, in which Hogan was staring into a mirror in his locker room and saw Warrior in the reflection, but when he turned around, Warrior wasn’t there. The fans at home could see Warrior, Hogan could see the Warrior, but Bischoff couldn’t. He stood behind Hogan asking “What are you talking about?” Yes, this is as stupid as it sounds.

One of the other main matches scheduled at Havoc was the “Battle of The Outsiders.” The storyline was about Scott Hall battling his personal demons with alcoholism and Nash being his one true friend trying to help him. Hall would refuse his help and begin to attack Nash week after week. Sadly, this storyline wasn’t too far from reality, as Hall was struggling with his addictions and having multiple run-ins with law enforcement. In late September, Hall would be arrested for keying a limousine outside of the Diamond Mine Strip Club in Orlando, causing about $2,000 in damages. Hall was reportedly drunk at the time of the incident.

Hall’s wife Dana would begin posting comments on websites giving her opinion on the current state of her husband and how WCW was using his real-life issues in storyline. On an NWO fan site, she would blast WCW and Nash (who was lead booker of storylines at the time) for making his addictions and issues public and available for viewing on national television. She would post a message on another wrestling fan website, which is quoted below:

*OPEN LETTER TO ANYONE WHO CARES*

“WCW is helping Scott Hall destroy himself-does anybody care?
WCW recently stated on the October 5th Nitro that they ‘did not condone Scott Hall’s behavior, and that Scott Hall is a very sick man.’ Although WCW states this, why are they allowing him to retain his status (which he so sorely abuses) to clearly break policies (stated as a breach of contract) and taking every opportunity to exploit and humiliate his very real sickness as ‘entertainment’?”

While it is very hard to fully explain, Hall had a “get out of jail” free card to do as he pleases because WCW was so far tied up with WWE in a copyright and gimmick infringement lawsuit that firing him would be the worst thing for the company to do.

Now for the main show!

The show opens with a video highlighting the rematch with Hogan and Warrior and very brief facial clips of the other three main events with Hall vs. Nash, Sting vs. Bret Hart and Diamond Dallas Page vs. Goldberg for the World Heavyweight Championship. We know what Bischoff and WCW think the true main event was and what brought the crowd to full attendance at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The stage is that big, inflatable, bouncing gargoyle demon holding a pumpkin with the “Halloween Havoc” logo carved into it. It’s positioned in a graveyard with tombstones everywhere. I’m pretty sure one them reads “Crockett” on it, which is very weird considering the future state of what used to be known as “Jim Crockett Promotions.”

Tony Schaivone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay are the announcers for this show, immediately begin talking about Warrior and Hogan. Heenan is quick to say that Hogan is “the lowest form of scum known to man.” I wonder how Bobby really felt after dealing with Hollywood for over 20 years.

“Let’s go to the ring and David Penzer,” Schaivone said. Instead, they go straight to NITRO GIRLS dancing in the ring, already showing that they don’t likely know the format of the show. Matches are announced that weren’t previously advertised which included Chris Jericho vs. Raven for the WCW Television Title, Wrath vs. Meng and Disco Inferno vs. Juvi, in which the winner returns later in the night for a Cruiserweight Title match. Let’s not stall then…we have 11 matches to see here.

Let’s go to David Penzer…I mean Gene Okerlund, who brings out Rick Steiner to discuss his upcoming match with his brother Scott Steiner. Buff Bagwell comes out and suggests backing up Rick in the match because having been friends with Scott, the NWO is likely to be nearby. Rick stupidly agrees despite being fooled by Scott and Buff for almost six months now at this point (why is this segment even happening right now).

It’s 10 minutes after the hour and NOW let’s go to David Penzer for the first match.

Chris Jericho© vs Raven (Television Championship)

I find it immediately humorous because both of these guys’ entrance music has been altered due to copyright reasons to their eventual WWE entrance themes.

Jericho is introduced as the “Ruler of the Jerichoholics.” Something healthier for Scott Hall to enjoy.

Raven refuses to wrestle because he wasn’t scheduled or told ahead of time, which is likely the truth. Jericho responds by saying that he didn’t want to be there either, also definitely true. Jericho trash talks Raven enough for the match to FINALLY begin five minutes later. Outside of Jericho’s smartass comments, what is the point of doing the promos before the match?

