8. Abdullah The Butcher Gets Electrocuted (Halloween Havoc 1991)
Abdullah the Butcher ate raw meat on Puerto Rican television (on numerous occasions). I'm fairly certain that running a benign, low current electric shock through him in 1991 wouldn't have likely either a) killed Abby or b) been something he would've terribly minded. However, this is WCW where, as Steve Austin said in ECW, "the big boys play with themselves." The "Chamber of Horrors" match OPENED Halloween Havoc '91 and was a stupid multiple man tag match that involved the teams of El Gigante, Sting, and The Steiner Brothers wrestling the aforementioned Abdullah the Butcher, The Diamond Studd, Cactus Jack and Big Van Vader in a match where the goal was to electrocute a member of the opposite team. No, a pinfall was not enough in what wasn't even really a feud, ELECTROCUTION was the only option. The botch here? These next two sentences: Rick Steiner belly-to-belly suplexed Abdullah the Butcher into an electric chair, then strapped him in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqIKoU-h-pk Not paying attention, Cactus Jack flipped the switch, and though no electric current passed into Abby's head, the cage surrounding the electric chair shot fireworks (which apparently implied that a man was being electrocuted. A botch all-of-the-way around.
7. Hulk Hogan Throws A Fireball At The Warrior (Halloween Havoc 1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_onsAu6SZH8 Hulk Hogan wrestled Jerry Lawler for the Southern Heavyweight Championship in Memphis in 1978. Sadly, Hulk Hogan never had Lawler throw the fireball in his face so that he could've learned how the magic was done before his Halloween Havoc match 20 years later versus The (Ultimate) Warrior. Jimmy Hart is one of Hulk Hogan's best friends and has thrown (and been hit) by fireballs roughly 10 times in what was his then 25 year wrestling career. How Hogan didn't stop and ask him, or anyone who spent time around Eddie GIlbert, how to throw a fireball is ridiculous. Yes, a fireball finish to a rematch of one of this highest grossing matches in pro wrestling history is bull***t. However, WCW went there, and of course, it backfired incredibly.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
