Do You Miss It? World War 3.

[My Couch Pulls Out But I Don't]

A while back I started a series of threads and began calling them the "Do You Miss It?" series.

This is the fourth installment. The topic this time: World War 3

World War 3 was a pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling. The pay-per-view's title also was the name of its signature match, a three-ring, sixty-man battle royal which was their answer to the WWF(E)'s Royal Rumble. The event took place every November and lasted from 1995-1999 when it was replaced with WCW Mayhem.

The rules were changed in 1998 to accomodate eliminating the "jobbers" before the final twenty men finished it off. With 60 men involved, it gave a lot of wrestlers some TV time, even though you knew they wouldn't win.

The rules for a World War 3 match were similar to the rules for a Royal Rumble match. There were two major differences:

-The WW3 match is played out in three rings, each holding twenty men.
-All sixty men start the match at the same time (the same rules as a traditional battle royal).

The rules for the World War 3 match were:

-All sixty men were randomly assigned a specific ring before the match began.
-The match began with all sixty men, in three rings, when the bell rings.
-A competitor must knock his opponent over the top rope of the ring, and both feet must touch the floor of the arena in order to eliminate said opponent from the match (this rule was amended in 1998 to allow for eliminations if a person leaves the ring in any way, in addition to counting pinfalls and submissions)
-When thirty men remained, they moved to the central ring and the match continued (this rule was amended in 1998 so that the competitors had to move to the central ring once forty men had been eliminated)
-The last man standing in the ring was declared the winner.

My question to you is, Do you miss the World War 3 concept? Do you think it should be brought back? If so, how would you like it done. If not, why?

Previous "Do You Miss It" Topics:

Do you miss Hardcore 24/7?
Yes -- 71.88%
No -- 28.13%

Do you miss the European Championship?
Yes -- 55.56%
No -- 44.44%

Do you miss branded PPVs?
Yes -- 51.02%
No -- 48.98%

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

No. It was cool to see all the guys come out, to see the "mass of humanity" and when the bell rang it was cool to see 120 fists start at once, but after that it was boring. Battle royals are generally just guys hanging on the ropes and 2 or 3 other guys pretending to push them over but really REALLY obviously holding onto them. Imagine this for like 30 minutes. The Royal Rumble is a much better way of keeping interest throughout.

You should do War Games next. they can even make it their own, do it chamber style with 2 teams of 3.

 

[Jasper Dale]

I enjoyed it for what it was. It was never on par with the Royal Rumble (my fav PPV). It was, like you said, a way to get alot of people on a PPV who you would only see on Saturday Night or Worldwide. We all had our favourite jobber back then and this way we could see them in the ring on PPV for 2 minutes until they did their job.

 

[The Hardcore Kid]

I was never a huge fan of battle royals, so no, I don't miss it. Like someone said above the Royal Rumble is at least a bit more interesting since wrestlers come out in intervals. I'm not a fan of watching 30+ men punch and hang on ropes for an hour.

 

[Adalam]

I like the concept better than the basic Royal Rumble, as it gives more men air time than the Rumble does despite only having 20 men more. The fact that they all start in at the same time isn't something I'm used to, but it wouldn't be hard for me to adapt to it if WWE switched to something like this.

 

[ahoyhoy]

I hated WW3. The three rings made the other matches on the card look awkward and the battle royals had no joy in them - it was just jobbers getting thrown out after 2 minutes. There was no sustained drama until there was about 10 or less in the ring. It was only a crappy ploy in my opinion, to have something rival the royal rumble, which is an ingenious concept thanks to Pat Patterson, and it failed. The Elimination Chamber that came out of not being able to use WarGames (post-Afganistan they couldn't use the name when the companies merged) was also better, in my opinion, as I didn't like that WarGames could be over from 1 pin or submission and it ran very false to wait for everyone to join. If it was bought back as a Survivor Series match then it would be so much more dramatic.

 

[MizfitPeep]

Only a little. I liked seeing all the wrestlers come out in the beginning, and then when it was down to the final 20. It was nice to see pretty much the whole roster involved, and for some guys to get on a PPV, that otherwise wouldn't. But the 3 rings were just too hard to keep track of. You would miss a lot of eliminations. In 1998 though, I had hope for Chavo winning when he made it to the final 20. Ah, to be young & naive again.

