Starrcade 1997
Date: December 28, 1997
Location: MCI Center, Washington, D.C.
Attendance: 17,500
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Dusty Rhodes, Mike Tenay

 

Tonight is WCW’s night. After a year and a half of being dominated by the NWO, tonight is the night that WCW stands up and says this is our company and you’re not taking us over. WCW has its warrior in Sting and there is no way that Hogan can stop him. Hogan has been running scared of Sting for months and tonight he’s out of places to hide. This is WCW’s night. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video is rather awesome with Sting standing in the shadows as rain falls. He jumps off a wall and lands on a picture of Hogan. Sting picks up the bat and walks off, all while pictures of Hogan are superimposed over the screen. That’s a great visual.

 

There will be a drawing on who gets to be the referee for the main event.

 

Several WCW wrestlers are in the crowd, including Harlem Heat and the TV Champion Disco Inferno.

 

Apparently Kevin Nash isn’t here tonight. This was another big problem with the NWO: they didn’t like to lose. The original plan for Nash was to face the Giant and lose. Nash, not wanting to be pinned on PPV, decided to screw the fans out of one of the biggest matches on the show and not appear. He eventually appeared in the match at the next PPV where he was allowed to win.

 

In other words, he acted unprofessionally and screwed over the people and got his way anyway. These are the kind of things that would catch up to them in the long run. Officially Nash claimed that he had chest pains, but he’s had a tendency to have those many times over the years when he was about to lose a major match. Also considering his story has changed multiple times over the years, something tells me he wasn’t being honest. Imagine that coming from a wrestler.

 

Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko

 

This is the culmination of a rather awesome three way feud between Malenko, Guerrero and Rey Mysterio which led to some excellent matches between the three of them. Eddie is defending here. They head to the mat to start where Eddie is good but Dean is great. Malenko takes over on the champion and fires off some right hands to the head to send Eddie back. A leg lariat gets two for Malenko and they trade control of a German suplex until Dean counters a rana into a HARD powerbomb for two.

 

Another powerbomb gets two for Dean and a snap powerslam gets the same. Eddie begs for mercy and runs to the floor for a breather. Back in and Guerrero hits a chop block on Dean’s knee to give the champion control. Dean knees his way out of a suplex and drops Guerrero stomach first over the top rope to slow him down again. A clothesline gets another two count on Eddie and it’s off to a chinlock. Make that a headscissors as the match slows down a lot.

 

Back up and Eddie backs off again before kissing Dean’s feet and begging for mercy. Dean wins a test of strength by taking Eddie’s hands to the mat so he can stomp on them. A dropkick to the face puts Guerrero down again before Dean counters a tornado DDT and drops Guerrero face first on the top turnbuckle for two. Eddie gets suplexed out to the apron but lands on his feet, allowing him to snap Dean’s neck on the ropes. The champion takes over with a slingshot ax handle onto Dean’s leg to put Malenko in trouble.

 

Guerrero wraps Dean’s knee around the post and dropkicks the steps into said knee in a nice show of aggression. Back in again and Guerrero cranks on the leg for a bit before hitting a bit powerbomb for two. Dean counters a hurricanrana attempt into a nice wheelbarrow suplex for two. A backbreaker puts Eddie down again but it hurts Dean’s knee in the process. Eddie takes him up top but gets shoved off the top as he tries a rana. Dean tries the Texas Cloverleaf (submission hold) but Eddie kicks the knee out to escape. Guerrero hits a missile dropkick into the knee to set up a Frog Splash to retain the title.

 

Rating: C+. Decent opener here but way below what you would expect from these two. The matches leading up to this one had been excellent but this came off as somewhat flat. It’s certainly not a bad match or anything, but given the expectations from the buildup, this was pretty disappointing.

 

Here’s Scott Hall with something to say. As is his custom, Hall asks the fans if they’re here to see the NWO or WCW. In this case it’s WCW but Hall would rather talk about the main event. He actually has a reason to as he gets a title shot at the winner at Uncensored. As for Nash, he isn’t here tonight so Giant is the winner. Giant comes out and says that he’s a patient man and one day Nash will be back. Hall goes after Giant but gets laid out with Kevin Nash’s powerbomb. Why they didn’t just have Hall replace Nash in a match here is beyond me.

 

Scott Norton/Vincent/Konnan vs. Ray Traylor/Steiner Brothers

 

The Steiners and Traylor had been going to war with the NWO for months so these three are just a random grouping of members for them to fight. There’s no Konnan in sight during the entrances so we’re going to start with a handicap match. Norton is a big strong guy who used to be world armwrestling champion. Vincent used to work for the WWF as Ted DiBiase’s bodyguard. The Steiners’ manager tonight? Ted DiBiase.

 

Since there’s no Konnan, here’s former world champion Randy Savage to take his place. Savage nearly gets in a fight with the WCW wrestlers in the audience on the way to the ring. For the sake of clarity in this match, Scott will only be used in reference to Scott Steiner. Savage starts with Scott with Randy being shoved back into the corner. A shoulder block puts Savage down but Norton hits Scott in the back to let Savage take over. Off to Vincent who is there to distract the referee while Savage chokes Scott.

 

Norton comes in for a power vs. power match with Scott, followed by a backbreaker to work on Scott’s back. Savage adds a double ax to the spine, only to have Scott come back with a double underhook powerbomb and a gorilla press slam. Everything breaks down and the NWO is cleared out. Back in and it’s Rick vs. Norton now which is a battle of the tough guys. Rick hits a quick suplex and a Steiner Line followed by a powerslam for two. Traylor, a former member of the NWO, comes in to pound away on Norton as well.

 

Vincent comes back in and walks into a spinebuster and a belly to back drop. Back to Scott for that wicked spinning belly to belly for no cover. Traylor comes in again as we have the rare heel in peril sequence. Rick puts on a chinlock while rubbing Vincent’s head for no apparent reason. Traylor comes back in but misses a splash, allowing for the tag off to Norton. After a big clothesline, it’s back to Vincent instead of Savage for no apparent reason.

 

To the shock of no one, Vincent is no match for Traylor and it’s hot tag to Rick. He cleans house and the Steiners hit their top rope DDT on Vincent, only to have Norton make the save. Scott hits the Frankensteiner off the top but this time Savage makes the save. Now it’s Savage in danger of being caught in the top rope Frankensteiner but Norton shoves Scott off the top, allowing Randy to drop the big elbow for the pin.

 

Rating: D+. Not a bad match or anything here, but why in the world would have have the NWO D team and Savage win this match? The Steiners are the world tag team champions and they’re losing in the second match on the biggest show of the year? This night is supposed to be all about WCW, not about the NWO winning a meaningless match that they don’t need.

 

Nick Patrick is officially announced as the referee for the main event. The problem with this is that Patrick is a former member of the NWO with a very sketchy record. Keep in mind that we’re wasting time on the biggest show of the year for this. Also, I wonder what the announcers are going to spend the next hour and a half talking about.

 

Bill Goldberg vs. Steve McMichael

 

Steve “Mongo” McMichael is a former Horseman and NFL player, but he’s absolutely terrible in the ring. Goldberg is still undefeated at this point and would become a much bigger deal after this show is over. This is happening because Goldberg stole McMichael’s Super Bowl ring and they’ve attacked each other a few times since. The brawl is on in the aisle to start but Mongo’s offense isn’t having much effect. Goldberg literally picks him up and carries Mongo into the ring like a rag doll.

 

Goldberg picks up a table at ringside as the bell rings and the actual match begins. Mongo suplexes him down for two but a big shoulder tackle takes Steve down for two. We head to the floor where the table is leaning against the post. They fight around the ring with Mongo taking over before heading back inside, only to have Goldberg punch Mongo as Steve dives off the top. Goldberg hooks a quick leg lock and is toying with Mongo at this point.

 

The spear (the setup for Goldberg’s finisher) hits for two and Goldberg loads up the table on the floor. He tries to slam Mongo over the top and through the table but the referee breaks it up. A dropkick of all things puts Mongo down and out to the floor and we have to be getting close to done. Mongo gets back up onto the apron, only to be punched through the table. Back in and the Jackhammer (suplex but instead Goldberg turns it over into a powerslam) ends Mongo.

 

Rating: D. This was terrible but Goldberg’s day was coming. It was clear that Mongo just wasn’t any good as a wrestler and thankfully in 1998 he would be pushed WAY down the card and rarely ever have a big match again. The match itself was slow and plodding, but Goldberg would be pushed to the moon very quickly after this.

 

Raven vs. Chris Benoit

 

Raven, a loner who has a collection of misfits called his Flock, comes out for his match against Chris Benoit but says he won’t wrestle tonight. Instead his top man Saturn does, which has been a recurring theme for Raven. To be fair to him and WCW though, Raven had a legit appendicitis and wasn’t medically cleared to wrestle. On the other hand, WCW knew this in advance and didn’t bother to announce that Raven couldn’t wrestle, thereby ripping off the fans with something they easily could have fixed. Anyway Benoit is a very tough wrestler with an excellent amateur skill set. Saturn can do a bit of everything.

 

Before the match, Benoit talks about seeing things for what they are in an attempt to speak like Raven. This doesn’t go well at all, but once they had their match it would be a classic. Apparently this is under Raven’s Rules, meaning anything goes. Saturn tries to jump Benoit but gets chopped down for his efforts. More chops hit Saturn’s chest in the corner and a jawbreaker gets Benoit out of a sleeper attempt. Benoit stomps away in the corner and invites Raven to get in the ring. Saturn catches Benoit’s arm during a chop attempt and hits a quick suplex to take over.

 

Chris comes right back with a dropkick to the knee but has to knock Raven to the floor instead of go after Saturn. Benoit whips Saturn into the barricade but Raven’s men Kidman and Sick Boy interfere to give Saturn control. Back in and Saturn puts on a chinlock before hitting a moonsault, only to injure himself in the process. A few knees to Benoit’s ribs put him down again but Benoit’s foot is in the ropes. Off to reverse chinlock by Saturn to stay on the ribs but he lets it go for no apparent reason.

 

A kind of brainbuster gets two on Benoit and it’s off to another chinlock. Benoit fights up and hooks a sunset flip for two before clotheslining Saturn down. Both guys are dazed now but it’s Benoit taking over as they get back up. Saturn grabs a quick falcon arrow (sitout slam) to put Benoit down, only to have Chris knock him off the top rope and to the floor.

 

Benoit takes it to the floor and puts on his Crippler Crossface (arm trap hold with a facelock) but the Flock makes the save. Benoit fights them and throws Saturn back in for the flying headbutt, only to have the Flock come in again. They’re quickly dispatched, but Raven himself comes in with the DDT to lay Benoit out. Saturn puts on his Rings of Saturn double armbar but Benoit is out cold, ending the match.

 

Rating: C+. This was getting good at the end but the decision here makes little sense. Benoit had been running through the Flock, so why have him lose to Saturn right before he’s supposed to face Raven? Benoit can’t beat the second in command so we’re supposed to want to see him fight the boss? That doesn’t make sense.

 

By the way: this is an eight match card and the heels are now 4/4.

 

Buff Bagwell vs. Lex Luger

 

Buff is of course Marcus Bagwell and now part of the NWO. This is I think the fourth match between these two in about a month with Bagwell cheating to win before. Bagwell of course stalls before the match begins because that’s what people with little talent do to draw heat. They lock up and go into the corner with no one being able to get an advantage. Buff starts pounding away in the corner but Lex comes back with right hands of his own. A press slam puts Bagwell down and a clothesline puts him on the floor.

 

Bagwell is ticked off and wants Vincent out here to help him. Apparently the power of a worthless man obsessed with his own career like Vincent is enough to inspire Bagwell as he pounds away on Lex. It doesn’t last long though as Luger pounds him down onto the floor and sends him into the barricade before nailing Vincent. The distraction lets Bagwell get in more of his array of right hands and forearms before stomping away in the corner. Bagwell pounds on Luger’s back and says hi to his mom Judy (future World Tag Team Champion. Please, don’t ask).

 

Luger gets in a back elbow but can’t follow up at all. Then again he took some forearms to the back so how good could be be right now? Bagwell puts on a chinlock for a bit before clotheslining Luger down for two. Back to the chinlock as this match is already going long. Luger tries to come back but a knee to the ribs puts him right back down. Now it’s a sleeper because this match hasn’t had enough rest holds. Lex finally fights up and suplexes him down so let’s lay around even more.

 

Luger pounds away and hits some clotheslines and atomic drops. Now Luger has to beat up Vincent before suplexing Bagwell down. Vincent is thrown off the top and clotheslined to the floor and Luger stomps away in the corner. The referee calls him off, allowing Bagwell to hit him in the back and into the referee. Luger puts Buff in the Torture Rack but there’s no referee to see Randy Savage make the save. Savage gets racked but here’s Scott Norton to hit Luger in the head with a chain and put Bagwell on top for the pin.

 

Rating: D. In case you’re keeping track, we’re about an hour and forty minutes into this show and the heels are still undefeated. I’m assuming the idea here was to make Bagwell look like he can beat a big name, but having him need three other guys and a weapon to do so isn’t going to accomplish that goal. This was really boring too and could have had five minutes cut out from it.

 

US Title: Curt Hennig vs. Diamond Dallas Page

 

Hennig is defending and had been feuding with Flair for months, but Flair is hurt so Page is subbing for him. Curt is also NWO of course. Apparently Page stole the physical belt last night on Saturday Night….and then gave it back before the match tonight. That sounds like an idea they had and then dropped. Page has bad ribs which he had for months on end. Hennig gets elbowed in the face a lot and knocked out to the floor for a breather.

 

Back in and Hennig wisely goes after the bad ribs before putting on a chinlock. Thankfully it doesn’t last long as Page counters into the much more interesting headlock. Curt fights up and is put right back into the hold as the match continues to go slowly. Back up and they head to the floor where Hennig snaps Page’s throat across the top rope to take over. Page also goes ribs first into the steps as Hennig is thinking with his attack here. They go back into the ring where Curt pounds on the ribs even more.

 

Page tries to fight back but charges into a boot in the corner and a clothesline takes him down. Off to a chinlock which must be left over from the Bagwell match. The fans start chanting boring as this hold drags on for over a minute. Page finally fights up and hits a jawbreaker to escape before punching Hennig out to the floor. A dive over the top puts Hennig down again and Page throws him into the crowd to continue the beating.

 

They head back inside where Hennig gets to do his reverse crotch against the post spot. The Diamond Cutter is blocked by a grab of the ropes though and Hennig gets two. A rollup gets two for Page but Hennig clotheslines him down for two. Hennig loads up his Hennigplex but Page counters into a Diamond Cutter. He totally botched the move though and it looks like an armbar. They both get back up and Page hits the Diamond Cutter out of nowhere for the US Title and the first win by a good guy of the night.

 

Rating: C-. This wasn’t great and the botched ending hurt it a bit. Still though, it’s nice to see the fans have something to cheer for, even though it took them nearly two hours to get there. To say the Diamond Cutter was a popular move is the understatement of the year, as the fans went nuts when he hit it. This was a pretty dull match until the Cutter hit.

 

Bret Hart comes out to be guest referee. There’s no pyro, there’s no big entrance, there’s nothing but generic music and Bret casually walking to the ring. The theory is that he’s in the NWO but that’s never been confirmed yet.

 

Eric Bischoff vs. Larry Zbyszko

 

This should have been Hall vs. Larry, as those two had been talking trash to each other for months. However, Larry only gets Hall if he beats Eric here tonight. If Eric wins, the NWO controls Nitro. Larry is in good shape here considering he’s 46 and hasn’t wrestled regularly in about five years. Bret checks them for weapons and we’re ready to go. Bischoff has the body of a 15 year old girl. He is however a black belt in karate so you can expect a lot of striking.

 

Bischoff hits a quick shot to Larry’s head and immediately celebrates. More strikes follow and Eric heads out to the floor for consultation with Hall. Back in and Larry hits some shots of his own and Eric is scared. Larry goes after him again and Eric hits a spin kick to the side of the head that knocks Larry down. That’s enough for Zbyszko and he charges at Eric and takes him down to the mat. Bret admonishes him for pulling Eric’s hair, so Larry puts on a sleeper and a headscissors, both of which are broken up for being chokes.

 

Off to a standing figure four but Eric quickly makes a rope. The damage is done though and Larry goes after the leg. Makes sense against a karate guy. Bret keeps Larry away from Eric and the announcers PANIC. Imagine that: a referee following the rules. Eric is sent into the steps and takes a brief walk around the ring. Back in and Bret blocks a right hand from Larry, allowing Eric to get in a kick to the head. Bischoff fires more kicks with Larry on the ropes, although Bret is fine with them.

 

Eric is starting to kick himself out though as the kicks are getting weaker and weaker each time. Now he fires rights and lefts in the corner as Larry is just covering up. Eric can barely move now and Larry shakes everything off. A suplex puts Bischoff down and Larry ties him in the Tree of Woe. Hall pulls something out of his pocket and loads it into Eric’s shoe, WITH BRET LOOKING RIGHT AT THEM. I mean, he knows what’s going on so why not LOOK THE OTHER WAY???

 

Anyway, Eric kicks him in the head with the loaded foot and the piece of metal goes flying. Bret isn’t supposed to see it, despite watching it fly through the air. Eric celebrates, so Bret hits both Bischoff and Hall before putting Hall in the Sharpshooter, which is Bret’s version of the Scorpion Deathlock. Larry chokes Eric for a bit and is declared the winner, presumably by DQ.

 

Rating: F. This was in the second to last spot on the biggest show of the year and featured the boss of the company who has no skill whatsoever in the ring. Larry did fine all things considered, but to waste this spot on this match and to waste BRET HART’s in ring debut on this match is absolutely ridiculous in every sense of the word.

 

And yet, it’s only going to get worse.

 

Before we get to the main event, I need to set the stage a bit more. This match is 18 months in the making at minimum. Hogan has been the biggest villain in the company the entire time and has been behind a ton of attacks, crooked endings, and every other possible evil thing you can do as a wrestler. He has basically held the world title hostage for the entire time and has gone completely against WCW. Tonight should be his punishment for those crimes. This match should be Hogan being taken to the gallows and executed for everything he’s done for the last year and a half.

 

WCW World Title: Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan

 

So how does Hogan come out after running scared of Sting for a year and a half? He struts to the ring, playing the belt like a guitar. He looks like he’s about to face Sick Boy instead of Sting for the world title. Hogan should have had people literally dragging him to the ring as he was trying everything he could to get out of the match. Have him offering money to the security, have him trying to run, have him doing ANYTHING but walking out with that big grin on his face.

 

After a year of repelling from the rafters, coming through the crowd, and at one point ziplining to the ring Sting…..calmly walks out. Oh wait there’s some lightning and a voiceover that we’ve heard before so it’s cool right? They stare each other down and as the bell rings, Hogan shoves him away. Sting slaps him so Hogan walks around the ring and is loudly booed as you would expect. Sting is pushed to the corner but comes out with a right hand and it’s pretty much all downhill from there.

 

We’re about two minutes into the match now and that’s literally all that’s happened. Hogan kicks him in the ribs and a single right hand sends Sting flying across the ring. Sting is pounded in the corner as Hogan gives a shout out to his son, Nasty Nick. A shot to the throat has Sting in trouble as the crowd is stunned. There’s a slam but Hogan misses three straight elbows. A dropkick puts Hogan on the floor and Sting just stands there looking down at Hollywood.

 

Back in and the fans are chanting boring. Hogan grabs a headlock before running Sting over like he’s not even there. Two more dropkicks send Hogan to the floor and again just stands there. Back inside again and Sting puts on a headlock to take Hogan down. We’re six minutes into this and the entire sequence of action has been punches, headlocks, a shoulder block and dropkicks. Goldberg and McMichael went less than six minutes and had a full match while Hogan and Sting have fit about a minute’s worth of action in the same amount of time.

 

Hogan shoves him off and lays Sting out with a clothesline. As in Sting is down on the mat for about 10 seconds off a clothesline. A suplex puts Sting down but he’s on his feet before Hogan is. That’s more like it. He does the crotch chop sign to Hogan and pounds Hogan into the corner….so Hogan calmly rakes the eyes to take over again. Hogan is toying with Sting so far and he does even more toying by throwing Sting to the floor. Sting is thrown into the timekeeper’s area and Hogan hits him in the neck with Sting’s trademark baseball bat.

 

Sting is choked with a t-shirt up against the railing, but he comes back by whipping Hogan into the barricade. As usual though, Sting misses the Stinger Splash into the steel and Hogan takes over seconds later. Sting is crotched on the barricade and dropped with a single right hand. I’ve seen Hogan have more trouble dropping jobbers. Back in and Hogan hits an atomic drop before choking away. We’re over ten minutes into this now and Hogan hasn’t been in significant trouble at all.

 

And now, it’s going to get even worse.

 

Hogan hits the big boot and the legdrop for the pin in a little over eleven minutes. Now, the announcers start talking about a fast count, but the count was about as fast as you would expect it to be, albeit maybe a hair faster. It’s far from what you would call a fast count when you’re talking about a crooked referee though. I’ve heard stories over the years about Hogan actually paying the referee to count at a normal speed to count properly instead of doing it fast, and if that’s the case then he did a decent job at it. The count was close enough that you could buy it either way, but it looked good enough.

 

On top of that, the far bigger problem with the fast count theory is that it doesn’t hold up when you look at the aftermath. The idea behind a fast count is that the guy would have been able to kick out had it been at normal speed. Sting NEVER MOVED. He doesn’t push off, he doesn’t sit up after the count, he doesn’t kick his legs. Sting is still laying on the mat a good ten seconds after the three count. Even with the fast count, Sting looks like he’s out cold so the count doesn’t even make a difference.

 

On top of THAT, Bret Hart is seen walking in front of the camera as Hogan is going down for the cover. Not a few seconds after the cover, not as Hogan is celebrating, but as Hogan is getting on top of Sting. That would mean that he came into the arena probably before Hogan even hit the big boot. Why was he out there? He’s there early enough to grab the timekeeper’s hand before he can strike the bell, which makes even less sense.

 

Back to the “action” as Bret grabs the mic and mumbles that “he’s not going to let it happen again.” He complains about the count being fast and decks Nick Patrick (who has the most amazing overblown fall ever, throwing his arms in the air and falling over like a tree). Hogan tries to leave (as Sting is just now getting up) but Bret throws him back in the ring.

 

Bret calls for the bell, Sting goes NUTS and hits a quick Stinger Splash. He tries for another but Hogan holds the ropes, pretty much stopping Sting’s momentum cold. The NWO runs in but Sting fights them off and hits another splash on Hogan. The Scorpion Deathlock goes on and Hogan gives up, allowing Bret to call for the bell and give Sting the title.

 

WCW comes out to celebrate, Sting shouts something in what sounds like Spanish (the last word was mamacita. A quick Google search says Sting said something like “revenge is sweet baby”) into the camera, end of show.

 

Rating: W. As in where in the world do I even start. First and foremost, the match absolutely sucked in case you couldn’t tell. Hogan was destroying Sting for over ten minutes and then pinned him clean(ish) in the middle of the ring. It’s completely against everything that the match was supposed to be and was horribly boring on top of that. This made Sting look like a complete joke and did little for anyone else besides Hogan.

 

Now for the second ending, which has even more holes in it. First and foremost, there’s one huge problem with what Bret did: what if you didn’t watch WWF? Simple question: what if you had no idea that this was a reference to what happened at Survivor Series a few weeks ago because you don’t watch that company’s programming? What was Bret not allowing to happen again? Granted you can only be confused by that if you understood what Bret said, which was mumbled pretty badly.

 

Second, Bret was hired as guest referee for one match, but he now has the authority to referee any match he wants all night long. The fans live weren’t told that, so they either had to put it together in about a minute and a half, or they were completely oblivious to what was going on. The whole idea was a stretch to put it mildly and it was made even worse by how badly it was executed.

 

Finally…..just why? I mean, aside from Hogan, who could have possibly thought this was a good idea? The answer I’ve heard from either Hogan or Bischoff in one of their books is that Sting had some substance abuse issues and was in no condition to be champion at this point. The problem with that theory is that Sting just wrestled a coherent enough match. He was pretty much a shell of his former self, but he was able to throw dropkicks, punches, the Stinger Splash and the Scorpion Deathlock. That’s really all he needed in this match, but apparently he wasn’t capable of doing those things, at least according to Hogan or Bischoff.

 

All in all, this match is the biggest disaster that I can ever remember for a major match. It was booked completely backwards, it did nothing that it was supposed to do, the ending was screwed up, and the fans were likely confused by at least one thing at the time. Sting may indeed have had a drug problem at the time, but if he’s even remotely capable of wrestling a passable match (which he clearly was), you give the fans this moment and worry about the rest later. It’s been over 15 years since this happened and I’m still amazed by how badly they screwed this up.

 

Overall Rating: F. That’s the only way to describe this show: a failure. WCW completely failed at what they were trying to do here and the show is a disaster. The best match is just slightly above average and that’s likely being generous. No good guy wins until nearly two hours into the show and the main reason to watch the show (which A LOT of people did) was completely fouled up.

