83 Weeks - World War 3 1995 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

World War 3 1995

World War 3 1995 took place on November 26th, from the Norfolk Scope, in Norfolk,Virginia. It did a sellout of 12,000, 8,038 paid for $113,000

This was the first World War 3 pay per view. It would continue until 1998.

World War 3 definitely isn't a name for a pay per view that you could do today, but why was that name chosen? Also, didn't you think it might be confusing for the fans, all those numbers in a pay per view name?

Talk about the decision to add a pay per view in November, this was the first yearly pay per view in November that you guys had. Since 1989, it was Halloween Havoc in October, then no pay per view in November, then Starrcade in December.

The main event for the inaugural WW3 pay per view was a 3 ring, 20 man in each ring for a total of a 60 man battle royal to crown a new World Heavyweight Champion, as the title was vacant. At Halloween Havoc in October, Hulk lost to the Giant by DQ in the Giant's first match in WCW and Jimmy Hart turned on Hulk and went with The Giant

The storyline behind this is that Jimmy Hart signed a contract for Hulk Hogan that if he lost via DQ, he would lose the title, in the match against The Giant. Nick Lambros, who is the real-life WCW attorney, came out and said that the contract did say that but that WCW wasn't recognizing The Giant as champion but would instead put the belt up to the winner of the Battle Royal. 

Was this pretty much a blatent attempt to one up the Royal Rumble? Since there's 30 men in the Royal Rumble and here, you guys did a 60 man battle royal, which is exactly double of the 30 man Royal Rumble

Meltzer reported - Some of the names bandied about as being in the 60-man Battle Royal are Tito Santana, Sgt. Slaughter, Rick Martel and Iron Sheik. 

The 60-man three-ring Battle Royal, with triangular ring set-ups and three different announcing teams calling the matches. The 60-man line-up at first was thought to include non-WCW talent, but the line-up consists of 51 wrestlers who have appeared on WCW television of late with the remainder, naturally subject to change, being Yetti (Ron Reis), One Man Gang, The Super Assassins (Warlord & Barbarian), David Taylor (British wrestler), Bobby Walker (WCW training school), Pez Whatley (WCW training school instructor), Mike Winner (WCW training school instructor) and Kensuke Sasaki.

The remainder of the list goes from every major star in the promotion, plus the guys used occasionally like Hawk and Scott Norton, down to the likes of Max Muscle, Bunkhouse Buck, Dick Slater, The State Patrol, The Barrio Brothers, Dave Sullivan, Scott & Steve Armstrong, Mark Starr, Chris Kanyon and Hugh Morris (Bill DeMott). The three Giants, with El Gigante not appearing, will turn out to be Yetti, The Giant and Hulk Hogan as the third giant, or One Man Gang if you prefer him to be a giant.

You guys billed this as there would be 3 giants in the match; 1 in each ring. As Dave touched on here, Giant Gonzalez, formerly El Gigante a few years earlier in WCW was rumored to be one of the 3 giants in the match.

A few weeks earlier, Dave wrote -Jorge "El Gigante" Gonzalez with his new gimmick in the Dungeon of Dumb as Yetti, and Ron Reis as T-Rex, who may become the babyface giant. They're going to have to put some amazing lifts in Paul Wight's boots because he's the pushed Giant and the only one that appears to have any charisma, and he's billed at 7-4, while only being about 6-10 legit. Reis is a legit 7-2 and Gonzalez is a legit 7-6 1/2 

The next week he wrote  - With Giant Gonzalez out of the picture, they are searching for a third Giant for the three-ring three-giant Battle Royal on 11/26. Best bet would be either Giant Haystacks from England (who is actually only 6-6) or the Canadian Giant that worked in Texas many years ago as Paul Bunyan, who was 7-1 but had no charisma. 

Why did El Gigante end up not appearing?

