83 Weeks - World War 3 1996 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

WCW World War 3 1996 

WCW World War 3 1996 was the second pay per view event produced under the World War 3 brand. It happened on November 24, 1996 at the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia in front of a screaming audience of 10,314 fans - a turnaway crowd! 7,018 were paid with a gate of about $118,000. The show itself was first announced as a sellout one day in advance, but they managed to open up 1,300 more tickets on Sunday, which quickly went sold and they turned away several hundred at the door.

What could have been a major problem, and turned into a minor problem, was a local promotion in Norfolk in which every person who ordered the Halloween Havoc PPV was supposed to be able to get two free tickets to World War III. The problem is that more than 3,000 people in Norfolk bought Havoc, a number far more than estimated, which meant the potential was there for having to service 6,000 basically free tickets in a 10,000 seat arena. As it turned out, only half that many were serviced, but it obviously held down the final gross and paid attendance by 20 percent.

Do you remember that promotion and finding out that up to half of the tickets for the event were going to be given away?

The buyrate for the show was a 0.55 - estimated at about 200,000 buys - up from the previous year (95 did 90,000 buys). However, that’s lower than the past four PPVs leading into this show in 1996…

Bash at the Beach 96 did 250,000...

Hog Wild did 220,000...

Fall Brawl did 230,000...

Halloween Havoc did 250,000...

Were you disappointed with the numbers the show did? Or were you happy, considering your world champion was merely signing a contract to face his next opponent at the show?

Was there ever a thought of advancing the numbers as you had new events? World War 4, World War 5, etc.?

News and Notes

A big story around this time was news about another big name jumping from WWF to WCW...Mr. Perfect himself, Curt Hennig.

According to the Observer... Hennig met and agreed to terms with Eric Bischoff late the previous week and then no-showed his scheduled WWF television appearances on Live Wire and Superstars along with his booking for house shows in Buffalo and Cleveland as Hunter Hearst Helmsley's second.

With the no-shows, WWF probably figured Hennig was WCW-bound and had Jerry McDevitt send out the basic legal threats regarding tampering since Hennig was still under contract. The WWF was under the impression that Hennig was going to debut on the 11/11 Nitro in a Lex Luger type deal, although those in WCW insist that was never the plan because they were aware of Hennig still having a WWF contract, and that his debut wouldn't be until February, after his contract expires.

Is that true? Was that never the plan or...did you maybe adjust plans a little :)

As the week went on, Hennig and McMahon had at least one phone conversation in which everything apparently was settled, or at least that's what those in the WWF were of the impression of. By late in the week the belief was that not only would Hennig return for Superstars and the PPV, but that he would sign a new big money contract with the WWF as a wrestler. However, when Hennig no-showed a personal appearance on 11/16 and the PPV on 11/17, the WWF realized Hennig is all but gone.

There must have been major underlying heat between Hennig and McMahon for Hennig to not only jump, but to also burn McMahon and the WWF on two consecutive weekends on the way out the door. The story going around is that Hennig had no interest in returning to the ring, as he was a very short time away from a lifetime disability settlement in his Lloyd's of London policy which would have paid him a reported $300,000 lump sum. However, something happened, which Hennig blamed McMahon for, which led to Lloyd's not going to pay the lump sum, which, without the lump sum, probably lessened Hennig's reasons for not wanting to return to the ring. Lloyd's, which no longer sells disability insurance to pro wrestlers after having to pay out to such a high percentage of those that purchase policies during the short period they were offered. Rick Rude, Ted DiBiase, Road Warrior Animal, Hennig and Nikita Koloff among others all collected on policies. In the case of all but Animal and Hennig, they collected the big lump sum for permanent disability and have never returned to the ring. When he decided he was going to return, due to the bitterness with McMahon, he decided to contact Bischoff and WCW. If it actually happened in this way, then Bischoff and WCW would be less in jeopardy of a tampering charge if Hennig came to them rather than the other way around.