 

This is everything that you can possibly do wrong on a major show rolled into one and multiplied several times over. There’s nothing truly good here and the aftershocks of this show crippled WCW for good. This was supposed to be the night that WCW was supposed to come back from everything that had gone wrong for them and take back their company. At the end of the day, they got back the US Title and that’s it. They already had Nitro and yeah they got back the world title. For now. That’s the other reason this show is so awful: at the end of the day, none of this mattered.

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Road Wild 1998
Date: August 8, 1998
Location: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Sturgis, South Dakota
Attendance: 8,500
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenany, Bobby Heenan

The summer of celebrities continues with one of the worst ideas I can imagine: Jay Leno as a professional wrestler. I still don’t get who this is supposed to attract. Fans of the Tonight Show don’t seem like the kind of people that are going to drop $30 to see something they know is going to be a goofy comedy bit and wrestling fans aren’t going to buy it because it’s Jay Leno as a wrestler. On top of that there’s one match that has been pushed at all here and it’s a battle royal. Why they can’t just do NWO vs. NWO and Goldberg vs. Giant is beyond me but I’d bet politics were involved. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is a collection of Tonight Show clips which still do nothing to change the fact that it’s Eric Bischoff and Jay Leno in the main event.

I’ll give Road Wild this much: no show comes close to having such a unique atmosphere.

The announcers don’t look as ridiculous this year. Tenay in a jean jacket is still ridiculous looking though.

Gene is sitting on a motorcycle to start and brags about 200,000 bikers being here in Sturgis. Not at the show mind you but I’m sure that’s what will be claimed.

The ring and mats are up on a platform instead of level ground.

Meng vs. Barbarian

This is going to be a long show. The fight starts at the bell with both guys pounding on each other and screaming a lot. They fight over a sumo lockup before trading some chops in the corner. Meng takes over with a hard clothesline even though it didn’t knock Barbarian down. Barbarian comes right back with a belly to belly superplex but Meng pops up and piledrives him.

Meng misses a middle rope splash, no sells it, and goes up top again. Barbarian catches him in a belly to belly superplex as Tenay talks about 350,000 people being at the biker rally this week. A powerslam puts Barbarian down but he gets right back up for some chopping. Meng staggers him with some headbutts but gets pulled to the floor. Barbarian sends him into the steps and heads back inside, only to have Meng put on the Tongan Death Grip for the pin.

Rating: D. It sucked as a match but this wasn’t the worst idea for an opening match. A crowd of bikers is going to respond to two monsters beating each other up for five minutes and they seemed interested here. It doesn’t do much for the wrestling fans, but this show was never for them in the first place.

Meng won’t let go of the hold so Jimmy Hart comes in for the save. That goes as well as you would expect so here’s Hugh Morrus for the second save. Meng gets triple teamed, including a top rope splash from Hart, so Jim Duggan makes the final save, drawing a big pop from the bikers that might have watched a few wrestling matches ten years ago.

Tenay’s estimates are now up to 360,000.

Disco Inferno/Alex Wright vs. Public Enemy

Tokyo Magnum is here with the dancers. Wright rolls away from Rocco to start before hiptossing him down and dancing. They fight over a wristlock until Alex dropkicks him down and tags in Disco. He’s not quite ready to fight yet though and drops to the floor for a three way high five with the other dancers. Back in and Disco takes Grunge down with a clothesline before bringing Wright back in for a missile dropkick. Alex stops for some dancing and turns around into a Rocco clothesline.

A double flapjack puts Inferno down and Tokyo throws in a trashcan out of nowhere. Grunge gets cracked over the back as the referee is cool with all of this. Rocco brings in a ladder and that’s too much for the dancers who go for a walk. Tokyo doesn’t want to leave but his partners come back with a table. Disco grabs a mic and says let’s make this a street fight. Tony states the obvious: “Haven’t we already made it one already?”

The referee is fine with that so Public Enemy goes to the back to find a toilet seat and a kitchen sink. Grunge pounds on Disco on the floor as Tony hypes up a cookie sheet. Wright suplexes Rocco through a trashcan but Grunge blasts Alex with the sheet for the save. Rocco loads up the flip dive through the table but Disco makes a save to prevent Wright’s demise. The kitchen sink is brought in and nearly broken over Grunge’s back. The fans want to see the table but they get Tokyo Magnum thrown inside instead.

Public Enemy throws the dancers into each other and give them stereo atomic drops, only to have Wright come back with a leg lariat to Grunge. Tokyo hits Magnum by mistake as Grunge blasts Disco in the face with the ladder. Alex walks away as Rocco see-saws a ladder into Disco’s hair. Now Tokyo walks away, leaving Public Enemy to set up three tables on top of each other next to the platform. Grunge climbs a ladder to put Disco on the top table, allowing Rocco to climb the scaffolding for a huge elbow drop. Grunge has to throw Disco back inside, avoid a top rope splash from a returning Magnum, and get the pin.

Rating: D+. The match was fun and the spot at the end was good (though also odd looking with a delay before each table broke) but it took over fifteen minutes to get there. The wrestling stuff at the beginning was a waste of time and they should have just gone to the street fight stuff from the beginning. Not horrid though.

Dean Malenko says he’ll be a fair referee.

Raven vs. Kanyon vs. Saturn

Under Raven’s Rules, meaning hardcore. Raven’s music is so awesome that it doesn’t belong on a show like this. The question coming into this is whether Kanyon is under Raven’s control or not. Raven stands on the apron and tells Kanyon to get Saturn, only to have Perry take over with some kicks. Raven comes in with a chair to Saturn’s back and sends Kanyon into the post before Saturn falls to the floor as well.

Saturn and Kanyon get in a fight on the floor as Heenan tries to figure out the story of the match as only he can. Raven sits in the corner while the other two fight in the ring but they finally realize what’s going on. Kanyon dropkicks Raven low and Saturn belly to back suplexes Raven into a Kanyon neckbreaker. Kanyon throws Raven into Saturn and hits rolling Russian legsweeps on Raven for two in a nice move. Saturn breaks up the cover with a guillotine legdrop on Raven for two and the Moss Covered Three Handled Family Credenza gets the same on Raven.

Kanyon gets in another fight with Saturn so Raven blasts them both in the head with a chair, only to be sent to the floor. Saturn follows him out so Kanyon dives on both guys, giving us our first breather in awhile. They get off the platform where Kanyon whips Raven HARD into the barricade. Raven comes back with a suplex to put Kanyon down on the ramp (designed like a road) but Saturn clotheslines Raven down for two. Kanyon piledrives Saturn on the stage for two more before Raven dropkicks Kanyon down the stage.

They fight back to the ring where both guys drop down to avoid a charging Raven before Saturn catches him with a t-bone suplex. Saturn puts Raven in a sleeper but Kanyon puts one on Saturn as well before a jawbreaker puts everyone down. We get a Tower of Doom with Kanyon superplexing Saturn and Raven putting Kanyon in an electric chair.

Raven tries a double DDT on both guys but only puts Saturn down. Kanyon and Raven head outside with Raven getting suplexed onto the floor. Kanyon misses a splash off the scaffolding but Saturn catches Raven in the Death Valley Driver. Lodi makes the save but Horace comes in to lay out Saturn. Horace picks up the stop sign but gets blinded by Lodi’s powder. He caves Raven’s head in and a Death Valley Driver to Raven gives Saturn the pin.

Rating: C. This was a mess but it was supposed to be. I’m still not sure where they go with this story now but it would seem to still be Raven vs. Saturn. Kanyon was just there to keep spots going and he did a good job, but that doesn’t mean he helped the story or really changed anything.

Psychosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Bonus match and the winner gets a Cruiserweight Title shot at a date to be determined. Since that’s not important, the announcers talk about Leno being nervous. Psychosis takes him to the mat with a headlock followed by an armbar. Rey tries to get up but gets taken back down by the wrist. The crowd is dead for this which shouldn’t shock anyone. Back up again and Rey can’t hook a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker so Psychosis clotheslines him down for two.

A sitout front suplex gets two for Psychosis and he whips Rey from corner to corner. Rey’s arms are wrapped around the ropes in the corner as this somehow gets even slower. It’s not terrible mind you but it’s the completely wrong style for these two to be working. Psychosis suplexes Rey down and goes up top, only to do the most obvious “I’m going up here to jump into his raised boots because I’m jumping straight down instead of doing ANY kind of move at all” spot I can remember in a long time.

Rey FINALLY realizes that he’s the king of cruiserweights and cartwheels at Psychosis before jumping onto his shoulders for a spinning hurricanrana. Believe it or not, the crowd actually responds to the high spot. After nothing of note on the floor, Rey hits a big cross body for two but has his hurricanrana countered into a sitout powerbomb. That’s enough of the big spots though and it’s nerve hold time. Rey fights up onto Psychosis’ shoulders but gets dropped back into a suplex for two.

They head outside again where Psychosis….does nothing. Back inside with Psychosis putting on a half crab before going up top for a super Frankensteiner for two. Psychosis goes up again but turns his back to Rey, only to get dropkicked out to the floor. Rey follows him out with a nice dive before throwing him back inside for a springboard sunset flip for a close two.

Mysterio hits something like a Fameasser with both legs across Psychosis’ back followed by a slingshot moonsault for two. Psychosis comes back with something resembling a Fameasser of his own for two but Rey avoids a charge and West Coast Pops his way to the #1 contendership.

Rating: D+. This felt like a car that was low on gas. You could get it going for a few moments, but eventually it would sputter and die. These two are capable of having some awesome matches but instead they were happy with just laying around and doing nothing most of the time. Rey was trying but Psychosis looked horrible.

TV Title: Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Stevie Ray

Before the match Chavo shows off another hand made and stamped document saying that he’s the TV Champion, so Stevie needs to come out here and give him his belt. Chavo tries to do the handshake bit again but Stevie runs away because he doesn’t want to win a match by submission for some reason. Instead Stevie just punches him in the head and blocks a sunset flip with a choke. Chavo bails to the floor as the announcers call this a version of the rope-a-dope. Guerrero tries to sneak in but gets caught in the Slap Jack (lifting Pedigree) for the quick pin. This was a nothing squash.

Eddie saves Chavo from a further beating post match.

Jericho promises to keep the title and warns Malenko to be good tonight.

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Rick is in jeans and a t-shirt…and here’s JJ to say hang on a second. Apparently Scott is too injured to wrestle and here he is on a stretcher with his arm and leg in casts, a neck brace, and on an oxygen tube. Rick’s chair shot to Scott was so bad that even Buff’s neck is reinjured. The match is rescheduled for Fall Brawl, and the fans are LIVID. If Scott doesn’t fight at Fall Brawl, he’s suspended for life. Scott jumps up but runs away from a charging Rick to end this stupid bait and switch.

Brian Adams vs. Steve McMichael

Another bonus match which is about as welcome as 847 angry yellowjackets pouring buckets of boiling tar on your back and injecting you with needles filled with herpes while a blind monk with a bad case of the shakes checks you for a hernia. They shove each other around to start before not having a test of strength. We get the ugliest mistimed sequence this side of Tough Enough as Adams misses a clothesline and they just kind of run into each other and McMichael putting on a front facelock.

Adams slams him down and drops a pair of legs for two. We hit the nerve hold for a LONG time before Adams hits a backbreaker and bends Mongo over his knee. Mongo avoids a middle rope knee drop and comes back with a belly to back suplex. A few three point shoulders take Adams down but he shrugs them off and loads up a piledriver, only to have the referee kicked in the face. Vincent tries to bring in a chair but cracks Adams by mistake, setting up the tombstone for the pin.

Rating: E. As in ebola, which sounds a lot better than sitting through this match ever again. On to ANYTHING else please.

The Nitro Girls are around Gene on the motorcycle.

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera

Dean Malenko is refereeing and Jericho is defending. Jericho comes to the ring in a purple kimona because that’s the kind of guy he is. As always, he wants us to want him but opts to tease the bikers instead. I wonder if there are any Aces and 8’s in the crowd. Jericho takes him into the corner to start and Malenko tears him away as he’s supposed to do. Juvy takes out Jericho’s legs and chops away but Jericho elbows him in the face to take over again.

Juvy is sent to the floor and Jericho loads something up but Dean pulls him to the mat by the hair. Well at least according to Tenay, as the camera was on Juvy the entire time. Back in and Juvy slams Jericho onto the mat and a missile dropkick sends the champion outside. Guerrera chops him off the platform and into the barricade before going inside for a HUGE placha over the platform and into Jericho into the barricade.

Back in and Juvy gets two off a springboard cross body but Jericho catches another cross body attempt into something resembling a Juvy Driver for two. Dean’s count was noticeably slow and the count off a delayed vertical suplex is even slower. Juvy rolls out to the floor while Jericho yells at some fans before getting hit with a backsplash for two. We hit the chinlock on Guerrera before Chris stomps away and talks trash.

The Lionsault hits knees and Juvy comes back with chops and a hurricanrana. A top rope spinwheel kicks gets the same……slow……two……count from Dean but Jericho counters a running hurricanrana into a powerbomb. Jericho kicks him out to the apron instead of covering and kicks Juvy onto the floor. Back in and a clothesline gets two on Guerrera as the crowd is trying to care about this.

A Jericho powerbomb is countered into a DDT to wake the fans up a bit and the Juvy Driver gets a two count. Jericho is dazed but still manages to crotch Guerrera on the top and superplex him back down. Juvy rolls over for two but has another hurricanrana countered into the Liontamer. He’s right in front of the ropes though and Jericho is getting frustrated.

Juvy pounds away in the corner and Dean seems to have been poked in the eye. A belt shot lays out the challenger but Dean’s slow count means it’s only for two. Jericho is all ticked off and goes to the middle rope. He kicks Dean in the chest and that makes Malenko snap. Well snap as much as he’s capable of. Dean launches a charging Juvy into a middle rope Frankensteiner for the pin and the title.

Rating: B-. The match was good but it’s running with the anchor of this entire show. Maybe the heat of the day has something to do with it but these matches have all been incredibly sluggish. Juvy was trying here and Jericho was his usual great self but they could only get so far. Again though, why didn’t they just have Dean take the title himself?

Battle Royal

Goldberg, Scott Hall, Curt Hennig, The Giant, Scott Norton, Sting, Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, Konnan

You can be eliminated either over the top or by pin/submission. Hall interrupts the ridiculously long entrances with the survey to keep this show going even longer. The NWO factions brawl while Goldberg hides in the corner. That lasts about fifteen seconds before Goldberg goes after Giant, which should have been a regular match tonight in the first place. Again that doesn’t last long and the match breaks down into a regular battle royal.

Hall loads up the Outsiders’ Edge on Goldberg but gets backdropped out. Nash eliminates himself (you can’t make up jokes like this) and goes after Hall as Goldberg spears Hennig down. Things get slow again with no one trying for an elimination. Goldberg finally pounds on Giant but gets headbutted back against the ropes. The fans chant for Goldberg as Giant takes him down with a Russian legsweep. Norton breaks up a Scorpion attempt on Hennig to keep the crowd bored.

Goldberg spears Konnan and throws him out before getting kicked in the corner by Giant. The NWO keeps fighting and Goldberg goes right back to the corner to wait for the next victim. It’s a short wait this time as he spears and eliminates Hennig before clotheslining Sting and Norton to the floor as well. We’re down to Luger, Giant and Goldberg but there’s a spear to Luger so Giant can dump him. A chokeslam puts Goldberg down but he does the Undertaker sit up and it’s a spear and Jackhammer for the win.

Rating: F. Holy sweet goodness how did WCW survive this long? There were eight eliminations in this match and Goldberg had six of them. The other two were a self elimination and someone Goldberg knocked out cold. There were, conservatively, five PPV title matches in there and Goldberg beat them all in less than eight minutes. You could have easily had someone throw Goldberg out and set them up as the challenger but instead let’s just have him destroy EVERYONE (except Nash of course because Nash losing would just be silly) and leave you with no challengers. But hey, a bunch of bikers cheered right?

Jay Leno/Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eric Bischoff/Hollywood Hogan

Thank goodness they don’t have another video package to set this up. The one good thing about this: Liz ROCKING some jeans and chaps. Leno is apparently here to defend his title as King of Late Night. Kevin Eubanks is at ringside. Leno throws water at Hogan and Bischoff on the floor to show how serious he is. Hogan and Page start (thank goodness) and we get the usual non-action headlined by a wristlock.

Page drives in the shoulders and hits a big right hand, knocking Hogan into a left hand from Leno. Hogan is sent to the floor and the ripped Kevin Eubanks sends him into the post. Leno leads a chant against Hogan and is at least into the match. Bischoff comes in and Jay tries to go after him but gets held back. Page shrugs off some kicks to the chest and it’s off to Leno. Bischoff runs away to Hogan and Jay stays in. He points at his chin and makes fun of Hogan’s baldness which is about what you would expect. Leno avoids a pair of right hands and tags in Page.

Hogan clotheslines Page down and it’s back to the driving shoulders. Leno comes back in to grab the wrist and in one of the most painful things I can remember seeing as a wrestling fan, Hogan sells it. He wouldn’t sell for Sting at Starrcade but he’s selling for Jay Leno. Hogan shoves him into the corner and drives in a knee but Leno grabs the wrist again. A double clothesline puts Hogan down and Leno gets two before nearly collapsing into a tag to Page. Ok to be fair to Leno, he did his job and was actually trying. Points for that.

The wrestlers head to the floor and Eubanks steals a chair from Hogan to keep Page in control. Back in and Bischoff gets in a kick to the back of Page’s head to change momentum. Bischoff gets in his shots to make himself feel important before Hogan gets in a shot with a foreign object to give Eric a two count. There’s the big boot but Page gets up before the legdrop and takes Hogan down with the discus lariat.

Leno gets the hot tag and we get the showdown with Bischoff…..who drops Leno with a poke to the eye. Jay comes back with a low blow and some right hands before sending Bischoff into some buckles. Leno is totally gassed and everything breaks down. Hogan hits Bischoff by mistake and Eubanks hits a very good looking Diamond Cutter on Bischoff to give Leno the pin.

Rating: D. Of course that’s on an adjusted scale. This match wasn’t horrible but it was incredibly stupid. Again I’d like to reiterate that Leno did his job to the best of his ability. He did his comedy stuff, took a few shots from Hogan and got the pin on Bischoff. He was bad, but you knew that was going to happen as soon as this was announced. As for the booking, there were a bunch of other ideas they could have gone with here and this was probably the worst possible outcome.

You could have gone with the Battle of the Billionaires idea with Leno backing Page against Hogan in a singles match and done the showdown with Bischoff that way. You could have swapped in Goldberg for Page and done Goldberg vs. Hogan II with the same Leno vs. Bischoff outside stuff. Do that and put Page in the battle royal to get Goldberg’s next challenger. You could have done any of those things and gotten a better result, but it wouldn’t be WCW if they had gone that way.

Hogan and Bischoff get in more cheap shots until Goldberg comes in for the save. The good guys pose to end the wrestling part of the show.

The announcers talk and we get a video on Fall Brawl.

Gene interviews some fans as Travis Tritt gets ready.

The announcers wrap things up as the concert starts to end the show.

Overall Rating: F. There’s no other way to put it: this show sucked. The ONLY good match is the Cruiserweight Title match and maybe you could argue the triple threat, which was done on Nitro just a few weeks earlier. WCW is in a creative tailspin here and it’s not looking any better. Depending on your tastes, things are about to get either a lot more fun or a lot worse as the product is going to go from dull to awful in a hurry.

 

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Starrcade 1988
Date: December 26, 1988
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Virginia
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Bob Caudle

 

In addition to the main event I talked about, the other major match is Sting teaming up with Dusty Rhodes to take on the freshly evil Road Warriors for their newly won tag team titles. The Warriors had turned on Dusty during a six man tag so Dusty went out and got a young star in Sting to team with him. This was a big deal for Sting as in March he had received a world title shot against Flair on live national television, so he was clearly ready for the move to the next level. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video is about the two major matches already listed along with Barry Windham vs. Bam Bam Bigelow for the US Title.

 

The announcers spend awhile hyping the show.

 

US Tag Titles: Varsity Club vs. Fantastics

 

The Fantastics are defending here and are Tommy Fulton/Bobby Rodgers, as well as my own personal favorite WCW tag team from this era. The Varsity Club on the other hand was a very interesting idea. They’re three guys (Steve Williams, Kevin Sullivan and Mike Rotundo) who were all (well not really in Sullivan’s case) top level collegiate athletes. They had a lot of success in 1988 with Rotundo holding the TV Title for just under a year. This is Williams/Sullivan challenging for the titles.

 

Sullivan and Fulton start things off with the champion speeding things up. A Thesz Press gets two on Kevin and it’s off to Tommy for a backdrop. Williams (also called Dr. Death or Doc) gets the tag and the Fantastics stop cold. Jason Hervey from the Wonder Years is here. Doc powers Rodgers down to the mat as the match slows way down. Off to Fulton who can’t do anything with Williams’ power either. The champions finally start double teaming but Fulton gets caught in a gorilla press with multiple lifts in the air.

 

Fulton comes back with what I think was a dropkick to the ribs followed by a regular dropkick to the face. Williams misses an elbow and it’s back to Tommy with a dropkick of his own. Back to Sullivan who misses a clothesline and falls to the floor. For him, that’s an upgrade over his usual stuff. Back in and Rodgers counters a backdrop and dropkicks Kevin down again. Williams comes back in but gets caught in a double noggin knocker and a double backdrop.

 

Things settle down a bit and Williams rams Tommy face first into the buckle before bringing Sullivan back in. Kevin does little of note (as usual) and tags Doc again for more power brawling. Sullivan comes back and gets rolled up for two as Tommy has far better luck against him than Dr. Death. Williams puts a bearhug on the freshly tagged in Fulton, who pokes Doc in the eye to escape the hold.

 

Back to Rodgers who slams Sullivan off the top but hits knees on a top rope splash. Williams comes back in to run Tommy over, allowing Kevin to get a few near falls. We hit the chinlock on Rodgers before it’s back to Williams for even more punishment. The Varsity Club tags in and out quite well here. Off to another chinlock by Doc before it’s back to Sullivan for a pair of double stomps to the ribs.

 

Tommy finally avoids a knee drop and gets the hot tag off to Fulton. Bobby pounds away on Steve with everything he’s got before putting on a sleeper. Tommy puts one on Sullivan as Bobby charges at Williams, only to get caught in a Hot Shot (picture a spinebuster but Williams falls backwards to drop Bobby’s throat on the top rope) for the pin and the titles.

 

Rating: C+. Not a bad tag match here and they’re getting close to actually having a good opening match for Starrcade. The Varsity Club was on their last legs at this point but winning the titles here was a nice boost for them. Williams looked ready to be a huge star but for some reason it never quite happened.

 

Tony Schiavone and Magnum TA, the hosts for the evening, talk about the remaining matches.

 

Midnight Express vs. Midnight Express

 

This has a very interesting backstory to it. The Midnight Express first formed back in 1981 as a three man team with Dennis Condrey, Randy Rose and Norvell Austin (last mention of him in this discussion). Once the team split up, a man named Bobby Eaton came into the same territory as Condrey and the Midnight Express was reformed as a regular two man tag team. They also picked up Jim Cornette as a manager and became one of the greatest tag teams of all time.

 

A few years later, Dennis left the team and Jim Crockett Promotions with no given explanation (allegedly drug problems but that’s never been confirmed). With Condrey gone, Eaton needed a new partner. A former opponent of his named Stan Lane was brought in and the new combination proved to be even more talented than Condrey and Eaton had been. This is probably the most famous version of the team.

 

Around this time, Condrey and Randy Rose teamed up in the AWA (the midwestern territory) and won their world tag team titles. Soon after dropping the belts, Cornette appealed to the NWA to bring Rose and Condrey back in for a Midnights vs. Midnights feud. Soon after Eaton/Lane lost the world tag titles, Cornette got a phone call laughing about the loss. Apparently Jim recognized the voice and said come say it to his face. Condrey, Rose and their manager Paul E. Dangerously stormed the ring and beat down Lane and Cornette. Tonight is the big brawl between the teams.

 

Eaton and Lane hit the ring fast and the beating is on. Even Cornette wants to fight Paul and the original Midnights head to the floor. Lane and Eaton double suplex Condrey into the ring and the original Midnights are in trouble early on. We finally start with Lane vs. Condrey, the latter of which is sent to the floor. Cornette blasts him in the back with the tennis racket, sending Dangerously into a frenzy.

 

Back in and Lane hits a quick atomic drop on Rose to send him to the floor, stopping things again. Eaton comes in for an elbow drop to Rose’s back as we finally get going. Paul rings the bell for some reason as Eaton knocks Randy out to the floor. Lane continues to clean house, this time sending Condrey into the corner before tagging Eaton back in. It’s totally one sided so far.