Jericho wins after a good match with the Liontamer (or is it the Wall of Jericho?).

Jericho 1998 is my third favorite Jericho behind the current day “Alpha Club” and “Kevin Owens’ Best Friend.” RAVEN…YOU JUST MADE THE LIST!

Hogan and Bischoff are out next on the stage. “This isn’t on any format that I have,” said Tenay. (It probably wasn’t on anybody’s format.)

“I’ve beat everyone in this business because of this man,” which was Hogan’s way of thanking Bischoff for the creative control in his contract, BROTHER. Hogan also addresses the betrayal of his nephew Horace from the previous Nitro. I’ve always loved the Hollywood Hogan character, but I always felt that he was trying so hard to fit in with his fraternity brothers at the Alpha Beta Sigma.

“What do you think of that gargoyle, Brain?” asked Schaivone.
“I only met her in the back about an hour ago.”
“I shouldn’t have led him with that one”.
I loved Bobby Heenan on commentary.

Meng vs. Wrath

These are two talents in both WCW and WWE (Haku and Adam Bomb) that were definitely not used to their full potential. Slow, hard-hitting match, but this should have been saved for Nitro. Wrath takes the victory to continue the storyline of him being on a winning streak. I know someone backstage who loves breaking streaks, but more on that in December.

Quick shot backstage of Billy Kidman doing a Q&A with WCW.com.

Disco Inferno vs. Juvi (winner receives a shot at the Cruiserweight Title later in the evening)

Disco wins after a jumping pile driver. Nothing much here except a few botched spots, but that’ll be a theme throughout the night. This match should have happened on Nitro the Monday before and then the championship match on the actual PPV.

Back to the NITRO GIRLS!!!!

Scott Steiner is out next for a promo. Wonder if there’s a math problem involved. He proposes a tag match between him and The Giant (Big Show) vs. his brother Rick and Buff for later in the night, as a change to the original one-on-one match. He is so confident that he said they will put up the World Tag Team Titles (Giant and Hall were the technical champs, but in storyline, they could be defended under “NWO Rules” which was essentially the “Freebird Rule”). J.J Dillion interrupts, clarifying everything and telling Scott that if Rick and Buff win, then Scott must face Rick in that original one-on-one match with a 15-minute time limit. YET ANOTHER MATCH ADDED TO AN ALREADY STACKED UP CARD.

Fit Finlay vs. Alex Wright

Multiple chants of “BORING” break out almost immediately while I wonder why the hell this is on the show. My dog fell asleep a few minutes in a this was my bathroom break instead of normally fast forwarding. Alex Wright wins but I’m pretty sure no one cared.

We now go back to WCW.com where Ernest “The Cat” Miller (who isn’t even wrestling for the night) is doing another Q&A. I wonder how much money was spent to fly him out, put him up in a hotel, get him travel to the building, and fly him home, not to mention food, to do nothing.

Lodi vs. Saturn

No, that is not a typo. It was intended to be a follow up in the storyline where Saturn defeated Raven the month before to release Lodi, Kidman and few others from Raven’s Flock. Saturn wins in the end, but this match didn’t even belong to be on Thunder, Velocity or even 205Live.

YAY, NITRO GIRLS AGAIN! By this point, we are an hour and 15 minutes into this show.

Disco Inferno vs. Kidman © (Cruiserweight Championship)

Kidman retains after the Shooting Star Press. Good match that proves WCW dropped the ball on Kidman and also that Disco could perform on a big stage when needed by wrestling two good matches in one night.

The Giant & Scott Steiner © vs. Buff Bagwell & Rick Steiner (World Tag Team Championship)

Keep in mind that if Rick and Buff win, then we actually get the original advertised match between Rick and Scott with a 15-minute time limit. This version of The Giant is during the era of “coming to the ring and smoking a cigarette.” Amazing to note that little did anybody know, it would only be about three short months later, The Giant would debut in WWE at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Rick, after months of torture, finally gets some stiff shots in on his brother when he decides to tag in Buff. They begin to set up a double team move when suddenly, Buff kicks Rick in the ding-ding. (IT’S A SWERVE, BRO!) Buff runs out of the arena, making it a handicap match.

