City Phoenix, Arizona Date 24 February 1991 Attendance 6,800 | WrestleWar (1991) WrestleWar (1992) Tagline(s) We Want You! | |
WrestleWar (1991) WCW/New Japan Supershow I Location Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Encanto, Arizona, United States Venue Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum Promotion World Championship Wrestling | ||
WrestleWar 1991: WarGames was a professional wrestling major show, broadcast on pay-per-view (PPV) produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and took place on February 24, 1991 from the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona. This was the first PPV not produced under the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) banner. This would be the third year in a row WCW promoted a PPV under the name "WrestleWar", a series that would include four shows in total.
In 2015, all WCW pay-per-views were made available on the WWE Network.
Event
The 1991 WrestleWar show was the first time WCW held a WarGames match outside of their Great American Bash shows, the match was a Steel cage match that enclosed two rings at once with two teams fighting inside. In the War Games match the The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Barry Windham, Sid Vicious) and Larry Zbyszko defeated Sting, Brian Pillman, and The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner). The match ended after Sid Vicious repeatedly powerbombed Brian Pillman, including at least one powerbomb where Pillman's head hit the roof of the cage. Unable to continue El Gigante came to the ring and surrendered the match on Pillman's behalf. This was a constructed ending to allow Sting's team to lose without actually submitting, making Sid Vicious a bigger heel and making Brian Pillman a more sympathetic underdog in his fight with the 4 Horsemen. Zbyszko was not a member of the 4 Horsemen but brought in as a replacement for Arn Anderson who was injured at the time.
The eighth match of the night, a match between Stan Hansen and Big Van Vader ended in a disqualification when both wrestlers threw the referee out of the ring to continue their brawl. After Lex Luger defeated Dan Spivey to retain the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship supposedly-retired wrestler Nikita Koloff came to the ring to present Luger with a new United States championship, but instead he attacked Luger to start a storyline between the two. In the semi-main event The Freebirds (Jimmy Garvin and Michael Hayes) defeated Doom (Butch Reed and Ron Simmons) to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship. After the match Reed and Long turned on their longtime partner Ron Simmons, ending Doom as a team and allowing Ron Simmons to become a "face" in the eyes of the fans. Due to WCW's television taping schedule the Fabulous Freebirds had already wrestled a match against The Steiner Brothers where they lost the championship six days prior to the PPV, but the match had not yet aired on TV.