Halloween Havoc - Hollywood VS Warrior

[T2KFreeker]

Before, I go into the reasoning for this thread, let me make something clear. I have NEVER been a Hulk Hogan fan. I have NEVER been a warrior fan either. I was never too compelled by the cartoonish style of their characters. On the other side of the coin though, I really did enjoy seeing Hogan as a Heel in WCW as the leader of the nWo. It was something new for him and he actually was obnoxious enough that I bought into him as a bad guy. Warrior and his feud was looked at as a huge part of the early 90's at WWF, so even I was very interested to see where this was headed in WCW. Here's the point I am getting at though:

The Match Sucked.

We all KNOW this for a fact. Still, over the years, interview after interview criticizes Warrior as being the ultimate failure in the match. "MOST" fans (Also known as Hogan Marks) seem to agree. My question is; Why? Every time I get into this one there is a huge outcry from a large group that anchors Hogan like he can do no wrong. It makes me wonder if anyone actually watched the match. Even so recent as WWE's "Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior" goes into this and they go into how Warrior screwed it up. I guess I can understand the weird interview Jim used to give and being irritated with his ego, but like Hogan was any different? The two biggest moments in the match up were messed up by Hogan, not warrior. Hogan was to knock out the ref by running into him but screwed up the run over on Warrior which made him have his footing off. Then, the flash paper was totally screwed up by Hogan to boot. Interviews claim that Warrior had no clue what he was doing, but given the circumstances, it seems to me by watching that train wreck, he at least tried to salvage the match while Hogan just looked around like an idiot in both instances, like he expected that the whole crowd in Vegas was magically looking elsewhere when he screwed up. And to think that those of us that ordered on Pay Per View, me being one of them, had to go through that crap just to have the feed stopped during the Goldberg VS DDP match! WOW! Yeah, Warrior ruined Halloween Havoc '98 . . .

Then you hear crap like the train wreck of a match is the reason that Warrior was sent home for the rest of his contract. Does this really seem fair? Man, and the fans eat it up alive too. To me, Hogan really hasn't been crap since Wrestlemania III when he slammed Andre the Giant. That was his amazing moment in wrestling history and I admit that it was awesome back then, but to really throw all the blame on Warrior on this one sucks. If people were to have thought about it at the time, it really was a glimpse of things to come in WCW. It's always someone else's fault. This one star is so big he can do no wrong and blah, blah, blah! This was so bad that it makes the Finger Poke of Doom look awesome! Thoughts? Agreements? Disagreements? Anything, my friends?

 

[CuddleBuns84]

Mean Gene even said the match sucked. But if I recall the Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD, Warrior was always stiff to work with. Now, the DVD in some people's eyes was biased, then again, I don't think 15 or 20 people would of agreed to sit down and bash the Warrior if he really was a great worker.

Now, with that being said, my opinion on Warrior vs. Hogan 2 was... They tried to go a different route with this match. If you look at the first Hogan vs. Warrior match, it was Face vs. Face. The environment of this match, was like a great football game. No team really had the edge, and it was going to be decided in the last minute. The crowd was sitting on the edge of their seats. Warrior vs. Hogan 1, was a classic match. Hogan vs. Warrior 2, tried to bank on nostalgia, and was a typically Heel vs. Face match done poorly. A lot of mess-ups, and the booking seemed strange. But, with the mess-ups Hogan had, the warrior's timing was off to boot.

It could of been a great classic, if booked properly, and if the two didn't try to bank off of nostalgia. In should of been put in a cage, and the two should of taken a month or so to get that match right. Because, let's face it... This was a big deal. Then again, I wonder why the hell WCW even reached out to the Warrior, and tried to get this match on in the first place. It was during the time of the nWo vs. WCW. It was also during the time of Goldberg's rise.

I think it would of been better, to bring the Warrior in, and have him feud with other people first. Build him back up. Not just bring him in for a match against Hulk Hogan right off the bat. Maybe a feud with Chris Jericho first, then move up the chain. Plus, I think a Goldberg vs. Warrior match would of been a much bigger draw. Too unstoppable forces fighting for the richest price in the industry...

 

[UFOcalling]

It's funny, because there was a thread not too long ago here in the WZ forums titled "The Worst Return Ever?"...which was a discussion about opinions of...well, the worst wrestler return. My pick for that discussion actually was Warrior's last stint in WCW.

I understand your position on this topic, I really do. You're absolutely right when you said:

Originally Posted by T2KFreeker
The two biggest moments in the match up were messed up by Hogan, not warrior. Hogan was to knock out the ref by running into him but screwed up the run over on Warrior which made him have his footing off. Then, the flash paper was totally screwed up by Hogan to boot.