Crowd is loudly chanting “BULLSHIT” at this point. Scott hits Rick again below the belt (it was actually the third time in the match) to set up The Giant on the top rope going for a dropkick, but Rick ducks out of the way and Giant nails Scott. Rick hits a top rope Steiner Bulldog and pins the Giant to become World Tag Team Champion by himself. This is actually the second time in a four-month period it had happened when The Giant defeated Sting in a one-on-one match to win the titles back at the Great American Bash. Welcome to WCW circa 1998.

Rick now gets Scott for 15 minutes. Ricks takes his fourth lowblow of the match and I question WHY IS THERE NO DQ. “The original match was a NO DQ match but I’m not sure if that applies here,” said Schaivone. Wasn’t he still an executive producer at this time?

A fan has jumped out of the crowd wearing a suit and a Bill Clinton mask carrying a slapjack. It has to be Stevie Ray, right? Nope, swerve! It’s Bagwell again! He hits Rick and the referee. The bell for some reason rings (?), but Buff puts Scott on top of Rick and grabs the referee’s hand to count, but Rick kicks out. Scott hits a top rope Frankensteiner on Rick and Buff again grabs the refs hand to count but RICK KICKS OUT AGAIN!

Rick finally takes out Buff and hits Scott with a Steiner Bulldog. New referee in the ring and counts the pin. Trust me when I say that following this on screen is just as confusing as explaining it, but it was entertaining overall.

Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash

On the WWE Network feed, we are 1 hour and 45 minutes into the show, which obviously means in real time it’s about 9:45 p.m. EST.

Hall comes out stumbling down the entrance way, drunk with a clear liquid in his hand, presumably vodka. Schaivone runs down a “disclaimer” about how WCW doesn’t condone Hall’s actions and how he shouldn’t be wrestling in his condition and needs help. Hall ends up throwing the drink into Nash’s face to jump start the match.

At one point, Hall beats Nash so bad that the trainer has to come down and check on his condition. Nash refuses the help and wants to keep fighting. I’m betting that whoever booked this match wanted Nash to look strong…think about that for a minute and then get back to me.

It’s about seven minutes into the match (which is almost resembling a fight at this point) and they begin doing collar-elbow tie-ups and arm ringers like the match just began. Nash finally finishes Hall off with two Jackknife powerbombs, stands over him and gives him a “SUCK IT” and then simply walks out. Nash is basically saying “I taught him a lesson and he shouldn’t screw with me anymore.” Hall wins via countout. Match was decent for what it was.

THE NITRO GIRLS ARE BACK FOR THE 4TH(ISH) TIME. It’s about 10:06 right now.

Bret Hart © vs. Sting (United States Championship)

Bret comes out to the ring looking so happy to be there and in WCW…

NWO Wolfpack Sting does nothing for me. He should have been kept as the WCW franchise to kill any and all NWO stables alongside Goldberg and DDP. Bret should have also been in that same group. Regardless, it would only be a few minutes in when the “Bret Hart sucks” chants break out from the crowd. No matter what, Bret always got a reaction from the crowd, but I think the fans all knew that this was a different Hitman since the “Montreal Screwjob” a year before.

While the referee has Sting distracted for a second, Bret pulls out an all-time classic move in WCW history: a lowblow! I’ve lost count on how many we are up to right now.

Bret attacks Sting from behind until the referee backs Bret off. When the ref comes up behind Sting to check on him, Sting throws an elbow thinking it’s Bret. With the ref down, Bret immediately leg drops him for good measure. Stings falls down next to the referee at one point and begins whispering something to him. The “unconscious” referee then begins doing his best “electric slide” dance, sliding to the right. He is suddenly motionless and unconscious again. Problem is that Sting superplexes Bret and they land across the ref’s legs. He forgot to “slide to the left.”

Sting goes for the Stinger Splash, but overshoots and goes head first into the ringpost. Bret grabs Sting’s baseball bat and hits him across the back as he is draped across the top rope. You can tell that it’s a legit bat, but there is stiff Styrofoam wrapped around it. Bret gives the referee a nice face massage (no tip required). “The referee looks like he’s been drinking with Scott Hall for a week,” Heenan said.

