faced Steve Austin for the WCW World Television Championship on the January 12 episode of Main Event, but was unable to win the title. After the loss, Hammer competed sporadically throughout the rest of the spring (including a brief feud with J. T. Southern) before returning full-time in August 1992. Hammer would fall to Greg Valentine and Nikita Koloff before his push began to accelerate. In September he went on a ten match winning streak, defeating Dallas Page, Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash), and Super Invader (Hercules Hernandez). He received a US title shot against Rick Rude on the November 21st episode of WCW Power Hour, he was slated to win the title, however the match was changed midway when Hammer sustained a knee injury. Upon Hammers return he teamed with Erik Watts at Halloween Havoc and was victorious against The Vegas Connection. For the remainder of October and November he was strongly pushed, going 19–2 in a streak that included victories over Tony Atlas, The Barbarian, and Mustafa Saed. He would also team with Brad Armstrong in a brief feud with Page and Vegas. On the November 21 episode of WCW Worldwide, Hammer was entered into the Jesse "The Body" Ventura Strongest Arm Tournament and defeated Vinnie Vegas. On the December 12th episode, Hammer upset Big Van Vader to advance to the finals against WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ron Simmons. The following week Hammer defeated Simmons to win the arm wrestling challenge. Hammer teamed with Sting and was victorious in a tag-team match on the November 21 episode of WCW Saturday Night, defeating Rick Rude & Cactus Jack via disqualification. On a November 26 house show at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, Hammer was given a broken nose by Rick Rude during an eight-man tag-team main event match held in a thunderdome cage match. Rather than take time off he instead took a Sharpie, inserted it into his nose, and straightened it out. Despite the injury he missed no dates and continued to be victorious on the house show circuit. Hammer made his second Starrcade appearance, where he and his trainer Dan Spivey defeated Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd to qualify for the Battlebowl. In the main event, The Great Muta defeated both Hammer, Spivey and five other wrestlers to win the Battlebowl. On January 2, 1993, Van Hammer lost to Tony Atlas in the quarterfinals of a tournament