Booker T & Big Show recall Halloween Havoc

As winter brings upon colder weather and leaves continue to fall from the trees, everyone is gearing up for the spookiest day of the year, Halloween. While October brings ghoulish costumes and sugar rushes, from 1989 to 2000, the 10th month of the calendar year was also home to one of WCW?s biggest pay-per-view events, Halloween Havoc. Earlier this month, former WCW Champion Diamond Dallas Page referred to WCW?s annual October pay-per-view as the Atlanta-based organization?s second biggest event of the year, similar to WWE?s SummerSlam. (FULL STORY)

DDP isn?t the only former WCW Champion to recall the event, former WCW and WWE World Heavyweight Champions, Booker T and Big Show, also weighed in on the October annual.

?Halloween Havoc was a time when you got to see stuff you wouldn?t see during the regular events of the year,? the five-time WCW Champion Booker T said of the match variety and production of the October extravaganza. (PHOTOS)

With unique matches such as the Thundercage and the Coal Miner?s Glove Match, it was certainly one of WCW?s most popular and unpredictable events. The early Havocs also featured ?Spin the Wheel, Make a Deal,? a precursor to Raw Roulette that determined match stipulations. Based on the WWE Universe?s comments on Facebook and Twitter, the theme and memorable set design of Halloween Havoc is still fondly remembered.

?From that standpoint, it was definitely like SummerSlam,? Booker added, ?all the big stars of that time in WCW were always there. Havoc was definitely one of our biggest events of the year, so the competitors wanted to lay everything on the line.?

The master of the spin-a-roonie remembered his WCW Tag Team Championship Match against The Outsiders (Kevin Nash & Scott Hall) at Halloween Havoc 1996 as one of the ?most competitive matches at Havoc.? As one half of Harlem Heat with his brother Stevie Ray, Booker recalled the intensity of the match with the titles on the line.

Booker also specifically reminisced about being at Halloween Havoc early in his career and how taking part of that event helped mold him as a competitor.

?When I was just a small fry, I looked at Havoc as an opportunity to be a fly on the wall, watch everything that transpired on such a big stage and see what made Superstars. It was like on the job training.?

On-the-job training at Halloween Havoc is something in which Big Show can most definitely relate. At the October event in 1995, The World?s Largest Athlete, then known as The Giant, competed in his first match ever for the WCW World Championship against Hulk Hogan. An early highlight of his almost 17-year career, Big Show joked, ?I should have retired after that.?

Although he defeated Hogan for the title, The Hulkster decided to have a little bit of fun at Big Show?s expense following the match. ?Hogan congratulated me and told me I had to wear the title in the airport on the way to Nitro. I was the new guy in WCW, so I didn?t realize it was a big joke. So I?m walking through the airport proud to be the champion, but people are looking at me like I?m crazy.?

Big Show added, ?I?ll always remember Havoc for that ? my first match, my first title and defeating a legend like Hulk Hogan was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.?

A year later at Havoc ?96 as a member of the nWo, Big Show assisted Hogan in retaining the WCW World Title. WWE.com asked The World?s Largest Athlete if he thought that was strange, or if his loyalties were solely with The New World Order at that point.

?The WWE Universe always remembers the nWo as Hogan, Hall and Nash,? Big Show said. ?Some people forget that I was their fourth guy. In 1996, it was still early in my career and I joined the nWo to learn from those guys and find my place. A big stage like Halloween Havoc was the perfect place to learn from them. So I did what I had to do.?

The World?s Largest Athlete also agreed with his former WCW colleagues DDP and Booker T, saying Havoc was indeed WCW?s equivalent to SummerSlam in terms of importance and production, especially for him.

?Both WCW and WWE performed in front of huge crowds, and at Halloween Havoc I was thrown right into the fire.? Big Show recalled. The World?s Largest Athlete left WCW and joined WWE in 1999 and having experienced both organizations biggest events and noticed Havoc?s festive theme couldn?t compare with the Biggest Part of the Summer. ?For WCW, Havoc was definitely on par with SummerSlam, but even it couldn?t match the energies of WWE?s biggest events like SummerSlam and WrestleMania.? He added.

Throughout its history, Havoc always featured some bizarre incidents and matches, even without ?Spin the Wheel, Make a Deal.? For example, in 1994 The Nasty Boys defeated Terry Funk & Bunkhouse Buck after Funk was pile-drived onto a jack-o-lantern. Another instance saw Rick Rude performing as the ?WCW Halloween Phantom.? Even after Big Show defeated Hogan, a bizarre competitor called The Yeti assisted in a post-match attack. These strange occurrences only took place WCW?s October event.

Thinking about these wild instances helped Big Show recall his favorite memory of Halloween Havoc. Before he battled Hogan for the WCW Title in the main event, the two competitors squared off in a Sumo Monster Truck challenge.

?Believe it or not, that Monster Truck Challenge was a lot of fun for me,? Big Show reminisced. ?I remember being on the roof of that arena, it was freezing cold and wet, I could barely feel my fingers, then I fell off the side of the building and I just remember thinking ?what have I gotten myself into???

Halloween Havoc has become an unforgettable memory for the WWE Universe and former WCW Champions, including some of the biggest names in WWE today. Through tricks and treats, there is no denying the importance and feeling of the fact for everyone involved and those who witnessed it every October for more than a decade.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/wcw/booker-t-big-show-wcw-havoc

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