Bret wins by stoppage after putting Sting in the Sharpshooter. Bret retains the United States Title and Sting would be gone until April 99 with no real follow up to this storyline. They wouldn’t meet again until a World Title tournament match at Mayhem in November 1999.

They do a lengthy stretcher and ambulance angle with Sting to sell the injuries.

Hollywood Hogan vs. The Warrior

It’s 10:34. They begin with entrances and I honestly hate that WWE has edited Hollywood Hogan’s theme of “Voodoo Child” by Jimi Hendrix with the generic NWO theme. Warrior is billed during his entrance from the “One Warrior Nation.” I looked into this and found that it is on the map just about 200 miles north of “Parts Unknown.”

Almost five minutes into the match and we have three tie ups, five false steroid tests, 10 punches and about 20 people in the front row passing out due to oxygen deprivation because Hogan and Warrior are breathing that hard. The announcers are putting this match over so much that I honestly believe their monitor is just playing back the WrestleMania VI match, considering two of the three announcers were in WWE at that time.

Hogan did his Bret Hart impersonation by running into the referee and then immediately dropping a knee onto him, you know, for good measure. Hogan calls to the back and The Giant appears, who accidentally hits Hogan while Warrior takes out Stevie Ray and Vincent. Hogan slams Warrior and goes for an elbow drop, but Warrior rolls to the right and Hogan misses. Hogan again tries the elbow, but Warrior again to the right. Warrior suddenly changes direction as Hogan stands up, only to be tripped up like he just woke up out of bed in morning after drinking with Scott Hall all night. “What a move to simply roll back like that,” meaning that Schaivone had no clue what to say at this point.

Warrior is with the referee when Hogan begins to go into his tights and pull out a plastic bag (we all know what happens next). He attempts to throw flash paper into the face of Warrior, but the lighter wouldn’t work. When it finally lights, it explodes in Hogan’s hands, burning his fingers and reportedly burning off his eyebrows in the process.

LOWBLOW #1,574 for the night. Horace Hogan is shown ringside with a chair in hand to seek revenge on his uncle. Bischoff jumps onto the apron and puts the referee into either a headlock or trying to get him to smell test the new NWO deodorant. “NWO deodorant from the same makers of WCW cologne. Don’t let your New World have an Odor.”

Horace hits Warrior in the back of the head and Hogan pins him to win the match and bring an end to the match of the decade. Horace then suddenly begins to pee on The Warrior…oh wait bad camera angle, he is only spraying lighter fluid to light him on fire, nothing major to see here. Security runs in and stops the proceeding and then nothing happens to Warrior. He finally wakes up smelling his hands, wondering who pissed on him, other than WCW I mean.

It’s time to pay Michael Buffer $50,000 for his five-minute appearance. It’s about 10:57 right now.

On the WWE Network feed, the exact 3-hour mark (3:00:00) is DDP in the ring awaiting Goldberg’s entrance. Barring obvious edits on WWE’s end of the original broadcast it’s now 11:00 p.m. EST. It would be around this time when the PPV feed for 20%-25% of cable providers would be cut because of the time expiring. WCW decided to have the show run long, similar to every episode of Nitro, without notifying the pay per view companies.

The “Goldberg” chants are piped into the arena. We get the usual Goldberg entrance backstage with about six police officers in case he ever has to go the bathroom before the match. Goldberg walks into the match with his winning streak at 235-0, I mean 154-0 according to Buffer. I sometimes have a tendency to over hype the number a little bit.

Good brawling early on to show that DDP isn’t intimidated by Goldberg. The champ goes for a spear into the corner, but Page dodges, ducks, dips, dives and…….dodges Goldberg, who crashes and burns into the ring post. Goldberg finally spears Page, but hurts his shoulder and can’t make the cover. Goldberg loads up for the Jackhammer, but can’t get Page up. With a rush of adrenaline, DDP is lifted up and counters straight into a Diamond Cutter.

The crowd has lost their mind at the thought of the streak coming to an end. 1, 2, and at 1/1000 Goldberg kicks out. Let that two-count drag a little longer, Bill. Did Hogan maybe get in his ear about what doesn’t work for him, BROTHER?

Page goes for a suplex and (shockingly…) Goldberg reverses it into a Jackhammer and earns a pinfall. This is an excellent match that I highly recommend to anybody that has WWE Network.