What was the process that you or the company as a whole had to do, to add a pay per view event in 1995? Did you have to get permission from the cable companies or did you just go to them and say, we're adding a new pay per view in November. Talk about how that process was done at the time

November 1994 vs November 1995

Estimated average attendance 11/94 1,380

Estimated average attendance 11/95 2,750 (+99.3%)

October 1995 2,930

Estimated average gate 11/94 $17,200

Estimated average gate 11/95 $24,250 (+41.0%)

October 1995 $31,000

Percentage of house shows sold out 11/94 0.0

Percentage of house shows sold out 11/95 0.0

October 1995 0.0

Average cable television rating 11/94 2.0

Average cable television rating 11/95 2.0*

October 1995 2.0*

Monday Night War ratings for November, 1995.

November 6 – Raw 2.6 / Nitro 2

November 13 – Raw 2.6 / Nitro 2

November 20 – Raw 2.3 / Nitro 2.5

November 27 – Raw 2.3 / Nitro 2.5

Let's get to some company news in WCW heading into the pay per view

Meltzer reported - 

WCW officially informed Leon White (Big Van Vader) on 10/11 that they were firing him. The official reason for the firing was that his 90-day review window had passed and that since he was medically unable to wrestle because of a shoulder injury, they were cancelling the contract on that basis, so officially the incident with Paul Orndorff was never specified probably for legal reasons since Orndorff, according to reports, egged on rather than quelled a messy situation.

This puts White in an interesting position since virtually every major promotion in the world would probably express some interest in him. Word we get are that he will probably take a few months off to get his shoulder fixed and return to the ring in early 1996. As far as with what group, best speculation based on the fact he's a big money player, would be either New Japan, where he got his start as a big-time player and which had plans for him to work a key match at the next Tokyo Dome, or WWF, where he has never appeared and is desperately in need of a new monster heel to challenge for whomever will be champion after the next Wrestlemania.

White's shoulder injury apparently took place during the 7/16 cage match with Hulk Hogan in Huntington Beach. Midway through the match, Vader's idea was to attempt to debut a shooting star press (kind of a reverse moonsault that has only been done by Jushin Liger and Hayabusa in Japan) that would miss when Hogan would move, however to do that move, your foe needs to be near the corner. Hogan was halfway across the ring and Vader went out with the idea of doing it, realizing there was no way, and in compensating landed in a clumsy senton which destroyed his shoulder. 

He continued to work on heavy medication for the next two months until the Orndorff incident, at which point WCW suspended him without pay. 

Meltzer wrote - This past week is a case in point with both promotions. As evidenced by the WCW World Wide show that aired over the weekend talking about the winner of the 11/26 World War III Battle Royal getting a shot at the WCW heavyweight champion, it is apparent that the title switch from Hogan was not planned at the time voiceovers for that show were done. This couldn't have been more than a few days before the 11/6 Nitro where the title stripping of Hogan was announced, and was after the Havoc show where Hogan was disqualified.

There is little doubt that putting the title on the line in the Battle Royal is going to strengthen the buy rate for a show that probably wasn't going to do great guns without it. So the change is probably a positive both for the short and long-term, but it shows the booking isn't well planned in advance 

Given Hogan's contract, the nature of justifying that deal and Hogan's far greater name recognition and drawing power compared to everyone else, the top spot in the company and the title have to either be with him, or a part of the program he's in. Anyway, for the short-haul, The Giant should win the Battle Royal since he probably can draw more money against Hogan than anyone in the thing. However, since he's just starting out and has potential to be the next big thing in wrestling, having him do a job for Hogan this early may be hot shotting. In that case, the best bets for doing a buy rate while putting Hogan over at the end would be Randy Savage or Sting (which I doubt will happen since he's involved in a U.S. title program). 

An angle was shot on 11/6 in Jacksonville where Lex Luger "injured" Randy Savage's bad arm (he has a legit tricep tear), scheduled to air on 11/13. Originally the plan was for Savage to have surgery to repair the injury, a similar injury to that suffered by Steve Austin, which would have kept him out of action for three to four months. 

The last report we received is that Savage decided against the surgery and would be in the Battle Royal. 