Some interesting questions here that we may never know the answers to...but that won’t stop us from trying!

What caused Curt Hennig to reach out to you and burn Vince McMahon not once...but twice? What happened to cause him to lose his Lloyd’s payout, at least, in his mind?

Gene Okerlund is back on the 900 line after an absence. Since with the sleaze master was gone, the hotline business dropped a ton, so they had to bring him back after all. Jeff Katz, who made the remark about Raw being moved to midnight if the ratings don't improve which resulted in more of those threatening letters, was dumped to bring Okerlund back.

Why did Mean Gene leave the hotline during this time? Any memories of Jeff Katz?

Piper's deal appears to be to work four or five wrestling matches per year and make about 15 interview appearances throughout the year. The prime focus of the contract is that Turner will be developing a syndicated television show built around Piper as a Bounty Hunter or police man type role. The contract was apparently for huge money.

Do you remember much about the deal you gave Piper to bring him in? Was it a situation where he got a TV role from Turner that sweetened the deal or did the TV deal pay the bulk of his costs?

Let’s talk a little bit about the Eric Bischoff heel turn, which happened on the Nitro prior to this event...

Meltzer would write that The latest saga of the NWO is that on the 11/18 Nitro show, Eric Bischoff turned heel joining with the NWO. This was an idea that was rumored for a long time and may have been considered for a while, but it was done at this time for reasons having nothing to do with long-term plans.

It was simply that the NWO hour of Nitro will be the first hour because the theory at WCW, and we'll certainly find out if it's correct, is that people watch the shows now mainly for NWO. Judging from the reaction at the arenas, I'd guess it's a logical assumption. So they wanted to put NWO head-to-head with Raw. And Eric Bischoff wants to be on the air at the same time as Vince McMahon. It's that simple and there's nothing more to it than that. So when the NWO hour starts, which should be in a week or two, Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko will do that hour, and the second hour will have Tony Schiavone (who walked off the first hour this week after an argument with Zbyszko), Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay.

Is that really the reasoning here? You wanted to be on the air at the same time as Vince...or...is that fake news? :)

The Bischoff turn came when Roddy Piper made his Nitro debut. They had been hyping that Piper might be there the entire show, and then Bischoff (and in hindsight doing this was a disaster for the ratings), still playing babyface, said that Piper wouldn't be there and it was only a rumor. The only hint of a turn was Tenay in the first hour asking why Bischoff ever made the deal before the War Games PPV match to give the NWO a TV show if they won. They also did a segment with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Syxx and Giant talking with Dallas Page acting as if there was a secret they all knew and being surprised that both Page and Giant didn't know the secret. Bischoff was in the ring apologizing for remarks he'd made earlier as Hulk Hogan was slapping him around, when Piper showed up and said Bischoff was a liar and made up that he was trying to sign the match when he wasn't trying at all. Actually this wasn't spelled out, but that was what he was supposed to say. At this point the entire NWO hit the ring and held Piper while Hogan and Bischoff hugged. It was really weird because the fans were throwing things so police and security hit the ring and looked like fools because the NWO guys were beating up Piper and they did nothing. Kind of like a fight going on in the street and the cops coming in and surrounding it but doing nothing and watching for a car to illegally park. Piper used a dirty word on live television. At the end, though, Piper really looked old for the first time ever in a wrestling ring as he was blown up. The angle came off good on television, and probably could be used to answer lots of questions about why NWO was able to do whatever it wanted, but also makes no sense in that the entire idea of the feud was because of Bischoff's remarks and it was Bischoff who was attacked to start the feud. Of course, they could say that was all a work. You know, a work of a work, of a work, of a work.

We will talk about this more in a future episode that breaks it down in greater detail. But...do you think Bischoff joining the nWo answered more questions than it created?

