Throwback Thursday: Looking back at WCW Halloween Havoc 1995

Each and every Thursday I will look back at a different pay-per-view event from the past via the WWE Network. Want to see a certain event covered? Send your suggestions to @VaughnMJohnson on Twitter.

Last time, I covered the WWE in Your House 11: Buried Alive

WCW Halloween Havoc 1995

Date: Oct. 29, 1995

Venue: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit

Some random notes

Tony Schiavone and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan were on hand to call the matches.

Schiavone were both fine announcers, but even they couldn't salvage some of the garbage World Championship Wrestling forced them to call on this night.

One of the things they were forced to do throughout the pay-per-view was hype up the monster truck match between Hulk Hogan and The Giant as if it was the most important match in the history of professional wrestling. "Mene" Gene Okerlund had to do this during backstage interviews as well.

The monster truck match itself had different announcers than the others. Eric Bischoff called the action alongside Bob Chandler, who built Hogan's monster truck.

With that said, let's get to the matches:

WCW World Television championship – Johnny B. Badd def. Diamond Dallas Page

This match came about after Badd was supposed to face Sting for the United States Heavyweight championship, but Page conspired to have all of the tires on Badd's car flattened and he never made it to the arena for the match.

When Badd caught wind of this, he was understandably upset with Page and challenged him for his World Television championship.

Page made his entrance by mocking Badd by using a confetti gun. It looked like Badd was making his traditional entrance, but the man with the fancy robe was apparently an imposter. The real Badd entered the ring through the crowd and ambushed Page.

It was never revealed who the imposter Badd was. The ambush allowed the real Badd to unleash an onslaught of offense on the champion. Page weathered the early storm and gained control.

Page's valet, Diamond Doll, grew more and more irritated with his underhanded tactics throughout the match. When Badd finally began to build some momentum, she was openly cheering for him.

Page's heavy, Max Muscle (How dumb of a name was that?), attempted to interfere on his behalf, but it backfired, which opened the door for Badd to pin Page and win the World Television title.

Randy Savage def. The Zodiac

Yes, The Zodiac was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. I hope he was paid handsomely compensated for this.

I have never have an issue seeing Savage. Unfortunately, his match was barely three minutes long.

The most exciting part of the match was a random fan jumping into the ring. The fan was probably outraged that he paid his hard earned money to see The Zodiac wrestle.

The referee got more offense in on the fan than The Zodiac did on Savage.

Just as WCW security was dragging the fan out of the arena, Savage hit his famous elbow drop from the top rope to quickly end the match.

Kurasawa def. Road Warrior Hawk

Kurasawa is more known to Japanese wrestling fans as Manabu Nakanishi. Meanwhile, Hawk was on his because Road Warrior Animal was sidelined due to a back injury.

This match didn't last very long either. Hawk dominated, but Kurasawa pinned him while putting his feet on the ropes for leverage.

While Kurasawa and his manager, Col. Robert Parker, were leaving, Hawk climbed to the middle turnbuckle and celebrated with the fans as if he won the match.

Sabu def. Mr. JL

In case any of you were wondering, Mr. JL was Jerry Lynn. It was his first WCW pay-per-view, according to Schiavone.

The most memorable thing I remember from Lynn's days under the mask was Big Boss Man hitting him with a bike on WCW Saturday Night, which caused Dusty Rhodes to lose his mind on commentary.

Moments into the match, Sabu performed a springboard dive outside of the ring onto Mr. JL and his uncle/manager, The Sheik, who had a sword for some reason.

This match was also short, but at least it featured Sabu and JL doing some high-flying maneuvers. It had that going for it.

After Sabu picked up the quick victory, The Sheik threw fireball into Mr. JL's eyes for good measure. Why? Because he was The Sheik, that's why. Don't question The Sheik.

Lex Luger def. Meng via disqualification

Meng, like The Zodiac, represented the Dungeon of Doom.

Unlike Zodiac, Meng dominated most of his match against Luger. Meng's manager and leader of the Dungeon of Doom, Kevin Sullivan, stood outside of the ring and seemed reluctant to interfere because he wanted Luger to join his faction.