On November 13th, in the Tokyo Sumo Hall, Kensuke Saski became the first Japanese born wrestler to win the United States title when he beat Sting for the title. He hit the Northern Lights bomb move (which was his wife, Akira Hokuto's finishing move) on Sting twice for the pin

It happened during a combined WCW & New Japan show, which drew 7,500 fans.

The rest of the card was - 

Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani & El Samurai beat Tokimitsu Ishizawa & Yuji Nagata & Jushin Liger in 10:27 when Kanemoto pinned Ishizawa with a dragon suplex.

Junji Hirata pinned Booker T after a diving head-butt off the top rope in 6:29. 

Masa Chono & Hiro Saito beat Bobby Eaton & Johnny B. Badd when Chono made Eaton submit to the STF in 14:29. 

Riki Choshu & Masa Saito beat The Nasty Boys in 8:22 when Saito pinned Knobs with the Saito suplex in 8:22. 

The Giant & Arn Anderson beat Shinya Hashimoto & Tadao Yasuda when Giant pinned Yasuda with a choke slam. 

Ric Flair made Osamu Nishimura submit to the figure four leglock in 10:17. 

Hiroyoshi Tenzan pinned Kurasawa in 9:48 with a diving head-butt off the top rope. 

Keiji Muto pinned Regal in 16:03 with the moonsault 

On the November 20th Nitro, we saw a dream match happen for the first time. Hulk Hogan vs Sting. Of course a few years later, they'd do huge business together with the year long buildup to Starrcade 1997 when Sting and Hogan wrestled again, this time with Hulk as a heel in the nWo and Sting doing the Crow gimmick and it was his first match in a year. 

We did a full show on Starrcade 97 in our archives where we had a spirited discussion about the Hulk/Sting match and Sting's tan, or lack there of

Getting back to their first ever match against each other on the November 20th, 1995 Nitro, Hogan, who dressed in all black and played heel, was booed out of the Macon Coliseum. The match went 9:32, with Hogan powering out of Sting's scorpion and making a superman comeback. Hogan missed a legdrop selling a hamstring injury and was put in the scorpion. Just as it appeared he was going to submit as he was screaming on camera that he couldn't take the pain, the Dungeon of Doom all ran out and attacked both men for the no contest decision. 

Hogan and Sting combined for the save until The Giant ran in. The Giant was about to choke slam both simultaneously until Randy Savage (at ringside, arm in a sling, the arm injury having been played up much stronger this week than last week which makes me think he is going to have the surgery after all) hit The Giant with a chair shot that he didn't sell. Hogan and Sting then combined to knock The Giant from the ring.

Why was this match put on Nitro? Obviously, it was for the ratings, because Raw that night was the night after the Survivor Series pay per view, which saw Bret Hart pin Diesel to win the WWF World Title. But, do you think you should've saved the first Hogan/Sting match for a pay per view? That would be something you'd get criticized a lot for over the upcoming years, putting huge, big money matches on Nitro instead of pay per views

You guys won the ratings that night with a 2.5 to Raw's 2.3. Not really a huge gap considering the Hogan/Sting match

Meltzer reported - It looks as though Michael Buffer won't be doing UFC events any longer. WCW gave him an ultimatum because they felt UFC was competition. Since WCW runs more major shows per year than UFC, most likely he would choose the one that gives him the most dates.  

That takes us to the World War 3 pay per view.

The show opened with one of the weirdest interviews probably in wrestling history. Hulk Hogan, Sting and Savage came out. First Hogan dumped his black wrestling attire in a burning garbage can. He then went off on a tangent about "rag sheets" which is a term those in the business unfamiliar with how the real world operates refer to newsletters such as this (as if this newsletter should be put in a grouping with anything else). 

Hogan threw a tantrum about a report that said The Giant was going to win the Battle Royal (which couldn't have even come from here because the last thing we wrote on the subject was that Sting or Savage were the best bets to win) and how they were wrong, which pretty well tipped everyone off that the Giant wasn't going to win. He also said it was reported Savage wouldn't be in the show because of an arm injury (it had been known for weeks here that Savage was going to eschew surgery and work the Battle Royal). 

