For a year and a half, fans been shouting "We Want Flair!" at just about every WCW event since Ric Flair left WCW in July 1991. The fans got their wish as Flair came back to WCW as he left the WWF to come back to WCW in February 1993.
"Cowboy" Bill Watts entered 1993 still in charge of WCW as WCW was a failure in 1992. Flair had been rumored for months to want to return to WCW and WCW wanted him back badly as well. Watts' superiors were tired of Watts' waffling around with contract negotiations between he and the "Nature Boy." WCW needed a boost so they felt Flair was the one to bring the company back to the top.
When negotiations with Flair were going poorly, Watts was demoted to the booking team for this and many other embarrassing events as he ofter clashed with the corporate suits over at Turner. One thing was an embarrassing interview Watts had in a wrestling magazine that had some racist overtones.
The interview was sent to Home Run King Hank Aaron, who was then an executive with the Turner organization, and Aaron called for him to be fired. Whether Watts was fired or resigned remains to be seen. Watts claimed he resigned following the politics and his demotion to the booking team.
Watts' former job of Executive Vice President of Wrestling Operations was now open and two men who were strongly considered for the job were the top-two announcers then in the company: Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross. The job went to a surprise; the third announcer Eric Bischoff.
Bischoff answered to both Schiavone and Ross and now he was their boss. Bischoff came over to WCW from the AWA after its closing in 1991. He worked various jobs backstage in the AWA before being promoted to work as an announcer. After the AWA closed its doors in 1991, Bischoff was without a job.
First, he applied for an announcer job with the WWF but was turned down. Then he got a tryout with WCW and was an announcer along with former AWA coworker Diamond Dallas Page after the tryout was successful. He was the "C-Squad" announcer and interviewer before the big promotion. Despite being the man in charge, he was still an announcer on screen. Turner President Bill Shaw was Bischoff's supervisor.
Bischoff wanted WCW to be more of a national, regional wrestling organization to compete with the WWF instead of being more of a Southern brand as he wanted to get rid of the dimly lit arenas across the southeast and even wanted to phase out the southern sounding announcers: that meant Jim Ross.
Ross was upset with being passed over and along with his loyalty to Bill Watts saw Ross resign from WCW and went to the WWF. Bischoff created a booking team with about 15 wrestlers or so, including the returning Ric Flair. The booking team was led by two failed bookers Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes.
Before Watts left, he did manage to sign some much needed young talent in late 1992 going into 1993. Those young wrestlers who would become superstars either in WCW or other promotions were Chris Benoit, Too Cold Scorpio, Robbie V (later known as Rob Van Dam), and Steve Regal (who would become Lord Steven Regal and William Regal in the WWE).
Back to Ric Flair, Flair came back to WCW at the SuperBrawl III PPV on February 21, 1993 from Asheville, North Carolina. Flair cut a brilliant promo as Flair does to tell everyone he never lost the WCW and NWA World Title and reminds us he was then a nine-time world champion as it drew a loud standing ovation.
Flair would do commentary for his former Horsemen buddy Barry Windham in his he attempt to defeat The Great Muta for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Windham won the title from Mutah and Flair attempted to put the NWA World Title on Windham. As Windham realized this was going on, he left the ring and wanted nothing to do with Flair.
Jim Cornette returned to WCW in early 1993 while Bill Watts was still in charge. Cornette was now running the independent Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW) organization down in Tennessee and wanted to showcase his talent in SMW on the big stage in WCW.
Watts brought back The Rock 'n' Roll Express and declared them SMW Tag Team Champions even though The Heavenly Bodies (Tom Prichard and Stan Lane) were the actual SMW champs. The Rock 'n' Roll Express and Heavenly Bodies have been involved in a brutal feud since the company was formed.
Cornette and The Heavily Bodies appeared on an episode of WCW Saturday Night to confront Watts and The Rock 'n' Roll Express about being the real SMW champs and Cornette even said he left WCW before because it sucked. They challenged them to an impromptu match.
The match ended in a no-contest when Lane's former Midnight Express partner Bobby Eaton ran in and helped the Heavenly Bodies and Cornette attacked the Rock 'n' Roll Express. Cornette would attack referees and other wrestlers with his tennis racket.