Halloween Havoc goes off the air (at 11:16pm) with Goldberg holding the World Heavyweight Championship above his head.

FALLOUT

A few days before the show, WCW decided that they would have the show go three and a half hours instead of the traditional three. They didn’t notify fans or THE CABLE COMPANIES. For those wondering, yes, WWE runs long while broadcasting their events today due to having the ability to stream their content on their own streaming service so they can get away with a little more.

Fans began to question and grow concerned about the 10:45 mark when Hogan and Warrior were still in the ring and the World Heavyweight Title match was still remaining. At 11 p.m., up to 25% of customers who bought the event lost their feed and were left with a blank screen. Cable companies received many angry calls and were coming up with a solution. Many fans wanted full refunds (obviously). It was believed that WCW lost $1.5 million in PPV revenue because of their lack of communication.

Before today’s age of on-demand and streaming services, PPVs typically broadcasted live on Sunday night with a replay on Tuesday night. Of course, there was a Nitro (or RAW) show sandwiched in between to give the fans a little taste of the results of what happened the night before, but if you want to see everything that happened “order the encore presentation tomorrow night on pay per view.” WCW considered the option of giving away the Tuesday replay for free after the incident, but knew that they would receive much backlash from the customers who actually purchased Sunday night’s broadcast. So if you didn’t order it on Sunday, because they messed up, congratulations! You just won a free pay per view Tuesday night. WCW passed on this option.

On Monday afternoon, just a few hours before Nitro went live on TNT, they decided that they would broadcast, on free national television, the Goldberg/DDP World Heavyweight Title match from the night before in its entirety. They conveniently made fans wait through the first hour after going live before showing it at 9 p.m. Why 9pm? Because that’s when RAW went live on USA Network and, to WCW, ratings are more important than the damage control to fans you pissed off just 24 hours ago.

Tony Schaivone would be the one to address the situation the next night on Nitro, at the top of the broadcast, with the following statement:

“All of our wrestling fans tuned in last night enjoying Halloween Havoc and last night in front of a capacity crowd we saw some of the most historic matches in professional wrestling history but unfortunately an instance occurred that was out of the hands of World Championship Wrestling. Some of the systems went down prematurely and unfortunately about, what we understand, about 10-20% of households last night were not about to see the end of the Hogan/Warrior match nor were they able to see a match that’ll go down as one of the greatest of all time Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page for the World Heavyweight Title. Well because of this you can expect that WCW officials have been in meeting all day deciding what course of action to take and it really came down to 2 choices. Choice #1 would be to give the encore, the replay presentation away for free tomorrow night but we thought “no it wouldn’t be right because a lot of fans out there purchased this event last night”, they say all 11 matches and by buying it last night we certainly don’t want to give away the entire event for free so it came down to this ladies and gentleman. What to do to make this right to our fans, we have decided tonight on this program, after the first hour, the 9 o’clock hour that we will bring you the match between Goldberg and DDP in its entirety. Now this is a first time ever, one time ever we will bring you a pay per view spectacular but we will bring you this one match tonight. Now our competition all day will make people believe that this is a ratings ploy that we went off the air early last night to bring you the match down the line another night, this is not the case, this is not true. Because of that we are going to give you this not at the end of the program, we are going to give it to you at 9 o’clock tonight, it’s the right thing to do for our great wrestling fans.”

He mentions in this statement that this was the “first time ever, one time ever” that they were broadcasting the main event of a pay per view on national television. This would be true had they not did this exact same thing three months earlier, for the ratings, the night after Bash at The Beach with the tag team match between Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman vs. Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone.

WCW won the ratings war this night, and it would end up being the last time WCW would win a Monday night that both shows were broadcasted at the same time on the same night. RAW would annually get pre-empted for tennis tournaments and dog shows.

OVERALL

This event is great for the last hour and a half. The Jericho/Raven opening was a good start to the night, but then the event severely slows down until the World Tag Team Title match. The main event is one of the best in WCW history, but the hype around The Warrior/Hogan match was “interesting” only to deliver one of the most hated matches in history. The fallout of this event is also one of the most notorious stories in wrestling history and can be argued that it was the beginning of the end for World Championship Wrestling.