Nostalgic WCW fans worldwide rejoice, because in addition to bringing back the much-loved Halloween Havoc concept, NXT is also bringing back one of the show’s signature concepts: Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal.
NXT announced on last night’s show that the gimmick would be resurrected for two of the matches on the upcoming Halloween Havoc show on October 29.
The bouts in question are Io Shirai defending the NXT Women’s Title against Candice LeRae and the North American Title bout between champion Damian Priest and Johnny Gargano.
For those unfamiliar with the Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal concept, it was first established in 1992 as a means of determining a stipulation for the headline bout between Sting and new signing Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts.
Similar to WWE’s ‘Raw Roulette’, a large Wheel of Fortune-esque wheel featuring all manner of wild and wacky stipulations is spun and the match participants wrestle in whatever gimmick bout it lands on.
The 1992 match ended up being the deeply underwhelming and oft-mocked Coal Miner’s Glove match. The 1993 meeting between Cactus Jack and Vader was much better, a Texas Death Match that was one of WCW’s best bouts of the year.
The full list of possible match types listed on the NXT wheel is as follows:
- Coal Miner’s Glove match
- Trick or Street Fight
- Blindfold match
- Casket match
- Chamber of Horrors match
- Biker’s Chain match
- Buried Alive match
- Devil’s Playground match
- Boiler Room Brawl
- Shotzi’s Choice
- Weapon’s Wild Match
The most intriguing of all of these is undoubtedly the Chamber of Horrors match. This was a gimmick used once (and only once) in 1991, which saw two teams of four battle inside a steel cage, with the objective being to place an opponent into the electric chair in the middle of the ring and then pull a lever to electrocute them. To death.
I suspect the inclusion of that (and the Coal Miner’s Glove match) are merely cheeky insider ribs that have little-to-no chance of happening. But we can hope!