5 Retro Wrestling Shows That Should Be Revived, And 5 That Absolutely Should Not

Avoid (2.) – Souled Out

The most astonishing thing about Souled Out, which was originally promoted by WCW as a New World Order ‘branded’ pay-per-view, is that it lived for so long. In 1997 WCW was convinced that the momentum of the ground-breaking heel faction meant the angle was strong enough to prop up wider endeavours. Thus, NWO Souled Out took place as a test event of sorts for WCW to test the waters for future monthly black-and-white themed super-shows. Why they kept it in the calendar when the first one flopped so badly is anyone’s guess. If your guess is “because it was WCW”, then you are correct.

The show was the embodiment of the maxim “you can have too much of a good thing”. Each match featured an NWO act against a WCW one, with the heel stable victorious in the majority. NWO hangers-on Bischoff and Ted DiBiase were on commentary, heel ref Nick Patrick officiated every single match. Who could have possibly guessed it would get repetitive and boring?! Throw the embarrassing ‘Miss NWO’ contest into the mix and it’s hard to imagine any sensible company touching this one.

---

Revive (2.) – BattleBowl

A controversial pick perhaps as no one seems to have much love lost for the one-time only pay-per-view that WCW ran in November 1993. But this is my list, so I’ll pick what I want. To be fair to the detractors, the Battlebowl concept was a little convoluted, conjoined as it was with a separate entity known as the ‘Lethal Lottery’. Ask any good marketing whiz – keep your brandings separate and identifiable! 

The first stage of the process was the Lethal Lottery, where names would be drawn ‘at random’ from the roster to form a series of accidental tag-teams for the night. These unexpected combos, sometimes consisting of – shock! – wrestlers who disliked each other would face off against other short-term duos. Each winning tandem would then get placed into the main event battle royal at the end of the night – the Battlebowl. Bless WCW… at least they tried. 

Battlebowl/Lethal Lottery was used four times in total and to its credit did throw up some interesting concoctions of future Hall of Famers (Flair and Austin; Jushin Liger and, erm, Bill Kazmaier). WWE has shown repeatedly it loves the infighting/odd couple tag-team dynamic. Why not have a whole night dedicated to it?!

• world war 3
• WCW
• nxt
• wwe

Share this article with friends