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[1990-10-27-NWA-Halloween Havoc] Sting vs Sid Vicious


Loss

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  • 3 months later...

Last few minutes. Inexcusably heatless for a PPV main event. You could tell that they wanted Sting's running lariat on the ramp to be one for the highlight reel. It did get a pop, but I'm surprised at how quiet the crowd is when they've been really into the rest of the show.

 

But that's not the reason this here. This is -- the most (in)famous finish of the early PPV era. Sting and Sid brawl out of sight then head back to the ring. Sting gets pinned and Sid wins the title, or so we think. Sting crosses paths with the Fake Sting, which the crack WCW production crew completely misses and is a key moment, then comes back to the ring and pins Sid after a Stinger Splash and inside cradle while balloons and pyro are still going off for the presumed title change. This was a clever idea for a finish, but they couldn't execute it at all, the production was terrible and it's made meaningless by never really being mentioned again.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Funny you mention the crowd. It's struck me that the crowd has been quiet most of the night. Not just for the tag title match but for the Midnights as well. Not "heatless," per se, more of a "sit and watch intently" way, almost like a stereotypical Japanese crowd. They do pop for the stuff designed to get pops, so they're paying attention. Just not a lot of sustained volume.

 

Sting works really, really hard here. The best way--maybe the only way--to get a good match out of Sid is to have him stand there like a brick wall and let a Sting or Shawn Michaels just bounce off of him repeatedly. This is not a great match and maybe the whole thing doesn't stand up, but the action we see here is pretty decent because of the match layout and Sting going balls-to-the-wall. I actually thought the Fake Sting was pretty well-executed at first. It's a complicated set-up as you have to get Sting and Sid to the back, but you just had a DCOR in a major match earlier so Ric and Arn need to be out to distract the ref. Then the camera keeps a wide shot on Windham so that it legitimately looks like it's the real Sting. Crowd certainly buys it, too. Then it falls apart as Barry runs away and the cameras miss Sting confronting him in the aisle. Setting off the fireworks and balloons was kind of a clever touch, but since when do they set off balloons and fireworks for heel title victories? The fake Sting is so convincing that the crowd seems to have no clue at all what's supposed to be going on as looking closely at most of the reactions, they clearly thought it was a legit title change.

 

I like the idea and parts of the execution, but Windham needed to hang around at ringside longer so everyone could get to see the real Sting confront him. This was a case of booking to a TV audience at the expense of the live crowd, and it showed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The running lariat from Sting down the ramp into the ring was awesome. Sid leaves the ring in a title match but does come back. Flair and Arn ringside. Sid wins by just falling on top of Sting when he was doing a bodyslam. Something is up. It was a bogus Sting! Referee can now tell the difference and the match resumes. Sting with the small package to win. Interesting booking to that finish.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

Call me crazy, but I liked this finish. It was right out of the Horsemen playbook, or would have been if they'd ever had a member who'd looked like Dusty, Magnum, Luger, etc. It would have been ingenious if Nick Patrick hadn't caught on to it, but he did. I loved the look of chagrin on Sid's face once he'd been pinned. It was like he was thinking, "Damn! A foolproof plan down the toilet!"

 

We saw Sting confront Barry in the aisle on replay, so I'll forgive the production crew for missing it live. I think that they might have even deliberately not shown that part on TV in order to build suspense; what some of you are calling a mistake might actually have been executed according to plan, whether you agree with the plan or not.

 

Paul really was in his groove on commentary here. I liked how he kept saying that Sid needed to take the match back into the ring instead of fighting Sting on the ramp and on the floor. That sounds like something that an astute manager (which Paul always was, and presumably still is) would say. JR might have blown the finish by saying that Barry was the fake Sting a bit too early, but that's something we'll most likely never know for sure.

 

I wish we had all of Sting's postmatch interview; it cut off just as he was saying something about the Scorpion. Was he supposed to have turned Barry into the fake Sting, according to the real one? It makes sense that the real Sting would think that, given the other things that had happened earlier on the card courtesy of the Scorpion.

 

This was a whole lot better than it had any right to be, considering how it was booked. The sad thing is, Ole and company wouldn't thank their lucky stars and quit while they were only slightly behind.

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  • 1 year later...

This isn't that bad of a match really. Sting's ramp lariat is huge. I think Sting gives a good performance in the match, he works really hard and makes Sid look huge, but has fire and good offense to not look weak. The finish is just very confusing looking on TV, due to production mistakes.

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  • 1 year later...
  • GSR changed the title to [1990-10-27-NWA-Halloween Havoc] Sting vs Sid Vicious

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