 

Eaton and Condrey slug it out with Bobby taking over and dropping a top rope elbow drop for no cover. Back to Stan for a chinlock as things slow down. The fans are totally behind Eaton and Lane here. Eaton comes back in and throws Condrey into the corner for a tag to Randy. Lane blocks a monkey flip from Rose and it’s back to Eaton. Bobby finally misses a charge into the corner, allowing the original Midnights to get in some offense.

 

We hit ten minutes into the match as Rose comes off the middle rope to blast Eaton in the back of the head. Back in and Condrey hits a quick clothesline and some knees to Bobby’s ribs. Cornette chases Paul into the ring but Dangerously gets away. Things calm down with a chinlock by Dennis but Bobby comes back with a swinging neckbreaker. Rose comes back in to break up a hot tag though as the original Midnights maintain control.

 

Off to a front facelock on Eaton with Rose cranking away on his head. Bobby finally backdrops out of it but Condrey comes right in with some more knees to Eaton’s back to keep him down. Back to Rose as Condrey chokes away even more behind the referee’s back. Dennis finally comes back in legally and pounds away on Bobby’s injured ribs but the original Midnights miss the Rocket Launcher (Rose goes up top and Condrey launches him at Eaton in a big splash) allowing for the hot tag to Lane.

 

Stan cleans house and dances a bit before kicking Rose in the back of the head. Everything breaks down and the referee is knocked to the floor. Dangerously nails Lane with his telephone but Cornette takes out Paul. The referee sees the phone and won’t count the pin on Lane as the match continues. With Condrey distracted, the new Midnights hit the Double Goozle (clothesline from Eaton, rollup from Lane) for the pin out of nowhere.

 

Rating: B. Really good and fast paced tag match here as both teams looked sharp. The idea here was very simple and sometimes you don’t need anything more than that. Having the managers get involved was a nice touch and the whole thing worked really well. This was one of the hottest stories in the company for months on end and it’s easy to see why given how crisp things looked here.

 

Post match the original Midnights and Heyman destroy the new Midnights and Cornette. With the originals on Cornette though, Eaton gets the tennis racket and runs them off.

 

The Varsity Club talks about how awesome they are and swears they’ll always be at the top. Oh and Mike Rotundo is going to run Rick Steiner out of wrestling.

 

Russian Assassins vs. Junkyard Dog/Ivan Koloff

 

This is a thrown together tag match and if the Russians lose, they have to unmask. The Dog is recently here from the WWF where he wasn’t a huge deal but he was a big deal in the UWF. Dog starts with we’ll say Assassin #1 and the masked man is sent into the corner for a quick two count. Off to #2 who is almost immediately knocked to the floor with a big right hand. Paul Jones, now a Russian sympathizer, pulls #2’s leg onto the ropes for the break.

 

Off to Ivan with a hard clothesline and he chokes #2 down to the mat with ease. #2 charges into a boot in the corner and there’s a middle rope clothesline from Ivan for two. JYD and Ivan hit a double clothesline on #2 but #2 comes back with a headbutt of his own to put Dog down. Everything breaks down for a bit until Dog gets a near fall on #1 off a clothesline. The Assassins double team JYD but #2 misses a splash in the corner. Ivan comes in to clean house as everything breaks down again. In the confusion, the Russians load up a foreign object in their masks and a headbutt ends Ivan.

 

Rating: D. This wasn’t any good. I have no idea why Ivan and the Dog teamed up for this match and I didn’t even know the Assassins were a team anymore at this point. This came off like a long filler match which isn’t something you should have to use on a card with just seven matches.

 

The announcers wrap up the first three matches for some reason.

 

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Mike Rotundo

 

This should pick things up a bit. The idea here is that Rick used to be in the Varsity Club but was used as a whipping boy by Rotundo for the better part of a year. One day Steiner, whose mind is a bit scrambled because of a car accident he had a few years earlier, got sick of Mike’s treatment of him and suplexed Rotundo into the middle of next week. Rotundo agreed to face Steiner here to embarrass him, because Rotundo claimed that no one could beat him in a twenty minute match, which is the time limit for TV Title matches. Mike is defending if that’s not clear. Kevin Sullivan is locked in a cage hanging from the ceiling.

 

Mike gets knocked out to the floor to start as Rick is really excited early on. Back in and the champion puts on a wristlock but gets caught in a quick fireman’s carry to get us back to a standoff. Rick hooks a headlock for a bit until Mike shoves him away. Steiner is perfectly fine with that and takes Rotundo’s head off with a Steiner Line for two. A drop toehold puts Rick down but he immediately counters into a hammerlock. Steiner has been out wrestling Rotundo the entire time here.

 

Mick finally counters into a headlock on the mat but Rick, the good guy here, pulls the hair to escape. Back up and Steiner puts on a headlock but gets suplexed down by the champion. They head to the mat again with Mike holding Rick down in a headscissors. Apparently that’s too boring for them so it’s back up for some more circling. Rick starts dancing a bit so Mike bails to the floor for a breather.

 

Back in and Rick runs him over again, only to miss a charge and go flying over the top and out to the floor. Mike pounds away with some elbows to the head back inside followed by a kick to the chest. Off to a chinlock by Rotundo for a LONG time as the match slows down again. A hard clothesline puts Steiner down again as the commentary has stopped for some reason. Rick comes back with a sunset flip for two but gets punched in the jaw for his efforts.

 

Rick fights back again and hits a quick Steiner Line to take Rotundo down. Now the commentary is back and Steiner is pounding away on Mike in the corner. A big backdrop puts the champion down and a powerslam gets two. Rick hits the belly to belly suplex but Steve Williams rings the bell. The referee thinks it’s the time limit but we’ve only gone about seventeen minutes out of twenty allotted.

 

The timekeeper tells the referee what happened as Sullivan is lowered. Another referee comes down as well and Sullivan gets on the apron. Steiner rams Rotundo into Sullivan, knocking the champion out. Rick gets the pin (from both referees) and the title, blowing the roof off the place. It’s one of the loudest pops you’ll ever hear anywhere in wrestling.

 

Rating: C-. The match mostly sucked, but man alive the ending to that was awesome. This is a perfect example of how you blow off a story at the biggest show of the year. The fans went NUTS for the ending as they identified with Steiner as someone standing up to a bully and finally getting his revenge on said bully. Rotundo would get the title back in a few weeks, but THIS match was the important moment and it was done perfectly.

 

Rick hits the floor and sprints around the ring, pointing at a confused Rotundo and shouting I BEAT YOU I BEAT YOU I BEAT YOU! He grabs the TV Title and runs out of the arena before Williams can kill him as the fans come unglued. This is one of those moments where if you don’t smile just a little bit, odds are you don’t have a soul.

 

Tony and Magnum talk about what we just saw and the remainder of the card.

 

US Title: Barry Windham vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

 

Bigelow is a four hundred pound bald monster covered in tattoos who wrestles like he’s about a hundred and fifty pounds lighter. Windham is a Horseman and defending here. Bigelow has Oliver Humperdink with him who was a lower level manager in the 80s while Barry has JJ Dillon who I’m sure you’ve heard of by now. Feeling out process to start with neither guy doing much in the early going. Barry takes it into the corner for some big right hands but Bigelow comes back with an airplane spin of all things.

 

The champion bails to the floor for a timeout before coming back in to suplex Bigelow down. Bam Bam pops back up and drills Windham in the face with a clothesline to send him outside again. Back in again and Bigelow runs Barry down one more time as Windham has no idea what to do here. A HUGE gorilla press puts Windham on the floor again as this has been one sided so far.

 

Bam Bam pounds away in the corner and Windham falls flat on his face. A dropkick sends Windham out to the floor as the fans are going nuts. Bigelow suplexes him down for two and it’s off to a chinlock. Barry fights up and finally gets in some shots to the ribs. Bigelow is knocked to the floor and lands on his knee to really slow him up. They head back in with Bam Bam knocking Barry down from the apron and hitting a slingshot splash. Bigelow lets him up for some reason before slamming Barry down, only to miss the top rope splash.

 

Windham lariats him down and is all fired up now. A belly to back suplex puts Bam Bam down in an impressive display of strength. Barry pounds down right hands in the corner and launches Bigelow out to the floor. Back in and there’s Windham’s claw hold for a bit until Bigelow staggers into the corner for the break. Bigelow is slammed down but Barry misses a top rope elbow. Bam Bam starts pounding away and charges into Barry, knocking both guys over the top and out to the floor. Barry rams him into the post and Bigelow can’t make it back in before the ten count.

 

Rating: B-. This was a big power brawl and it worked pretty well for the most part. The ending is lame but I guess the idea was to keep Bigelow looking strong. That’s rather odd given that Bigelow was pretty much gone from the company after this. Bam Bam looked good here though and we got a good match out of these two so this was a solid effort.

 

Rick Steiner says he got tired of the Varsity Club calling him stupid. Apparently his friend Alex promised him cake. Alex would be his hand puppet.

 

Tag Titles: Road Warriors vs. Dusty Rhodes/Sting

 

So a few weeks before this, the Road Warriors had turned heel on Dusty and tried to blind him with one of the spikes from their shoulder pads. With Dusty down, they had also gone after Sting, setting up this match for revenge. The Warriors also mauled the Midnight Express for the tag titles so the belts are on the line also. It’s a short but simple story and that’s all it needed to be.

 

Sting and Animal get things going and Sting isn’t used to not being the strong one. Animal runs him over but Sting comes right back with a dropkick to send Animal to the floor. The problem with the angle is apparent very early: the fans love all four guys. The Road Warriors had a huge heel turn but they were so beloved that no one wanted to boo them. Dusty comes in to crank on the arm but instead goes after Animal’s eye to send him to the floor.

 

Off to Hawk vs. Sting with the challenger cranking on the arm again. Hawk is WAY too muscled for that to have much effect though and he punches his way out of it. He stomps Sting down in the corner and fires off lefts and rights but one HUGE right hand from Sting drops Hawk. You’ll probably never see that happen again. There’s a powerslam on Hawk and it’s back to Animal for an easy gorilla press on Sting.

 

Sting knocks Animal right back to the floor and hits a huge dive off the top to take him down. The crowd loves Sting and with good reason: he has so much charisma he can barely contain it. Off to Dusty who wraps Animal’s leg around the post but like an idiot, Dusty allows the tag off to Hawk. Dusty loads up his awful figure four on Hawk but Animal saves the hold from being butchered again. Hawk knocks Dusty to the floor and stomps away before heading back in for punches to the jaw.

 

Dusty comes back with a dropkick to stagger Hawk but Animal comes right back in and chokes Rhodes down. Off to a neck crank by Animal as the Dusty portion of this match continues to be a letdown. Hawk comes back in with a sleeper and Dusty continues his “stand around and look annoyed” style of selling. A jawbreaker lets Dusty out of the hold and thank goodness we get the tag off to Sting. He dropkicks Animal into the corner and hits the Stinger Splash but Hawk breaks up the Scorpion Deathlock. Everything breaks down and Sting hits a top rope crossbody, but Paul Ellering pulls the referee out for the DQ.

 

Rating: C. The dilemma of this match is simple: when Dusty is in there it’s dull and when Sting is in there it’s good. The other problem here though is that there was no way they could live up to the hype of this match. This was built up as a dream match and rarely do those things ever work. Also it never felt like Sting and Dusty were out for vengeance with Dusty looking bored out there for awhile. Not that any of this mattered as Dusty would be fired soon after for the excessive blood used in the attack that led up to this feud.

 

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger

 

Speaking of Dusty being fired, since he knew that he was going to be gone as both a wrestler and the booker soon after this, he tried to mess with his real life rival Ric Flair before leaving. The original plan for this match was to have the Varsity Club jump Luger and have Rick Steiner, who remember is basically mentally handicapped, beat Flair for the world title in five minutes. As you can guess, that’s not what happens but it’s an example of what happens when personal issues get in the way of the booking.

 

If Flair is disqualified here, he loses the title. Flair WOO’s in Luger’s face to start before strutting around a bit. No contact in the first minute or so. Flair hits some chops before being clotheslined out to the floor by the much stronger Luger. Legendary wrestler Lou Thesz is in the audience. Back in and Flair tries a hammerlock but is easily overpowered into the ropes.

 

Another clothesline puts Flair down and he hides in the corner for a breather. A powerslam puts Ric down again and there’s a gorilla press for good measure. Off to a wristlock by Luger before he no sells a chop. Flair is sent arm first into the buckle and it’s off to a hammerlock by the challenger. Back up and Ric FINALLY pokes him in the eye to get himself a breather. Flair tries the chops again and Luger just yells at him. Those chops never worked on guys like Luger and Sting but Flair never learned.

 

They head to the floor with Luger cranking Flair’s arm around the barricade to injure it even more. Back to the armbar by Luger as this has been one sided so far. Back up and another clothesline puts Flair down for one and Flair rolls to the apron. There’s a suplex back inside for another near fall on the champion. Luger isn’t getting frustrated yet but he misses a jumping elbow drop to slow him down.

 

Back to the floor with Flair sending him face first into the barricade and chopping away which actually has an effect now. They go back inside and Flair stomps on the ribs but tries more chops which just wake Luger up. Lex puts on a sleeper but gets suplexed right back down to give both guys a breather. The Figure Four is countered into a small package for two by the challenger, followed by a superplex for two more.

 

Now Luger puts the figure four on Flair but the champion eventually makes it into the ropes. Lex pounds away in the corner but accidentally knocks the referee down. Flair uses the distraction to rake Luger’s eyes and throw him over the top, but Luger dives back in for a clothesline for two. Lex pounds away in the corner and sends him into the other corner for the Flair Flip. Another suplex gets another two on the champion but the referee gets taken down again.

 

Luger hits another powerslam but doesn’t cover for some reason. To be fair the guy never has been all that bright. He calls for the Rack but a JJ Dillon distraction lets Flair hit Luger in the leg with a chair to completely change momentum. Back in and Flair cannonballs down onto the leg as Luger is in BIG trouble. Flair kicks him in the knee and drops his own knee on Luger’s bad knee before putting on the Figure Four. Luger sits up and flexes his muscles before turning the hold over for a break. The leg is badly damaged though so Luger’s explosiveness is gone.

 

Flair goes up but Luger manages to slam him off the top on just one good leg. Luger no sells a right hand to the head and is all fired up again. There’s another gorilla press slam but the knee goes out as he turns Flair over. Flair sends him out to the floor again but Lex comes back in with a sunset flip for two. Luger flexes again but pounds Flair down in the corner on pure adrenaline. A clothesline gets two and there’s another powerslam. Luger calls for the Rack but after he gets Flair up, the knee gives out and Flair falls on top, throws his feet on the ropes for additional leverage, and retains the title.

 

Rating: A. This is an excellent match with an excellent story being told. Luger was such a natural athletic machine that he would never stop going on pure athleticism alone and eventually his body gave out on him, giving Flair the win. These two had great chemistry together and would always have good if not great matches together. Excellent main event here and well worthy of closing out the biggest show of the year.

 

The announcers talk about how great a match we just saw. As they’re talking, you can hear a battle royal being announced as a post PPV dark match.

 

Flair goes on a rant about how awesome he is and how the title is his.

 

The announcers talk about how great the company is.

 

A highlight package ends the show.

 

Overall Rating: B. This was one of the best Starrcades to date with arguably the best main event yet. There are seven matches on the card and only one of them is actually bad. The main event is excellent, the Midnights match is very good, there’s a great moment with the TV Title changing hands. The best sign of this show though is the rise of the young stars. Sting was in there with some major names, Luger had Flair beat, and Rick Steiner winning the title was a great moment that people genuinely cared about. Solid show here and worth checking out if you can find it.

 

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Starrcade 1989
Date: December 13, 1989
Location: The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 6,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jim Cornette, Terry Funk

 

As mentioned, this is the culmination of a banner year for WCW. The year 1989 might have had the best in ring action that the company ever saw with the younger guys rising up the card while the older guys were being phased out. That’s why this card was such a strange idea: there are twelve matches and only twelve guys wrestling on the show. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video is a bunch of shots of everyone in the tournament with a computer theme. This show is called Future Shock for no apparent reason.

 

The announcers go over the scoring system.

 

The lighting is bad again after showing some improvement last year.

 

Doom vs. Steiner Brothers

 

Again, ALL matches are tournament matches so there’s no point in listing them as such. Apparently the Samoans are replacing the injured Skyscrapers. Doom has Woman and her bodyguard Nitron with them here. Nitron is actually Tyler Mane, who you might know as Sabretooth from the X-Men movies. The Steiners are the World Tag Champions. Scott starts with Doom #2 (Reed) as there are A LOT of empty seats opposite the cameras. Scott hits a quick powerslam for two but charges into a boot in the corner.

 

A hard clothesline puts Reed down as Ross is already mixing up which Doom member is which. Off to Rick vs. Simmons with Rick hitting a quick suplex but barking instead of covering. Back to Reed who snapmares Rick down and pounds away before getting caught in a slam for a quick two count. Back to Scott for a headlock and an atomic drop as the announcers actually have to acknowledge the fact that the seats are so empty.

 

Scott takes Reed down and cranks on his leg before bringing Rick back inside. That goes nowhere so here’s Scott again for a backbreaker for a near fall. Scott misses a big clothesline and crashes out to the floor to give Doom their first advantage. Nitron gets in some shots of his own as Scott is in big trouble. Back in for a powerslam by Simmons for two before Reed comes in for some shots to the ribs.

 

Scott is sent back to the floor for another mugging as Rick keeps trying to make the save, only allowing Nitron and Reed to double team Scott. A double backdrop puts Scott down and there’s a whip spinebuster by Simmons for two. Doom hits a double back elbow and Scott is sent back to the floor again. Simmons suplexes Scott back inside but Scott falls on top for two.

 

A belly to belly suplex puts Simmons down and there’s the hot tag to Rick. Rick pounds away and hits a big old powerslam for two and Reed is knocked over the top and out to the floor. A HARD right hand puts Simmons down but Reed is back in for the save. Nitron trips up Rick but gets clotheslined down for his efforts. Everyone brawls to the floor and Rick dives in to beat the count for the win.

 

Rating: C. Not bad here but it was a pretty standard power vs. power match. I’m guessing the ending had to happen that way for the sake of the scoring but it’s, yet again, a pretty lame way to open up Starrcade. Doom would actually go on to beat the Steiners for the world tag team titles soon after this and hold them longer than any team in the history of WCW.

 

Steiners – 15 points (2 matches remaining)

Road Warriors – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Samoan Swat Team – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Doom – 0 points (2 matches remaining)

 

We get to meet the four people in the singles tournament.

 

Sting vs. Lex Luger

 

Luger is US Champion and bails to the floor to start. He tries to leave up the ramp but Sting catches him with a beating in the aisle. Back in and Sting immediately pounds away before being sent to the apron, only to take Luger down with a clothesline. A slingshot splash gets two and Luger falls to the floor. The fans are NUTS for Sting at this point. Luger gets in a kick to the ribs but Sting blocks a ram into the barricade. A clothesline puts Luger down again and Sting breaks the count back inside.

 

They go to the ring one more time and Sting hits a top rope cross body for two. This is all Sting so far. Sting pounds away in the corner and clotheslines Luger down again for another near fall. Off to a wristlock and armbar on Luger followed by a middle rope cross body for two. Back to the arm as it’s still been all Sting so far. A dropkick gets two on Luger but Sting dives into an atomic drop to give Lex his first advantage. Another atomic drop puts Sting down as the announcer continues to screw up the time, saying we’re ten minutes into the match. It’s more like seven but that’s WCW for you.

 

A right hand to Sting’s ribs has him in trouble again and a kick to those ribs has him in even more trouble. Luger is setting up for the Torture Rack and sends Sting ribs first into the barricade for good measure. Back in and Luger hits a middle rope axhandle for two as he’s starting to crank it up. A powerslam plants Sting down but he backflips out of the Rack, only to get caught in the corner.

 

Lex pounds away in the corner but Sting is all fired up. He comes back with right hands of his own on Luger followed by a suplex for two. Luger bails to the floor, only to be rammed into the barricade for his efforts. They both literally fall over the top rope to get back in, but Luger lands on top and grabs the top rope for the evil pin to take the early lead.

 

Rating: C+. Much better and more exciting match here than the opener with the crowd being WAY into Sting. These two would go to war for years on end as they would be nearly eternally joined at the hip. The timing issues are already becoming annoying but as mentioned, that was something you would often see in wrestling.

 

Lex Luger – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Great Muta – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Ric Flair – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Sting – 0 points (2 matches remaining)

 

Doom vs. Road Warriors

 

Animal and Reed start things off and it’s as slow and plodding as you would expect two guys of this size to be. After a dropkick to Reed’s chest it’s off to Hawk for a wristlock. They collide a few times in the middle of the ring with Hawk finally taking him down via a clothesline. Off to Simmons (keep in mind that they’re not named that but it’s obvious which is which if you’ve seen them wrestle enough) who collides with Hawk several times. Hawk takes over again and it’s off to Animal who gets taken down by an elbow to the face.

 

It’s back to Hawk almost immediately for a missed charge, sending his shoulder HARD into the post. Simmons catapults Hawk’s throat into the bottom rope and it’s back to Reed who gets two off a powerslam. We hit the chinlock for a bit until a double back elbow takes down Hawk.

 

A middle rope elbow gets two for Reed as Woman talks trash from the floor. Back to the chinlock on Hawk as the time speeds up again. I haven’t noticed any clipping here so I’m guessing they’re just speeding things up to get through the matches faster. Hawk fights back with right hands and gets the tag off to Animal. A powerslam puts Reed on the mat as everything breaks down. Simmons tries a piledriver but Hawk comes off the top rope with a clothesline to give Animal the pin.

 

Rating: D. Not much to see here as we’re already reaching the problem with a tournament like this: we’ve already seen Doom twice and we get to see them again later on. It’s not interesting to watch them fight at this point given that they’re pretty much already eliminated from a math standpoint. Also it’s a bad sign when you have to bring math into a wrestling show but maybe that’s just personal taste.

 

Road Warriors – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Steiner Brothers – 15 points (2 matches remaining)

Samoan Swat Team – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Doom – 0 points (1 match remaining)

 

Ric Flair vs. Great Muta

 

Muta is TV Champion and undefeated coming into this match. Flair is of course world champion and brings the Andersons with him. Muta has Gary Hart to counter, meaning advantage Horsemen, as usual. Muta speeds things WAY up to start as is his custom. He’s one of the most exciting guys you’ll ever see and he was at his best around this point.

 

Muta immediately pounds him down into the corner and hits his quick strike elbows on the mat. Flair comes back with chops and has the Figure Four on maybe 75 seconds in. Hart calls out Buzz Sawyer and Dragonmaster but they’re cut off by the Horsemen. Muta is out of the hold but his moonsault hits knees, allowing Flair to get a rollup for a pin in less than two minutes.

 

Ric Flair – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Lex Luger – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Sting – 0 points (2 matches remaining)

Great Muta – 0 points (2 matches remaining)

 

Steiner Brothers vs. Road Warriors

 

This is the ONLY meeting (that mattered) between two of the biggest tag teams of all time. Why it was wasted on a show like this in an inconsequential tag match is beyond me. These teams are friends at this point. Scott and Hawk get things going with Cornette considering this a battle of idiots. Ross says the fans are in awe as an excuse for them being bored so far. Both guys get big boots to the face in succession so it’s off to Rick for a chance at Hawk.

 

Hawk hits a BIG clothesline to take Rick down for two before Animal comes in for a double back elbow. Rick comes back with a Steiner Line to stagger Animal and we’re at a standoff. Animal tries a bearhug but gets caught in a belly to belly suplex for no cover. Back to Scott to meet Hawk with the bird enthusiast gorilla pressing him down to the mat with ease. Rick has to make the save this time and Hawk is annoyed at his actions. Animal comes back in and gets caught in a few belly to belly suplexes. This is pure power the entire way so far.

 

Animal comes out of the corner with a hard clothesline so Hawk comes in for an over the shoulder kneeling backbreaker. A release tilt-a-whirl slam gets two on Scott but he comes back with what was supposed to be a middle rope suplex. Instead it was more like Hawk fell flat on Scott’s chest and was driven face first into the mat. Back to Animal for a bearhug on Scott followed by a BIG powerslam from Hawk. Everything breaks down and Animal picks up Scott for a belly to back suplex with Hawk adding a top rope clothesline. Animal bridges Scott back but Scott raises his arm to get the pin as Animal’s shoulders were down.

 

Rating: D+. Most of that is for the star power alone. This was a lot of pounding on each other and a SCARY botch on that middle rope belly to belly superplex. The Steiners winning was probably the right move here as they shouldn’t have gotten pinned while still being the tag team champions. The Warriors should NOT be wrestling multiple matches in one night though as they already look spent.

 

Steiners – 35 points (1 match remaining)

Road Warriors – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Samoan Swat Team – 0 points (3 matches remaining)

Doom – 0 points (1 match remaining)

 

Sting vs. Great Muta

 

These two fought about a million times and it was Muta who took the TV Title from Sting. Sting dodges a quick spin kick but gets caught in a full nelson. He easily powers out of the hold and puts on one of his own. Muta takes it to the corner and rolls out of it before kicking Sting in the chest. A shot to the face has Sting in trouble as Funk wishes he could do the things Muta is doing. Muta hooks a headlock but Sting escapes again and flips Muta over before getting two off a suplex.

