Friday, November 16, 2012

The Halloween Havoc Hoax of 1990

October 1990. The WCW has a hell of a main event in store for those with 30 dollars. It's the Stinger vs Sid Vicious for the World Title. But this is WCW. You can't have the popular underdog champion fight the unstoppable monster. There has to be a twist. And WCW had a really shitty twist on tap...

This is Sting. He wears colorful face paint and has blond hair. This is important information. This comes into play later.

Sid Vicious is a pretty limited performer to begin with and giving him more than 10 minutes to wrestle a match is a recipe for disaster. Sting tries his best to carry 280 pounds of dead weight. Lots of punching. Lots of brawling. After brawling and more brawling, Sid and Sting change things up and start fighting in the crowd. And that is when things turn to shit.
Sid throws Sting behind a curtain towards the backstage area and then chases Sting in. Sid grabs Sting and then drags him back towards the ring. That is when the fans at home and in the arena notice something is amiss about the Stinger.

Sting looks taller. And fatter. Sid drags "Sting" into the ring and pins him despite the fact that "Sting" hasn't taken any punishment. New champion. The real Sting runs out from the back and gives Sid a Stinger Splash in the corner. The referee realizes that Sid pinned the wrong Sting and Sid is pinned.

A few problems with this creative scenario...
1. Barry Windham played the fake Sting. Barry is around 8 inches taller than the real Sting and much heavier.
2. The only thing Barry Windham has in common with Sting was a blond crew-cut and face paint.
3. The announcers were clueless until after Sting hit the Stinger Splash. The announcers were the last to get in on the joke.
4. The writers of WCW thought this would work because they thought their audience suffered from mental illness.
This was the 1st of three separate occasions that WCW used multiple Stings to fool the audience. It has NEVER worked but that did not stop the writers from trying again and again. God bless the corpse of WCW.

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