WCW World War 3
From Iwe
World War 3 was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling. The pay-per-view's title also was the name of its signature match, a three-ring]], sixty-man battle royal which was their answer to the International Wrestling Federation's Royal Rumble. The event took place every November from 1995 until 1998. Like the Royal Rumble, the World War 3 match was held at the event that shared its name. The first two World War 3 events were held at the Norfolk Scope and the last two were held at The Palace of Auburn Hills. In 1999, it was replaced by Mayhem.
The rules for a World War 3 match were similar to the rules for a Royal Rumble match. There were two major differences. Unlike the Royal Rumble, World War 3 was conducted as a traditional battle royal- meaning that all sixty wrestlers involved started the match at the same time. Since the match employed three separate wrestling rings, this meant that the sixty men would have to be divided into thirds and twenty men began the match in each ring.
The rules for the World War 3 match were:
- All sixty men were randomly assigned a specific ring before the match began.
- The match began with all sixty men, in three rings, when the bell rings.
- Originally, in order to be eliminated from the match a wrestler had to be thrown over the top rope and have both feet touch the floor. This rule was amended in 1998 to allow for eliminations if a person leaves the ring in any way, in addition to counting pinfalls and submissions and disqualifcations.
- When thirty men remained, they moved to the central ring and the match continued. This rule was amended in 1998 so that the competitors had to move to the central ring once forty men had been eliminated.
- The last man standing in the ring was declared the winner.
The inaugural World War 3 match was contested for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, which had been stripped from The Giant due to the outcome of his match with Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc in October 1995. In subsequent years the winner of the match became the #1 contender to the World Heavyweight Championship. Initially the winner got to pick which pay-per-view he would face the champion at, but this changed for the 1997 and 1998 matches to a set pay-per-view.
Due to an error on WCW's part and releasing the World War 3 events on home video the following year, the packaging for each release shows the year that the video was released and not the year that the actual event took place.
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