 

A quick attempt at the Scorpion Deathlock is escaped and Muta bails to the floor for a bit. This is a rather fast paced match which is different from what we’ve been seeing so far. Back in and Muta backdrops him down before hitting some of those quick strike elbows of his. Muta grabs both arms behind Sting’s back and flips forward, pulling them forward. Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) would use this move in the indies and call it Cattle Mutilation.

 

Sting flips forward to escape and pounds away with AMERICAN right hands, because all foreigners are evil and must be destroyed by the powers of our American heroes. A big elbow drop gets two on Muta and it’s off to a chinlock. Back up and Muta takes him into the corner and out to the apron for only a few seconds. A backbreaker looks to set up the moonsault but Muta lands on his feet when Sting moves. Muta kicks Sting down and goes up, only to be crotched and superplexed down for the pin.

 

Rating: C. This wasn’t bad but again the time constraints are getting really annoying. These guys could easily have a twenty five or thirty minute match but they’re relegated to eight and a half minutes after already wrestling once tonight. It’s decent enough for the amount of time they had but these matches are begging for extra time.

 

Lex Luger – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Ric Flair – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Sting – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Great Muta – 0 points (1 match remaining)

 

Since we’re halfway done we take a breather and look at the scenarios and recap everything.

 

Samoan Swat Team vs. Doom

 

The Samoans are Fatu (more famous as Rikishi) and Samoan Savage (more famous as Tama of the Islanders) and they have Oliver Humperdink as the Big Kahuna in their corner. Before the match, the Samoans and Kahuna do their tribal ceremony or whatever you want to call it. Reed and Savage get things going and unfortunately it’s the Samoan and not Randy. They collide in the middle and we get SAMOAN YELLING.

 

They collide again with no one going anywhere so it’s Reed pounding away at the ample midsection instead. Savage comes back with some kicks to the ribs of his own and it’s off to Fatu. The match continues to go slowly but to be fair this is Doom’s third appearance tonight. Simmons comes in and it’s a brawl again as he pounds on Fatu. Back to Reed for more pounding on the back followed by something resembling a spinebuster. A double back elbow gets two on Fatu off a blind tag and Doom is looking good for the first time tonight.

 

Reed sends Savage out to the floor and Simmons rams him into the barricade. The Samoans are called both the New Wild Samoans and the Samoan Swat Team but the latter is the better known of the names. Simmons comes in off a tag and gets caught in a sunset flip for two. A bulldog is countered by Savage but Reed breaks up a tag attempt to Fatu. Simmons hits a middle rope right hand to the head for two followed by a sloppy body slam. Reed goes up top but misses a middle rope shoulder as everything breaks down. Fatu headbutts Reed down for two but after they collide again, Fatu falls on Reed for the pin.

 

Rating: D. This was terrible as it was clear that Doom was totally spent. As mentioned, they would move on soon after this and win the tag titles, albeit with a new manager. This was a BAD styles clash as the Samoans were trying to match power with Doom and power vs. power rarely works for the most part. This didn’t go that well and we get two more Samoan matches tonight.

 

Steiners – 35 points (1 match remaining)

Samoan Swat Team – 20 points (2 matches remaining)

Road Warriors – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Doom – 0 points (0 matches remaining)

 

Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger

 

Back at this point, champion vs. champion matches were very rare so this is a treat for the fans. Feeling out process to start with both guys seeming a bit tentative. You can’t think Flair is tired at this point after having about three minutes in the ring earlier. As is his custom, Flair can’t get much going in the early part of the match. The chops have little damage and Luger throws Ric around like he’s not even there. A hard clothesline puts Flair down and another puts him out on the floor.

 

Back in and Flair goes after the knee but Luger has too much experience against the Nature Boy to let him do that. Instead it’s an atomic drop for the world champion and some right hands for good measure. Flair is an American so those aren’t American right hands according to JR. Another attempt at the knee goes a bit better though and Luger is slowed down a bit.

 

The world champion stays on the leg and it’s so strange to hear the fans approve of him being on offense. Luger shoves him away and scores with another clothesline before posing like the arrogant jerk that he is at this point. The announcers keep pushing him as the champion of the future as he rams Flair’s head into the corner to put him back down.

 

Luger stomps away in the corner and poses some more followed by yet another clothesline. Some elbow drops get a near fall on Flair as we’re at five minutes left in the time limit. Flair comes back with another chop but Lex pounds him right back down. A big backdrop puts Flair down and Ric rolls out to the floor. Back in and Luger goes after the neck and back as we have four minutes left. Flair comes back with a suplex but he can’t follow up. Three minutes left now.

 

A backslide gets two for Flair and they slug it out until Flair is flipped over in the corner. He runs down the apron and goes up but jumps up into yet another clothesline. That gets two and Lex is very frustrated. A sunset flip gets two for Flair so Luger pounds him down with ease. Ric goes up top very slowly and gets slammed right back down like he’s nothing. Luger misses a jumping elbow and we have thirty seconds to go. Flair gets a belly to back suplex out of nowhere and throws on the Figure Four but the time limit runs out for a draw, giving each guy five points.

 

Rating: C+. The match was fine for the most part and the ending was the only thing they could do given the points structure and the fact that you don’t want either guy to go over the other at this point. It wasn’t bad for the most part but when you had these two going at it for thirty minutes last year, it was kind of hard to get into a match that only got half that much time. Not bad though.

 

Lex Luger – 25 points (1 match remaining)

Ric Flair – 25 points (1 match remaining)

Sting – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Great Muta – 0 points (1 match remaining)

 

Samoan Swat Team vs. Steiner Brothers

 

Rick and Fatu get things going and it’s time for more SAMOAN YELLING. Rick doesn’t take time to translate and punches Fatu in the face instead. The fans are WAY into the Steiners here. It’s off to Scott for the power of the team with a slam. The Savage comes in and walks into a slam as well as the Steiners take over. The Samoans run to the floor and we get the classic Steiners pose of Rick on all fours and Scott standing over him.

 

After a conference with the Big Kahuna (that’s so fun to say), it’s back to Savage vs. Scott. Since nothing else has worked, the Samoan goes with the ancient tribal custom of poking him in the eye to take over. A headbutt staggers Scott and it’s off to Fatu for more brawling. The basics of the Samoan offense is as follows: kick, scream, forearm to the back, scream, headbutt, scream. Just picture that combination for about five minutes and you have the majority of this match.

 

The Savage comes in again and sends Scott into the corner before clotheslining him down for another near fall. The fans are trying to get behind the Steiners but they’re so tired after a show this long and uninteresting. Scott gets choked in the corner by Fatu as the Kahuna distracts the referee. A double headbutt puts Scott down for two but Rick comes in and bites the Savage. It doesn’t seem to have much of an effect as Scott is knocked out to the floor.

 

Back in and Scott’s sunset flip attempt is broken up before Fatu puts him in a bearhug. We’re under four minutes now as Scott is beginning to fade. The hold takes Scott down to the mat so Rick comes in to break it up, only to cause Scott to be double teamed. Back to the bearhug as the match continues to waste time until we can have extra drama.

 

A powerslam gets two on Scott with two minutes left. Scott grabs the Frankensteiner out of absolutely nowhere but Fatu tags out before Scott can bring in Rick. Savage misses a splash and there’s the tag, even though the referee didn’t see it. Rick cleans house but Scott throws Fatu over the top rope which is a DQ in WCW.

 

Rating: D+. Very basic tag match here and nothing all that special. At the end of the day, the Samoans are little more than a gimmick tag team and not much more. The Steiners were still new as a tag team so they weren’t able to carry a team like Fatu and Savage, especially in their fourth match of the night.

 

Steiners – 35 points (0 matches remaining)

Samoan Swat Team – 30 points (1 match remaining)

Road Warriors – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Doom – 0 points (0 matches remaining)

 

Great Muta vs. Lex Luger

 

Luger comes to the ring very gingerly because of the leg work from earlier by Flair. Lex is very tentative to start as Muta tries some sweeping kicks to the leg. A clothesline finally staggers Muta a bit but Luger can’t hit it will all of the force that he usually has behind one of them. Some right hands stagger Muta as the fans aren’t sure who to cheer for in this one. The paint is almost entirely off of Muta’s face by this point.

 

Muta finally connects with a kick to Luger’s leg and the entire match changes almost instantly. Luger limps around the ring and Muta fires off kick after kick. An Irish whip sends Luger limping into the corner for Muta’s handspring elbow. Off to a leg lock on the mat by Muta until Lex finally rakes the eyes to escape. Muta goes right back to the leg and both guys are down again. A quick half crab has Luger in even more trouble but Muta turns it into an inverted Indian deathlock with a chinlock to crank on the leg even more.

 

Muta stays on the leg as we continue in the same cycle of this match. We only have four minutes left which should be almost twice that long. A superkick puts Luger down and a dropkick does the same. Luger comes back with a hard clothesline to put Muta down and they slug it out with two minutes to go. A bad looking hiptoss puts Muta down and Lex throws him to the outside. Back in and a sunset flip gets two for Muta but he walks into a powerslam with a minute to go. Luger loads up the Rack but Muta sprays hit green mist in Luger’s face (with Luger looking like he was hit by a bus) for the lame DQ.

 

Rating: C. This is a match that could have been excellent if it had another ten minutes and a good finish. The problem here is that they had to do the stupid finish here or the ending to the tournament would have far less drama to it. Muta was far better than he was allowed to be here, but he would lose the TV Title in a few weeks to Arn Anderson.

 

Lex Luger – 35 points (0 matches remaining)

Ric Flair – 25 points (1 match remaining)

Sting – 20 points (1 match remaining)

Great Muta – 0 points (0 matches remaining)

 

Road Warriors vs. Samoan Swat Team

 

If the Samoans win at all they win the tournament, if the Warriors win by pin or submission they win the tournament, and if the Warriors win by DQ, the Steiners win. I have no idea what happens in the case of two teams tying so we’ll assume that isn’t going to happen. Animal and Fatu start things off with Fatu not being able to piledrive him down. Hawk comes in to chop it out with the Savage but it’s clear that neither team has anything left.

 

Savage tries what was supposed to be a suplex but basically drops Hawk on his head. A clothesline gets two for Hawk and it’s back to Animal. Fatu gets slammed down and Animal starts beating on him all over again. Savage comes in with a superkick to take Animal down as the boredom continues here. We hit a chinlock for a bit but the Savage misses a middle rope splash. Off to Hawk and everything breaks down. Savage goes up and gets crotched, allowing Hawk to hit his top rope clothesline on Fatu for the pin and the tournament.

 

Rating: D. I have to give them a break here as they were totally spent at this point. You can’t ask a team like the Warriors to go for twenty minutes in three shifts on the same night. It wasn’t a good match for the most part, but again it’s hard to criticize them given how much they had done already tonight.

 

Road Warriors – 40 points

Steiners – 35 points

Samoan Swat Team – 30 points

Doom – 0 points

 

The Steiners come out to celebrate with the Warriors for their tournament win.

 

Sting vs. Ric Flair

 

Sting has to win by pin or submission, Flair can win by pinfall, submission or countout. Any other combination results in either a tie or Luger winning. Sting grabs a headlock to start and hiptosses him down. Flair bails to the floor to run off some of the clock. Back in and we get some chain wrestling, resulting with Sting in control on the mat. They get up again and Flair places Sting on the top rope to play some mind games.

 

Flair puts on a top wristlock but Sting overpowers him to take Flair to the mat. Very technical match so far. They run the ropes a few times with Sting dropping down a few times before hitting a gorilla press slam. Flair bails to the outside again as Sting is all fired up. Back in and Sting blocks a hiptoss into a backslide as we hit five minutes in. Flair hits a HARD chop and Sting is in trouble in a hurry.

 

A quick shoulder block puts Flair down for two and Sting is starting to worry about the clock. We head to the floor with Sting being sent ribs first into the barricade as the world champion takes over. Flair suplexes him back inside for two and there’s the knee drop for good measure. Ric gets a few near falls off some rollups and a double underhook suplex for the same. They head to the floor again and Flair’s chops wake Sting up again.

 

We have five minutes left and Sting comes back in with a sunset flip but Flair punches him in the head to break it up. Sting hits a quick suplex of his own for two and it’s time to get fired up again. He pounds away on Flair in the corner and there’s the Stinger’s Splash. The Scorpion Deathlock goes on but Flair is immediately in the ropes.

 

Off to the Figure Four on Sting but he makes the ropes very quickly. Flair goes back to the knee with two minutes to go. A knee onto the leg has Sting in trouble as Flair is pacing himself. Sting grabs a backslide for two and we have a minute to go. Flair crushes the leg again and cannonballs down onto it for good measure. Now it’s time for the Figure Four but Sting rolls Flair up for the pin and the tournament title.

 

Rating: B+. By far and away the best match of the night here as you would expect from these two anytime they work together. This match was designed to set up some future stuff and Flair working as the heel here (mostly) was foreshadowing for those events. At least they let the fans have something good to go out on.

 

Sting – 40 points

Lex Luger – 35 points

Ric Flair – 25 points

Great Muta – 0 points

 

The Horsemen come out and after teasing beating Sting down for pinning Flair, they all congratulate him.

 

The Road Warriors say they’re awesome and Hawk talks about coming out to Iron Man by Black Sabbath and how appropriate it is.

 

Flair praises Sting to end the show. Literally the credits are rolling as Flair is still talking.

 

Overall Rating: D. This is still one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard of in wrestling. At the end of the day, nothing was accomplished here and the fans were bored out of their minds by the end. There were only twelve wrestlers on the entire show (side note: The two African Americans and the Japanese man were all shut out. WCW had a history of racial discrimination complaints so this wasn’t a good idea) and the guys were all tired by the end of the night.

 

The fact that only one of the twelve matches was more than just ok and it’s really hard to care about this show at all. This show felt like it was a television Christmas special instead of the biggest show of the year. As I mentioned earlier, these concept shows would continue for years, but it would never be this bad again. Well, arguably almost never I guess but we’ll get to that in two years.

 

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Super BrawlII
Date: February 29, 1992
Location: Mecca Arena, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

This show is based around one thing and one thing only: Lex Luger vs. Sting. This had been THE feud for the better part of a year and tonight it came to a head. Luger had destroyed Sting’s knee and then sent Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher to injure him. This was more or less a given Sting win, but the match was required much like Austin vs. Michaels. The key to this feud was Luger being in a way selfish.

His contract required him to work a certain amount of dates. He worked said dates and said he was done until the title match, and legally that was fine. It kind of screwed over the fans, but it was perfectly legal for him to do so. The thing that it did though was make Luger seem mythical.

We never saw the champion anymore, but we knew Sting wanted him. Immediately after this show he would head to the WWF, debuting on camera at Mania 8. Other than that, there really just isn’t much here. The card is remembered fondly though, so let’s get to it.

The intro is running down the card and it sounds pretty decent. A bit lackluster, but decent nonetheless. Eric and Tony disagree over the main event. This was when Eric was just a commentator with a solid on air presence instead of being very annoying. Missy Hyatt is in the back, complete with bad grammar.

We go to Jim Ross who has a new broadcast partner: JESSE FREAKING VENTURA debuts on a motorcycle and this show just went WAY up in value. If there has ever been a better announcer at playing to the crowd while being completely honest, I want to meet them and buy them a ham sandwich. Ventura says Ross should wear a cowboy hat. WOW.

I’m freaking pumped for this show. This is just feeling awesome.

Light Heavyweight Title: Jushin Thunder Ligervs. Brian Pillman

This title is famous for two things: A guy named Scotty Flamingo holding it (he would change his name to Raven in about a year and a half) and this match. This match is considered to be right up there with Bret and Owen as the best PPV opener of all time. You have to keep in mind that the styles here were just not seen at this time. Everything was mat work and a clothesline off the top was a big time move.

If you know anything about these two, you know what’s coming. They start very fast and hot before slowing it down a bit but you can tell the fans are noticing them. They mention that K. Allen Frey is the WCW President at this time. This was his first and only PPV as he was let go because he was making good TV shows. They were far more exciting and fast paced, and since no one wants to be excited, Frey was out and Bill Watts came in.

His best idea was this: if you work hard, you get a bonus. Seriously, THAT was considered a bad idea. Everything was about cost cutting back then, as they even got rid of the mats at ringside, It also produced some of the most boring wrestling of all time, but hey, who cares that buyrates and attendance were both down? WE ARE SAVING MONEY!!!

They hit a leglock for a few seconds and then are like screw this nosense. They pop up and Liger runs at the corner and hits a moonsault to get a big OOO from the crowd. Two months after this that would have ended the match on a DQ as top rope moves were banned. Apparently the leglock that had them chanting boring isn’t as intriguing as a moonsault followed by a dropkick. What do they know?

They’re just the people buying tickets to the shows. Liger sets for the Surfboard and the crowd reacts to it huge. For 5000 people, this crowd is awesome. We get a George Michael’s Sports Machine reference. He passed away on Christmas Eve. Without him, you likely wouldn’t have SportsCenter.

Pillman misses a knee and Liger works on the knee to give us some psychology. And note: it’s the knee he worked on earlier, giving us some continuity. He throws on a figure four to a great pop. They get into a big slap fight which is amusing. Crowd is WAY into this. Pillman goes to the floor thank to Jushin and Liger jumps to the top and puts him down with a sweet looking front flip. Pillman comes back in with a springboard clothesline after they fight over a suplex on the apron.

Brian follows that up by suplexing Liger over the top to the floor. This is very high impact and fast paced. Now they’re just throwing out the high spots which works well as a contrast to the leg work. It’s turned into a high spot match and that’s fine.

Like I said, you have to remember that this kind of thing is just completely unheard of as no one has ever seen anything close to this. Pillman hits a hurricanrana and then a DDT. The pace is just ridiculous for the time. Liger misses a top rope splash after a suplex and Pillman does a weird pinning combination for the title.

More or less he looked like he was going for a camel clutch but hooked his feet under Liger’s arms and rolls over so that Liger goes with him and then bridges back for the pin. He raises Liger’s hand afterwards and they share the standing ovation.

Rating: A+. EPIC match. This was just completely off the charts compared to what people were used to. These two worked very hard and had a classic. After about ten minutes of this seventeen minute match, they just went completely nuts out there and were flying all over the place.

It looked awesome and the crowd bought every bit of it. Find this match right now as it’s more interesting and entertaining than what I’m going to write. And remember, none of this would be legal inside of two months in favor of LEG LOCKS AND ARM BARS BABY!

Missy is with Terry Taylor who is all of a sudden rich. He’s still boring as all goodness and worthless, but he’s now boring and worthless WITH A BAD CHARACTER! He’s fighting Marcus Bagwell tonight. That’s about it.

Terry Taylor vs. Marcus Bagwell

Some kid gets to be the announcer. He’s booed out of the building. He looks like Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day off mixed with Urkel. Terry is the Taylor Made Man now. Oh just take me now. Bagwell is a rookie now and has more or less no idea what he’s doing. Taylor and Greg Valentine have the US Tag Titles here. Why this is a one on one match is beyond me but whatever. Ross says Bagwell is too naïve to lie.

This is already boring. Granted it could be that Taylor just freaking sucks. This feels like a bad TV match and considering the time period we’re in, that’s saying a lot. Taylor hits a nice gutwrench sitout powerbomb. I love moves like that.

They botch a sunset flip as Bagwell jumps too far but it wasn’t that bad I guess. I know I don’t usually do this much play by play but that’s all there is for this match. There’s no story here or anything and it’s just old guy vs. rookie. Bagwell gets a quick pin on a rollup and then Taylor hits the Taylor Made Forearm afterwards. Yep, that’s his big devastating move: a forearm.

Rating: D+. This just wasn’t interesting at all. It was relatively short, but still I just have no interest in this match at all after what I saw before it. This was what Watts wanted I guess. The fans weren’t into it at all, but hey, what do they know right?

On an aside, here’s the BRILLIANCE, yes BRILLIANCE I say of WCW. Ok, tonight is a PPV right? PPVs back then started at 7 instead of 8. WCW’s second biggest show was called the Main Event and it aired from 6:05 to 7:05 on Sunday nights. So what do the geniuses do?

They book a FREAKING TITLE MATCH as the main event of the TV show that coincides with the first five minutes of the PPV. The dumber part: THEY CHANGE THE TITLES. Yes, instead of having that, oh I don’t know, ON THE FREAKING PAY PER VIEW, they gave it away for free on TV, but to see it you had to miss the first five minutes of the PPV. And people wonder why WCW isn’t around today.

Missy is trying to get Luger but finds Harley Race instead. He looks like a high school math teacher for some reason.

Ron Simmons vs. Cactus Jack

Jack was just a freak at this point, having been brought in to fight Sting for Luger. Simmons was just a face that was over but not that great yet. He would be world champion in six months. This is the kind of match that is just so crazy it could be ok. Cactus gets his neck caught in the ropes and Jesse says he would help Cactus if his opponent were in that position. That’s a joke as Jesse liked that spot and used it a lot.

Take a guess as to what he did. Hey Junkyard Dog is here. I don’t care either. We hit the floor and the Cactus Elbow hits. This is more or less a brawl. Simmons hits a spinebuster on the ramp that just had to freaking hurt. Simmons catches Jack coming off the top with a powerslam for the pin.

Abdullah comes out and nails Simmons for the double team. Here’s JYD for the save. Again, I love how fans can just get up and get camera time like this. At least security tries to stop him so that’s better than nothing. Why in the world was this guy over?

Rating: C-. Ok so I was wrong about it working but it wasn’t terrible. It was too short to really make much of it, but Cactus wasn’t a legit big time wrestler for the majority of his career. He was there to make others look good like he did here so that’s fine. Simmons was about to get the push of his life so this was really just grooming him for it I guess.

We go to Tony and Bischoff who go back to the ring.

Ricky Morton/Vinnie Vegas vs. Z–Man/Van Hammer

Vegas is more commonly known as Kevin Nash. Van Hammer was a guy that was RIDICULOUSLY over but had no talent. For the life of me I never got that, but I was a huge fan of his too. Hammer was challenging Sting for my spot as favorite wrestler in WCW at the time and Sting is more or less second only to Foley for me all time. Ventura mentions that Zenk is a former Mr. Minnesota in bodybuilding and Ventura says there’s no money in bodybuilding.

Vince was just starting the World Bodybuilding Federation at the time, so that’s very likely a shot at McMahon. When it’s Jesse talking you have to just call him McMahon. Nash was playing a greasy sleazy guy with no morals. It’s so easy when you can play yourself. Good night Hammer could get the crowd into a match. He’s beating up Ricky Morton so there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s hard to believe that Nash wound up being about 100x more successful than all these people. Again, Hammer sucks in the ring but he’s over here. Z-Man’s tights are pink by the way. There’s no real point to this match which was a real problem back in this era. The good thing was they got a lot of solid matches anyway.

They point out that Z-Man has been teaming with Bagwell lately, begging the question of why he’s teaming with Van Hammer here that of course won’t be answered or addressed. In one sequence we have two things that just shouldn’t stun the heck out of me: Ricky Morton being on long term offense in a tag match, and KEVIN NASH JUMPED. You read that correctly. Kevin Nash, the most generic big man (in the mid to late 90s not named Sid) JUMPED.

They’re beating the tar out of Hammer, the most popular guy in this match because it makes SO much more sense to have Z-Man get the hot tag instead of Van Hammer, the big power guy right? They point out that Nash played pro basketball in Nevada which is odd.

We get a Tark the Shark reference followed by ones to Aerosmith, Van Halen and Twisted Sister. Jesse Ventura is freaking awesome. We get the hot tag to the guy in the pink tights, because that works SO much better than tagging in the big power guy that’s ridiculously over. Z-Man rolls up Morton out of nowhere to get the fast pin.

Rating: C+. This was the definition of formula stuff but it works well. Nash and Van Hammer were showcasing themselves here and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. They were the bigger stars here by far and the far more interesting characters. This was fine and a decent match, dumb as meat booking aside.

Promo for WCW/Japan Supershow II. We’ll get to that one. It was taped the month prior to this though.

Tony and Eric recap The Enforcers (Zbyszko and Arn) breaking Barry Windham’s arm at Halloween Havoc with a car door. Tonight is the revenge match with Dustin Rhodes as Barry’s partner.

Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin/Larry Zbyszko

For no apparent reason, Anderson isn’t here but Austin is. They’re all part of the mega stable known as the Dangerous Alliance though so that works out fine. As generic as it is I kind of like Windham and Rhodes’ look. They have the same color tights and boots and leather jackets on and they walk stride for stride. Not bad. The faces just beat the living tar out of the heels at first just for the heck out it.

They touch on Larry and Sammartino’s feud which I have to get to at sometime. This is more or less just about Windham beating the living tar out of the heels for awhile and that’s all they’ve done for about three minutes or so. Austin is still Stunning Steve here, meaning he wears tights that look like bicycle shorts and have a bunch of colors on them and he has shoulder length blond hair. It’s hilarious considering what he would be in four years.

