10 Worst WCW PPV Main Events In History

For all its amazing cruiserweight action, exotic Japanese imports, and Goldberg squashes, World Championship Wrestling put out its fair share of absolute tripe.

Terrible wrestling, terrible booking, terrible stipulations - the house that Turner built had it all, and the company’s worst traits could often be seen in their pay-per-view main events.

In this list, we’ll be showcasing some of the worst of the worst from Starrcade 1990 onwards, as that was the first show to carry the WCW moniker.

These are the 10 worst PPV main events in WCW history

10. Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair - Uncensored 2000

There was a time and a place when Hulk Hogan taking on Ric Flair would have been considered one of the greatest pro wrestling spectacles in the world. That time was not the year 2000 and that place was not the main event of WCW’s final Uncensored pay-per-view.

You might never have seen this match, but you’ve most certainly heard of it, because this is the infamous Indian Strap Match that has become part of internet wrestling folklore thanks to shows like Botchamania. Flair and Hogan were tied together by a strap with the objective of the match being to touch all four corners of the ring before the other person. Well, that was supposed to be the objective, but they both tried to pin each other a couple of times for absolutely no reason.

As well as forgetting its own rules, this match also reminded everyone that neither man was in their prime anymore, as they both slowly bopped each other around the arena, presumably whilst wishing they could be literally anywhere else.

Chuck in a bunch of random outside interference, and you’ve got a recipe for a classically bad WCW show-closer.

9. Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper - Halloween Havoc 1997

Around a year after Starrcade 1996, where Roddy Piper had beaten Hollywood Hogan in a match not for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the two legends would face off again in another match that was, once again, not for Hogan’s title!

At Halloween Havoc 1997, Piper and Hogan battled inside a giant steel cage that was only brought in because Hell in a Cell had debuted about three weeks earlier. These two middle-aged men awkwardly fumbled around inside the structure, as a bunch of fake Stings watched on from the outside for… some reason.

The majority of both performers’ offence boiled down to punches and kicks, which would have been acceptable 10 years earlier, but not on the same show that included Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero’s revolutionary Cruiserweight Title encounter.

To top this terrible headliner off, Randy Savage hit an insane dive off the top of the massive cage that Hogan was supposed to catch… which he did not. Piper won the match, but not the title… again.

8. Team WCW vs. NWO vs. NWO Wolfpac - Fall Brawl 1998

WarGames was once the jewel in WCW’s crown. The brainchild of Dusty Rhodes, this mammoth, two-cage fight to the death became so iconic that WWE raised it from the dead over a decade-and-a-half after the promotion shut its doors.

The final WarGames match to take place on WCW pay-per-view happened at Fall Brawl 1998 and, well, there’s a reason this was the last one on a major platform for nearly 20 years. Instead of two teams going at it with submission or surrender rules, now there were three groups involved and pinfalls were allowed, which sort of defeated the entire point of the stipulation.

There was the NWO team of Hollywood Hogan, Bret Hart and Stevie Ray, and the Wolfpac team of Kevin Nash, Sting, and Lex Luger, and Team WCW of Diamond Dallas Page, Roddy Piper, and The Ultimate Warrior (who brought some magic to the match… literal magic with smoke and explosions and teleportation).

This main event eventually devolved into a big, sloppy mess, with Warrior only showing up right at the end to brawl with Hogan. DDP got the win for his team, but nobody cared. They were just glad this nightmare was over.

7. Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs. Lex Luger & The Giant - Bash At The Beach 1997

Dennis Rodman teamed up with Hulk Hogan during the main event of Bash at the Beach 1997 to take on Lex Luger and The Giant, which wasn’t the best of line-ups. You had Rodman, a non-wrestler, Hogan, who always found a way to put in zero effort at this time, Lex Luger, a man with the mobility of a garden wall, and The Giant, who was only about 18 months into his career at this point.

The wrestling was slow at best and painful at worst, with enough grandstanding and hot-dogging to put even the more ardent of sports entertainment fans to sleep. Honestly, Rodman was probably the best thing about this encounter. He was fairly athletic, pulling off some decent arm drags and leapfrogs, and the crowd were into everything he did.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to make up for what was an agonising main event. At least Luger got to tap out Hogan, which was a rarity.

6. Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs. Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone - Bash At The Beach 1998

At the 1998 NBA Finals, Dennis Rodman’s Chicago Bulls took on Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz in one of the most famous series of matches in the sport’s history. WCW attempted to capitalise on this by booking the two stars in the main event of that year’s Bash at the Beach, only instead of a slam dunk, they hit the rim and sent the entire basket crashing to the floor instead.

Malone was paired up with Diamond Dallas Page, whilst Rodman once again teamed with Hogan. What could have been a simple match that masked the celebrities’ limited in-ring skills dragged on for an agonising 23 minutes, stuffed with a bunch of NWO interference that it just didn’t need.