He then said that the Savage arm injury was a total swerve on everyone including the wrestlers in the dressing room and that Savage's arm was fine (Savage had legitimately torn his tricep and his left arm was barely half the size of the right). Even weirder was even if the injury wasn't real, the major storyline of the show is that Savage had an arm injury and the announcers never acknowledged Hogan's saying Savage's arm was fine. 

He then threw the "rag sheet" in the same burning garbage can saying "Observe this," and said that it was a dinosaur and that the internet is the real story. I suspect as his popularity and drawing power continues to drop he'll get even more bitter. Since it appeared to be directed at me, I took it as a tremendous compliment. 

At Halloween Havoc, Johnny B. Badd beat DDP to win the TV Title. This set up a rematch between Badd and DDP here at the ppv, with the stipulation that if DDP lost then Badd would win the Diamond Doll's managerial services 

Johnny B. Badd retained the WCW TV title pinning Diamond Dallas Page in 12:35 and also won the Diamond Doll. Very good opener. Badd hit a plancha at 4:00. Page hit behind Doll and threw her at Badd and then sucker punched him. Page later called for the Doll to hold up a number and she refused. Later after Badd hit a well-timed clothesline, Doll held up a 10+ for Badd's move. The two then went back-and-forth for near falls including Badd reversing a tombstone piledriver into one of his own. Finally Badd did a Liger flip dive out of the ring, threw Page in and did a legdrop from the apron into the ring and scored the pin. ***1/2

Gene Okerlund, in plugging the WCW hotline, mentioned that the WWF steroid scandal isn't over. Anyone in WCW talking about the WWF when it comes to steroids has one hell of a lot of nerve.

On the September 16 episode of Saturday Night, Duggan cost Big Bubba Rogers a match against Evad Sullivan by putting Ralph the Rabbit in the ring, which led to Rogers leaving the match due to his allergies from rabbits. This led to a match between the two on the September 30 episode of Saturday Night, where Rogers defeated Duggan by hitting him with a taped fist while Duggan was distracted by VK Wallstreet.

Duggan then defeated Rogers in a rematch on the following week's Saturday Night. On the November 11th episode of Saturday Night, it was announced that Duggan would face Rogers in a Taped Fist match, and Duggan visited Ireland to check out his ancestors in preparation for his match.

On the November 20th episode of Nitro, Duggan cost Rogers, his match against Hawk, by tripping Rogers from outside the ring as Rogers was about to use the taped fist on Hawk but landed face-first on the taped fist 

Big Bubba Rogers pinned Jim Duggan in 10:08 of a taped fist match. The finish was when V.K. Wallstreet Rotunda came to ringside with a chain. As he went to use it, Duggan beat him to the punch but he dropped the chain and Rogers picked it up and used it. Rogers had hardway juice in his forehead that wasn't acknowledged on television. 1/2* 

Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto beat Mayumi Ozaki & Cutie Suzuki in 9:16 when Nakano pinned Ozaki with a guillotine legdrop off the top rope. This was an excellent match with one hot move after another and they ended up with great heat. If WWF had programmed Nakano doing the monster spots she did in this match, she'd have gotten over a lot bigger. Mike Tenay joined Bobby Heenan and Tony Schiavone as an announcer and actually did a great job getting a storyline, key points and some (but not all) the big moves over. Hokuto and Kensuke Sasaki were using this trip to the United States as their honeymoon since their "official" wedding was in October. Sonny Onno accompanied Nakano & Hokuto, who played heel but were cheered, to ringside. 

At the end, Heenan went crazy saying these women were better than the greats like Penny Banner, Kay Noble and Betty Niccoli (he ran out of names at that point but those were all women wrestlers from of the late 50s through early 70s). **** 

On the November 13th episode of Nitro, Chris Benoit pinned Sasaki & as we talked about earlier, Sasaki later won the U.S. Title from Sting 

Kensuke Sasaki retained the U.S. title pinning Chris Benoit in 10:00 using the Northern lights bomb, which is his wife's finishing maneuver. This was technically a very good match but the announcers were totally out to lunch here. The crowd live also didn't know anything about Sasaki because they haven't been educated to his moves and the match didn't have much heat. Boy this is sounding like a broken record. 