Nabisco finally takes over and beats down Windham. At least I think it’s Windham as it’s kind of hard to tell them apart. Jesse and Ross get into an argument about football, with a great line from Jesse: Oklahoma is the only school where you take a pay cut when you go to the NFL. That’s hilarious. Dustin gets the hot tag as this match is just kind of a mess. Larry just isn’t that good at all.

His offense is weak, he can’t sell that much and he’s just plain boring as anyone I’ve ever seen. Ross thinks the heels might have planned some evil deeds. Get this man an award! Hey, Dusty Rhodes returns at the Japan show. I already said I would review that one didn’t I? Blast it. Dustin gets a small package and Larry thinks about making the save but realizes that would require doing something so he doesn’t.

Austin kicks out, but more importantly, Larry didn’t have to do anything so all is right with the world. Austin uses the Flair move of the feet on the ropes which never gets old. Austin takes his own move, a Stun Gun, onto the ropes. I say onto the ropes because they mess it up and Austin’s face hits the ropes instead of his throat. Windham and Larry come in and a clothesline off the top gets the pin for Windham.

Rating: B-. While not great, this was pretty good. It was a tad long but that was WCW’s style for tag matches. It’s certainly not bad at all. Windham beat Larry which was the main thing and he started feuding with Austin soon after this. There’s not much here but it’s pretty good overall if that makes sense.

Eric, now wearing a Michigan jacket, is going to be for the Steiners next I guess. Their resumes are actually pretty good. We go to Missy who is looking for Steamboat but finds a Ninja. Yep, you heard that right. Instead she runs into Medusa who talks to the Ninja also. This was just out there. She slaps him and since you never slap a Ninja, he chases her away.

Tag Titles: Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton vs. Steiner Brothers

The champions are also part of the Dangerous Alliance. That thing was freaking huge but it would go down next month at WrestleWar in an EPIC War Games match. Heyman just looks completely evil here and it’s amazing how much ECW made him age as far as looks go. He’s barred from ringside here which results in a classic Heyman freak out. The Steiners are the favorites here as they never actually lost the belts before as Scott was injured.

They say the Steiners have never lost the titles in a match, except for that time when Doom freaking killed them but we can’t mention that of course. Scott just shows off his technical stuff here as it amazes me how far he fell. He was going to be the prototype of the 90s but something fell through in his head and it never happened. Anderson is just awesome in case you didn’t know. Rick comes in and let the barking begin. Jesse can’t stand the Steiners for some reason.

There’s a recap of the show tonight on the Hotline. Why? If you’re watching the PPV you don’t need a recap and you won’t hear the ad if you’re not watching the show. That’s brilliant but I guess it made money so whatever. Scott is freaking impressive as the Steiners are dominating and the fans are way into it. Jesse is mayor of a small town in Minnesota at this time so we keep getting political jokes from Ross.

The fans want Flair. Sorry, he’s the WWF Champion at this point and being praised for his greatness like he should be instead of jobbing to Luger. The Steiners use a Doomsday Device of all things which looked decent. Eaton goes low to take control back. Scott comes in and they just suplex the heck out of the heels. That never gets old. Neither team is really keeping an advantage here and it’s making the match a lot better as a result.

Eaton hits a knee from the top as we finally have the heels in control for more than 45 seconds. It’s a nice touch that I kind of like. Anderson hits a DDT which would have won this had it been two years later or so. In a nice counter, Scott wraps his legs around Anderson, I guess thinking he’s one of his freaks, and Arn just casually grabs them and turns him into a Boston Crab. I like that.

In a nice touch, Arn and Bobby hit the Rocket Launcher which was the Midnight Express’ finisher. Somehow this revitalizes Scott but whatever. The heels set Rick for a Doomsday Device of their own but Bobby uses a cross body instead which Rick catches, which I use that term loosely, into a belly to belly suplex, which I use even more loosely. It was much better against the Headshrinkers at Mania 9.

Medusa hits Steiner with powder and Rick suplexes the referee by mistake. Scott gets the Frankensteiner for the pin but of course it’s overthrown because of the suplex. Yeah Dusty is definitely back. Yeah I freaking hate this.

This was a GREAT match, but dang that whole give the fans the moment they popped like crazy for because it makes sense to put the titles back on the Steiners nonsense. No no no. We need to do the title switch a month and a half later at a freaking house show. YEAH BABY! Screw this PPV nonsense. It’s all about HOUSE SHOWS!

Rating: A-. This was AWESOME. It the finish hadn’t been such nonsense, this is an A or an A+ with ease. They worked great out there for 20 minutes of back and forth awesomeness. The Steiners were awesome but they were in there with two of the best tag team wrestlers of all time, meaning there was no way this was going to be bad.

But yeah, the ending was just complete and utter garbage as the fans clearly wanted the title change and there was no way they would have a better moment. But it’s Dusty booking so what do you expect?

Ad for WrestleWar.

We recap the Steiners match which also had an over the top DQ and neither guy involved with the pin were legal so there we are. Yeah the ending still sucks. We go back to Missy again and Missy watches the Ninja and Steamboat go to the ring.

US Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude

This was quite the awesome feud back in the day. Rude had shown up at Halloween Havoc and been a major signing for the company so they put him with Steamboat for the US Belt and it worked very well. Steamboat has the masked Ninja to guard him from the Alliance and make sure things are fair. The heat for Rude is AWESOME. This has been an awesome crowd all night and it’s made this a great show.

Steamboat of course starts by working the arm since that’s really the thing he did best. It works if nothing else and it helps here as it would take away the Rude Awakening and some of Rude’s power. They slow it down a bit which is fine as they’re going for the slow build. I know they’re not tired already as these two both had great cardio. Ventura again says Ross should wear a cowboy hat and also starts calling him JR.

Oh how I bet he wish he copyrighted that. Rude sells the arm from earlier because he just rocks. All the cool kids are selling the arm today so you know you should too. Ventura advocates Rude putting his hand over Steamboat’s nose and mouth. Good to know that the governor of Minnesota advocates attempted murder. Rude uses his offense but can’t use his arm much at all and pauses because of the pain after every move.

He’s also working on Steamboat’s neck which he injured at the last Clash of the Champions. Oh how I love PSYCHOLOGY. Steamboat gets a figure four which makes NO sense but it’s WCW so the move gets a huge pop anyway. Rude goes to pose after getting the advantage back but can’t do it because of the arm, prompting another jab at the bodybuilding company. Rude goes up top but since the company is being run by someone sane it isn’t a DQ.

We keep getting shots of the Ninja, meaning that he’s going to factor into the ending. Not to mention we keep seeing him, meaning he completely fails as a Ninja. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bad Ninja. Steamboat hits a top rope suplex and the kick outs are getting great now.

Steamboat does Rude’s hip swivel which is just amusing. Steamboat has his rolling but as he’s going to the top, the Ninja hits him with a really big phone, which was Heyman’s (who remember is called Paul E. Dangerously at this point) trademark.

Rating: B+. This was a solid match. They worked very well out there as all matches have done tonight. They would have a rematch at Beach Blast without the title being on the line in an Iron Man match which was great as well. Either way, this was a very good match with these two having great chemistry together and the psychology was definitely here, making it a very good match.

We go to Missy outside of Rude’s locker room. Missy, acting worse than even Stephanie and Linda do, is SHOCKED that Heyman is in the Ninja outfit.

WCW World Title: Lex Luger vs. Sting

Like I said, this was just a formality at this point as Luger was ready to go up North and Sting was ready to be the guy. Also, there was this guy named Vader that had just started working full time. With Luger gone, Sting needed someone to feud with, so he got the biggest feud of his career. Sting doesn’t even have music here which is very odd. This is Luger’s first match in about two months other than a match that was taped and won’t air until next month at the Japan show.

They have the staredown which is awesome if nothing else. They stand there and stare at each other for about a minute or so. I wonder what they’re talking about. FREAKING DO SOMETHING! Hey a minute and a half in we get a shove and then more talking! There’s a second shove at two minutes! Ooo a lockup. Ok there’s building tension and then there’s STUPIDITY.

Sting hits the Splash and of course Luger no sells it because Luger doesn’t care about making Sting look credible or anything stupid like that. To be fair though, did he really need to? Just because he can, Sting puts Luger in the rack. I don’t think anyone ever did that to him so that was kind of cool. They point out that Sting’s cardio is far better and he almost gets the Scorpion but not quite. Luger takes over and they try to cover up his completely not caring at all by saying he’s arrogant.

In reality it was that he was just walking through the match without the slightest bit of effort at all. You know, because being world champion in WCW is nowhere near as great as being a midcard joke in the WWF. It turned out he got out at the right time though as Watts took over and ran the company into the ground.

They eventually can’t cover it up anymore and say how odd it is that he’s just walking around with his hands on his hips. Luger hits his finishing move, the Piledriver, and Sting kicks out to seal how awesome he is. It gets NO pop though as Luger has managed to kill one of the best crowds in company history.

Sting begins his comeback with that odd as heck striking style that he had. Seriously, do you remember anyone having the method of striking that Sting did? Watch one of his matches and notice how he hits and kicks. It’s just different looking and I don’t remember anyone else ever did it that way. We hit the floor and Luger continues to move very slowly. Coming back in, Sting hits a cross body to get the pin and the title and a great pop.

Rating: D+. And that’s ALL on Luger. This was just completely unprofessional as he was walking around most of the time and making the crowd just be bored. I get that it’s your last day, but dude, a little effort isn’t going to kill you. Like I said this was just a formality though so it was all about the moment and not the match itself which is ine at the end of the day. Luger was a jerk like always so there’s no shock there.

Sting tries to leave but the fans applaud him back to the ring. All four guys talk to close us out.

Overall Rating: A-. This was a GREAT show. If nothing else, this show is the proof that you don’t need a huge crowd to have a great show. Like I said, that bonus policy was in force here and guys like Nash were working hard. What does that tell you? What a shocking concept: give the guys a reason to work hard instead of guaranteeing them money and letting them do whatever they want.

Think about later in WCW when the money was all guaranteed. How many GREAT matches or shows do you remember in the late 90s? The Cruiserweights would work hard but the main event was nothing. Hogan only had to wrestle once every other month and got a huge salary anyway. Here though: you work hard, you get paid. I think the way it actually worked was match of the night got a bonus kind of like in the UFC today.

That’s working well and it worked here. Naturally though Bill Watts was brought in because the company was losing money and clearly the two months that Frey had was a good indication of what the company would be like for years to come. This was the last great WCW show for a very long time, so take a look at it because it was downhill from here for awhile other than WrestleWar to an extent. If you can find this show somewhere, DEFINITELY take a look at it as I had a lot of fun watching it.

 

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Bash at the Beach 1998
Date: July 12, 1998
Location: Cox Arena, San Diego, California
Attendance: 10,095
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

 

 

Tonight is all about the celebrities as the main event is DDP/Karl Malone vs. Hollywood Hogan/Dennis Rodman. We’ve also got football player Kevin Greene vs. the Giant in what was supposed to be a tag match. Their original partners are in a world title match as new champion Goldberg defends against Curt Hennig. The midcard matches should be solid, meaning this has potential to be something good. Let’s get to it.

 

 

The opening video focuses on the three major matches tonight with some shots of the beach cut in as well.

 

 

The set is the usual intricate beach setting with sand, lifeguard towers and beach balls. The announcers wearing hula shirts is a nice touch as well.

 

 

We get an intro from the announcers, bragging about all the media attention the show has been getting. Nothing wrong with that.

 

 

Gene, in a white tuxedo, hypes up the hotline.

 

 

Raven vs. Saturn

 

 

Under Raven’s Rules of course. Saturn is in trunks now instead of jeans. Raven of course has Riggs and Lodi with him, the latter being dressed like Hat Guy. Saturn meets him in the aisle to start and whips Raven into the barricade very hard. He chokes Raven with the shirt and takes it inside for the first time. Saturn slips on the top for a bit but comes back with a quick missile dropkick to put Raven down. An ankle lock is quickly broken by Raven grabbing the ropes, even though there are no rules so there’s nothing the referee can threaten Saturn with.

 

 

Raven avoids a legdrop and hits a quick knee lift to put Saturn down for a breather. It’s already table time (Tony: “He’s got a chair.”) but Raven gets crotched while trying to suplex Saturn over the top and through the table. They head to the floor with Raven hitting the Russian legsweep into the barricade for two, even with Raven’s feet on the ropes. Raven’s sleeper is countered by a jawbreaker and both guys are down again. Saturn is up first for some kicks in the corner and a suplex to take over.

 

 

Now it’s chair time (complete with jokes from Heenan at Tony’s expense) with Saturn hitting a spinning springboard legdrop onto Raven onto the chair for two. Saturn takes out Riggs and Lodi but crushes Nick Patrick in the corner with a springboard leg lariat in the corner. Out to the floor again with Raven being bulldogged into the steps.

 

 

Saturn sets up another table next on top of the original with Raven in between but here’s Kanyon to turn on Saturn, pulling Raven out from between the tables. We hit the shades of gray as Kanyon takes Raven inside and gives him the Flatliner onto the chair. Riggs rolls in Saturn and puts Raven on top for two. Saturn comes back with a Death Valley Driver to Riggs but the Even Flow is enough for the pin for Raven.

 

 

Rating: C. The match was fun but as usual, they’re not actually going anywhere with all this stuff. So many of the feuds just go in circles and that doesn’t help anyone at all in the end. Kanyon and Saturn need to do something soon to capitalize on all these awesome moments they’ve had but it seems like they’re going to be doing the same stuff they’ve been doing for months.

 

 

Here’s Eddie to talk about Chavo’s match with Stevie Ray before his hair vs. hair match with Eddie. This is the first mention of Stevie being involved in the PPV, which might be a good idea. Eddie says Stevie is going to destroy Chavo and Eddie will pick up the pieces.

 

 

Juventud Guerrera vs. Kidman

 

 

Wasn’t this supposed to be Juvy vs. Reese II? Kidman looks much cleaner than usual. They lock up to start with Kidman taking over with a headlock. Both guys hit the ropes a few times and they flip to a stalemate. Kidman gets chopped against the ropes and takes down by a headscissors. Lodi pulls Juvy to the floor for a quick beating but Kidman takes out his Flock mate on a dive. Guerrera slides back in and hits a HUGE dive to take both guys down.

 

 

Back in and Kidman slams him down before taking it right back to the floor. Juvy is dropped throat first across the barricade but Kidman misses a charge off the apron to send himself crashing into the barricade as well. They head to the apron with Juvy hitting a sunset bomb to slam Kidman onto the floor again. The fans of course get on Lodi instead of paying attention to the match.

 

 

Juvy throws him inside again and stomps Kidman in the corner a bit before loading up a top rope hurricanrana. Kidman counters with a low blow and a top rope sitout spinebuster for a big crash and two. Back up and Kidman chops away but gets rolled up for two. They head to the corner again and Kidman gets crotched on the top rope, allowing Juvy to hit a springboard hurricanrana for a close two. Kidman’s middle rope bulldog gets the same and they trade rollups for two. The Juvy Driver gets two but Kidman slams him down to set up the Seven Year Itch. Juvy rolls away at the last second though and it’s the 450 for the pin.

 

 

Rating: B-. Good match here as you would expect from these guys. It’s nowhere near their best but it’s better than Reese vs. Juvy would have been. This would have been a good choice for the opener as the fans got into it, even though a lot of their heat was directed at Lodi. Fun stuff.

 

 

Konnan is on WCW.com, talking about his family eating fish tacos.

 

 

Stevie Ray vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

 

 

This is a result of a one off conversation between these two on Nitro. Chavo has a Super Soaker and an inflatable duck around his waist. Eddie comes out to watch so Chavo dedicates the match to him. Chavo avoids contact for awhile before offering a handshake. Stevie shakes his hand…..and Chavo submits. For some reason, Stevie is mad even though he won.

 

 

Time for the hair vs. hair match and Eddie is livid.

 

 

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

 

 

Loser gets a haircut. They lock up to start and Eddie leapfrogs him, only to be bitten on the tights, sending him out to the floor. Back in and Eddie asks the referee to look at the injury but Charles Robinson is just fine thank you. Now Chavo wants to dance a bit. A frustrated Eddie kicks the turnbuckle and injures his foot, sending him out to the floor. Eddie throws in a chair but Chavo sits down in it and asks Eddie to come in. Things settle down a bit and Eddie gets on his knees to ask for a handshake. Chavo takes his hand and pulls Eddie into a clothesline as we actually get going.

 

 

Eddie hides in the corner at the referee’s knees but gets bitten again as the comedy continues. Eddie finally dropkicks the knee out and sends Chavo into the corner to take over. Some shoulders to Chavo’s back in the corner have him in even more trouble and a gutbuster puts him down again. A low dropkick sets up a slingshot hilo to stay on Chavo’s back and the nephew is in trouble. There’s the Gory Special in the middle of the ring but Chavo gets his legs free, only to be clotheslined right back down.

 

 

We hit a camel clutch on Chavo for a bit before Eddie fires off some chops against the ropes. Chavo avoids a dropkick and scores with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker to put Eddie down. Eddie pulls the trunks to send Chavo to the floor and pulls back the mats. The brainbuster is countered though and Chavo suplexes him down onto the exposed concrete. Back in and Chavo goes up again but gets crotched down, setting up an Eddie superplex to put both guys down.

 

 

Back up and Chavo launches Eddie over his head and face first into the turnbuckle but Chavo’s frog splash hits knees. Eddie’s tornado DDT (Chavo’s finisher) puts Chavo down and Eddie goes for the scissors. That’s not cool with Little Naitch so Eddie tries the frog splash to a similar result. Now Chavo goes for the scissors but the referee takes them away, allowing Eddie to get a rollup for the pin.

 

 

Rating: B-. To no surprise, this was a good match. Chavo has grown up a lot in this feud and the matches are getting better and better every time. I’m digging Chavo being crazy yet brilliant with stuff like the handshake submission earlier. He’s gone from nothing to an interesting character which was the idea all along.

 

 

Post match Chavo grabs the electric clippers and shaves his own hair off. He offers to cut Eddie’s as well so they can be twins. Chavo: “You don’t want to cut my hair? What a psycho!” Chavo cuts his own hair and shaves the whole thing off.

 

 

We get an odd few moments during the haircut as Tony talks like the main event is up next before going into a full recap of Jericho vs. Malenko. Instead of either of those, we get this.

 

 

Disco Inferno vs. Konnan

 

 

This is a bonus match and Disco is officially from FUNKYTOWN. Before the match, Alex and Disco imitate Konnan in an unfunny bit. Nash and Luger come out with Konnan which is some serious overkill. They’re just a comedy tag team guys. Nash and Konnan do their full entrances and talking bits as we’re clearly filling time now.

 

 

Konnan takes him down with ease and stomps on Disco’s back. An X-Factor and the rolling lariat put Inferno down again but Wright pulls him to the floor for an attack. Luger Racks Alex, allowing Nash to Jackknife Disco. Konnan puts on the Tequila Sunrise for the easy submission. That’s three people interfering in a two minute match with no backstory for those of you keeping track. This is why we needed another NWO group?

 

 

Kevin Greene vs. The Giant

 

 

Greene is very fired up here. He rolls away from Giant to start and sneaks in a slap to the face. Giant growls at him so Kevin bails to the floor. Greene kicks the ropes to crotch Giant as they come back in before pounding away in the corner. The fans are into this and it helps that Greene could probably get a job on his looks and charisma alone. Giant catches him in a bearhug though and spinebusts him down to take over.

 

 

A Goldberg chant starts up so Giant pounds Greene in the head out of anger. Back up and Giant chops away as Tony talks about the Georgia Dome show getting 39,919 people. Every source I can find says it was over 40,000, so why would WCW understate it? I’ve never understood that.

 

 

Anyway Greene snaps Giant’s throat across the ropes but gets headbutted right back down. They head to the floor with Giant going face first into the barricade a few times before heading back inside. Kevin hits a top rope forearm to drop Giant for two and it’s time to go for the knees. That lasts about two seconds before Greene charges into a chokeslam in the corner for the pin.

 

 

Rating: C+. That’s on a very adjusted scale considering that Greene isn’t a wrestler. Factoring that in, this was some very impressive stuff. Greene looked completely comfortable out there and there wasn’t a single time there where he looked lost. If he wasn’t an incredible football player, he had a career in wrestling for sure. Entertaining stuff here again.

 

 

Hennig says Goldberg doesn’t have the heart to beat him.

 

 

We recap Jericho vs. Malenko with a video from Nitro, showing Malenko getting handcuffed for attacking Jericho after the insults about Dean’s dad.

 

 

We still don’t know who Jericho’s opponent is tonight so he comes to the ring with a cane while wearing a top hat as he promised to do. He teases a softshoe but here’s JJ to interrupt. Dillon thinks he might have made a mistake about Jericho, but we have an opponent. He hasn’t been in the ring in six months, but it’ll be a No DQ match like it was supposed to be with Malenko. Jericho: “Bring out the jobber!”

 

 

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

 

 

Rey is clearly limping on the way to the ring but has a VERY muscular physique. Rey fires off forearms in the corner and dropkicks Chris into the ropes. Jericho bails to the floor for a breather but comes back in to go after the bad knee. They head up the aisle and fight on the lifeguard’s before Rey hurricanranas him down onto the “irritating” (Tony’s word) sand.

 

 

Back in and Jericho rolls through a high cross body for two before hitting something like a top rope powerslam for no cover. Jericho grabs a chair and goes after the knee but spends too long mocking Rey, allowing Mysterio to get in some shots to Jericho’s knee. The West Coast Pop is badly botched to the point it looks like a powerbomb on Rey. He bails to the ropes to avoid the Liontamer but here’s the suspended Dean Malenko. The distraction lets Rey snap off a hurricanrana for the pin and the title.

 

 

Rating: D+. This didn’t work very well. It’s not a horrible match but Rey looked very rusty out there. The crowd was happy to see him, but they booked themselves into a corner with Dean. He needs to get his revenge on Jericho and be done with it but this just extends the story out even longer. Hopefully Rey gets better with some more ring time.

 

 

Post match Dean chases Jericho to the back and Arn Anderson slows Jericho down, allowing Malenko to get in some shots.

 

 

TV Title: Booker T vs. Bret Hart

 

 

Booker is defending after being goaded into the match by some Bret chair shots. Bret gets taken to the mat but comes back with right hands to the face to take over. A snapmare gets two for Booker and he sends Bret out to the floor. Bret comes back with a whip into the barricade and we head back inside for the first shots at Booker’s braced knee. Booker grabs a quick spinebuster for a floatover two count but Bret backdrops out him out to the floor.

 

 

Back in and Bret stays on the knee before getting two off a Russian legsweep. Booker gets stomped down in the corner but comes back with a quick side kick and the flapjack. There’s the Spinarooni but Booker doesn’t snap to his feet as he usually does. The missile dropkick gets two as Bret gets his foot on the ropes. Bret goes outside and grabs a chair to stop a diving Booker for a DQ.

 

 

Rating: D+. Well that happened. Really there isn’t much else to say about this match. The match was just there with Bret doing some stuff, Booker coming back, then Bret ending it with the chair. Bret is probably at the top of the list of guys who were wasted in WCW as he went from WWF Champion to losing in a lower card title match inside of eight months. That’s impressive even by WCW standards.

 

 

Bret goes after the knee with the chair and cracks it over the exposed knee cap. He hooks the Heartbreaker around the post and Stevie Ray takes his sweet time in making the save.

 

 

Video on Goldberg’s big night on Monday.

 

 

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Curt Hennig

 

 

No Rude for the challenger tonight. Goldberg runs him over to start and hits a kind of release belly to belly, sending Curt into the corner. Goldberg uses his legs to take Hennig down and Curt bails to the floor. Back in and Goldberg charges into a boot in the corner but Hennig gets caught in a gorilla press powerslam. Curt goes after the knee with a chop block and some cannonballs. The HennigPlex gets two and it’s the spear and Jackhammer to retain the title.

 

 

Rating: D. You know all those other Goldberg matches? Read whatever I said about any of those and swap out whatever that opponent’s name for Curt Hennig.

 

 

We recap the main event without words. Basically the basketball players don’t like each other because they played in the finals twice in a row and Hogan said some stuff about Page that DDP didn’t like.

 

 

Diamond Dallas Page/Karl Malone vs. Dennis Rodman/Hollywood Hogan

 

 

Page and Malone have matching attire, which look like they jumped into a vat of hot glue with their jeans on. They come out to some hip hop song that keeps saying “feel the bang.” Malone looks like he’s been carved out of granite while Rodman is in a t-shirt and jeans. The basketball players get us going but first Hogan has to take off Rodman’s glasses. Rodman runs to the ropes to hide and the fans are all over him. That works so well that they do it a second time. A test of strength doesn’t happen as we hit two minutes into the match.

