Battlebowl

BattleBowl was a one-time professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The show took place on November 20, 1993, at the Pensacola Civic Center in Pensacola, Florida. The event featured only the "BattleBowl Tournament", where the first round consisted of eight tag team matches where the teams were drawn at random in a "Lethal Lottery". Members of the winning teams would advance to the BattleBowl battle royal main event. Big Van Vader, who was already the WCW World Heavyweight Champion at the time of the show, received a ring for winning the tournament.

WCW had previously used the Battlebowl concept at Starrcade 1991 and Starrcade 1992, opting to make it a stand-alone show in 1993 as they expanded the number of PPV shows they held that year. The BattleBowl concept would not be used again until the 1996 Slamboree show. WCW closed in 2001 and all rights to their television and PPV shows were bought by WWE, including BattleBowl. When the WWE Network launched in 2014 this show became available "on demand" to network subscribers along with the majority of all WCW PPVs.

Production

Background

The Lethal Lottery/BattleBowl concept was originally introduced for professional wrestling promotion World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) 1991 Starrcade pay-per-view (PPV) show held on December 29, 1991. The concept of the "Lethal Lottery" would see names drawn at random to form tag teams, although as with all professional wrestling this was all staged to appear random. The teams, sometimes consisting of two people who were involved in a storyline feud with each other, would compete against other random teams to see which team would move on to the BattleBowl portion of the tournament. The "BattleBowl" itself was an over-the-top-rope elimination battle royal between all the winning tag teams. In 1991 WCW used the BattleBowl to further a storyline between then WCW World Heavyweight Champion Lex Luger and Sting. WCW held another "Lethal Lottery"/"BattleBowl" tournament at their 1992 Starrcade show. That event was won by The Great Muta, but the tournament win did not result in further storylines.

WCW held a total of six PPVs in the continental United States in 1992, but in 1993 they expanded their schedule to seven, adding BattleBowl to their schedule for November, holding the tournament separately from the 1993 Starrcade show.

Storylines

The event featured wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.

Event

{| class=wikitable style="font-size:90%; margin: 0.5em 0 0.5em 1em; float: right; clear: right;"

|+ Other on-screen personnel

!Role:

!Name:

|rowspan=2|Commentators

|Tony Schiavone

|Jesse Ventura

|Interviewer

|Gene Okerlund

|rowspan=2|Ring announcers

|Michael Buffer

|Gary Michael Cappetta

|rowspan=2|Referees

|Randy Anderson

|Nick Patrick

thumb|left|[[Big Van Vader, the reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion and BattleBowl winner.]]

Tony Schiavone provided the play-by-play commentary for the show, while Jesse Ventura provided the color commentary, providing a counter-point by often siding with the heel wrestlers (those that portray the bad guys). Prior to each match Gene Okerlund and Fifi stood by a large lottery drum, supposedly pulling names at random, though the names were never displayed to the viewers. As the names were announced WCW showed two side-by-side live feeds, one from the heel locker room and one from the face (those that portray the good guys) locker room.

The first team announced consisted of Big Van Vader, WCW World Heavyweight Champion and Cactus Jack. Vader and Cactus Jack had been on opposite sides in the main event of WCW's last PPV Halloween Havoc, thus pairing rivals together for the first match. Okerlund announced that Harlem Heat member Kole was part of the opposite team, but instead of Kole leaving the locker room his brother Kane left the locker room and came to the ring. Kane helped Vader attack Cactus Jack, during which Schiavone commented that it was the wrong brother and then stated, "I guess it doesn't really matter". Moments later the last participant, Charlie Norris, came to the ring and the match started. Initially, Vader and Cactus Jack would occasionally hit each other during the match but later started to get along enough to double team their opponents. In the end, Vader pinned Charlie Norris to advance to the BattleBowl main event. and their interaction in the main event, Ric Flair challenged Vader to defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Flair defeated Vader in the main event of the 1993 Starrcade show to win the championship.

After Regal attacked Steamboat during their match, Steamboat challenged Lord Steven Regal for the WCW World Television Championship at Starrcade, with the match ending in a 15-minute time limit draw. Due to the draw Regal retained the championship. In 2001 WWE bought out WCW, gaining ownership of all television and PPV programming produced by WCW, including the BattleBowl show. When the WWE Network launched in 2014 this show became available "on demand" to network subscribers along with the majority of all WCW PPVs.

Other promotions have used a similar concept to the "Lethal Lottery" / "BattleBowl" tournament after WCW created the concept in 1991. Chikara held La Lotería Letal in 2008 which adopted the "Lethal Lottery" portion of the tournament by drawing random names for a tag team tournament. In early 2013 Total Nonstop Action Wrestling adopted the "Lethal Lottery"/"BattleBowl" concept with their first ever Joker's Wild tournament, held as part of their "One Night Only" PPV series. The "Joker's Wild" tournament included both the Lethal Lottery portion and the BattleBowl portion, with the winners being given a cash prize as a reward for winning the tournament.

Production

Background

Storylines

Event

Results

See also

References