FEEDBACK: WCW SuperBrawl III (White Castle of Fear)

This Friday it is the return of REWIND-A-WAI.

The choice by our Espresso Executive Producer, Ryan Charkow is WCW SUPERBRAWL III from Feb. 1993.

Leave us your feedback on the show, any questions surrounding one of the craziest months in the promotion’s history as we will be discussing all the news within WCW at this time.

WCW SuperBrawl III
Sunday, February 21st, 1993
Asheville, North Carolina
*Vader vs. Sting in the White Castle of Fear Strap Match for the WCW title
*Barry Windham vs. The Great Muta for the NWA title
*Dustin Rhodes vs. Maxx Payne for the United States title
*The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Tom Prichard and Stan Lane
*Paul Orndorff vs. Cactus Jack in a Falls Count Anywhere Match
*British Bulldog vs. “Wild” Bill Irwin
*2 Cold Scorpio vs. Chris Benoit
*Steve Austin and Flyin’ Brian vs. Marcus Alexander Bagwell and Erik Watts

This show is mainly remembered for being one of the 3 legendary “movies” WCW made. I’m still holding out for Jordan Breen to come and spin the wheel, make the deal with you guys in the future.
As for this show I’m a fan of anything Brian Pillman and his teaming with Austin was one of the best ever as the Hollywood Blondes. I also feel that Vade & Sting typically worked very well together. My biggest let down on this show was Barry Windham/Great Muta, that had the potential to be a outstanding and it just wasn’t, always felt Windham could have been a much bigger star than he was.

This was an enjoyable show for me, but do we need Cactus doing a sunset flip on the concrete?

Also why did Vince hate Vader so much? He could have been such a monster.

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Not a total let down, Vader/Sting, Orndorff/Cactus, and both tag matches were enjoyable. Also, how over was Austin?! He and Pillman seemed to get some of the loudest pops.

Their was some goofy stuff on the show, like the oddly cut video for the White Castle of Fear match. I couldn’t tell you what Miss Hyatt and Johnny B Bad were doing on this show? Maxx Payne playing the national anthem and his awful ring gear. But it was cool he named his guitar “Norma Jean”.

Was it just me or did WCW have rapid nepotism, between Watts, Rhodes and Windham, they all seemed to be positioned well on the card.

That brings me to my question. What’s your opinion on Windham? I’ve read and heard people talk about him highly. After seeing the show I can see that the guy has talent but was a poor promo and lacked emotion. (He won the world title for christ sake!!!) Just looking to see what you guys thought of him.

Rolando from Los Angeles

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I convinced my mom to order this on ppv for me. I thought Vader was the greatest heel back then. Strap matches with that four corners rule are always anti-climatic and over complicated. Straight pinfall is always the best. The Hollywood Blondes were always my guilty pleasure. A good choice!

Shaun from Manchester, England

Overall not a bad show, really good way to start the show with one of my favourite teams ever in The Hollywood Blondes carrying Bagwell & Watts to a good match, which was followed up by a great debut by Benoit against Scorpio.

Surely 95% of the roster would have been a much better choice than Bill Irwin for Davey Boy Smith’s debut, especially as he was getting a main event push within the next few months.

Cactus Jack & Paul Orndorff was much better than I expected it to be but this was followed by three mediocre matches.

Onto the main event, the White Castle vignettes were goofy and were a prelude to the silly beach movie with Sting, Davey Boy, Vader & Sid a few months later and later the Dungeon Of Doom skits but once we got to the action the match was excellent, these two always had excellent chemistry and I don’t think they ever had a bad match together.

Overall the main event raises the show to 7 leather straps out of 10.

Brandon from Oshawa

I dont normally watch the shows you review on Rewind-a-Wai, choosing to just listen to your thoughts on the show instead. This show intrigued me though, as I always like going back and watching early 90’s WCW, since that was my favorite as a kid, over the WWF.

This was a good show I thought, with the Benoit/Scorpio, Orndorff/Cactus & Vader/Sting being the highlights for me. I was looking forward the most to Muta/Windham, but I found it to be underwhelming.

Question…What are your thoughts on time limits being brought into the WWE? No matter what the match is, time limits always seem to add drama to the match, as was the case for Benoit/Scorpio and we’ve seen last year, how much the time limit factored into the Omega/Okada trillogy.

Please do more early WCW reviews, thanks guys.

Sean from Toronto

Even though I primarily watched WWF/WWE programming during my childhood in the early 90s, I still occasionally watched WCW and it’s impossible to forget the White Castle of Fear vignettes for Sting vs Vader. In fact, it was those two (and Ric Flair) that I equated with WCW during those early days. The promotion was definitely a different beast before the NWO and Nitro.

I enjoyed Superbrawl III - it was good to go back to this time period of WCW when I followed the product, albeit via the scraps us British fans got. I really enjoyed Vader Vs Sting and it was cool to see Maxx Payne again, who was one of my WCW favourites as a kid. On the flipside, Muta Vs Windham was dull and Benoit Vs Too Cold Scorpio was just a sequence of moves with no flow. Still, a fun trip down memory lane with some good wrestling along the way. I also enjoyed the commentary too, especially when Flair joined the announce desk.

6 State of Euphorias out of 10

I hope I’m not too late for some comments.
-Marc Mero and Missy Hyatt were horrendous
-Nick Patrick has the least consistent and anti climactic 3 count in history.
-I loved the Jesse and Tony combination

  • Jesse’s hair and snakeskin vest were the MVPs
    -holy rest holds
    -Holy shit Dustin looks like Cody does now.
    -Southern Wrestling crowds from this era are the best and wanted to go nuts so bad this whole show.
    -Loved that classic tag team match style of Heavenly Bodies and Rock N Roll, despite the botches and overselling.
    -Maxx Payne is top 10 worst wrestlers ever to make it to a big promotion.

Question for John. Have you heard an update on the health of Honma? He was one of my favourites and I’ve heard very little on his recovery.

7/10 snakeskin vests.