in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Event 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. For the second match one-half of the WCW World Tag Team Championship team the Nasty Boys, Brian Knobbs was paired up with Johnny B. Badd for a match against Erik Watts and Paul Roma, who were both faces leading up to the match. After almost 13 minutes of wrestling Brian Knobbs pinned Eric Watts by holding onto Watts' tights for extra leverage to win the match. For the third match of the night long-time rivals Ricky Steamboat and Lord Steven Regal were forced to team together, much to the dismay of Regal who was very vocal in his displeasure with Steamboat. While their opponents, Paul Orndorff and The Shockmaster, were not on friendly terms they worked better together than Regal and Steamboat, allowing the Shockmaster to pin Regal. After the third match WCW showed a segment announcing