Watts and SMW Commissioner Bob Armstrong threatened to fine Cornette and The Heavenly Bodies and even strip them of the tag team titles had they not wrestled The Rock 'n' Roll Express at SuperBrawl III much to Cornette's disgust.
Before the nWo was "invading" and "taking over" WCW, Cornette and his SMW promotion were trying to do the same. Problem was, SMW was a small independent promotion while the nWo members were from the rival and more recognized WWF and made it look like they were taking over.
With Bill Watts no longer in charge, Cornette decided to take his organization to work a deal to become an affiliate with the rival WWF. The Heavenly Bodies and Rock 'n' Roll Express took their battles to the WWF.
In addition to Ric Flair returning to WCW, The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith made his WCW debut at SuperBrawl III after leaving the WWF as he easily defeated jobber Wild Bill Irwin. Smith would soon climb into main event status shortly after his debut, teaming up with "The Man Called" Sting.
Sting continued his feud with WCW World Champion Vader as he took on Vader in a non-title, non-sanctioned "White Castle of Fear" Strap Match at SuperBrawl. The match was yet another classic between the two in their legendary feud (one of my favorite feuds ever). Both men were bleeding as Vader ended up winning what is considered one of the best leather strap matches ever.
Sting defeated Vader to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in London during a tour of Europe in March 1993. Sting would lose the title back to Vader a week later in Dublin, Ireland. Vader would remain the champion until the end of 1993.
Ric Flair could not compete in the ring due to his 90-day no compete clause since he left the WWF. To keep Flair on TV and relevant, Flair had a talk show called "A Flair for the Gold" that was shown on WCW Saturday Night as well as the inaugural Slamboree PPV in May.
The show would take place in a luxurious setting where Flair was behind a bar with his best friend Arn Anderson usually sitting next to him. Flair also had a French maid named "Fifi" also on the set. He would interview guests. It didn't matter if he wrestled or not to the fans as they still enjoyed his presence on TV and at the arena even if he wasn't wrestling.
Slamboree was held in honor of legends of wrestling and inducted its first group of inductees of the newly created WCW Hall of Fame. There was also a legends match in addition to a bunch of other matches. Barry Windham retained the NWA World Title against former Horsemen teammate Arn Anderson and Vader retained the WCW World Title against Davey Boy Smith.
The Slamboree edition of A Flair for the Gold reintroduced the Four Horsemen to WCW. They introduced newcomer Paul Roma to the Horsemen along with Flair, Anderson, and Ole Anderson even though Ole wasn't a wrestler. This was by far the weakest incarnation of the Four Horsemen in their history.
To setup Flair's up-coming return to the ring, there would be an edition of A Flair for the Gold where The Hollywood Blondes ("Stunning" Steve Austin and "Flyin" Brian Pillman) came on the show and mocked both Flair for his age and Arn Anderson for his age and weight.
The Hollywood Blondes were a tag team formed in 1993 that featured two rising young superstar heels in Austin and Pillman. Both Austin and Pillman had been floundering in the singles ranks going into 1993 that WCW management decided to put the two together and form a tag team even though Austin wanted to be a singles wrestler.
Both men at the time had long blonde hair and they were dubbed from being from Hollywood, California so that's where the Hollywood Blondes name came from. Both men wore matching trunks and vests with stars on the back to represent them being superstars. The Blondes would mock their opponents by turning the handle on an old film camera.
The Blondes defeated WCW/NWA Unified World Tag Team Champions Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas to win the titles in March. They were now the top tag team in WCW. Douglas left WCW shortly after to join the upstart Eastern Championship Wrestling later changed to Extreme (ECW).
The Blondes further mocked Ric Flair and Arn Anderson with their own segment "A Flare for the Old" where Pillman dressed like Flair wearing reading glasses mocking his age while Austin mocked Anderson by wearing a pillow under his shirt to mock his gut.
This would lead to Flair's dramatic return to the ring at June 16th's Clash of the Champions XXIII live from Norfolk, Virginia where Flair teamed with Arn Anderson to take on The Blondes for the tag team titles in a 2-out-of-3 falls match.
The match was a classic with all four in-ring technicians putting on a great show. Flair drew the loudest pop of the night when he came into the ring for the first time and every time he entered the ring as he did not miss a beat.