Nitro won the ratings battle on 11/18 doing a 3.2 rating and 4.7 share to Raw's 2.4 rating and 3.5 share. Nitro did a 2.8 in the head-to-head first hour and a 3.5 in the second hour. The Nitro replay did a 0.9 rating and 3.0 share.

While the Nitro numbers had to be a disappointment for Piper's live debut, even more so because the final quarter hour with the Hogan interviews have done huge every week and this time with both Hogan and Piper involved it was only a 3.3, down from the peak of 3.6 for Lex Luger and Chris Jericho's matches. Just wait until the U.S. ratings services catch up to Japanese technology in that instead of quarter-hour breakdowns they have minute-by-minute breakdowns. Then we'll all be driven crazy. But the Raw figure has to be more disappointing coming the day after a major PPV show where it changed the world title, as the number was lower than the previous week and a 2.4 figure is its average for the year.

You’re beating the WWF in the ratings here. At this point, November 1996, what is it about the programming that is winning this battle? What do you think you have to keep doing? What were you wrong about, in that regard?

Event

WCW WORLD WAR III POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 10 (10.9%)

Thumbs down 74 (80.4%)

In the middle 8 (08.7%)

A. In the opening dark match, La Parka (Adolfo Tapia) pinned Villano IV (Tomas Diaz Mendoza). I was told this was a very good match, and since the crowd was so hot for the show, they were into the match. Villano IV debuted with WCW in this match. He's part of the Los Villanos trio, three sons of the legendary Rey Mendoza who played a role of a masked Villano in a 60s movie, which was the best working main event level heel trio remaining in AAA (Los Diabolicos, who are an undercard trio, are better in some ways), and Konnan this past week convinced them to jump to Promo Azteca which in Mexico is a major news story. V-4 will be another of those good working Mexican wrestlers working as jobbers in WCW.

Always good to see the Chair-man of WCW in action. Is this a warm-up match for the crowd? Any thoughts or memories on any of the workers in this?

1. Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) pinned Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gonzalez) in 13:48 to retain the J Crown, which is the IWGP junior heavyweight title; the NWA junior heavyweight and welterweight titles; the UWA light heavyweight title; the WAR International junior heavyweight title; the WWF light heavyweight title; the Great Britain junior heavyweight title and WWA junior light heavyweight titles. None of the belts have been mentioned by name in the U.S., simply that Dragon has eight belts that he won in Japan. This was move after move with nearly flawless execution, particularly by Dragon. It was pretty clear Dragon called the match since it was done in his style and he dominated most of the way using one move after another to gain near falls. Among the moves he used were a springboard dropkick, a german suplex, a torture rack followed by a quick drop, a power bomb, a power bomb into a hot shot (or stun gun), a giant swing, a fisherman buster, a brainbuster, a tombstone piledriver, a tombstone piledriver on the floor, a plancha into a full body splash on the floor, a rana on the top rope reversed into a huracanrana climaxing with a running Liger bomb, all of which Misterio Jr. kicked out of. Misterio Jr. came back with a double springboard into an Arabian moonsault, a springboard dropkick to the back, a tope con hilo (Silver King dive), a springboard sunset flip and a handspring into a rana turned into a huracanrana. The finishing sequence saw Dragon use a dragon suplex for a near fall, Misterio Jr. come back with a Toyota roll for a near fall, and then when Misterio Jr. went for his springboard huracanrana, Dragon caught him in mid-air, and slingshotted him off the top rope and dropped him into a power bomb for the pin. ****½

Eric...you look like a genius when one of your shows opens with a match like this. How happy were you with these two performers? Do you go up to them afterward and tell them great job - or do they get a bonus, or an attaboy later? What type of acknowledgement is there for this level of performance?

This is one of Rey Mysterio’s cooler outfits from his WCW run...Spider-Man! But it actually even has the spider logo on his boots and the webbed mask.

Was there ever any push back on Rey’s ring gear? We’ve heard about the Glacier story. Who else came too close to the “inspiration” perhaps?