Personally, I feel Warrior was more to blame than Hogan was for this match being awful - but not because I am (or ever really was) a Hogan-mark. The reason why I think Warrior's entire WCW run was bad, is because Warrior was COMPLETELY overrated (at least during his time at WCW) & was in such bad ring-shape that he couldn't put on a good match (no matter who he was in the ring with). Warrior just plain didn't seem to care about putting on a good match; it seemed that he was only there for the pay-day (which was probably quite a bundle).

What I mainly remember of Warrior's last WCW run are the TV spots he did (I don't think I even ordered Halloween Havoc...if I did, that PPV doesn't stick out in my mind at all). When Warrior first appeared on Nitro, he came out to interrupt Hogan & Bischoff (who were probably babbling about how great the nWo was) and delivered a really bad promo. I say "bad", because Warrior's first WCW promo was just a lot of rambling about how Hogan "never beat a Warrior" (or something to that effect), and Warrior took a REALLY long time to say his piece.

On the episodes of Nitro (and possibly Thunder as well, I really can't remember) that followed, leading up to the Halloween Havoc match, Warrior was seen "stalking" Hogan & his buddies in the nWo. They even had Warrior appearing in the rafters (à la Sting's gimmick, when he was first reinvented as "The Crow" character), and also added a "Bat-Signal" type lighting effect to shine in the middle of the ring. The light shined in the shape of Warrior's facepaint, if I remember correctly.

Warrior did beat up a few of the "weaker" nWo members, but I remember that he never removed his white trench coat and mostly just delivered clotheslines. I don't think he ever had a "warm-up" match on Nitro or Thunder, either. I remember reading that Warrior was quasi-injured at the time, and needed to wear some kind of brace...hence the reason why he never took off the coat.

I think WCW jumped at the opportunity to sign Warrior for a short-run, without stopping to think (or stopping to care) if he was in ring-shape. Obviously that was a mistake, since he had quite a lot of ring-rust & couldn't even deliver a one or two-star match at the time (at least IMHO).

If WCW was smarter, they wouldn't have signed Jim Hellwig to any deal without first having him train a bit (at the WCW Power Plant, for example). If Warrior really cared about pleasing the fans, he should have had a couple of non-televised matches (IE: at house shows, or an indie event, etc) to get himself ring-ready for his WCW run. Then again, I don't think Warrior's ego would have allowed him to admit that he needed to work off any ring-rust, before jumping right back into the main-event on TV. I'm willing to bet that Warrior would have shot such ideas down, if they were even suggested to him (who knows if they were or not).

So yes, I do believe that Hogan botched quite a bit during their match...but the guy's only human, and was definitely a LOT more capable of putting on a good match than Hellwig was (at least at that time). It seemed obvious (at least to me) that Warrior was only there to get paid and stroke his own ego...it didn't seem that he was there for the "love of the business", or because he wanted to make the fans happy.

At least to me, Hogan seemed to care more than Warrior did (during that time). Hogan cared about money as well, don't get me wrong...but he also didn't want to look like a fool on TV (by not training enough to put on at least a decent match). Hogan had quite an ego himself during that time, but at least his ego still made him strive to deliver a match that the fans would enjoy. I think Hogan tried a lot harder than Warrior did, but still ended up making mistakes during their match at Halloween Havoc. Warrior didn't really even try, he was just happy to do a mediocre job and get paid. After all, it wasn't like he would make more money if he had an amazing performance...so why would he bother to try hard? It wasn't like he wanted to come back full-time (I think?), so he knew that he only needed to get through this one match. I think in his eyes, there wasn't a point in training too much for such a short run.

 

[King_Kong_Brody]

I agree with you. I do think Warrior is more to blame if for no other reason he hadn't wrestled since 96 I believe; most wrestlers will tell you a lot of what they do revolves around timing, so naturally his timing hitting the ropes and stuff would be off. I think the bigger issue about the match is it's a prime example of what happens when two guys who don't give a crap about having a great match get in the ring in one of (on paper) the biggest events in history. Goldberg/DDp Hall/Nash, Warrior/Hogan the Steiner Brothers were supposed to have a one on one match.

Off topic a bit but isn't it strange how Warrior and Piper both had the same storyline in WCW? Hogan never beat them...so WCW paid them to lay down...brother!

 

[Gavschenko]

yeah this match was awful worse than there 1 at wrestlemania 6 every1 seemed to love that match dont no why. I wouldnt say it was warriors fault it was both u can have 2 guys that cant carry a match working together there moveset together is about 4moves