Flair and Anderson defeated The Blondes in two straight falls to win the match, but they did not win the titles because the Blondes were disqualified in the second and final fall since the titles could not change hands on a DQ. Barry Windham ran into the ring and attacked Flair as he started a feud with his former Horsmen colleague.
Flair would defeat Windham to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Beach Blast in July for the ninth (or 10th depending on who you ask) and final time of his illustrious career. WCW would split from the NWA in September, more on that later.
Horsemen members Arn Anderson and Paul Roma defeated The Hollywood Blondes at Clash of Champions XXIV in August to win the WCW/NWA Tag Team Titles. Brian Pillman injured his ankle and could not compete and was replaced by Steven Regal. Pillman's interference backfired and cost them the titles.
This led to the breakup of The Blondes as Austin turned on Pillman and joining forces with Col. Rob Parker (Robert Fuller). Pillman turned into a face and the two feuded. Austin defeated Dustin Rhodes to win the United States Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade in December.
After getting control of WCW, Eric Bischoff started to change the way they did business in attempt to compete with and overtake the WWF. Bischoff wanted to nationalize the company instead of just running in the South and wanted better venues and lighting instead of the small, dimly lit arenas across the Southeast and even got rid of the Southern sounding announcers (Jim Ross) and change "wrasslin" to wrestling.
Bischoff saw how poor attendance and draws at house shows was killing their financial bottom line so he decided to eliminate house shows for a while anyway. His reasoning was they were losing money every house show they did so why make more house shows and lose more money? He wanted to get the TV numbers up so it could eventually draw bigger crowds at house shows so he needed to figure out the TV situation.
In attempt to cut costs of running a television program, Bischoff decided to go against going from arena to arena and just stay put in one place to do all the WCW TV tapings for its syndicated TV shows WCW WorldWide, WCW Pro, and WCW Prime. He found that place to be the Disney/MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida.
It was more cost friendly to use the Disney Studios and keep them there for several days at a time. Their then-flagship show WCW Saturday Night still remained at Atlanta's Center Stage Theater. Bischoff decided to tape several months worth of TV tapings over a handful of days.
There would one humongous problem with this however. That was that these TV tapings would often expose storylines down the line, most notably title changes. Fans at the tapings would see different wrestlers holding titles than who originally was.
The Hollywood Blondes were the tag team champions when the tapings first started in May, but fans witnessed that Arn Anderson and Paul Roma were the champs even though the title change did not occur until August. Anderson and Roma were supposed to beat The Blondes at Beach Blast in July, but WCW pulled a swerve on the fans by having The Blondes hold onto the titles.
However, the fans had the last laugh as Brian Pillman suffered an injury before the title change at The Clash in August so Steven Regal replaced him at the match. They also saw The Nasty Boys wearing the straps as they beat Anderson and Roma for the titles in September at Fall Brawl.
Fans also witnessed Ric Flair wearing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt while Barry Windham was still champion, meaning they knew Flair would beat Windham for the title at Beach Blast. Fans then saw "Ravishing" Rick Rude wearing the NWA belt as he would beat Flair for the title at September's Fall Brawl. There would also be controversy involving the WCW World Title but I'll cover that later.
The NWA was not happy with these TV tapings giving away several months worth of results as they were not pleased to see Rude with their World Title. They told WCW they did not want Rude being their champion but WCW said he was going to be their champion and was sick of the NWA pushing them around.
WCW finally had enough of the NWA and officially parted ways from the NWA on September 1, 1993. WCW kept the Big Gold Belt that was being used for the NWA Title because it was a gift from Jim Crockett and the NWA did not have the money to fight Turner so WCW got to keep the belt. Also, the NWA Tag Team Titles were no longer and just the WCW World Tag Team Titles were now being defended.
Even though there was no longer an NWA World Champion, WCW figured out what to do with the Big Gold Belt and Rick Rude being the champion since footage was being shown with him carrying the belt on television. WCW decided to rename the NWA Title the WCW "International World Champion." Once again, WCW had two world heavyweight champions.