Meng pulled a foreign object out of his boot and struck Luger with it. While Meng went for the cover on Luger, Sullivan jumped into the ring and kicked Luger so that Meng was disqualified, giving Luger the victory.

Sullivan apparently wanted Luger to win.

Heenan said on commentary that none this made sense to him. He was not alone.

This match was a lot longer than the ones that preceded it, but it was the first to not have a decisive finish.

Sting & Ric Flair def. Brian Pillman & Arn Anderson via disqualification

Flair was apparently attacked backstage as soon as the show started, but Sting wasn't in the building yet to help him.

As a result of the assault, Sting started the match on his own. Despite having the disadvantage, Sting still managed to knock both Anderson and Pillman around the ring.

Just as Anderson and Pillman began to get the better of Sting, Flair finally showed up and was ready to fight despite having street clothes on.

Flair, who sported a bandage on his head, tore his shirt off as if he was Hogan and eventually stood in Sting's corner with a pair of pleated slacks and a pair of shoes that probably cost more than my house.

Despite Flair's presence, Anderson and Pillman maintained control of Sting. Anderson and Pillman used expert tag team tactics to prevent Sting from tagging in Flair.

Sting finally made it over to Flair to tag him and the arena erupted. However, they don't call Flair the dirtiest player in the game for nothing, and he immediately decked Sting with a right hand.

Once again, gullible old Sting thought he had a friend in Flair and once again, he was wrong.

Flair, Anderson and Pillman began stomping on Sting, which prompted the referee to throw the match out. Sting tried to fend off the assault, but the numbers game caught up to him.

Flair pulled the bandage off his head to reveal that there was nothing wrong with him. Fans were so angry they began throwing trash in the ring. That's good stuff right there.

Okerlund called it the most disgusting thing he had ever seen. He probably changed his mind at Bash at the Beach the next year.

Flair grabbed Okerlund's microphone and said that the Four Horsemen were getting back together. The old gang was getting back together!

The angle was well done, but it was yet another match that went for a long time that didn't have a decisive finish.

Monster Truck match – Hulk Hogan def. The Giant

I know what you're thinking. What is this, right? Look, I don't know. I have no idea what WCW could have been thinking.

I can't even begin to try to figure out the logic behind this. I'm all for daring to be different, but this was just plain stupid.

For an idea that seemed so silly in so many ways, WCW made sure it went all out as far as production value and organization. I guess I'll give the promotion passing marks for that.

The match — if we can call it that — was apparently taped the day before on top of the Cobo Hall, which is now known as the Cobo Center and is essentially next door to Joe Louis Arena.

The rules (Ha! This thing had rules?) were essentially like a sumo match. The object was to push your opponent's car out of a big circle. That sounded like a recipe for vehicular manslaughter, but that didn't matter to WCW.

The reason why monster trucks even came into play was because The Giant had run over Hogan's Harley Davidson motorcycle with one at Fall Brawl. He also snapped Hogan's neck later on that night. At least it looked that way.

Because of this, Hogan challenged The Giant to a monster truck match. Remember, The Giant was part of the Dungeon of Doom, but apparently was efficient at driving monster trucks.

Hogan drove a red and yellow truck that was eventually repainted he joined the New World Order. The Giant drove a Dungeon of Doom truck. The trucks were welded together.

Bischoff called this as if it was bigger than the main event of Starrcade. It was literally five minutes of two monster trucks pushing each other back and forth. Don't worry. This was as awful as it sounds.

Even worse was that this was longer than some of the actual wrestling matches on the card.

The Giant almost pushed Hogan out of the circle, but only managed to get one set of tires out. Hogan eventually mustered a comeback and managed to push The Giant out of the circle for easily the biggest win of his career.

The Giant was not happy about losing this monster truck jam and went after Hogan. The two men began fighting on the edge of the roof despite having a world title match the next night — err — later on that night.

The Giant eventually lost his balance and FELL OFF THE BUILDING INTO THE ABYSS!!!