2. Chris Jericho (Chris Irvine) pinned Nick Patrick (Joe Hamilton Jr.) in 8:02 with a superkick in a match where Jericho had one hand tied behind his back. Given the limitations in this type of a match, it was better than expected and definitely watchable. Actually Patrick, who started out as a referee about 16 years ago and later wrestled for several years until blowing out his knee working for Bill Watts, did a great job of taking bumps and of facial expressions. *¼

Let’s give Nick Patrick props for giving his best effort here and Jericho for helping make this watchable. Still…

Would you book this again if you had a do-over?

Ric Flair came out for an interview and got the biggest pop of the night. He didn't have much to say, though.

Was this just to get Ric’s star power on the show?

3. The Giant (Paul Wight) pinned Jeff Jarrett in 6:05 with a choke slam. Flair wasn't in Jarrett's corner as had been advertised, since it would have made no sense with the planned finish. This match wasn't nearly as good as their previous bout. After Jarrett threw Giant over the top rope, Sting came down and gave Jarrett a reverse DDT, and Giant got back in the ring for the coup de gras. The rest of the show saw the announcers speculate as to whether or not Sting had joined the NWO. *¼

Several questions here…

What were your thoughts on the match?

Can you describe the plans for Sting at this point. Were you looking to keep fans and announcers guessing as to his intentions?

On a recent episode of Wrestling Game Rewind on AdFreeShows.com, game producer Sanders Keel said they received a directive from WCW to add Jeff Jarrett into the game they were working on at the time of this event. All indicators were that Jeff was planned to get a mega push during this time, but by late 97, he would be back on Raw.

What were the plans for Jeff in late 96? Why did they change?

Meltzer: Roddy Piper came out to sign a contract to face Hulk Hogan. Hogan didn't come out at first, instead Bischoff, Vincent and Ted DiBiase came out, causing Tony Schiavone to deliver the line that he'd never thought he'd see the day that Eric Bischoff and Vincent were walking down the aisle together. Piper was awesome carrying the angle, challenging Hogan to a no DQ match. Finally Hogan came out with the rest of the NWO crew, and did the hip angle. Hogan did a great job carrying his end of the angle as well. Too bad they have to wrestle a match.

Meltzer went on to say...the only positive thing on the show was the angle to lead to the Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper match at Starrcade. In that angle Piper did his best job in years of doing what he does best, basically running down new heel Eric Bischoff, bringing up his past association with Vincent (then Virgil) in the WWF when he gave Piper ugly looks, and in the end, the entire NWO overpowered Piper, lifted up his kilt to reveal the scars from his hip replacement surgery, attacked the hip (for obvious reasons Hogan's attack on the hip was very careful to the point of looking ridiculous) and spray painted NWO on his bad hip. Piper basically crawled and limped out of the ring afterwards, but not before both sides had signed a contract for the war to settle the score that was never settled, or something to that effect, playing off the idea of their 1985 match which aired live on MTV called "The War to Settle the Score," which was the predecessor for the first Wrestlemania.

There’s also a delightful little line by Tony Schiavone on commentary: I never thought I would see Eric and Vince walk down the aisle together.

Any memories about this segment?

Were you okay with Piper referencing having taught Vincent how to fight (a reference to their WWF program when Virgil turned on Dibiase)

The build to Hogan v Piper at Starrcade was a beautiful thing for wrestling fans to see. But there are times during this that it seems like Piper was going pretty far or even pissing you off a little. Did you have trouble keeping Hot Rod from going a little wild?