WCW also signed several other former WWF competitors during the year in Davey Boy Smith, Sid Vicious, The Big Boss Man (known simply as The Boss in WCW), and Road Warrior Hawk. Even Road Warrior Animal returned but briefly as he was still retired with a back injury. Sid, The Boss, and Hawk all made their returns to WCW while Smith made his WCW debut.
Even "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff made his return to WCW. Early in the year, he was in a semi-main even program teaming up with WCW World Heavyweight Champion Vader and his manager Harley Race. Orndorff feuded with Cactus Jack, which prompted Jack's face turn. Orndorff lost to Cactus in a thrilling Falls Count Anywhere match at SuperBrawl III.
Orndorff won the vacant Television Championship Tournament to become the new TV Champ in March 1993. He held onto the belt until losing it to Ricky Steamboat at August's Clash of the Champions. He would be relegated to mid card status where he teamed with Paul Roma at the end of the year and the two held the WCW Tag Team Championship a couple of times in 1994.
Sid Vicious made his return at Slamboree as a mystery opponent for Van Hammer. Vicious quickly squashed Van Hammer in his return to WCW. Sid was managed by Col. Rob Parker. Sid aligned himself with Vader and the two were dubbed "The Masters of the Powerbomb." They would feud with Sting and Davey Boy Smith.
The teams were set to take on each other at Beach Blast. To setup the match, a really stupid mini movie was made with Sting and Smith on a tropical island with a bunch of kids as Vader and Sid made their way to the island and bribed them not to wrestle.
All of a sudden, a midget appeared wearing a shark fin with a bomb to blow up the island and Smith saved Sting from being blown up. That was so stupid and not even funny. Sting and Smith won at Beach Blast but it was the fans that lost.
One of the greatest tag teams in WCW history, Harlem Heat, made their debut in 1993. Booker T and Stevie Ray were originally named Kane and Kole, which was really stupid. Well that's not as bad as their original gimmick as being "slaves" and their southern manager Rob Parker purchased them. Thankfully, that angle was quickly nixed. Eventually, Kane and Kole became Booker T and Stevie Ray.
WCW also had some really stupid gimmicks and characters in 1993 just like the WWF did as this was a bad time in wrestling. There was the Equalizer whatever the hell that is. He would eventually become Kevin Sullivan's dumb brother a year later. There were The Colossal Kongs, Charlie Norris, and oh yeah, Paul Roma. The worst was perhaps none other than the Shockmaster.
At Clash of the Champions in August, Sting and Davey Boy Smith unveiled their partner along with Dustin Rhodes to take on Vader, Sid Vicious, and Harlem Heat at Fall Brawl in a WarGames match. They announced the Shockmaster in a really, really lame promo.
Fred Ottman (best known as Tugboat and Typhoon in the WWF) played the part of Shockmaster with appeared to be a silver glitter wastebasket or bucket or whatever the fuck it was. But that wasn't the bad part. It was when Shockmaster was supposed to crash through a wall. When he did that, however, he tripped and landed on his giant ass in a very embarrassing moment in pro wrestling history.
Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) briefly became big time and a main eventer in WCW, although sometimes it was for the wrong reasons, namely his health and wellbeing. Cactus became a babyface after two years of being a maniacal heel as he was placed into a rather violent feud with Vader early in the year. WCW tried to make the fans more sympathetic by having Cactus be seriously injured.
Cactus took on Vader not once but twice during episodes of WCW Saturday Night in April in two very stiff matches. The first one saw Cactus beat Vader by count out. The match was brutal and was edited for TV was tons of blood being shown as Cactus was busted wide open and suffered a broken nose and concussion during the match.
They had a rematch the next week on Saturday Night. This time, the ending would not be happy. Vader removed the protective mats, reintroduced following the departure of Bill Watts. Vader then proceeded to Powerbomb Cactus on the concrete floor, knocking Mick Foley legitimately unconscious and was taken out of the arena on a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Foley took some time off to rest his injuries. In the meantime, Foley would escape the hospital and would be shown running around streets randomly not knowing where or who he was as he had storyline amnesia. The skits would be known as "Lost in Cleveland."
Foley came back and picked up his feud with Vader. They faced each other in a Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal match at Halloween Havoc where the wheel landed on Texas Death Match. For some reason, WCW did not let Cactus Jack win as he was shocked by a cattle prod by Harley Race to keep him down for the count as Vader won a brutal match.