 

 

Rodman grabs a headlock but bails to the floor when Malone charges at him. Off to Hogan for a posedown with Hollywood getting frustrated. Malone hooks a kind of standing chinlock (imagine a left arm Rock Bottom but he clasps his hands together and squeezes) before slamming Hogan down. We’re five minutes in now and it’s off to Page. DDP gets Rodman and shoves him down off a lockup. A shoulder puts Rodman down again as the stalling continues. They spit at each other and Rodman armdrags him down. Somehow we’re seven minutes into this match.

 

 

They hit the ropes a bit and collide to send both guys down. Back to the headlock by Rodman but Page reverses into one of his own. The fans are clearly getting restless. Rodman leapfrogs Page twice and they collide again to give us more laying down. Malone comes in and kicks at Rodman, sending him over to Hogan for the tag. Karl hooks a top wristlock and shoves Hogan to the mat. Hogan complains of a hair pull and Rodman gets in a cheap shot to get to the whole tag match idea for the first time.

 

 

Hogan chokes a lot and slams Malone down before raking the boot over Malone’s eyes. Rodman comes in with some elbow drops before it’s back to Hogan for a chinlock. Here’s Rodman again for some double teaming and a belly to back suplex from Hogan. Hollywood misses an elbow though and it’s hot tag to Page. DDP comes in with a top rope clothesline to Hogan but a cheap shot from Rodman lets the NWO take over again. Hogan chokes away in the corner with his boot followed by a running clothesline.

 

 

Rodman comes in for a double big boot and more choking before it’s back to Hogan for right hands in the corner. Page hits a quick elbow but Rodman breaks up the tag attempt and puts on a front facelock. Malone plays cheerleader on the apron and we get the unseen and phantom tag tropes to space the match out even more. The big boot puts Page down but he avoids the legdrop and it’s hot tag off to Malone.

 

 

Clotheslines all around put the NWO down and they both get slams. There’s a double noggin knocker followed by Hogan’s head going into the buckle. A big boot drops Hogan and it’s off to Page for a running Diamond Cutter (Hogan landed on his hands, making the move look horrible). Malone Diamond Cuts Rodman but Disciple sneaks in with a Stunner to Page, giving Hogan the pin and a face pop for some reason.

 

 

Rating: F. This was about what you knew it was going to be, though it could have been FAR worse. Malone was clearly taking this seriously which is more than you can say for most celebrities in matches. Rodman looked like your usual celebrity wrestler: decent at the one or two really basic moves he used but pretty worthless otherwise. I’ve read before that this was originally booked to go nearly an hour, which makes me shiver in fear. I guess Hogan needed this win as a thank you for the mainstream attention he brought in?

 

 

Malone gives Disciple and the referee Diamond Cutters (good ones too) and the NWO celebrates like this is a big deal.

 

 

The announcers talk a bit to wrap things up.

 

 

Overall Rating: C. This is the WCW PPV formula but a better version than usual. The earlier stuff is mostly good while the main events cripple it, though Goldberg’s match was what the fans wanted to see and was executed as well as it could have been. The problem with the company is the same as always though: the main stories aren’t going anywhere. The tag match doesn’t change anything here and everyone involved in it now needs to start a new story. It’s a good show overall, but as usual turn it off before the main event.

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Starrcade 1985
Date: November 28, 1985
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina/The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Bob Caudle, Tony Schiavone

 

So we’re here in 1985 now and on to a new city in Atlanta. Wrestlemania has now debuted as the WWF and Hulk Hogan in particular are clearly something to be reckoned with. By expanding down into Atlanta, the NWA is now trying to spread out and not just be a regional outfit anymore. Hopefully the card backs it up. Let’s get to it.

 

As I mentioned, this goes back and forth from city to city. The first match is in Greensboro and the second is in Atlanta. Each subsequent match will alternate with the last one being in Atlanta.

 

We open with a highlight reel, much like you would open a TV show with. This show is called The Gathering for no apparent reason.

 

Caudle and Schiavone (with a stupid looking mustache) are in Atlanta and will be calling the action in both cities. Apparently every major title is on the line except for the TV Title, which is vacant at the moment. You would think this would be a good place to crown a new champion but I guess not.

 

Johnny Weaver will be doing interviews in Greensboro.

 

National anthem.

 

Mid-Atlantic Title: Krusher Khrushchev vs. Sam Houston

 

Speaking of crowning new champions, this is a tournament final because former champion Buzz Tyler had left the territory. Krusher is more famous as Smash from Demolition and this is his power vs. Houston’s speed. Houston is a cowboy character and the half brother of Jake Roberts. There’s something wrong with Tony’s mic as you can only hear whispers of what he’s saying.

 

Houston slips down and sends Krusher to the floor before holding his own in a slugout back inside. Krusher will have none of that and grabs Sam by the throat to slam him down. An elbow drop misses though and we’re back to a standoff. Houston grabs a headlock and a headscissors to take Krusher down. Khrushchev tries everything he can to get out of it before just picking Houston up and placing him on the top rope. Houston comes right back with an armdrag into an armbar and Krusher is down again.

 

Back up again and Krusher just throws him into the air and lets Sam crash down onto his face. Why over complicate things when you can do them that simply I guess. Krusher does the same thing off a gorilla press before punching Houston right in the jaw. Off to a bearhug but Houston fights out of it pretty quickly. The Russian goes up but gets crotched down, allowing Sam to pound away in the corner. The bulldog (Sam’s finisher) hits but Krusher gets his foot on the ropes. Sam celebrates too much and Krusher hits the Russian Sickle for the pin and the title.

 

Rating: C+. Nice little match here with a basic power vs. speed formula. Khrushchev was your typical American Russian (he was from Minnesota) so thankfully he didn’t talk all that much. Houston was way too small to be taken seriously and his career never took off, even in the far less serious WWF in the late 80s.

 

Abdullah the Butcher vs. Manny Fernandez

 

This is a Mexican Death Match, but in reality you win by climbing a pole and grabbing a sombrero. Butcher knocks him down to start and stabs him in the head with a fork (a signature move of Butcher’s) to bust him open. The commentary is odd here as there are long gaps in between the announcers saying anything at all. Manny fights back with right hands and actually monkey flips Butcher down.

 

A boot (not on Manny’s foot) to Abdullah’s head puts the big man down but Manny misses a charge, allowing Butcher to take over again. Abdullah goes for the hat which he can reach while still on the middle rope, but Manny makes the save. Now Manny takes the boot to the head but he comes back with some belt shots to the back. Butcher knocks Fernandez down and stands in the corner, only to miss an elbow drop.

 

Fernandez pounds away with the belt around his hand before suplexing Butcher down. Not bad for a man in socks. Manny goes for the hat but gets hit low with the fork. Butcher chokes away a bit but Manny fires off the Flying Burrito (forearm) and a second one drops Abdullah. A top rope splash misses Abdullah but the Butcher misses a charge into the corner, allowing Fernandez to get up the ropes and grab the hat for the win.

 

Rating: C+. This was a pretty fun brawl and the more I see of Fernandez the more I like him. They didn’t try to have a wrestling match here and that was the right move all around. Butcher was a good brawler and Manny was able to hang in there with him, which made for a fun match. Good stuff here.

 

Krusher, with no Russian accent at all, says he’s ready to defend the title anywhere. He says the Koloffs are keeping the tag titles too.

 

Ron Bass vs. Black Bart

 

This is a Texas Bullrope match and if Bass wins, he gets a five minute bullrope match with JJ Dillon, his former manager and Bart’s current manager. You win by pinfall here. Bass immediately hits him in the head with the bell on the rope and Bart is in trouble. Bart is busted less than a minute into the match and Bass pounds him in the head with the bell over and over.

 

Bart tries to punch his way out of the corner and gets choked with the rope for his efforts. Bass pounds in more shots to the head as we have a recurring theme to this match. Bart finally gets in a bell shot of his own to bust Ron open, but after a few more he misses a charge and goes flying to the floor. Bass keeps pounding away with the bell on the floor, including with a shot off the apron. Back inside and you can insert your own NEEDS MORE COWBELL joke here.

 

Bass wraps the rope around Bart’s neck and pounds away as the match somehow gets even more repetitive. Both guys fall down as JJ, clad in a tuxedo t-shirt, screams at Bart to get up. Another bell shot sets up a crotching from Bass with the rope. A HARD bell shot to the head has Bart down yet again. Ron pounds on him on the mat but has to stop to yell at JJ, allowing Bart to get back up. The Black one misses a charge in the corner though and a middle rope bell shot from Bass is enough for the pin.

 

Rating: D+. I wasn’t wild on this one. The big problem here is that it’s the same stuff over and over and over again, meaning it gets really dull after the first few minutes. Some of the bell shots looked great but when you have like thirty of then in an eight minute match, they kind of lose their effectiveness. Not terrible but it’s the epitome of a one idea match.

 

As a result of that win by Bass, we get this.

 

Ron Bass vs. JJ Dillon

 

This is a five minute bullrope match and JJ jumps Bass as the bell rings. JJ chokes away with his boot and hits Bass in the head with the bell. Then he hits Bass again with the bell. Now JJ mixes things up by hitting Bass in the head with the bell. They FINALLY do something else as JJ chokes him down with the rope, only for Bass to make a comeback and slug JJ down with the bell for a bit. A big shot to the head has Dillon down but the referee gets bumped. Bart comes back in and piledrives Bass, giving JJ the cheap pin.

 

Rating: F. What was the point of this again? To give Bass revenge? I guess so, but I don’t call a few shots to the head with a bell and then getting beaten up by the guy he just beat getting revenge. I’m assuming JJ dumped Bass recently for Bart, but that’s one of those things that the announcers didn’t feel was important enough to explain to us.

 

Now we get some good old fashioned ARM WRESTLING between Billy Graham and the Barbarian. Graham finally puts him down but Barbarian’s manager Paul Jones whacks Billy with a cane as soon as it’s over. Apparently it’s time for a match.

 

Barbarian vs. Billy Graham

 

Barbarian rips at Graham’s face and chokes away like any good monster villain would do. He even bites Billy’s forehead but doesn’t bust him open here. We get a very early bearhug from Barbarian and he slams Billy down, only to miss his top rope headbutt. Graham stomps away and puts on his own bearhug but Jones comes in and breaks it up for the DQ.

 

Rating: D. Was there a point to this? It was barely long enough to rate and the majority of the match was spent in those bearhugs. Graham would be back in the WWF sooner than later and Barbarian would continue to be this same character for about twelve more years. Nothing to see here.

 

National Title: Buddy Landel vs. Terry Taylor

 

Landel is challenging and this is for the Georgia Championship Wrestling main title. Terry, I think the face in this match, takes Buddy down to start and gets some fast near falls off various leverage moves. Landel is basically a Ric Flair tribute wrestler, even using the Nature Boy as his ring name. Buddy fires back but runs into a boot in the corner from the champion.

 

Terry goes after the arm so Buddy pulls back and BLASTS him with a single right hand to knock Taylor down. That looked great. Here’s JJ Dillon to cheer on his man Landel. I’m not sure why he wasn’t here to start with but whatever. Anyway Terry gets clotheslined down but comes back with a counter to a suplex for two.

 

Off to a camel clutch by Landel which goes on for a bit as JJ talks a lot of trash. Terry starts to fight out and dropkicks buddy down before standing on his face. That’s a new one. The referee is knocked down so JJ throws in a foreign object and Taylor gets knocked silly for a very close two. Terry comes back and loads up a superplex, only to have Dillon trip him down and let Buddy land on top for the pin and the title.

 

Rating: D+. Not much to see here but then again neither guy was ever anything of note to begin with. Buddy would be thrown out of the company a few months later due to drug problems and Dusty would get the title as a result. Taylor would go on to the UWF and then the WWF, where he would become a half man half rooster. Wrestling is funny like that sometimes.

 

National Tag Titles: Minnesota Wrecking Crew vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Billy Jack Haynes

 

The Crew is Ole and Arn Anderson and they’re defending. This is again the Georgia title, but at least they’re being defended in Atlanta and not Greensboro. Hayes and McDaniel are the US Tag Champions but aren’t defending here. Cowards. Haynes and Arn start things off with Arn getting shoved around by the (allegedly) much stronger Billy Jack. Off to Ole vs. Wahoo with the Indian cleaning house.

 

Arn wants nothing to do with Wahoo and backs off a tag from his cousin. He finally comes in and gets caught in a fast headlock before putting Wahoo in one of his own. The Andersons get McDaniel in their corner and let the arm work begin. As mentioned last year, if there’s one thing you can count on from an Anderson, it’s working the arm over. They take turns with their armbars and hammerlocks, including the hammerlock slam from Ole.

 

Wahoo FINALLY gets in a chop to Arn and rolls his overly large self to the corner for the tag off to Haynes and house is cleaned. It’s quickly back to Wahoo for the big chop on Arn but Ole breaks up the near fall. Wahoo fires off chops in the corner, only to have Ole trip him up and give Anderson a cheap pin, much like the finish to the Taylor vs. Landel match.

 

Rating: C-. Another not great match here but I could watch the Andersons work on someone’s arm all day. It was a pure science for them and it worked for so many years. They would soon get involved in the greatest stable of all time while Wahoo would soon retire and Haynes would bounce over to the WWF a few years later. Not much to see here but the Andersons were their usual awesome selves.

 

Buddy Landel brags about being the “World’s National Heavyweight Champion.” Gee I wonder why he was let go.

 

US Title: Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard

 

This is definitely the biggest match of the Greensboro card and has a huge feud behind it. As mentioned, Tully stole the US Title from Magnum over the summer, setting off a war between the two based off the culture clash between the two. You had Tully Blanchard who was the wrestler’s wrestler. He was as technically sound as you could ask a wrestler to be, drank champagne and rode around in limousines. On the other hand you have Magnum who rode Harley-Davidson’s and drank beer. As mentioned, this storyline and characters would be copied almost identically for Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin in 1997.

 

This is inside a cage and is an I Quit match, which means anything goes and you lose when you make your opponent say I quit. Blanchard is defending if that wasn’t clear. Tully takes it into the corner to start but Magnum throws that great right hand of his to knock him down. The champ keeps taking it to the mat but Magnum turns it into a brawl. Back up and Tully starts pounding away on the ribs but Magnum comes back with some HARD punches to the face.

 

Magnum gets him between the ropes and the cage and rakes Tully’s face against the cage. Tully comes back with an elbow off the ropes to gain control before sending Magnum into the cage. Off to a reverse chinlock but Magnum fights out, only to be kneed in the back. Back up and Magnum pelts him with more right hands. The sounds as they hit make you cringe every time. Blanchard sends him into the cage and rakes at Magnum’s face as the brawling continues.

 

Now TA (short for Terry Allen, Magnum’s real name) sends Tully face first into the cage a few times and it’s off to an armbar. Tully is busted BAD already as Magnum keeps pounding away. Baby Doll screams for Tully to fight back so Blanchard gets in a right hand of his own, busting Magnum open as well. Tully gets the corded microphone and we get an iconic scene with Tully shouting at Magnum to SAY IT, Magnum shouting NO and Tully hitting him in the head with the microphone.

 

A top rope fist puts Magnum down but he still won’t say it. They get to their feet and Magnum slugs him back down before pounding him with the mic. Blanchard rips at Magnum’s eyes and POUNDS him with right hands. Magnum punches him down and tries to get Tully to quit but Blanchard kicks him down. TA punches him in the corner but Tully comes out with an atomic drop. Both guys look like they’ve been through a war.

 

Tully drops some elbows and throws the referee away. He brings in a wooden chair and immediately breaks it against the mat to get a nice jagged piece. Tully tries to drive it into Magnum’s already cut forehead but Magnum knocks it away and gets the wood himself with a crazed look in his eye. He knocks Tully down again and DRIVES THE SHARP EDGE INTO TULLY’S EYE, making Tully scream that he quits and giving Magnum the title. Magnums is fired up from winning the title but looks down at Tully holding his bloody eye and becomes very stoic, realizing what he did to win the title and beat Blanchard.

 

Rating: A+. Not only is this the best match of the night, not only is this the best match in the history of Starrcade, but it’s in the running for greatest match of all time. This was an absolute war and it felt like these two wanted to kill each other. If you’ve never gotten to see this, go check it out right now as it’s absolutely required viewing for wrestling fans. If you want to see a fight instead of a wrestling match, check this out.

 

Jimmy Valiant/Miss Atlanta Lively vs. Midnight Express

 

This is a street fight and Atlanta Lively is Ronnie Garvin in drag for no apparent reason. The Express is Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton. They’re in tuxedos for reasons not explained here and have Jim Cornette with them. Lively throws powder in Eaton’s eyes to start and chokes him with a necklace. This is a big brawl with no semblance of tagging or an actual match but the fans are WAY into it.

 

Condrey gets double teamed in the ring but Lively goes out to beat on Eaton a bit more. Valiant puts Condrey in the sleeper with the latter being busted open, continuing a running theme tonight. Now Dennis pulls out some powder of his own to throw into Jimmy’s eyes. Lively gets some of it as well and the Express takes off their belts to choke away.

 

Valiant fights back and it’s time to rip off the clothes. Cornette comes in with his signature tennis racket and blasts Lively in the head. The Express throws Valiant to the floor, only to have him come back in and pound away even more. Valiant is held down for a top rope legdrop, only to have Lively punch Eaton out of the air and score a fluke pin.

 

Rating: C+. This was a BIG brawl although I have no idea what the point was of Garvin being in drag. He never was revealed as being Miss Atlanta Lively here so I’m assuming it would happen at some point in the future. The match wasn’t particularly good or anything but at least it was short and energetic.

 

Post match Cornette is stripped to his underwear for fun.

 

Magnum cuts one of the best promos you’ll ever hear, talking about how he’s going to be a fighting champion with fire in his eyes.

 

World Tag Titles: Rock N Roll Express vs. Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff

 

The Rock N Roll Express are two pretty boys named Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson who could fly around a ring as well as any pair of guys you’re ever going to be lucky enough to see. They’re also challenging here and this is in a cage. I believe you win by pin or submission only. Ricky and Nikita start things off and the fans are already chanting USA. Ricky, a far smaller man, is shoved down by the more powerful Nikita. Morton fires off a quick dropkick and we’re at a standoff.

 

Nikita pounds Morton down and kicks him in the ribs before bring in Ivan. Ricky starts speeding things up by flying around and hitting a quick cross body. Ivan crotches him on the top rope and it’s time for Morton to play Ricky Morton. For those of you unfamiliar, Morton was so good at being beaten down and making a comeback that the beatdown leading to the hot tag is called Playing Ricky Morton.

 

Actually scratch that as Robert comes in for a quick rollup and a double chop to the head gets two on Ivan. Robert sends him head first into the cage and Morton does the same. The Express starts doing their double teaming jazz as is their custom. It’s off to Nikita though and there’s the bearhug on Robert. Nikita rams him into the cage back first and does the same with Robert’s head for good measure.

 

Back to Ivan who is busted open as well. Robert is sent into the cage yet again and an elbow drop gets two for Ivan. Off to Nikita for some biting to the head before Ivan comes in for some slow power offense. Robert rolls away from a legdrop but Nikita comes in for a chinlock. Gibson is busted open as well, which seems to be a requirement tonight.

 

A kick to the back keeps Gibson down and Ivan gets two. Back to Nikita for some more choking but Ricky makes the save. Don Kernoodle, the Express’ second, starts a USA chant as the referee is knocked down. He can’t make the count on Robert but as he gets back up, Ricky makes a blind tag and rolls up Ivan for the pin and the titles out of nowhere.

 

Rating: B. Good old fashioned tag match here with the Express getting destroyed until the very end where they won on a pure fluke. The fans were WAY into the Express at this point and Morton would even get a program with Ric Flair. The Russians were a great old school tag team idea with both guys looking like monsters and acting like it as well. Also this was nice to see a change in the usual Express formula with Gibson getting beaten down instead of Morton.

 

Post match the Russians beat up Gibson some more with a triple team clothesline (including Khrushchev, their second) and whip him with a chain.

 

NWA World Title: Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair

 

This is the rematch from last year, but this time with a much better story. Dusty had his ankle broken by Flair and the Andersons after saving Flair from the Russians. Leading up to this, Dusty gave one of the greatest promos of all time, as he talked about how Flair and the Andersons put hard times on the American Dream. Dusty talked about how the people of the country were in hard times and he would be the man that would fight for them and stop people like Ric Flair at Starrcade. It’s arguably the best speech in wrestling and is still talked about twenty seven years later.

 

Flair is defending and this is the definition of a main event. Dusty is introduced at 275lbs, which is what The Rock was billed at for many years. For some reason I think they’re lying about Dusty’s weight here. Rhodes dances to start and it’s time to throw the punches. Dusty takes him down with a series of right hands and Flair bails out to the floor for a breather.

 

Back in and Dusty pounds away with elbows to the head and a big one to drop him down to the floor again. Back in again and Dusty puts on a hammerlock to take Flair to the mat. We’re four minutes into this match and Dusty already needs a rest hold? Why am I surprised by this in the slightest?

 

Flair takes it into the corner and fires off some right hands to the face followed by the knee drop for two. Dusty bails to the floor and is already limping on his bad leg. Or maybe he just wants a pudding pop. Flair tries to jump Dusty on the apron but gets caught in the back of the head by some elbows to put Flair in trouble again. Back in and Dusty goes after the leg with a leg lock on the mat for more resting.

 

Ric escapes with a rake to the eyes but can’t suplex Dusty. Instead it’s Rhodes taking Flair over with a suplex and it’s back to the leg lock. Back up and Flair puts on a sleeper hold but Dusty falls forward, sending Flair into the buckle to escape. Now Flair’s leg is wrapped around the post and Dusty stomps away but the champ pokes him in the eye to escape.

 

Back in and we get a somewhat famous moment as Dusty tries a snapmare but basically lays Flair down instead. It’s so embarrassingly bad that it’s hard to believe such a move exists. Anyway, Flair goes up top and if you’ve seen one Flair match over the years you know what’s coming: Dusty slams him down but Ric gets in a shot to the leg. The Figure Four is blocked but Flair goes back to Dusty’s bad leg.

 

Back up and Flair is whipped into the corner and goes up and over to the floor. Dusty stalks him like a big juicy hamburger with onions and sends Flair into the barricade. Back inside and the referee gets poked in the eye, allowing Flair to throw Dusty over the top. The referee gets his vision back and counts two off a cross body from Rhodes, followed by some right hands to the head.

 

Flair is busted open as is his custom so Dusty pounds away with rights and lefts. Ric backs away from the Bionic Elbow and there’s another Flair Flip in the corner, only to have Ric run the corner and dive into a punch to the ribs. Dusty goes for a kick but hits the rope and there goes the bad leg again. There’s the knee drop onto Dusty’s leg and it’s Figure Four time.

 

Dusty is in BIG trouble but he hangs on and screams at the referee to not stop the match. With the power of the fans Rhodes turns the hold over to escape and the big elbows crack Flair’s head open even more. A clothesline puts him down for two but the referee gets taken out on the kickout. Dusty accidentally throws Flair into the referee, knocking him out to the floor for good measure.

 

Now Dusty puts Flair in the Figure Four but here’s Arn Anderson. Dusty kicks him in the head with the bad leg with no pain in sight but we’re almost done so I can’t complain. Anyway Ole Anderson comes in and knees Dusty in the back to give Flair a near fall from a fresh referee. They get back up and Dusty small packages Flair for the pin and the title to blow the roof off the place.

 

Rating: B. This was a WAY better match that I remember it being. It’s far from a technical masterpiece or anything like that, but the match tells a good story and has the absolute correct ending. Dusty gets to fight off the men that hurt him and beats Flair in the middle of the ring as the fans wanted to see. Good stuff here.

 

Granted none of that mattered because the next week on television, Flair was given the title back because of the interference. This is known as the Dusty Finish, as Dusty, the booker at the time, was famous for having the match end and then change it later due to some technicality. At least it was a week later and not here though.

 

Overall Rating: B+. This is a really solid show and probably the best of the series so far. There are some definite weak spots in there such as the Landel match and some of the shorter stuff which didn’t accomplish anything of note, but the big stuff more than delivers and the crowd goes nuts for every major moment. It’s definitely worth seeing for Magnum vs. Tully alone but the rest of the stuff is good too. Very solid entry in the series here.

 

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This is the original biggest show ever and it actually lives up to the billing.  The main event is Ric Flair vs. Harley Race inside a cage in one of the biggest storylines ever at that point.

Starrcade 1983
Date: November 24, 1983
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Attendance: 15,447
Commentators: Gordon Solie, Bob Caudle

 

As mentioned, this was all about Race vs. Flair. Even the show’s title (A Flair for the Gold) was focused on that one match. Aside from that, the rest of the show was pretty much a big Mid-Atlantic house show. There was a world tag team title match between the Brisco Brothers and Ricky Steamboat/Jay Youngblood and Roddy Piper vs. US Champion Greg Valentine in a non-title dog collar match. The rest of the card pretty much was thrown together and had little to do with ongoing storylines. Let’s get to it.

 

There isn’t much in the way of an intro. We open on a shot of the arena and the announcer says “THIS IS STARRCADE!” That’s a very simple yet awesome way to say it.