4. Harlem Heat (Lane & Booker Huffman) beat Amazing French Canadians (Jacques Rougeau Jr. & Karl Pierre Oulette) in 9:14. An awful match except for Booker T doing a few cool spots. Rougeau, who was once a good worker, seems like he doesn't want to do anything but collect a paycheck nowadays. The finish of the match was pretty creative. The Quebecers TM brought two sets of ring steps into the ring and put a table across the top rope, and a set of steps under the table and over the table. Rougeau stood on the steps under, or actually near the table. Oulette climbed to the top of the steps on the table and they went to do Le Cannonball, but missed. Booker T then used the Harlem hangover on Oulette for the pin. Because of the pre-match stips, that meant Sherri would get five minutes with Col. Parker. Sherri decked Parker and threw him over the top rope and gave him two flying clotheslines. She then (and she had taken her high heels off by this time) did a crossbody off the top but Parker kicked out and then took off. The five minutes wound up being closer to 1:30. 3/4*

What did you think of Meltzer’s criticism of Rougeau?

Was the Harlem Hangover a safe move? We’ve heard of several being injured by it...

You can’t really do a full “five minutes” in a segment like this though, right?

5. Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) pinned Psicosis (Dionicio Castellanos) in 14:33 to retain the WCW cruiserweight title. The match started with solid mat wrestling but the crowd was totally dead. It was Malenko's match and he really did little to allow Psicosis to show his strengths. While part of this can be blamed on poor announcing not getting holds over, by this point it has to be accepted that in WCW that Malenko's holds not being over because of the announcing is simply a given. After all this time, Malenko deserves some of the blame for calling a match that is great for the tiny minority of fans and shows all the Japanese fans and shoot wrestling fans that he's a top level Japanese style worker, but that means nothing to the audience he's wrestling in front of until the announcers explain what it is that he's today with those holds. He either needs to tell the announcers what he's doing and why and what hurts if he was doing it for real and get them to teach the audience, or if not, don't do it. As it was, the announcers, instead of explaining what it was he was doing, used the fact he was doing matwork to not call the match and to talk about Hogan and Piper. Psicosis at one point slipped off the top rope and crashed headfirst into the guard rail. I'm sure he was supposed to crash into the rail on the spot, but it looked bad because of the slip. Psicosis big move was a twisting Orihara moonsault from the top rope to the floor. It built into being a fairly good match, although probably not at the level it could have been considering who was in it. After a series of near falls, Malenko scored the pin with a Japanese rolling crotch hold. **¾

“A Japanese rolling crotch hold”

What did you think about the match?

WCW gained a reputation during this time for commentators ignoring exciting in-ring action to build up to bigger angles later in the show. Did the commentary hurt this match in your opinion? Or did they do what they were supposed to do?

6. Kevin Nash & Scott Hall retained the WCW tag titles in a triangle match beating Nasty Boys (Brian Yandrisovitz & Jerry Seganowich) and Meng (Uliuli Fifita) & Barbarian (Sionne Vailahi) in 16:08. A long nothing match that went nowhere. The absolutely ludicrous WCW triangle rules were in effect in that the match ended with whomever scored the pin getting the win and the belts. The rules were mocked to the point of stupidity when Hall and Nash were tagged in and Nash simply laid down for Hall which would enable them to keep the belts, except that the pin was broken up. It ended up with Knobs decking Jimmy Hart on the apron and the megaphone went flying. Hall got the megaphone and KO'd Knobs with it, and Nash used the jackknife on Knobs for the pin. 1/2*

What did you think about the match?

How about Kevin Nash’s picture perfect Jackknife Powerbomb?

It was reported that Jerry Sags suffered a mild concussion after getting pounded on with a chair on the 11/18 Nitro by Scott Hall.

Kevin Nash has told stories to Kayfabe Commentaries and Sean Oliver about how matches during this period between these three teams would devolve into a full-on fight. During one such instance, after Hall had been roughed up in a match Nash said he grabbed a ball bat backstage and swung it as hard as he could about two inches above one of the Nastys heads.

What was causing these teams to go at it like this? Did you have to step in and tell them to cool it off?

