10 Moments That Literally Stopped WCW Matches
Those WCW offerings that took a time out - either by accident or by design.
The wrestling business is a continuous, unrelenting one where it's very much a case of the show must go on, regardless of what bumps in the road a talent may experience.
It's a rare sight to see a wrestling match stopped, for the grapplers involved are usually conditioned to keep pushing through whatever distractions or issues may rear their head during a contest. Still, there are those times where something causes a match to at least temporarily come to a standstill.
While such instances pertaining to Vince McMahon's sports entertainment juggernaut have already been covered in 10 Moments That Literally Stopped WWE Matches earlier this year, it's now the time of World Championship Wrestling to take centre-stage.
Frankly, any time to write about WCW is a good time for your writer here, with the ups and downs of Ted Turner's rasslin' promotion still so fascinating to this day, over 20 years after WCW was assimilated by the then-WWF.
For WCW, there were times when matches stopped due to real-life injuries, due to the audience, due to erratic behaviour from a talent, or even simply just to allow for a kayfabe moment to breathe and maximise its impact.
With that in mind, then, here are ten such examples where a WCW match was brought to a stop.
10. The Loose Cannon Causes Clash Clusterf**k
"This has absolutely broken down."
Yes, Tony Schiavone, it must certainly had.
Clash of the Champions XXXII saw Brian Pillman take on Eddie Guerrero in what had the potential to be a classic. Instead, it ended up being a cluserf**k.
This was at the point where Pillman was in the early days of his Loose Cannon transformation, with him starting to act erratically at the end of 1995. By the time of this January '96 edition of Clash of the Champions, Pillman was doing everything he could to catch his colleagues and company management off-guard.
One such act of catching people unaware came during this Clash contest. Playing the heel here, Pillman backed off from Guerrero's offense, taking solace at ringside and grabbing Bobby Heenan to use as a human shield - and it's here where the action took a pause.
Dealing with neck issues from years of taking bumps, Heenan had a non-contact clause in his WCW contract. So, when Pillman grabbed the Brain by his neck and shoulders, the legendary manager-turned-commentator asked "what the f**k" the former WCW Light Heavyweight Champion was doing, before storming off up into the entrance aisle.
Heenan would return a minute or two later, but all of this left a confused Eddie Guerrero stood alone in the ring, before Pillman joined him and the two stalled for time while seeing what the Brain was going to do.