 

The Assassins vs. Rufus R. Jones/Bugsy McGraw

 

This is one of those matches with no given story behind it. Jones is the reigning Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion at this point, McGraw is a fat guy and the Assassins are guys in black sweaters and pants with yellow masks. They’re called Assassin #1 and #2 so it’s not going to be easy to remember which is which. Bugsy starts with we’ll say #1 and the match is shockingly fast paced to begin. Bugsy drops him with a shoulder block but both guys miss elbow drops. A slam sends #1 to the floor and the fans are VERY into McGraw.

 

Back in and they lock up with McGraw hitting a quick elbow to the head before pounding away on #1 over and over to knock him into the corner. Here’s Assassin #2 who is much smaller than his partner. Another slam puts #2 down and it’s off to Rufus for an even louder ovation. He gyrates a lot and pounds away as the cameraman seems to slip, sending the shot all over the place. Rufus works on #2’s arm with some headbutts before it’s back to Bugsy.

 

The Assassins make a tag but #1 winds up running away from McGraw instead of fighting him. #1 grabs the wrist and cranks on it a bit but Bugsy looks much more annoyed than anything else. Bugsy elbows his way out of trouble and brings Rufus back in for more headbutts to the shoulder. Jones pounds on #1 in the corner and knocks him down with a hard Irish whip. Assassin rakes him in the eye to finally take over but the advantage lasts for all of ten seconds before Jones fires off some headbutts to the ribs.

 

Back to Bugsy for some wild punches to take over. Everything breaks down until it’s just McGraw backdropping I think #1. In a pretty bad ending, #2 causally walks into the ring and rolls up McGraw for the fluke win. The referee seemed to be perfectly fine with the lack of tagging there.

 

Rating: D. The match sucked but the crowd reactions for McGraw/Jones were great. I have no idea what the point was in having the Assassins win here was as they were in control for roughly ten seconds out of just over eight minutes. Nothing to see here at all and the ending sucked the life out of the crowd.

 

The announcers talk about how great this show is and hype up the main event a little bit more. Apparently Dusty Rhodes is going to challenge the winner.

 

Tony Schiavone (long time WCW commentator making his debut tonight) is in the back as the good guys are warming up for their matches later, including both Flair and Piper.

 

Kevin Sullivan/Mark Lewin vs. Scott McGhee/Johnny Weaver

 

McGhee and Sullivan get things going meaning we don’t have a tall man in the ring at all. Off to Lewin to slap McGhee in the back and tag out to Sullivan again. Weaver gets the tag and we get a crisscross resulting in Sullivan holding onto the ropes to avoid a right hand. Lewin comes back in but Weaver starts cranking on his arm to gain control. Off to Scott again as Lewin isn’t sure what to do.

 

Mark and Kevin start tagging in and out very quickly to work on Scott’s arm with knees and chops to the shoulder. Lewin comes in to crank on both arms at once but Scott manages to make a tag while still in the hold. That would be very impressive but the tag doesn’t count as the referee didn’t see it. Lewin and Sullivan stay on the arm before it’s a nerve hold by Mark. Sullivan comes back in but lets McGhee go long enough for the hot tag to Weaver. Johnny cleans house but has his bulldog broken up by Sullivan. Now it’s Weaver getting pounded down and Lewin comes in off the top rope with a knee to the arm….for the pin? Seriously?

 

Rating: C-. It was better than the opener but not by much. The arm stuff was fine although the ending was out of nowhere. Sullivan just held the arm while Lewin jumped onto it for the pin. The match wasn’t bad but we’re now a fourth of the way through the show and no good guy has won yet. That’s some questionable booking.

 

Post match Sullivan and Lewin’s manager Gary Hart throws in a spike and McGhee is stabbed in the head, busting him open. Huge referee Angelo Mosca gets beaten down for a bit before making the save.

 

Some fans from South Carolina are in the front row and are very polite about being here.

 

Harley Race is his usual calm and collected self and says he knows all of Flair’s injuries. He’s coming after them tonight.

 

Abdullah the Butcher vs. Carlos Colon

 

This was a MEGA feud in Puerto Rico where the match was allegedly banned from ever happening again, despite the two feuding on and off on the island for the next ten years or so. Abdullah looks exactly the same here as he’d look for years to come. Butcher shoves Colon into the corner to start and pounds away on him against the ropes. It looks like Abdullah has something in his hand to jab Carlos in the head with.

 

Carlos comes back with some right hands and an object of his own. Colon fires off some shots the ample gut and gets two off a legdrop. Butcher kicks Carlos off of a near fall and the referee is crushed in the process. Colon puts on the Figure Four but Butcher’s manager Hugo Savonovich rakes Carlos’ eyes, giving Butcher the pin.

 

Rating: D+. Just a brawl here for the most part which never got wild in the slightest. Butcher was there because he could bleed a lot and look like a mess at the end of the match. Carlos was somewhat known here but the fans weren’t quite sure what to make of the match as neither guy was all that well known in this area. This was about three minutes of punching and then a finish though, which makes for a dull match.

 

Angelo Mosca is furious but says he’s going to be the referee in the world tag title match later. He’s going on a crusade for people like his son so he doesn’t have to deal with people like Sullivan and Lewin. The camera pans back to see Scott McGhee covered in blood and looking completely unconscious in a disturbing visual. Oh and Mosca picks Flair to win tonight.

 

More fans pick Flair to win tonight.

 

Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood vs. Dick Slater/Bob Orton

 

Slater and Orton put Flair out with a broken neck and McDaniel and Youngblood are Flair’s friends, here for revenge. Youngblood and McDaniel are both Native Americans so they come to the ring in big headdresses. Before the bell Dusty Rhodes is introduced to the live crowd for no apparent reason. Wahoo and Slater start things off with McDaniel quickly throwing him over the top and out onto the apron.

 

Back in and Wahoo works on the arm before it’s off to Mark for some arm work of his own. We cut to an overhead camera view which is pretty disorienting. Slater is slammed down but comes back with a quick rollup for two. Mark puts on a hammerlock as we go back to the overhead view. Slater is kicked to the apron again but comes back in with a Russian legsweep for two. Orton comes in with a knee to the back and it’s Youngblood in trouble.

 

A gorilla press backbreaker has Youngblood down again but Bob misses an elbow. After a quick chase on the floor, Orton brings Slater back in after only a brief rest on the apron. Actually scratch that again as the tag doesn’t count for some reason. It’s very clear that the tag team formula hasn’t been invented yet. A crisscross results in a backbreaker to Youngblood and a tag off to Slater. There’s a gutwrench suplex for two on Mark and he falls to the floor for some stomping by Orton.

 

Youngblood breaks the count by a second but the punishment to the back continues with a reverse chinlock. Orton lets go on the hold and stomps him in the face for good measure. Slater comes in and breaks up a tag before suplexing Mark down for two. Back up and they bang heads, allowing for the hot tag to Wahoo. He cleans house with an atomic drop on Orton and a big chop for good measure.

 

Everything breaks down and it’s Wahoo getting double teamed for a change. A belly to back suplex gets several two counts for Dick before it’s back to Orton. Bob misses a headbutt and it’s off to Mark who speeds things up almost immediately. Wahoo is sent to the floor and Youngblood has to fight off both villains on his own. After a quick double beating, Orton hits Youngblood with the superplex for the pin.

 

Rating: C. Not a terrible match here but the majority of it was Slater and Orton toying with Youngblood and McDaniel which doesn’t make for very entertaining action. I’m not sure what sort of revenge this gets for Flair and it makes the Native Americans look pretty lame. Also this is the fourth straight loss for the good guys here.

 

The winners injure Wahoo’s arm post match.

 

Flair is in the back with Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood who are getting ready for their matches later. In a rare sight, Flair is very calm and collected before the main event. He wishes the other two luck. Youngblood and Steamboat are ready too and promises to win the tag belts again.

 

Dusty Rhodes…..has technical difficulties but I think he’s talking about wanting the first shot at the winner. Expect to hear things like this a lot, as Dusty had a big issue with making everything about himself and not the guys that the show was supposed to be focusing on.

 

TV Title: Charlie Brown vs. Great Kabuki

 

This has a lot of stuff to mention. First of all, Kabuki is defending. Second of all, Brown is Jimmy Valiant under a mask, but given that he has Valiant’s foot and a half long beard, it’s clearly him. Also this is a sixty minute time limit but the title is only on the line for the first fifteen minutes which I’ve never heard of before. The referee is in jeans here too which isn’t something you often see. Finally this is mask vs. title, but again I think that’s only for fifteen minutes.

 

Kabuki is sent to the floor but Brown is all over him, sending the champion into the post and chasing him with a chair. Kabuki gets crotched against the post and it’s time to dance back inside. Brown chokes away and pounds away before putting on a sleeper hold. Kabuki goes for the mask to escape but Brown puts the hold back on almost immediately. The champion’s manager Gary Hart puts Kabuki’s foot on the ropes for the break and Brown yells a lot.

 

Kabuki comes back with a kick to the chest and some chops to take over before putting on a claw hold. Brown escapes and backdrops Kabuki down, only to have the champion come back with another claw hold. Charlie fights up again but he’s too dazed to follow up. Back to the claw for the third time but Kabuki lets it go for no apparent reason. A top rope chop to the head gets two on Brown so Kabuki goes after the mask again. Another kick puts Brown down but he fights up, avoids a kick in the corner and drops an elbow for the pin and the title out of nowhere.

 

Rating: D. Another dull match here but we finally get a victory for a good guy. The majority of this match was spent with Brown laying on the mat in a hold which doesn’t make for an interesting match whatsoever. Brown would become Jimmy Valiant again soon and had to drop the title as a result. Nothing to see here but the good stuff is coming.

 

Caudle and Solie talk to a local radio show host who predicts Flair winning. Does ANYBODY think Race is winning? The announcers run down the rest of the card. Both guys look and sound like great announcers which they both are for the most part. Solie talks about being saved by Roddy Piper during a brawl so he’s backing Piper in the dog collar match.

 

Slater and Orton talk about the bounty they collected and think Race is retaining the gold. Race says these two men know Flair better than anyone so he’s as ready as he can be.

 

Dusty (noticing a pattern here?) says that he wants the first shot at the new champion. He picks Flair too after talking about how great his own career has been for a minute or so.

 

Roddy Piper vs. Greg Valentine

 

Greg is US Champion but this is non-title because it’s a dog collar match. The idea is they both have collars around their neck and there’s a chain attaching the two collars, meaning neither guy can run away. Anything goes and you can win by pinfall. This match came about because Valentine injured Piper’s ear in the match where he won the title. They immediately start by pulling on the chain with their necks in a painful looking tug of war. Neither guy can get an advantage so they both start pulling on the chain to get closer to each other.

 

Piper gets in the first shot with the chain and Valentine is mad. They back up again but Valentine misses some swings and Piper gets back to the corner. Both guys come to the center of the ring for a slugout but no one can take over. Roddy gets in some shots with the chain and Valentine is in trouble. Greg goes for the bad ear and start choking away with the chain but also wrapping the chain around Piper’s face for extra torture.

 

Piper comes back with some shots to the eyes of his own before choking away in the middle of the ring. Valentine is sent into the corner and Piper keeps pounding away on the head. Piper takes it to the floor for some HARD shots with the chain as they head into the barricade. Greg gets in some shots to the bad ear and Piper is bleeding from the side of his head.

 

Back in and Valentine pounds away but Piper blocks a suplex. A hard elbow gets two for Valentine but Piper is in big trouble. Greg tries to hit the ropes but Piper pulls the chain to bring him down. Piper goes NUTS on Valentine and pounds away on him, busting the champion open in the process. Valentine goes right back to the ear but Piper comes back with some straight left hands to the jaw. A BIG right hand drops Valentine but Greg goes after the ear again to take over. Greg gets two off a knee drop as both guys are tiring.

 

A chain shot to Piper’s ear gets two but Roddy comes back with a suplex to put both guys down. Greg grabs a quick sleeper but Piper’s arm only drops once. Roddy wraps the chain around his hand but the hold slows him down again. A jawbreaker gets Piper out of the hold but it’s Valentine going up first. Roddy pulls him off the ropes and beats the tar out of him with the chain before tying the legs up to pin Valentine. Solie says that was for the title but corrects himself a few seconds later.

 

Rating: B+. This is a very hard hitting brawl but it can be a bit slow at times. This is the match that made people realize how insane Piper could be as he went out there and took an insane beating before coming back time after time and trying to hurt Valentine. He would jump to the WWF soon after and become the top villain in the world, which is what he deserved to be.

 

Post match Valentine jumps Piper and chokes him with the chain.

 

Flair gets I think his third interview of the night, this time with Wahoo McDaniel next to him, says that he’s coming for Race, Slater and Orton. He wants the best from Race tonight.

 

Don Kernoodle, former world tag team champion, wants to see Flair win.

 

Tag Titles: Ricky Steamboat/Jay Youngblood vs. Brisco Brothers

 

The Brothers would be Jerry, who you might remember as one of Vince’s Stooges in the Attitude Era and the legendary former world champion Jack. They’re defending here against the guys they took the belts from. Jack and Steamboat start things off in what sounds like a dream match. It’s a feeling out process to start with neither guy being able to get any kind of advantage to start. Steamboat does some fast leapfrogs but Brisco grabs the ropes to avoid a chop. Mosca, the big guy mentioned earlier, is referee here.

 

Jerry comes in to work on the arm for a bit before it’s back to Jack for an armbar. Jerry comes in again and pounds away in the corner but Ricky chops him down and tags in Jay. Youngblood counters a slam into an armdrag on Jerry before bringing Steamboat back in to pound on the arm as well. Jay jumps off the top onto the arm as well but it’s off to Jack again to drop Steamboat throat first onto the top rope.

 

A quick suplex gets two for Jerry and he hooks a short armscissors to keep Ricky in trouble. Ricky escapes in an impressive power display by lifting him off the mat and dropping him down on his back. Hot tag brings in Jay and things break down. The Briscos double team Youngblood to take over again but Jerry can only get two off a suplex. Jerry tries his abdominal stretch cradle but Jay kicks out again. He tries again but rolls Jay into the corner for another tag to Steamboat and the future dragon cleans house. A double chop puts Jerry down and Steamboat slams Jay down onto Jerry for the pin and the titles.

 

Rating: C+. Nice tag match here to give Steamboat and Youngblood their fifth tag titles. Yeah even back then there were teams who would get a bunch of titles in just a few years. Anyway, the Briscos would be retired soon after this while Youngblood would die in 1985 due to injuries suffered in the match. Good stuff here though.

As the new champions celebrate, we actually have the credits read to us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

 

Charlie Brown comes in to see Flair and says the TV Title is for Jimmy Valiant. Piper comes in to say it’s not over between himself and Valentine (yeah it was). The new tag champions say they know what it takes to be champions now because the first three reigns didn’t count I guess.

 

The announcers hype up the main event even more.

 

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Harley Race

 

The entrances take a LONG time, especially when you compare them to the other intros tonight. Wait has anyone else had an intro tonight? I don’t think they have actually. Flair has a long light sequence with his legendary music (the song playing in the gorilla sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey) playing in the background. Former world champion Gene Kiniski is guest referee for no apparent reason and this is inside a steel cage. Race is a seven time and reigning champion and Flair is a two time champion so these are both seasoned veterans.

 

They talk trash to each other to start before Flair takes him down with a headlock takeover. Race sends him into the ropes for a knee to the ribs but Kiniski pulls them apart. Ric snapmares him down into a chinlock which transitions into a headlock. Race fights up and hits a high knee, only to have a falling headbutt hit the canvas. Flair goes back to the headlock and cranks away on it on the mat but has to shift over into a front facelock.

 

Race escapes but misses a big elbow drop, only to fall on Flair for two during a slam attempt. Race drops a knee on the forehead and it’s Flair in trouble this time. Kiniski pulls Race off again so Harley opts to hit Ric in the ear instead. A piledriver puts Flair down but Race drops an elbow before covering. Race stays on the neck which is logical given the piledriver that put Flair out earlier in the year. The champion drives some knee into the back of the neck before sending Flair head first into the cage. That’s the first time it’s been used and we’re about ten minutes into the match.

 

We go to that overhead camera shot again as Race hits what looks like a shoulder breaker for two. A falling headbutt has Flair in trouble again as does being slammed face first into the cage. Another shot into the steel has Flair in trouble and Race is in full control. The referee pulls Race off Flair for the third time but this time he yells at Flair as well. Ric is busted open now.

 

Flair tries a headbutt get gets raked in the eyes to bring him down again. Now Ric blocks a ram into the cage and sends the champion in to get his first advantage in a long time. A knee to Race’s head gets two and Harley is busted open as well. Flair hits a piledriver of his own but Race’s afro protects him, meaning Flair only gets two. There’s a butterfly suplex for two for Flair and he sends Race head first into the cage again.

 

Race is in trouble but comes back with a headbutt which looked very low and Flair is in trouble as a result. Kiniski interferes AGAIN before Race throws Flair into the cage. Flair loads up a punch but Gene pulls the arm back because that’s illegal. IN A CAGE MATCH. Ric gets ticked off and pounds away on the champion but Kiniski breaks up the strut. Flair puts on the Figure Four but Race turns it over, which is apparently a big deal at this time.

 

Race headbutts out of the corner but Flair falls on top during a suplex attempt. The champion slams him down and drops a middle rope headbutt but stuns himself in the process. A suplex gets two more for Race and there is blood EVERYWHERE. Race pounds away and Kiniski has a problem with that too. Harley shrugs off some Flair punches and sends him into the cage before choking away with his boot.

 

Flair counters a suplex into one of his own as the back and forth control continues. A big elbow drop misses Race and both guys are down. Flair has been in such a fight that he’s gone from covered in blood to clean again to bloody again. Race accidentally knocks the referee down and in a famous but odd ending, Flair goes up top and hits a cross body, sending Race falling over the kneeling Kiniski for the pin and the title.

 

Rating: A. This is the definition of an old school fight. While it was pretty clear that Flair was going to win, it wasn’t a complete lock which made the match that much more interesting. The only slight flaw is the ending as the Kiniski stuff really wasn’t needed and the build wasn’t all that strong. Still though, this was a bloody and violent match between two of the best ever. Great stuff.

 

Flair’s friends storm the cage to celebrate. Ric thanks the fans for the win.

 

The announcers talk about Dusty vs. Flair which is coming soon.

 

Tony is in the back with Flair (again) and Flair thanks the fans (again). Here’s Dusty (AGAIN) to say he’s coming for the title, because Heaven forbid Flair gets his moment without Dusty being the last thing we see on the show right???

 

The announcers talk about Dusty. AGAIN.

 

Race says that he’ll be back, which he technically would by beating Flair in an unrecognized title reign in New Zealand but it only lasted three days. There’s a misconception that Race was very old at this point, but he was only forty years old here, which is a lot younger than a lot of the guys on this show, many of whom were in their mid to late 40s.

 

Flair (in his fifth or sixth promo tonight) is with Steamboat and Youngblood as they pose with their titles.

 

The announcers talk about everything to end the show, over twenty minutes after the main event ended.

 

Overall Rating: B. This show is a hard one to grade because it’s literally the first of its kind. Starrcade was a very ambitious effort and it worked quiet well for the most part. The first three matches were pretty bad, but with the longest one being just over eight minutes long. The next two matches weren’t particularly good either but at least they had some stories behind them.

 

That brings us to the final three matches which were all somewhere between good and masterpieces. This is pretty much a one match show with the main event being the focus of about 90% of the hype and that was excellent. On top of that you have another great match in the collar match and a very solid tag match, so what more can you really ask for here? It’s a very good show which is a very easy sit and required viewing for all wrestling fans.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of In Your House at Amazon for just $4 at:

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World War 3 1997
Date: November 23, 1998
Location: The Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 17,128
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

Last show in this series here but not the last chronologically. It’s the final show before Starrcade 97 and the bullet that killed WCW. Anyway, the feature match here is of course the battle royal with the winner getting a shot at SuperBrawl which would later be changed to Uncensored (why Souled Out wasn’t an option is anyone’s guess). This is from when this was the hottest company in the world so I’d expect a lot more energy here than the next year. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is of a pilot/soldier in a decimated war zone with a destroyed ring in it. This is interspersed with clips of the show from the previous two years. Bet that cost more than some wrestlers’ salaries.

After the announcers talk for awhile we’re ready to go.

Glacier/Ernest Miller vs. Faces of Fear

Miller and Glacier aren’t total jokes yet and the Faces of Fear (Meng/Haku and Barbarian) are monsters at this point of course. We brawl to start and Meng vs. Glacier opens us up officially. Glacier moves around as much as he can but his shots don’t mean much at all. Standing armbar goes on and it’s off to Miller. It’s so weird to see Miller all serious like this instead of the James Brown thing.

Miller hammers on Barbarian but the three time world karate champion can’t put down the Tongan. Back off to Glacier as we’re up to speed vs. power here, making this mostly awesome. Miller dives on Barbarian on the floor, using Meng as a springboard. That looked rather awesome indeed. Jimmy Hart distracts Glacier and Barbarian runs him over.

Back in the ring Meng backdrops Glacier into a powerbomb by Barbarian for two in a sweet spot. We get into a basic face in peril sequence with Glacier getting beaten down. Powerslam by Meng gets two. Off to Barbarian in the corner and since Dusty isn’t here, I’ll say it: THEY BE CLUBBERIN TONY!!! THEY BE CLUBBERIN!!!

Apparently Barbarian used to play rugby on the Isle of Tonga. Why in the world would Tenay know that? I get that he’s the Professor but dude, does Barbarian even speak English? Another powerslam by Meng gets two. Time for the nerve hold which is an old Tongan/Samoan/Savage standard. We hear a cool story about Meng being a bodyguard for the Emperor of Japan as this needs to end rather soon.

Elbow drop misses and Miller still can’t get tagged in. We finally get to the hot tag and Miller cleans house. He kind of reminds me of Tajiri actually but a bit taller. Kicks all around, including one to Jimmy Hart. It’s not like it matters though as the Tongan Death Grip ends Miller cold.

Rating: C-. I’ve seen far worse actually. Not particularly good but it was light years better than the 10 minute squash that we got the next year with Glacier in there. This wasn’t anything I’ll remember in about five minutes but it was still decent enough for an opener and that double powerbomb spot was cool. Not terrible.

TV Title: Disco Inferno vs. Perry Saturn

Saturn had won the title in his debut off of Disco so this is his rematch. There’s your backstory. Oh and Saturn is in the Flock. Disco is being serious at the moment and he got the TV Title because of it. Raven comes to the ring with Saturn despite sitting in the front row pre match. Raven says let the stretching begin. Saturn immediately takes Disco down and the Inferno is frustrated.

Tenay vaguely references ECW by calling it an other organization. Saturn runs over Disco with power. So he can’t hang with him on the mat or power and Tenay said Saturn can fly. What chance does Disco have here exactly? Disco sends him to the floor as we hear about how during his six week reign with the title he never got a clean pin. Wait are we supposed to buy him as a credible guy or not?

Heenan might have picked Saturn for the battle royal but it’s not entirely clear. Disco makes Saturn take a break and then gets his head knocked off by a boot and clothesline. Atomic drop puts Saturn back down as this is a weird kind of back and forth. Disco hammers away with a back elbow and fist drop for two.

You may not believe this, but Disco does something incredibly intelligent here. You know that spot where a guy comes off the middle rope and jumps into a boot with no possible move they could have had other than jumping into the boot? Disco does it here but avoids the boot. Granted the elbow he attempted missed but I like what I saw there. T-Bone suplex to Disco has Saturn in control again.

Saturn covers him time after time but can’t get the pin. Second rope moonsault misses and Disco, who doesn’t have a finisher, tries a bunch of stuff for two. Saturn gets a backslide but sits down with it so that it’s like a sunset flip/backslide hybrid. Never seen that before. Disco is crotched on the top rope and Saturn hits a middle rope clothesline to send both guys to the floor.

They more or less fell onto the apron with that so it wasn’t the best looking move in the world. Disco yells at the Flock and hits Chartbusters (Stunners) on various members over the railing, including one on the debuting Lodi. He can’t hit one on Van Hammer and Saturn uses his chance to drill Disco and take over. Back to the middle ring and Disco gets a neckbreaker for two. Top rope cross body hits but Saturn rolls though into the Rings of Saturn (double arm hook submission) for the submission to retain.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but there were some bad spots. Also I still don’t know if we’re supposed to take Disco seriously even in his more serious persona or not. They didn’t seem to have much of a plan out there but that was somewhat typical of a Saturn match. Not bad though.

Yuji Nagata vs. Ultimo Dragon

Nagata has Sonny Onoo with him and if Dragaon, Onoo’s former protégé, loses then he gets five minutes with Sonny. Dragon has a bad arm thanks to Nagata. Dragon is fresh off one of the least interesting feuds over a title you’ll ever see, trading it twice with Alex Wright. Nagata is a much bigger star in Japan and takes over early by going after the arm, but Dragon fights his way out of it.