7. The Giant won the 60 man three ring Battle Royal in 28:21. For the record, the 60 participants were Lex Luger, Eddie Guerrero, Tony Rumble, Diamond Dallas Page, High Voltage, M. Wallstreet, American Males, Craig Pittman, Harlem Heat, Big Bubba, Hugh Morrus, Konnan, Ron Studd (called John Studd several times by Dusty Rhodes), Steve Regal, La Parka, Pez Whatley, Steve McMichael (boy has his career gone nowhere), Disco Inferno, Renegade, Joe Gomez, Meng, Barbarian, Bunkhouse Buck, Arn Anderson, Johnny Grunge, Ciclope, Galaxy, Syxx, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Giant, Scott Norton, Ultimo Dragon, Jimmy Graffiti, Mike Enos, Rey Misterio Jr., Roadblock, Ice Train, Jack Boot, Jim Duggan, Chris Benoit, Juventud Guerrera, Amazing French Canadians, Prince Iaukea, Malenko, Jarrett, Bobby Eaton, Jim Powers, David Taylor, Jericho, Alex Wright, Mark Starr, J.L., Villano IV, Rick Steiner and Kevin Sullivan. The line-up changed in the last week as they added most of the NWO members including Giant, who ended up winning, that weren't scheduled originally to be a part of it. Even though Sting was in all the advertising as a participant, the decision was made weeks ago against him being in it. It was impossible to follow, made worse by the fact that most of the announcers didn't appear to know who half the participants were. The funniest one was Villano IV, whose name was never mentioned, and when he was eliminated right on screen, it appeared nobody knew who he was so the elimination was simply ignored. At one point, for comedy purposes, Lee Marshall took a bump. The Horseman and Dungeon of Doom brawled all over ringside from the start and all were eliminated for no apparent reason even though none ever took a bump over the top. This was stemming from the angle shot the night before in Baltimore, which made sense to everyone in Baltimore the night before and nobody else since the angle didn't air on the show. At one point Lee Marshall talked about Scott Steiner being eliminated, even though he wasn't even in the match, and Rick Steiner, who was, hadn't been eliminated. It was basically a 25:00 test pattern in the middle of a bad PPV show. The NWO guys all stayed in the corner by themselves and did very little during the match. Finally they came down to the final ten, Luger, Jarrett, Regal, Misterio Jr., Guerrero, Page, Giant, Syxx, Hall and Nash. The WCW crew squared off with the NWO crew except Page at the beginning was neutral. Regal threw out Guerrero, Giant threw out Misterio Jr. with one arm pitching him onto Guerrero, Nash clotheslined Jarrett over, Page went over when Regal ducked a charge, and the entire NWO then eliminated Regal. All this happened in less time than it took to write it. This left Luger with the entire NWO. Luger got Giant on the top rope and from that position racked him on his shoulders but it was broken up. He then threw Hall out, threw Syxx on Hall, and racked Nash. Giant then knocked both Luger and Nash out of the ring to win. Finish was good at least. Can't wait to see what they learned from this fiasco to give a better match next year. 1/2*

There’s a lot of stuff to unpack here…

Give us your thoughts on the match?

Were Benoit and Sullivan wearing make-up or did they really fuck each other up that bad during the house show the night before, as Lee Marshall mentioned?

We saw Sting earlier tonight. What can you say about the decision to keep him out of the match? Good call?

Why go with the Giant as the winner here? The World Title is already on a member of the nWo...wouldn’t it have made more sense to let, say, Lex Luger win it to build up to a future PPV title match?

BEST MATCH POLL

Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ultimo Dragon 80

WORST MATCH POLL

Battle Royal 31

Triangle tag team match 21

Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick 9

Give us your thoughts on World War 3 1996?

Here’s what Dave Meltzer had to say about the show…

Conceptually, for pro wrestling to flourish, risks from time-to-time have to be taken. The idea of taking risks is that sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. A good promotion learns from both those that do work and those that don't. Unless that promotion has a bottomless pit of money and doesn't need to learn.

