There are few years more volatile, exciting, or ultimately important to pro wrestling history than 1996. On the WWE side of the equation, Shawn Michaels won his first world championship and a rising Stone Cold Steve Austin won King of the Ring and cut the Austin 3:16 promo.
It was WCW that surged most aggressively, though. The impromptu arrivals of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were electric, only to be trumped by Hulk Hogan turning heel to join them and launch the New World Order. While Bash at the Beach justly gets remembered as one of the most iconic nights in WCW and Hogan’s history, Fall Brawl 1996, and particularly its WarGames main event, elevated the whole enterprise, and arguably the entire wrestling business, to another height.
As hard as it may be for those who watched live to believe, three full decades have passed since that fateful night. So, now is an opportune time to look back at an unequivocally iconic moment.
One Of Wrestling’s Hottest Angles Ever Reached A New Echelon
Surprise debuts of WWE defectors, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, saw WCW surging going into Bash at the Beach 1996. Hulk Hogan joining forces with them as villains was enough to cement WCW’s place as not just competitive with WWE, but the objectively most buzzworthy wrestling promotion in the world.
Hogan had recaptured the WCW Championship by summer’s end, but the question arose who could legitimately challenge this heel juggernaut. Yes, WCW had star power with top babyfaces Sting, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, and Ric Flair, not to mention Roddy Piper arriving on the scene in the months to follow. But Hogan’s cool heel act had elevated him to the rarefied air he’d achieved as a babyface a decade earlier. Having a heel stable that was just as over backing him made him feel invincible.
WCW Fall Brawl’s annual WarGames spectacle was a pretty perfect platform to spotlight an explosively over faction and the lineup of Sting, Luger, Flair, and Arn Anderson made for a genuinely star-studded attraction. However, in one of WCW’s shrewdest booking decisions, the drama was only beginning to unfold.
The nWo insisted Sting had joined their ranks, sowing distrust in a babyface team that had already been burned by Hogan and The Giant going to the dark side. For his part, Sting was justifiably disgruntled after Luger and Flair had both betrayed him in the past, and yet they had the audacity to think he’d stab them in the back.
The match ultimately saw Sting enter last for the babyfaces, dominate the heel opponents, then ask his beaten-down, suddenly apologetic teammates if that was good enough for them before he walked out, leaving them to the wolves, outnumbered and in rougher shape than the nWo crew.
More than one hot night, packed with intrigue, this development launched the Crow version of Sting as he kept his distance, lurking in the rafters, not aligned with the nWo, nor WCW.
Sting’s Legacy Redefined
Sting was already one of wrestling’s biggest names by 1996, a multi-time world champion and Hall of Fame headliner level act. It’s unclear if the neon-face-paint bearing, bleached blond hair version of The Stinger would’ve thrived in the edgier late 1990s, though. The Crow incarnation of the character got over as a silent killer, rarely seen in action, as WCW showed remarkable patience in waiting until December 1997 to put him in a televised match again.
For how over WCW was and how well told the early nWo story was, there’s a real case that Crow Sting became the most iconic variation on the character. Indeed, it’s telling that this is the same persona he used when he debuted for TNA, WWE, and ultimately AEW, his most recognizable aesthetic.
The character was so over that it meaningfully contributed to Sting’s son, Steven Borden, launching his own run with AEW. Time will tell how far the second-generation star will go, but his earliest appearances coming alongside Sting, dressed in Crow-style, bespeak the lasting impact of that character, set in motion at Fall Brawl 1996.
WarGames Is Now A WWE Institution
WarGames was a staple component of WCW programming, predating the brand after it got rolling in the Jim Crockett Promotions days of the NWA. In 1993, it became an annual feature of the Fall Brawl PPV. While the gimmick matches to follow had varying quality and heat, the stage was set for a huge draw at Fall Brawl 1996, which WCW revisited, loading these matches with star power for the two years to follow before one last attempt in 2000, albeit with the rules all over the place by that point.
The double-ring, double-cage gimmick stuck with fans, such that fans gave it a warm welcome upon its return to the mainstream in NXT in 2017. It stayed fixed in developmental until 2022 and has since been an annual draw for Survivor Series in November.
There’s no good-faith case that Fall Brawl 1996 featured the best WarGames match. Preceding editions featuring The Four Horsemen and 1992’s bout that marked the climax of The Dangerous Alliance’s run were superior by most metrics. Moreover, there’s a real case WWE’s editions featuring The Undisputed Era and later The Bloodline have improved upon the concept.
Nonetheless, the Fall Brawl 1996 edition of WarGames may well have been the most important in cementing the gimmick as one of intrigue and excitement. Even fans who don’t know the history of Sting morphing into his Crow self continue to reap the benefits of a match type loaded with possibilities, prone to violence, and capable of carrying real stakes for the product moving forward.
