WCW Halloween Havoc 1992 was the third installment of the brilliantly-cartoonish Halloween Havoc event. This year’s pay-per-view was built around the “Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal” main event featuring Sting taking on newly-arrived Jake Roberts.
WCW was a secure second-best by 1992, with the WWF themselves too under the strain of the murmurs of the Steroid Trial. Although the WWF saw a successful last PPV to this point in the shape of SummerSlam 1992, the company was starting a slow decline – spurred on by departures from Hulk Hogan, Sid, and Roddy Piper in that year alone to later be followed by The Ultimate Warrior, The British Bulldog, and Mr. Perfect gone by the time the year was out.
With that in mind, WCW was a surprisingly stacked company in comparison, with present and future stars on the Halloween Havoc 1992 card of snakes, substitutes, and stipulations.
Show Open
Halloween Havoc opens with some cool cartoon graphics, where Sting howls at the moon, Jake Roberts cackles as we see a wheel spin, and a haunted house features the ghosts of Ron Simmons, The Barbarian, Masahiro Chono, and Rick Rude – all of whom are in world championships matches tonight. At least WCW always tried with Halloween Havoc.
Tony Schiavone and “The Living Legend” Bruno Sammartino open the show. The unsanctioned “Spin The Wheel, Make The Deal” match is promoted, with 12 options for the match in which Sting wrestles Roberts. Anti-venom is present, it is later mentioned, in case Sting gets bitten by Jake’s snake.
The Barbarian has been building an immunity, training by having other wrestlers hit him with Ron Simmons’s powerslam finisher in preparation for his match. Also, The Miracle Violence Connection’s Terry Gordy is not here so Steve Austin will take his place in a tag title match. Moreover, Rick Rude is competing twice to defend his US belt and to challenge for the NWA belt, the latter of which has two referees.
A scantily-glad, golden-wearing Missy Hyatt throws to your commentators Jesse Ventura and Jim Ross. Ventura wears a mask whilst Ross doesn’t, though “The Body” makes the obligatory joke about Ross wearing an ugly mask. Jesse has the Damien Demento haircut, completely bald except somehow the remainder of a ponytail.
Johnny Gunn, Shane Douglas & Tom Zenk vs Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton & Michael Hayes
Halloween Havoc’s opening match and what starpower as the cool trio of Anderson, Eaton, and Hayes walk out. Although they are the heels, the crowd give them a huge ovation.
Out come the babyfaces to much indifference. It is very clear by their clean-cut attires they are the babyfaces but Douglas is actually wearing his heel ECW flair jacket. Zenk and Douglas are well-known enough as permanent lower-midcard faces but who is Johnny Gunn? Ex-ECW tag champ Gunn would later go on to compete in the WWF as Tom Brandi/Salvatore Sincere.
The match starts with oily Gunn and white trunks Anderson. He backs him off into the corner and tugs at Gunn’s cheek before a sneak knee, which pops the crowd. The faces come in and wipe out all the heels with dropkicks, leaving the heels fleeing to the outside.
Bobby Eaton gets a huge reception from the audience before Hayes is showered with praise after Freebird strutting. I do question the heels playing to the fans, as it further serves to hinder any babyface effort. Douglas comes in and it looks like a glam metal gig as the blonde-haired competitors tie up. “Pretty Sexy” is described by Ross as “one of the first athletes to use the high energy entrance music in the sport of wrestling,” how do you do, fellow kids, indeed, JR!
Hilarious commentary from new political candidate Jesse Ventura who barks “the one thing I don’t like about Shane Douglas though, he looks to me like he’s a right-wing Republican. I just bet that’s his political affiliation!” Indeed, he did support Trump’s election bid.
Huge cheers continue for the bad guys including after Arn escapes a Zenk sleeper and sneaky double team assault. Douglas makes a comeback but it is snuffed out by an illegal chop block to the knee. The heels target Douglas’s knee, including an Eaton diving attack. Seems as if top rope offense is not a DQ in WCW at this point in time.
A schmoz (wrestling terminology for a multi-man brawl) breaks out, during which Gunn hits the Lou Thesz Press on Hayes, as the referee counts, Douglas hits a belly-to-belly on Eaton. One, two, three…Gunn pins Hayes. The crowd are mixed in their reaction, to say the least. 
Johnny Gunn gets the pinfall win on Michael Hayes.
The match was fairly bog-standard, not too much special about this one. Great to see the veteran put the young ones over – even if the crowd disagreed. The crowd really made this one, wholeheartedly supporting the heels, the aside, not much of note for this one; it was fine.
Star Rating: *½
(For reference, this means one-and-a-half stars)
Hyatt tries to get into Rick Rude’s locker-room. Harley Race enters but refuses her entry as she remarks that that has never happened to her before. Everyone acts stupid to the reason Race is there.
Ricky Steamboat vs Brian Pillman
Flyin’ Brian comes out followed by Ricky Steamboat in an attire I’ve never seen him in before; it looks cool and fits with the Halloween Havoc theme. What a match this should be. After all, as Jesse pointed out, they’re not the biggest men but are some of the most talented. It pans to a fan with a sign saying Bill Watts’s WCW is real wrestling so nice to see company-based propaganda is not just a WWF thing.
A chop exchange to kick things off followed by some pinfall attempts. Steamboat draws in Brian by playing possum then applies armbars and armdrags. An eye poke and hair-pull proves Pillman to be the heel, starting a “Pillman sucks!” chant.
The formula is that the technical Steamboat dominated until a dirty move by Pillman, after which he can take over. Pillman hits a fabulous rebound head scissors which only gets a two. A mid-air dropkick by Pillman after placing Steamboat on, and being fought off of Bret’s rope.
Pillman applies a backpack sleeper but Steamboat escapes using a Dynamite Kid-esque technique before bielling Pillman from the ropes. Steamboat tries to re-enter the ring but is cut off.
Steamboat kicks out of a crossbody and hits a backbreaker followed by a diving set-up for the sunset flip. Pillman rolls through for his own cover, but is flipped into a tight sit-out, which gets the three! A botched ending does little to damage the match.
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