Thanks to "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, the wrestling world was gifted some awesome events. One of them was The Great American Bash. The other was part of the first Bash, War Games. Two rings ensconced in a brutal steel cage. Two teams of four or five (and later three teams of three). Members of each team enter the battle in timed intervals, that seemed to always give the heels the advantage.
These days NXT, and now AEW’s Blood and Guts, have taken great care in booking the correct men and women into the cage. But it wasn’t always that way. Sometimes, superstars were just heaved into the cage with no thought to how well they’d fare. Generally speaking, those matches wound up being not so memorable War Games matches.
8 The Shockmaster
Poor ol’ “Uncle Fred.” The former Tugboat/Typhoon was all set to make a tremendous debut for WCW and join up with Sting, Davey Boy, and his relative Dustin Rhodes as the top babyfaces. As just about every fan knows, The Shockmaster’s debut, was anything but. It was memorable for all of the wrong reasons. But the team still pressed on to Fall Brawl 1993, where the quartet would face Sid, Vader, and Harlem Heat inside War Games. Not only was the big guy’s debut one of the biggest debacles of all time, he wasn’t able to hang with the likes of Sting and the Harlem Heat.
7 James J. Dillon & Precious Paul Ellering
At the very first ever War Games, The Four Horsemen took on Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, and The Road Warriors. For some reason, JCP thought it was a good idea to include the managers for the LOD, Paul Ellering, and The Horsemen, JJ Dillon, in the match.
While Dillon and Ellering were both capable wrestlers at one point in their careers, their inclusion in the match was more for the attraction of the two managers finally go at it. But with all in-ring careers long behind them, they put on some gaga instead of the brutality that War Games has become accustomed to.
6 Col. Robert Parker
WCW could have of cashed in on Hulkamania running wild inside of the double cage. But instead, Big Dust’ teamed up with son, Dustin, brother-in-law Jerry Sags, and Brian Nobbs to take on Col. Robert Parker and his Stud Stable - Terry Funk, Bunkhouse Bunk, and Arn Anderson. Similar to Ellering and Dillon years before, Parker’s in ring career was years behind him, and it also didn’t help that the capable Meng was outside accompanying the Stable to the ring.
5 Vince Russo (And Many Others)
One of the craziest things that WCW tried under during the Vince Russo era was nixing having War Games as part of Fall Brawl. Instead the big match was part of Nitro to pop a rating. Dubbed “Russo’s Revenge,” the Match Beyond for the first time ever was for the world title. KroniK joined Booker T, Sting, and Goldberg.
Meanwhile The Harris twins headed to the ring with Russo and stood with Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, and Kevin Nash. It was the very last War Games match in WCW. It shouldn’t even be considered to be a War Games match, considering the cage used was The Ready To Rumble cage. You’ll never see a worse War Games.
4 The Warrior
In his entire career, there were only three men that were able to make Warrior look amazing in the ring. Pat Patterson, who put his match with Hogan together; Savage, and Rick Rude. Other than that, Warrior didn’t have the know how to get it done in the ring. But that didn’t stop him from trying to join the fray at the 1998 War Games match during Fall Brawl. How much special effects were needed to make Warrior’s appearance even remotely worth watching? A lot more than WCW had. The guy magically appeared in the ring, but it was a fake until the real one would come out to chase Hogan around some more.
3 Buff Bagwell
It might not have been the last War Games WCW ever put out, but to many old school Horsemen fans, it killed Winston-Salem, one of the towns referred to as “Horsemen Country.” Ric Flair led Curt Hennig, Benoit, and Mongo McMichael into battle again the nWo. But it wasn’t a team that screamed nWo elite.
Representing the nWo were Nash, Syxx, Konnan, and Buff Bagwell. If the idea was the Horsemen were going to be destroyed by Hennig turning on them, you’d think WCW would have a more prolific performer than Buff Bagwell in the ring. Yes, he was a WCW stalwart, but not the first or even fourth competitor you’d think of when it comes to War Games.
2 The Zodiac
While he might have skipped the 1994 event, Hulkamania was in full force one year later. Hulk partnered up with Sting, Luger, and The Macho Man; all decked out in war fatigues. The team took on The Dungeon Of Doom - Meng, Kamala, The Shark, and the enigmatic-but-not-really-enigmatic Zodiac. For the first time ever, the match had more former WWE guys than not, but Zodiac (aka Brutus) was completely abysmal at this time in his career. Almost as if he was part of WCW as a favor to Hulk, perhaps?
1 El Gigante
No name in wrestling screams “bad match” more than the gentle giant, El Gigante. But even before his date with destiny and wrestling a stinker against The Undertaker at WrestleMania IX, the Giant worked in WCW. During the early days of War Games, the match would be part of a tour - that meant El Gigante was involved in several big War Games matches over the course of a two month tour. Thankfully for most of the fans at home, none of these were televised, so unless you bought a ticket, you weren’t demanding a refund.