Nevertheless, both men did a lot of impressive stuff, particularly Benoit rolling german suplex at the end and it was the stiffest match on the show. ***1/4 

At Halloween Havoc, Randy Savage beat Lex Luger after Luger collided with Jimmy Hart on the apron. Later that night, Luger turned on Savage and Hulk Hogan after Hart turned on Hogan. Luger would then join Dungeon of Doom and resume his rivalry with Savage. On the November 13th episode of Nitro, Luger attacked Savage after Savage defeated Meng leading to a rematch between Savage and Luger here at the ppv. 

Lex Luger beat Randy Savage in 5:28 by with a step over armlock. It appeared on television from the announcers that it was a submission finish but the idea they were supposed to get across was that the referee stopped the match and that Savage actually never submitted to the move because, well, top babyfaces don't submit in this country. Savage, whose left arm was badly bandaged, used the elbow off the top early but Jimmy Hart had the ref distracted. Luger made a comeback and used the torture rack on the floor, threw Savage in and made him submit. He kept the hold on as Hart urged him to hurt Savage, but Sting came out and talked Luger into breaking the hold. *1/4 

At Halloween Havoc, Ric Flair turned on Sting during a tag team match against Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman, which led to a reformation of the Four Horsemen with Flair, Anderson, Pillman and later Chris Benoit. Sting defeated Flair on the November 13th Nitro, which led to a rematch between the two at World War 3 

Sting beat Ric Flair via submission with the scorpion in 14:30. I don't know what got into Flair, but he was full of the ring energy and vibrancy of the Flair of old, and this match had super heat. It was the same moves as every Flair-Sting match, but both worked very hard and the heat, psychology and stiffness were there. Sherri Martel, who is still with the promotion, came out with Rob Parker and they teased that the two would be getting married in the storyline. They didn't interfere and were brought out just to revive their seemingly forgotten storyline. ***3/4 

That takes us to the main event, the 60 man, 3 ring battle royal for the vacant WCW World Title. Here's some history that caused this match to happen.

At Halloween Havoc, The Giant defeated Hulk Hogan by DQ to win the World Title, after Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart turned on him by attacking the referee and then attacked Hogan. Giant was awarded the title, even though the title doesn't change hands on a DQ 

On the November 6th Nitro, Giant successfully defended the title against Cobra and then Hart revealed that he had signed a contract on Hogan's behalf for Hogan's title match against Giant at Halloween Havoc, and revealed a stipulation on the contract that if Hogan would be disqualified then Giant would win the title. However, WCW officials stripped Giant of the title and announced that the title would be decided in the battle royal at WW3.

Savage won the Battle Royal in 29:40. After the 60 men were eliminated down to six, Savage, Luger, Sting, Hogan, The Giant and One Man Gang, it wound up with Sting & Luger working together as a team double-teaming on Giant, which is strange since Luger and Giant were together at the last PPV. Hogan then dumped all three over the top rope, but was pulled under the bottom rope by The Giant. Hogan then slammed The Giant. While the camera was on Hogan, Savage (unseen by the cameras) must have dumped Gang and before anyone could see anything, Savage was announced as the new champion. 

Hogan complained that he never went over the top, but was booed like crazy for doing so. Hogan even went to the crowd (which in an earlier interview booed him out of the building and was chanting "Hogan sux" at him so loud they had to turn down the crowd noise during the interview) and asked to tell Savage and the ref that he had gone under the bottom rope and not over the top and the crowd reacted was for the most part screaming "No" at him. The Battle Royal was said to be good live, but on television, with three rings, three pictures and three announcing teams, the first 15:00 were like watching test patterns. 

It was a horrible television event even though it appeared a lot of the guys worked hard. They did a stretcher angle involving Scott Armstrong during the Battle Royal. They also did an angle where Hawk tried to save Sasaki from being eliminated although both wound up eliminated and it was brought up that they are tag team partners in Japan. * (as a television event, I'm sure it was better as a live event) 

With this win, Randy Savage won his first WCW World Title. Who else was considered to win this match, or was it always going to be Randy?