Their feud continued into 1994 where the violence level went to a whole new extreme. They faced each other in March 1994 in Munich, Germany during a European Tour. Foley's head and neck were tied into the ropes in a "hangman" spot.
However, the ropes were much tighter than anticipated and as Foley was trying to free himself, his right ear fell off and he continued the match without an ear. Foley's legacy over the years for his brutal bumps and serious injuries continue to grow to new levels leading to his success in the WWF/E.
Legal problems would force two of WCW's acquisitions of the year to leave WCW. Davey Boy Smith was supposed to take on Rick Rude for the WCW International World Championship at Starrcade. However, Smith was involved in an altercation at a bar where he attacked a man hitting on his wife Diana. The resulting legal issues that followed saw WCW release Smith even though Smith would eventually be cleared.
Smith's place would be taken by another WWF superstar Ray Traylor, best known as The Big Boss Man. Traylor would portray The Boss Man character, but was simply named The Boss due to WWF copyrighting the Big Boss Man name and he fought Rude, where he lost, at Starrcade.
That wasn't the worst, however, as the supposed main event at Starrcade would be scrapped and needed to be changed. Sid Vicious was supposed to take on Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Sid would turn babyface late in 1993 and feud with Vader and even win the title as TV tapings even shown Sid with the World Title.
However, on October 27, 1993 during a tour of England, Sid was involved in a hotel room brawl with Arn Anderson over a disagreement the two had in a bar earlier. The fight got very violent where legs of tables and scissors were used on each other as both men suffered stab wounds with Arn getting the worst of it with over 20 stab wounds and nearly puncturing a lung.
Both men managed to leave the country without charges filed but both men were injured and thankfully, Arn didn't lose his life. Even though Sid was to be the next WCW Champion, many WCW wrestlers threatened to no-show events if they didn't fire Sid due to him nearly killing Arn. Eventually, WCW released Sid and a new opponent for Vader's title needed to be found.
Ric Flair would be Sid's replacement against Vader. Flair first took on Vader for the WCW World Title on November 10th's Clash of the Champions XXV. Flair was getting pummeled by Vader but eventually pinned him to win the title, or so we thought.
The referee was hit by Vader as a second ref made the three-count. But the original referee disqualified Vader for hitting him, allowing Vader to retain the title. Steve Austin and Vader attacked Flair after the match before several face wrestlers helped Flair out.
Afterwards, Flair challenged Vader and Austin to a match aired three nights later on WCW Saturday. Flair mentioned his teammate was none other than Sid Vicious as this upcoming match was taped before the stabbing incident and he was not yet officially fired even though knowledge of this occurred in yet another embarrassing moment for WCW in 1993.
The supposed Flair/Sid vs. Vader/Austin match would not go as originally planned as Sid was attacked by The Colossal Kongs and Vader before the match and was taken to the back. Sid would officially be fired shortly after this disaster. Ironically, Arn Anderson took Sid's place for the match as once again, this match was taped well before the stabbing incident between Sid and Arn. Ugh!!
Anyway, Flair got the title match against Vader at the upcoming Starrcade PPV on December 27 live from Flair's hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. Flair had to put his career on the line and if he lost, he would have to retire. Flair defeated Vader to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in a thrilling match at Starrcade. Vader held the title 356 out of the previous 362 days.
The year started with a bang with Ric Flair coming back to WCW and ended with a bang with him being WCW World Heavyweight Champion and back being the man on top of the promotion. More can't be said about the rest of the year, however. Yeah Flair saved WCW but it was too late in the year.
I didn't even mention the really stupid Battlebowl PPV in November. Yes that's right!!! As if the previous two Starrcade PPVs featuring the Battlebowl and Lethal Lottery weren't bad enough, let's make another PPV solely for that. What a surprise it was a disaster of a PPV.
Disaster pretty much sums up WCW in 1993. Even Flair's late year heroics was not enough to overcome horrific shows and draws and angles which sent WCW into a downward spiral as they lost a whopping $23 million in 1993!!!
Even though WCW did not end until 2001, the end was a lot closer unless something happened to keep WCW from losing tons of Ted Turner's money.
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