The Story Behind The Best WCW War Games Match Ever
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WCW created its WarGames specialty match in 1987 as part of Dusty Rhodes feud with the Four Horsemen. The entire idea was to keep the Four Horsemen locked in an enclosed cage with no way out and then added a submission only victory to help end the feud. However, it was the WarGames that took place in 1992 that holds the place as the best of its kind, and it had nothing to do with the Four Horsemen or Dusty Rhodes.
At WrestleWar 1992, Sting put together a team known as Sting's Squadron and set out to end The Dangerous Alliance, led by manager Paul E. Dangerously. It matched the storytelling of the legendary Four Horsemen matches. While WarGames lasted for eight more years, nothing that came after this match compared, making it one of WCW's best matches of all time, and one that all others have to stack up against.
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The Dangerous Alliance Runs Rampant In WCW
Paul E. Dangerously made his way to WCW in 1988, while it was still Crockett Promotions. He managed the Original Midnight Express team of Loverboy Dennis and Ravishing Randy and began feuding with Jim Cornette and his Midnight Express. When this feud ended, Dangerously became an announcer and worked with Jim Ross. However, in a storyline, WCW fired Dangerously, and it seemed he was leaving. He didn't though, and came back immediately at Halloween Havoc 1991 where he said he still had a manager's license, and he introduced his new client, Ravishing Rick Rude. Dangerously's plan was simple. He wanted to destroy WCW for firing him.
Soon, The Dangerous Alliance included top names Beautiful Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, Madusa Miceli, and newcomer Stunning Steve Austin. The faction also had an early target that continued through their WCW run. The first title coming to The Dangerous Alliance came when Rude beat Sting for the United States Championship. Up next, Anderson and Eaton won the tag team titles and Austin picked up the TV title. After six months of running over everyone, Sting took a page out of Dusty Rhodes' playbook, and he took on The Dangerous Alliance the same way Dusty took care of The Four Horsemen. This led to the WarGames match at WrestleWar 1992.
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Sting Puts Together The Team To Finally End The Dangerous Alliance
Just like Dusty Rhodes did when he came into his WarGames matches, Sting put together a team of the top stars in WCW. These men also had feuded with The Dangerous Alliance themselves. Sting's Squadron featured Sting, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Barry Windham, The Natural Dustin Rhodes, and The Russian Nightmare Nikita Koloff. This match featured seven WWE Hall of Fame wrestlers, with only Koloff, Rhodes, and Eaton not yet in the enshrinement. Paul Heyman, a lock for the WWE Hall of Fame one day, led the villains, and Sting, one of WCW's most popular stars, led the babyfaces.
Rude feuded with Sting from the day that he won the U.S. title from him. Bobby Eaton was a babyface who turned on his tag team partner, Dustin Rhodes. Eaton then joined forces with Arn Anderson and the two won the tag team titles from Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes. Finally, Stunning Steve Austin won his TV title from Eaton and then entered a feud with Barry Windham, where the two men exchanged the title before losing it to Steamboat. The feud also mirrored Dusty Rhodes' feud with The Four Horsemen when The Dangerous Alliance broke Barry Windham's arm. The entire storyline was based on The Dangerous Alliance holding several WCW titles and Sting wanting to bring them down with his friends. Sting won the world title and led the group. Nikita rounded things out and the table was set for the WarGames.
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Sting Ends The Dangerous Alliance In The WarGames
WCW held 31 WarGames matches, between pay-per-view main events and at house shows. Some of these matches were classics, with the early Dusty Rhodes fights with The Four Horsemen leading the way. Others failed in every way, with the 1998 WCW version as one of the worst of all time. However, the match in 1992 was the best of the best and showed how amazing WarGames could be when the match had great wrestlers paying off a well-built story. Austin and Windham opened the match and blood began pouring immediately. Then, Rude came in before Steamboat was next to even the odds. The rest included, in this order, Anderson, Rhodes, Zbyszko, Sting, Eaton, and Koloff as the last man in. The match ended when Larry Zbyszko swung a broken steel turnbuckle at Sting, but missed. Sting then used it to lock in an armbar on Eaton, making him submit.
Following the match, Dangerously kicked Zbyszko out of The Dangerous Alliance, but then it all fell apart. Rick Rude left on his own and Dangerously fired Madusa. Soon, Austin also left when he formed The Hollywood Blondes with Brian Pillman, and then everything ended after Clash of the Champions XXI when Dangerously left WCW and helped turn ECW into a major promotion. In the end, Sting's Squadron beat The Dangerous Alliance in the WarGames, and it served its purpose with the Stinger helping stop Paul E. Dangerously and ending his threat to WCW in one of the greatest cage matches in company history.