The men in the Battle Royal were Arn Anderson, Alex Wright, Brian Knobs, Barrio Brother Ricky, David Taylor, Scott Armstrong, Sting, Joey Maggs, Pez Whatley, Disco Inferno, Meng, Stevie Ray (who missed the Japan tour due to a foot injury), Mark Starr, Buddy Lee Parker, James Earl Wright, Lex Luger, Eddy Guerrero, Cobra, Giant, Paul Orndorff, Chris Kanyon, Bobby Walker, Bobby Eaton, Chris Benoit, Randy Savage, Marcus Bagwell, Yetti (who was wearing his Giant Ninja outfit rather than his toilet paper Yetti costume)

Kurasawa, Hugh Morris, Mike Winner, Steve Armstrong, Hawk, Scotty Riggs, Johnny B. Badd, Steve Regal, Big Train Bart (Black Bart), Zodiac, V.K. Wallstreet, Dallas Page, Scott Norton, Brian Pillman, Craig Pittman, One Man Gang, Super Assassins (Warlord & Barbarian under hoods), Bunkhouse Buck, Kensuke Sasaki, Dick Slater, Max Muscle, Shark, Barrio Brother Fidel, Jerry Sags, Kevin Sullivan, Dave Sullivan, Jim Duggan, Booker T, Bubba Rogers, Flair and Hogan 

The next night on Nitro in Salem, VA before 5,000 fans roughly 3,000 paying $27,000 

Blue Bloods beat Dick Slater & Bunkhouse Buck.  Alex Wright in his first singles match coming back from the kneecap injury, pinned Disco Inferno and even did a backflip into the ring.

When Hogan and Savage came out for interviews before the live show they were both booed out of the building, for when the live show went on, Savage was cheered and Hogan was mainly cheered although there were a lot of boos as well. 

Badd kept the TV title pinning Page in 2:10 when Diamond Doll, who found a chain in flowers Page gave her, threw the chain into the ring but Badd got it and used it for the pin. They teased Doll being a heel as if they didn't know if she was throwing the chain to Page or Badd, and she acted as if he was going heel.

The women had a rematch with Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto again beating Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki in 5:26 when Hokuto used the Northern lights bomb on Suzuki. Another great match that got over with the crowd. Bull, whose knees are shot to begin with, caught Hokuto on a flip dive when the opponents moved, and her anterior cruciate went out and she could barely stand up from that point on. 

Hogan pinned Hugh Morris with the legdrop in 3:39. 

Savage did an interview and Hogan came out to show him the tape that he didn't go over the top rope, but the tape broke just as that part was supposed to come up. At this point The Giant showed up and choke slammed Savage on the floor. 

The Giant was beating on Hogan until Sting ran out. He had Sting up for the choke slam when Hogan made the save with a chair and Hogan gave The Giant probably a dozen chair shots running him off. 

Sting & Luger beat Anderson & Pillman when Sting pinned Pillman in 5:39. After the match Flair came out and the three Horsemen destroyed Sting & Luger until Hogan made the save. 

After Hogan ran the Horseman out, he went after Luger but Sting stopped him from attacking Luger. Luger worked as a face except they did a tease spot where he knocked Pillman off the top rope and he crashed onto Sting, who had the scorpion on Anderson and it was questioned whether it was good aim or bad luck. 

WCW WORLD WAR II FINAL POLL RESULTS

• Thumbs up 108 (61.4%)
• Thumbs down 46 (26.1%)
• In the middle 22 (12.5%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Hokuto & Nakano vs. Suzuki & Ozaki 80

Ric Flair vs. Sting 39

Johnny B. Badd vs. Diamond Dallas Page 22

Chris Benoit vs. Kensuke Sasaki 13

Battle Royal 12

WORST MATCH POLL

Jim Duggan vs. Bubba Rogers 76

Battle Royal 48

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage 10