 

[Nate DaMac]

Not at all. WCW was so intent on doing everything better than the WWE and crushing them completely, but this is one of the things that they failed at. "WWF has 30 Stars? We'll have 60! They have 1 ring? We'll have 3!"

Now look, in WWE's Royal Rumble, they need a lot of jobbers to fill out the spots. Could you imagine the amount of nobodies they would need to fill out a 60 man Rumble? Well watch a WW3 match and you'll see. Way too much shit to keep track of, way too many people who no one knows or cares about, and shit camera angles that make it difficult to watch.

So no, this idea is one that's better off dead and buried.

 

[harrythem]

Not in the slightest. I was interested in the idea when i first heard about it but, seeing it on tv...damn it sucked.

Three rings, three shitty long cameras, different commentary teams (at least for two years) and no real drama until right near the end...just a clusterfuck idea from start to finish. It was so crap that WCW dropped it!

 

[wrestling89]

I miss it for a few reasons.

As many others pointed out, I have been a fan of jobbers and obscure wrestlers in the past. The WW3 gave a chance for people to watch these guys who would never cut it on their own. Guys like Jack Boot, Sonny Blaze, Lash Leroux, The Yette (like they would really give this jackass a match, in fact they had to "shrink" him to put him in the damn battle royale!!!), High Voltage, Horace Hogan, etc, etc.

Also I really enjoyed commentary from Dusty Rhodes on those matches. "THERE GO JACK BOOT!" "Der dat Mafia Kick Tony!!!!"

It also had one moment that I will never forget. When The Barbarian out of nowhere flat out Mafia Kicked Lee Marshall in the face. I forget what year that was, but it was awesome! THere was no reason for it, but it was shown clearly on the broadcast.

Yes, the presentation did suck, that 3 way split screen was horrible, but it was just fun and something different.

I mean I would love to see some old school jobbers in there against the clowns in the WWF today.

Imagine seeing guys like Lee Scott, Barry Hardy, Duane Gill, Frankie DeFalco, Zan Panzer, and Cougar Jay against the likes of Cena, Orton, and crew. That would be some good stuff!!!!

 

[god-soldier]

Its funny that you bought this topic up because I watched WW3 96 n 97 on monday and I enjoyed both of them the concept of 3 rings 60 men was great you had different commentators for each ring I just wish they would of came up with something different to display the action 3 split screens or each ring on a different channel would have been cool too. Overall it was great idea and it was done well each time. I definitely miss it but it would be useless for the WWE to have because of the Royal Rumble. I think this idea is something TNA or ROH should invest in as long as they have a roster large enough to have it. I still believe the first one in 95 was the best one because it had the most big names and Randy Savage as the winner was surprising

 

[The Crock]

No way. That match was beyond clustered for me. They expanded to using every single jobber on the roster, it was just plain tedious and boring. WCW was so obsessed with one-upping the WWE that they had to try this, and it just didn't work. It was far too much to focus on. 30 men is enough for me, 40 might even be too many, but 60? Come on, that's just dumb. That's just packing way too much into a single match, and it takes away from the production value. Too much to see, so they have to pace it differently, different commentary, different camera angles, too much to deal with.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I don't miss it. Although it was an interesting idea that got as many as 60 guys onto a card, it was kind of dumb. The Royal Rumble matches alone have a ton of things going on. World War 3 matches had three times as much going on. To say it was a cluster-mess is an understatement. I'd imagine the bookers would be ripping hair out in frustration with trying to find something to do that actually made sense. Plus, whoever came up with the name of the PPV deserved to be fired the next day. As a certain Simpsons character would say.... Worst PPV name ever.

 

[ringthebell]

I have always thought WWE screwed up big time since they purchased WCW. Why not have some of these ppv concepts, or hell, just have some WCW ppvs. WWE having World War 3 and Royal Rumble in the same year, talk about rising ppv purchases. BRING IT BACK.