This best sums up World War III on 11/24 from the Norfolk Scope Arena, WCW's now annual 60-man three-ring Battle Royal. The company tried it last year, and what resulted was a major problem in that putting three different pictures on a screen resulted in boredom personified to the television viewer at home. The only positive of the Battle Royal last year, is that they did the three-ring show for 15:00, and had another 14:00 to where the action was confined to one ring and at least was watchable at home, and fairly exciting to boot, but generally even with that the three-ring Battle Royal idea was considered a major flop. I don't know if it's an inability to remember things and lessons from one year ago or just sheer arrogance, but the idea of booking something basically the same, with the only change being that of the 28:21 of the Battle Royal this year, they went 25:20 of three-ring impossible-to-watch action, and then when they got into the final ring with ten men left, it was one of those Titanic (everyone jumps overboard as fast as possible) Battle Royals that in the late 70s and 80s killed the Battle Royal gimmick which in many cities during the 70s was the single biggest drawing match of the year.

Do you agree or disagree with his criticism?

Questions

Jeremy asks...What was piper's take on this ppv angle with hogan? Did he like it, hate it, or was he all in?

Christopher Rabideau asks...With the winner of the WW3 getting a future World title match why did they happen at Souled Out instead of Starrcade? (Stan note: I think he meant instead of Superbrawl)

Lee parker asks...Do you think the battle royal would be better received if it had been shot with a single camera as opposed to three cameras at once? TVs were smaller back then and it was pretty heard to follow at times.

The Rosencoaster asks...What was your reason for removing Giant from the nWo after joining the group not too long before?

Taylor asks did Eric ever ride Sting’s zip line down from the ceiling before the show?

Instagram: A Wrestling Historian asks..The Giant was supposed to win World War III the year before: True or false?

Ken Patera’s McDonald’s Boulder asks...Does Eric wish in hindsight that he’d have just kept the nWo the size it is here instead of as big as it got ?

Another cool question from Ken’s McDonalds Boulder...In Eric’s opinion has there ever been a better 3 man announce team than Tony Dream and The Brain?

Michael asks...Which World War 3 PPV made Eric want to abandon the 3 ring battle royal concept?

Michael also asked...Given how the 2 ring Battlebowl concept didn’t work why did WCW think a 3 ring battle royal was a better idea?

JBLCenaFan WAS THERE...and asks...Why did Norfolk always get these gimmick shows like WW3 95 and 96 and Battlebowl 91 ? Why wasn't this called WW4 ?

Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net asks...Why did we never get that State Patrol and Cobra program that was set up during the WW3 match? lol 

Bob asks...I just listened to last weeks Clash 17 show. This is only 5 years later and the look couldn’t be more different.

Is WWE’s current problem that 5 years ago (minus the Thunderdome) looks the exact same as now with the same wrestlers to a large degree?

Same old same old

Bishup asks...How far in advance was it planned for the giant to win the 60 man battle royal and having the now turn on him thus turning the giant babyface?

Markus asks...Why was Dusty Rhodes taken off commentary after 1997?

Brad Saunders asks..how much of a nightmare was it backstage trying to produce this match. the camera angles, deciding what to show on tv at certain points. great concept but absolutely terrible to watch.

was it ever considered to have wrestlers introduced kinda like the rumble match?

Michael asks..What are Eric’s thoughts about Dusty rocking that red jacket? #AskEric

Francis asks..Was it around this time did you think that it was time to break up american males?

Rob asks...what was the payout for the guys who were the filler in the battle royal and who decided who would be in ?

Arturo asks..Why was World War 3 replaced with WCW Mayhem PPV?

Charlie asks..I was at this event as well as Nitro & Thunder takings. Mr. Bishoff, can you talk about the importance of the Norfolk Scope to WCW & why the Scope, not the Hampton Coliseum PS - it was day time

Men’s 5 Star Reviews asks..What was your cologne of choice for PPV’s and Nitro’s back then? Also, what is your current cologne of choice when you’re out for a night on the town with Mrs. B?

And now...we can all say we survived World War 3 ;)