The man fell off a building! We just witnessed someone fall to their death live (or taped) on pay-per-view!

Hogan tried to catch him, but was unsuccessful. He then ran and called for help, which was when the cameras cut away to a wide shot of the building and then to some water. I guess The Giant was supposed somewhere in there.

Bischoff and Heenan were at a loss for words. Honestly, what could they possibly say about this? But eventually began talking.

"What side of the roof did he go off? The waterside, the street side or what?" Heenan said.

Bischoff's response: "You got a parking lot, you got a river, what difference does it make?"

Man, I wish Twitter was around for this angle.

Randy Savage def. Lex Luger

I could barely concentrate on this match. After watching The Giant fall off Cobo Hall, nothing else seemed important anymore.

Savage won, by the way. He did so after some unexplained involvement from Jimmy Hart.

WCW World Heavyweight championship – The Giant def. Hulk Hogan via disqualification

After all of that craziness, there was still a world championship match to be had. This crazy story that involved a dungeon full of doom, monster trucks and a man falling to his death, culminated in a match to decide the richest prize in WCW.

The icing on the cake was that this was The Giant's very first match in WCW. Not his very first televised match, but his very first match with the promotion and he was having it with the promotion's biggest star in the main event of one of its marquee pay-per-views.

Oh, and by the way, the world title is on the line, too.

As per tradition, WCW had the obscenely expensive Michael Buffer do the ring introductions.

Hogan made his entrance first dressed in all black, as he had embraced his dark side to combat the Dungeon of Doom. Hogan had a somber look on his face, not because he was missing his famous mustache, which had been shaved off by The Giant, but because he had to be the bearer of bad news.

This is literally what Hogan said: "You know something, brothers. What just happened out there wasn't supposed to go down, man. I didn't want Giant to take the plunge, brothers. That's a long way down to the parking lot."

What in the world was Hogan talking about? The Giant was supposed to be either dead or horribly injured and all he had to say was essentially, "Sorry for the nasty fall, dude." I'm laughing as I type this.

Thankfully, The Giant showed up looking more like he just stepped out of the tanning booth rather taking a plunge to his near death. The guy didn't even have a scratch on him.

WCW didn't even try.

Schiavone: "He's risen from the dead!"

Heenan: "I do not understand anything."

None of us did, Brain. None of us did.

The Giant jumped into the ring, which caused Hogan to run out of it. He was surprised to see The Giant still breathing.

Heenan tried to rationalize it by saying that The Giant may have fallen on a car or a truck. I'm pretty sure that would still kill him.

Hogan took off his bandana to reveal he painted his forehead like Sullivan. The new paint didn't help Hogan take The Giant off his feet, as the big man dominated the champion.

Hogan eventually hulked up and knocked The Giant out of the ring. The man fell off a building and shrugged it off like it was nothing, but getting punched in the face by Hogan, now that was a different level of pain.

The Giant eventually choke slammed Hogan, but Hogan began hulking up again. Hogan hit the big boot, but The Giant didn't go down.

Hogan then picked up The Giant and slammed him in a scene reminiscent of WrestleMania 3, but just as the referee was ready to count to three, Hart, who was managing Hogan, struck him, interrupting the count.

Hart then turned his back on Hogan by hitting him with the megaphone. Sullivan jumped into the ring to lay some shots on Hogan, as The Giant had him in a bear hug.

This brought out Savage and Luger to help Hogan, but Luger turned on Savage by helping the Dungeon of Doom.

As if this couldn't get any more ridiculous, The Yeti came stomping down to the ring.

The Yeti, which was a man dressed as a mummy, was billed as the Dungeon of Doom's insurance policy.

He lumbered into the ring and bear hugged Hogan from behind while The Giant hugged him from the front.

It was a bear hug sandwich and Hogan was the meat. I cannot make this up.

Luger got in on the fun by putting both Hogan and Savage in the torture rack. Someone should bring that move back.

Buffer announced that The Giant won the match via disqualification, but since the title can't change hands that way, Hogan was still the champion.

The Giant took the title anyway. Why not?