World War 3 1996

World War 3
Information
Promotion(s)	World Championship Wrestling
First event	World War 3 (1995)
Last event	World War 3 (1998)
Signature match types	World War 3 match

World War 3 was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The pay-per-view's title also was the name of its signature match, a three-ring, sixty-man battle royal. 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.

WWE owns the rights of World War 3 since the sale of WCW and its trademarks in 2001. In February 2014, all WCW pay-per-views were made available on the WWE Network.

The rules for a World War 3 match were similar to the rules for a traditional battle royal match:

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.

WCW released the World War 3 events on home video the following year, with the packaging for the first three releases reflecting the year that the video was released and not the year that the actual event took place, e.g. World War 3 1995 was released on VHS as World War 3 '96. The cover for the 1999 release of the final 1998 event did not show a date.

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