Sure, Malone hit a couple of nice Diamond Cutters, but did anybody really need to see two non-wrestlers hog the main event for so long? Also, this was Hogan in 1998, so his working boots were all the way off by this point. It might have drawn some new eyes to the product, but those eyes would not have liked what they saw.

5. Hollywood Hogan & Eric Bischoff vs. Diamond Dallas Page & Jay Leno

The main event of 1998’s Road Wild, WCW’s annual trip to the Sturgis motorcycle rally, was another terrible tag team match pitting Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff against Diamond Dallas Page and… talk show host Jay Leno. Easy E had been making fun of Leno’s show on WCW programming, which was what led to the late-night comedian teaming up with DDP to seek his revenge. In reality, Bischoff was just after more of that sweet, sweet mainstream exposure.

Malone and Rodman were both professional athletes, whilst Leno had made his fortune sitting in a comfy chair. This was not the best preparation for a wrestling match, and it showed, as the Tonight Show star hit some of the worst punches in wrestling history.

Hogan and Page could have carried this to a passable match, but they just spent their time in the ring mouthing off. The two wrestlers eventually took each other out, as Leno pinned Bischoff with his shoulders about three feet off the mat to bring this miserable experience to a merciful end.

4. Goldberg vs. KroniK - Halloween Havoc 2000

For the only match on this list not to feature Hulk Hogan, we go to the seventh-to-last pay-per-view WCW ever did. The main event of Halloween Havoc 2000 was supposed to be Booker T taking on Scott Steiner, in a match that also stood a chance of being on this list, but it was replaced by Goldberg taking on the tag team of KroniK because, in kayfabe, Goldberg needed time to heal up after being attacked beforehand.

If Goldberg were to lose this battle, then he would be gone from WCW forever. Despite the high stakes, Goldberg just won in less than four minutes, pinning both Brian Adams and Bryan Clark… making them look like total chumps.

The fact that this baffling decision came after a night of all-round dreadful anti-entertainment certainly didn’t help things.

3. Hulk Hogan vs. The Butcher - Starrcade 1994

You can say a lot of things about Hulk Hogan, but you can’t say that he doesn’t look after his friends. See Ed Leslie, aka Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake.

Wherever Hogan went, Leslie was sure to follow and was usually on his way to a massive payday. Case in point, the main event of Starrcade 1994, where Hogan somehow managed to persuade people to let him fight Beefcake in the main event for the world title.

As The Butcher, Leslie joined up with the Three Faces of Fear and had been attacking Hogan for months leading up to the company’s big end-of-year spectacle. This led to what could have been a really interesting scenario between two former best buds, had they been able to put on a half-decent match.

Whilst Hogan had his limits, at least he was a star. The Butcher on the other hand had about one per cent of the charisma of his opponent (which is being generous), and his in-ring abilities made the Hulkster look like Jushin Thunder Liger.

A disgusting display of favouritism that led to a rotten match, Starrcade 1994 might just have the worst main event in that show’s illustrious history.

2. Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage vs. The Alliance To End Hulkamania - Uncensored 1996

In early 1996, WCW were still trying to push Hulk Hogan as their top star, but something just wasn’t working. Did they attempt to get someone new over in Hogan’s place? Nope! Instead, they decided to double down on Hogan as the hero by putting him in one of the most ridiculously one-sided matches in wrestling history.

Alongside his on-again, off-again friend Randy Savage, Hogan competed in the main event of Uncensored 1996 in a Doomsday Cage Match. Fought over three levels inside a massive metal box, Hogan and Savage could only win the match by escaping the cage and overcoming a ludicrous number of enemies.

You had Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Meng, Kevin Sullivan, The Barbarian, Z-Gangsta - aka Zeus from No Holds Barred - and The Ultimate Solution, making this an eight-on-two handicap match. And guess what? The Mega Powers still won!

If this bonkers stipulation wasn’t bad enough, then the action itself was bottom of the barrel stuff. The cage severely limited what the performers could do, turning what was supposed to be a highly dangerous situation into a pantomime-level farce. Hogan and Savage were hitting people with frying pans, just for a small snippet of an example.

1. Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant - Halloween Havoc 1995

After their Monster Truck Sumo Match, which consisted of both men pushing each other around in giant, funny-shaped cars on a rooftop, Hulk Hogan “accidentally” pushed The Giant off the top of Cobo Hall, presumably to his death.

Despite the fact that he’d just almost certainly killed a guy, Hogan came down to the ring anyway for his title match, only for The Giant to just turn up like nothing had happened! This unexplained resurrection meant that the match could go ahead, and thank God it did, otherwise we may never have been introduced to… THE YETI!

A giant man wrapped in toilet paper came down to the ring to assist the future Big Show, leading to the infamous double-humping spot that this match is most famous for. Andre’s kayfabe son won the match and Hogan’s title, ending one of the weirdest nights in pro wrestling history on a truly baffling note.