Nagata heads to the floor and Dragon follows. Sonny fires in some kicks so Dragon tries a suplex which Nagata breaks up to take over. Dragon grabs a headlock and gets suplexed. Nagata is one of the least interesting guys I’ve ever seen. Whenever his matches are on I can’t get interested in him at all. Piledriver gets two for Nagata. He grabs a chinlock and shifts it into a sleeper. Then he makes it even more interesting by going BACK to the chinlock! WOW!!!

Another Piledriver gets two. So is the BIG FREAKING BANDAGE on his arm not a big enough target that you should work on the arm? Nagata kicks him and heads to the camel clutch, shifting over to the back now. After that gets broken up he FINALLY works on the arm with a Fujiwara Armbar. Let’s hit that chinlock/sleeper again because that arm work can’t last that long.

Belly to belly overhead suplex gets two. Dragon avoids a backdrop and kicks the tar out of Nagata. Some Facewashes in the corner have Nagata in big trouble. Pescado is almost caught by a kick but Dragon catches the kick and hits a Dragon Screw Leg Whip to take Nagata down on the floor. Top rope cross body to the floor puts Nagata down again.

Back in and Dragon goes up again. Suplex off the top by Nagata is blocked and Dragon adds a moonsault for two. Dragon tries a suplex but Nagata reverses. That reversal is reversed into the Dragon Sleeper but Sonny distracts. Dragon Rana gets two but Sonny puts Nagata’s foot on the rope. We then get one of the sloppiest finishes I’ve EVER seen. Dragon tries a belly to back suplex but seems to fall towards the ropes. Nagata’s foot hits Sonny and Nagata falls on top. Dragon’s shoulder was up and he was in the ropes but the referee counted to four (yes four) anyway. That had to be at least one botch.

Rating: D+. I’m not a fan of Nagata at all and this didn’t help my opinion of him. Terribly boring match with a bad finish and a total lack of psychology. Once Dragon got going in there towards the end it was an improvement but it didn’t make up for the previous eight minutes or so. Nagata continues to bore me.

 

Tag Titles: Blue Bloods vs. Steiner Brothers

The Blue Bloods are Dave Taylor (old English dude) and Steve Regal (yes that Regal). This was when the Steiners were tag champions but the Outsiders had their own belts. This would result in the temporary “Unified” tag titles. Ted DiBiase is managing them here. Scott vs. Taylor to start us off here. Scott isn’t that far away from turning heel and breaking up the team.

We hear about how awesome the Steiners are, including their two tag title reigns from another promotion (WWF) and how dominant they are. The Dudleys would more or less destroy every record they had but until they came along it was all Steiners. The British dudes get thrown around with ease and are sent to the floor to hide a bit. Rick vs. Regal now and it’s a USA chant.

Regal tries to use his technical stuff so Rick grabs his hand and cranks on it to take over. Well no one ever accused Rick of being a mental giant. Regal takes over for a bit but gets cocky and Rick gets a Fujiwara Armbar of all things to take him down. Off to Scott who gets that sweet belly to belly for two. STF goes on for all of two seconds and it’s back off to Rick.

He goes for the arm of Regal again but as Dave has the referee, Regal gets a finger to the eye to take over. And never mind as Rick gets a shoulder block and powerslam to take over again. Regal gets a knee to the back of Scott and pulls the rope down to send Scott outside. Taylor goes for the arm and it’s back to Regal. He hooks Scott in a leg lock and brings Taylor back in.

The Brits have used a lot of European uppercuts and every time they’ve put the Steiners down. Regal tries to speed things up and walks into a belly to belly by Scott, allowing for a tag to Rick. Down goes everyone and it all breaks down. Scott backdrops Taylor onto Regal and the Steiner Bulldog ends Regal to retain.

Rating: C-. Just an extended squash here. I don’t get why the vast majority of these matches have been on this show so far. I guess because we can’t have a battle royal go on for three hours. Either way this was more or less exactly what you would expect here. The Blue Bloods were more or less tag team jobbers so this didn’t have any heat on it at all.

JJ Dillon says Raven has 24 hours to sign a contract or he’s gone.

Raven vs. Scotty Riggs

Riggs is in an eyepatch due to Raven hurting him. Kidman, a member of the Flock, insists on Raven’s Rules, meaning No DQ. Raven has been trying to get Riggs to join the Flock, so what do you think is coming at the end here? Riggs jumps him and beats on Raven for awhile in the kind of offense you would expect from a guy that has no chance at all. Riggs gets a rollup for two as Raven can’t get much going.

Heenan makes blind jokes which are kind of funny. First of all he suggests moving the patch to the other eye. That’s actually rather smart when you think about it. Raven uses the shirt around his waist to choke away and we head to the floor. Riggs reverses and sends him into the steps and chokes with a cord. Tony says Raven is helpless, just as he pops up with a jawbreaker. I love it when Tony looks like an idiot, which means I love a lot in WCW.

The announcers say Scotty has done nothing since Bagwell and he broke up which makes me laugh for some reason. Raven gets a chair and hits him in the back with it a few times for some weak shots. Riggs gets the drop toehold into the chair as a reversal to break Raven’s momentum. Modified Van Daminator by Riggs gets two.

Riggs manages a bulldog onto the chair which looked either awesome or awful and I’m not sure which. Either way it gets two. And never mind as there’s the Evenflow DDT to kill Riggs dead. Raven wants a microphone instead though. There’s a second DDT as he says he feels Riggs’ pain and that it hurts Raven more than Riggs. Heenan: I don’t think so. Raven shouts about feeling the pain again and a third DDT has Riggs unconscious. The referee counts him out and it’s over.

Rating: D+. What was the point of this being on PPV again? For the big blowoff for Raven vs. Riggs? Weak match all around and Raven looked completely dominant even though he got beaten up. I think he would sign the next night but I’m not sure. Either way he would have Riggs in the Flock then and that’s about it.

Steve McMichael vs. Bill Goldberg

This is over Mongo’s Super Bowl ring that Goldberg stole at the previous PPV. Mongo comes out with a pipe Goldberg’s music hits and there’s no Goldberg. Mongo says this isn’t happening and says he can sneak up on people too. We go to the back and Goldberg is out cold. So no one noticed the big man in his underwear out cold on the concrete just behind the entry way? Mongo more or less gives an open challenge, resulting in this.

Steve McMichael vs. Alex Wright

Wright isn’t here because he wants to be but because Debra, Mongo’s estranged wife, brings him out and more or less makes his fight. Wright whips him with his jacket to start. Wright is from Germany so wouldn’t that be a foreign object? Mongo is like screw this and hammers away, sending Wright to the floor. He tries to leave but Debra more or less makes him come back.

Alex tries to fight and gets slammed down to the mat with ease. Mongo is barely breaking a sweat in this. Was there a reason they didn’t have Goldberg in this that I’m not getting? Debra’s voice is irritating to put it mildly. Wright takes over for a very little bit with chops but McMichael takes out the knee. Side slam sets up the Tombstone to end it. Total and complete squash squash and no rating here. Heenan asks Who’s Next for Mongo. Nah that’ll never catch on.

Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

They’re coming off an absolute classic the previous month at Halloween Havoc. Eddie (not Eddy blast it!) is champion here. Also what is with the total lack of promos here? I think JJ had the only one so far. They start off with speed stuff to the shock of no one. Eddie is in gold tights and they’re really not working on him here. Rey gets that elevated snap mare to take Eddie down and it’s a stalemate.

The fans are all over Eddie here and his reaction is quite funny. Eddie ripped the mask off partially last time so we talk about that a bit here. Guerrero hits a German suplex and busts out some suplexes to take over. The problem here seems that they’re trying to have the match of the year rather than having a great match.

They fight towards the ropes and neither guy can take over. Hilo misses and Rey hits the floor. Both guys try dives but neither can hit them. Rey can’t get a sunset bomb so Eddie hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Back in and Eddie goes up, only to get blocked by Rey. Superplex by Eddie takes Rey down but the Frog Splash misses. Eddie rolls through and Rey gets a rana for two.

Flapjack puts Rey down but Eddie can’t get up either. After some shots by Eddie he drops Rey over the top rope and spanks himself a bit. Eddie tries a sunset bomb which is reversed into a rana by Rey. Rey adds a front flip over the ropes to end Eddie. That and a moonsault gets in the ring. Eddie charges and is sent into the post but powerbombs Rey out of a rana to take over again.

Gory Special goes on by Eddie and Rey is in trouble. Rey counters that into a sunset flip for two. Leg lariat puts Eddie down again but Rey doesn’t cover for no apparent reason. They try something from the top and Rey falls off in what looked like a mild botch. Moonsault press gets two for the guy in the mask. Dropping the Dime gets no cover as Rey wants to go up again. West Coast Pop with a flip gets two as Eddie grabs the rope. Awesome looking move. Rey tries to run at Eddie who is on the corner but Eddie gets a hot shot to block it. Frog Splash ends it.

Rating: B. Good match but their match the previous month gave them WAY too much to live up to. Naturally this was still great as their matches always would be. Not a classic but worth watching if you like these two. There were some botches in there and they were trying to live up to the previous month which never works at all.

Ad for Starrcade. Remarkable that they managed to screw that up, it truly is.

US Title: Ric Flair vs. Curt Hennig

Hennig had turned on Flair and the Horsemen at Fall Brawl, slamming Flair’s head in the door. He won the US Title soon thereafter and more or less hasn’t looked back since. This is Flair’s revenge match rather than for the title. It’s also No DQ and Hennig brings a chair with him. The referee gets rid of the chair which is kind of pointless but whatever. Hennig is wearing a Syxx shirt for no apparent reason.

Curt stalls like a Memphis man but gets caught on the floor and Ric hammers away. This is the last match before the battle royal too. We hit the crowd with Flair dominating. This is your usual brawl in the crowd with various punches and eye rakes along with people being rammed into objects. Flair is rammed into the railing as Curt dominates for awhile.

Back into the ring and Hennig chokes away with a cord and we go back to the floor. We hear about Flair playing football at the University of Minnesota which isn’t something you often hear about. Flair goes up top and drops a double axe onto Hennig into the railing by the throat but he might have hurt his ankle. Flair chops away as we talk about the battle royal with the various countries etc that are going to be here for the match. Good to know that a bunch of people we don’t know will be competing here.

Back into the ring (again) and the referee got poked in the eye by Hennig apparently instead of letting him count three. Hennig was covering Flair which means it was even stupider. He works on the leg with Flair losing his mind as usual of course. Heenan says you can forget the Figure Four now. Why do I not believe that in the slightest?

He drops a leg between Flair’s legs as Flair’s ankle is still hurt. Modified Indian Deathlock goes on by Hennig and he gets two on it as Flair is laying there. Ric fights out of it and gets a chopblock as the crowd is way into him, or at least his wooing. Snap mare puts Hennig down and drops the knee. After some right hands Flair goes up. Take a guess as to how this goes. Just take a guess.

They chop it out with Hennig easily getting the best of it, resulting in a Flair Flop for two. We slug it out in the corner a bit more with Flair tossing Hennig into the corner where Curt is crotched on the post as is his custom. Hennig drops low to avoid a chop as it’s Flair in control again. They ram heads though and both go down for a bit. Belly to back gets two for Flair.

To change the pace a bit, Hennig chops away in the corner. They’re in a different ring now also. Flair Flip in the corner and we go outside again. Scratch that as just Flair does as Hennig chills in the ring a bit which is probably pretty smart. They fight a bit on the floor with Hennig in control again. Flair sends him into the railing and both guys are down again.

Flair suplexes him back into the ring but that also only gets two. This is at about 15 minutes now and probably needs to end very soon. Flair gets a chair as I had forgotten this was a No DQ match. It gets set up in the ring and Flair crotches him on it and kicks the chair into the knee. Flair rams the knee with the chair and brings the belt into the ring. Figure Four goes on but the belt that is RIGHT NEXT TO HENNIG goes into Flair’s head and it’s over. Weak ending to say the least.

Rating: D+. This was WAY too long. This is nearly 18 minutes long and I legitimately forgot about the No DQ aspect of it for a very long time. I’m not sure what they were going for here as Flair is made to look like a guy that can’t get revenge in a match where he’s supposed to be dirty. Not a great match at all and very boring and repetitive as can be here.

World War 3

Chris Adams, Brad Armstrong, Marcus Bagwell, The Barbarian, Chris Benoit, Bobby Blaze, Booker T, Ciclope, Damien, El Dandy, Barry Darsow, Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan, Fit Finlay, Héctor Garza, The Giant, Glacier, Johnny Grunge, Juventud Guerrera, Chavo Guerrero, Jr., Eddy Guerrero, Scott Hall, Curt Hennig, Prince Iaukea, Chris Jericho, Lizmark, Jr., Lex Luger

Dean Malenko, Steve McMichael, Meng, Ernest Miller, Rey Misterio, Jr., Hugh Morrus, Mortis, Yuji Nagata, John Nord, Diamond Dallas Page, La Parka, Stevie Ray, Lord Steve Regal, The Renegade, Rocco Rock, Randy Savage, Silver King, Norman Smiley, Louie Spicolli, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, Super Calo, Squire David Taylor, Ray Traylor, Último Dragón, Greg Valentine, Villaño IV, Villaño V, Vincent, Kendall Windham, Wrath and Alex Wright

What you might notice is that there are only 59 names there, so yes it’s time for shenanigans. As far as people you might not know, the only one that pops off the page to me is John Nord, who is more famous as the Berzerker. The introductions are odd as they say the wrestlers can go from ring to ring. What sense does that make?? Also once we get down to five people per ring we go to the middle. So if they get down to five in a ring and the other rings aren’t yet we just stop? See why this match tended to suck? The rules rarely made sense. Just have a freaking battle royal. How hard is that to accomplish?

As usual the entrances take about 5 minutes. They seem to be a bit faster this year though, mainly due to some people coming out in groups. The Giant is the defending champion and has a broken hand here. There’s an NWO member missing let the confusion begin. The missing one is apparently Kevin Nash who might be out with a knee injury.

The bell rings and we immediately go split screen, meaning YOU CAN’T SEE ANYTHING!!! WCW didn’t get this through their heads until the final year when they just didn’t film everything in every ring, like the intelligent people would suggest. Let’s get this over with. Lizmark Jr. and Disco Inferno plus anyone else Giant touches are gone. He must have gotten four people at a time. Louie Spicolli and a Villano are out.

La Parka is out. Expect a lot of “so and so” is out, just like Norman Smiley. Public Enemy goes after Meng and Grunge is put out. Ring 2, the Giant’s ring, is emptying quickly. DDP just walks into another ring. Scott Hall puts out El Dandy. I guess Hall didn’t doubt him. The NWO is in ring 1. Bobby Blaze is gone. Ring 2 has like 30 people in it. Or is that 3? The announcers say 2 and the graphic says 3. Whatever man. It’s in the middle.

Graphic now says 2. Flair isn’t here either apparently. Who replaced him I wonder since they made it clear he was an entrant during his match. Stevie Ray hangs on with a rake to the eyes. We’ve more or less stopped checking the other rings. Brad Armstrong is gone. Silver King is gone. Damien, a luchador, is thrown out. DDP and Wrath go at it but Wrath hangs on.

DDP tosses Prince Iaukea. Nagata is out so the match is less boring now. Wrath and Renegade are gone and fight up the aisle. No idea how many people are left at the moment. Ring 1 is rather empty now with maybe 7 people left and all of the NWO in still. Jericho is out. Hall winds up hanging on by one hand but the NWO runs in for the save to keep him in.

Greg Valentine is gone. Giant’s hand is killing him so Mortis and Duggan double team him. The people keep switching rings so you can’t tell who is where and who is left as you think they’re eliminated but they’re in a different ring. Most annoying indeed. Ring 3 is mostly empty now while ring 1 is a lot more full now. Harlem Heat beats on Chris Adams. Adams is gone but tries to sneak back in ala his most famous student: Steve Austin.

Ray Traylor (Big Boss Man) chokes Savage as Finlay is gone. Page and Benoit fight to the apron but both get back in. We’re roughly halfway done here as Dave Taylor is gone. Page and Malenko put I think Benoit out. Yep that was him. Miller puts Malenko out. Ring 3 seems to have Meng, Giant, Alex Wright and Mortis. Duggan is out to some booing. Miller is gone.

Leave it to the WCW cameras to focus on Giant’s hand. That’s all you see in the entire ring. Barbarian goes out and McMichael is also in ring 3. Rey puts Eddie out and gets ganged up on by the NWO who finally gets him out. Traylor is gone as is Darsow. Wait Mysterio pulled a John Morrison/Shawn Michaels and is hanging on to the apron! Mongo is out as are Wright and Mortis. Giant and Meng are the only ones left in that ring. Luger, Harlem Heat, DDP and Rick Steiner are in another ring and the NWO remain in the other.

Stevie Ray is out so we have ten left I think. Giant DROPKICKS Meng out. That was incredible and he wins the ring. Ok so it’s Vincent, Hall, Savage, Bagwell, Hennig, DDP, Rick Steiner, Luger and Booker T. The NWO won’t change rings and say come over here. They beat up the referee who says go to the other ring. Giant chills in the ring while the other four change to the NWO ring.

Ah there’s Giant so they’re all in the ring closest to the entrance because clearly the most fans can see them there right? Diamond Cutter to Vincent and a HUGE pop. Giant rolls Vincent out to get our first NWO guy out. Booker is out via someone we didn’t see as is Rick Steiner. Bagwell talks to the camera so Giant rams Bagwell and Savage’s heads together.

Luger hammers on Hennig on the second rope and doesn’t get tossed. Luger wakes up and hammers on people but gets jumped by the NWO. Giant comes over and puts out Bagwell, Hennig and Luger, leaving us with Savage, Giant, Hall and DDP. There’s a decent midcard tag match in there somewhere. Savage fights Page while Hall gets beaten up by the Giant. Giant slams Hall instead of throwing him out.

Savage wants an elbow to DDP but Giant stands in front of him. Savage, the crazy man that he is, jumps anyway and gets caught. He doesn’t get tossed though but takes a Diamond Cutter. Giant won’t let him get tossed though because he wants to chokeslam him. Savage is more or less dead and is tossed with ease to get us to three. The next year it would be the same three but with Nash instead of Giant.

More or less it’s a handicap match with Hall vs. Giant/DDP. Hall heads to another ring which is pretty smart actually. He does the point and here comes….no one as the NWO music starts and ends. Hogan’s music kicks on and is here now instead. So apparently Hogan, the WORLD CHAMPION, is #60, being allowed to skip 25 minutes of the match to potentially win a title shot against….himself? There are 7 minutes left so let’s just go with it.

We get a tag match now with Hogan fighting Giant and Hall vs. DDP. Ok so during Hogan’s two minute or so long intro, did Giant and DDP just stand there instead of going after Hall? Six minutes left so I don’t particularly care here. The fans want Sting as the NWO starts dominating. Hogan slams Giant to a big pop. Hall is sat on the top rope by Giant as DDP is crotched on the top rope.

Bear hug to Hall as Sting rappels from the ceiling, somehow about 10 inches taller and with darker hair. Hogan eliminates himself to run from Not-Sting and Not-Sting hits Giant with the bat to eliminate him as I guess DDP went out somewhere. Not-Sting points the bat at Hall as the fans chant Nash, having basic intelligence. The NWO celebrates to end this stupid, stupid match. Hogan gives DDP a Diamond Cutter to take us to the credits. Yes WCW had credits.

Rating: F+. Where do I even begin? Awful in every sense of the word with nothing making sense and the whole thing being a disaster. The switching of the rings thing made it virtually impossible to know who was where. The ending was just idiotic as Hogan apparently can just walk into a match he’s not a part of and has no business being involved in as he’s competing for a shot at something he already has. Nash made things look stupid and the whole thing was just a mess from start to finish. Also the triple camera didn’t help either.

Overall Rating: D-. Just a terribly dull show with nothing going on at all that was worth seeing. Rey vs. Eddie is good but it’s got nothing on the previous match they had at the last show. This was a very boring show overall as it was clear that Starrcade was all set in stone already. Not a good show in any sense of the word and boring beyond belief. BIG pass here.

 

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Mayhem 1999
Date: November 21, 1999
Location: Air Canada Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 13,839
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

 

Since TNA is stupid and had two Final Resolutions in 2008, you get this until I can find a copy. This is WCW Canadian PPV debut so the main event is a tournament final of Benoit vs. Hart for the world title. The title was vacated this time because WCW decided to have the world champion’s (Sting) opponent (Hogan) at Halloween Havoc lay down for him and then have Goldberg squash Sting so the title was vacated and we got a tournament. That’s Russo for you. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video is about the final four in the tournament: Hart, Benoit, Sting and Jarrett.

 

Oh and this show is named after a video game, not vice versa.

 

We have a double main event: the tournament final and Sid vs. Goldberg in an I Quit match.

 

The fans want Flair as Tony and Bobby run down the card. Why we need to hear this is beyond me but I guess it makes sense to the bosses.

 

WCW World Title Tournament Semi-Final: Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

 

Jarrett takes him down to start and slaps him in the back of the head which ends badly for him. Benoit busts out a tornado DDT for two. Neckbreaker gets the same as Benoit is trying for as many pins as he can get. Superplex hits for two as well. This is all within the first 90 seconds. I’m not skipping a bunch of stuff. Out to the floor and Benoit chops away. A chop misses and Jarrett crotches Benoit against the post to finally slow him down.

 

Back inside and a powerslam gets two for Jeff. They hit a pinfall reversal sequence. This is faster and more crisp than anything I can remember in WCW in years. Jeff grabs a sleeper and Benoit is in trouble. He escapes but Jeff gets it again. This time Benoit hits a jawbreaker and both guys are down. The Canadian hits some Germans on the American and here comes Creative Control (Harris Brothers as the muscle of the Powers That Be).

 

Benoit is sent to the floor but Jeff doesn’t want the win by countout. That’s strangely galant of him. A top rope cross body is rolled through for two for Benoit and when he sits on a Jarrett sunset flip he gets the same result. Belly to back sets up the swan dive but Creative Control pulls Benoit out. The other member beats Benoit down to huge boos. There’s the Stroke but Dustin Rhodes comes out to break up the pin and beats up Creative Control. There’s the guitar but Benoit gets it and clocks Jarrett (totally against his character) to go to the finals.

 

Rating: B-. This was on the path to being a great match but then it’s Russo booking a big time match and therefore we must have three run-ins and a weapon shot. When have you ever seen a face Benoit use a weapon? The opening part of this was GREAT though and if they had kept that up for the entire match it would have been an easy A.

 

JJ and CC beat down Benoit post match to MONSTER heat.

 

Disco says he respects his Cruiserweight Title and the $25,000 he can win doesn’t mean as much as the belt. Jarrett and Creative Control pop up to beat him down too.

 

Cruiserweight Title: Evan Karagis vs. Disco Inferno

 

Title vs. money here. Wait both guys have put up money meaning Evan can win the title and money while Disco can only win the money. That’s not exactly fair. Evan also has Madusa with him. Disco has some issues getting to the ring due to the beating. Tony Marinara (Tony Mamaluke from ECW) is with him as his inspiration/lackey. Evan jumps him in the aisle and we start up in the aisle for a bit.

 

Marinara sits in on commentary. He’s very annoying so far and is talking about how Disco owes him money or something which would go on for about a year and never went anywhere. It did bring in the Mamalukes though. Disco fires away with some kicks in the corner that are so hard Evan is falling down before they hit. The champ hits a pair of suplexes and dances.

 

Evan gets two off a crucifix but is taken down by a clothesline. This is a pretty bland match so far. Marinara is getting more annoying with every word he says. A middle rope elbow gets two for Disco. Madusa picks up Evan on the floor and the power of looks is enough to inspire him to dropkick Disco as he jumps off the apron at him.

 

Powerslam gets two for Karagis. The announcers debate what the belt is worth with the value stretching from $150 to 50 grand. There’s a LOUD boring chant as Disco hits a DDT. Marinara gets up to hit on Madusa and the distraction causes Disco to grab a chair and put it upside Tony’s head. A springboard cross body gives Karagis the title which he would lose to Madusa.

 

Rating: D. This was a terribly dull match with neither guy being interesting at all. They just kind of did moves to each other for 8 minutes. I don’t think anyone knew who Marinara was and I don’t think anyone really cared. Disco was best served as a comedy act but instead they made him a champion because the other Cruiserweights actually had something to do. Bad match.

 

Bret is just getting here.

 

The Powers That Be (Russo with his face not being seen), yells at Jarrett and says he has to fix it tonight. Jeff says he’ll do it.

 

Norman Smiley says he’s ready to become Hardcore Champion and is scared by construction going on.

 

Hardcore Title: Brian Knobs vs. Norman Smiley

 

This is a tournament final to determine the first champion. Smiley comes out in a Maple Leafs jersey. The Hardcore Title is the exact same shape as the ECW World Title. Knobs takes over to start with some weapon shots. He’s in an old school Nasty Boys shirt while Norman is in full hockey gear minus the helmet. A middle rope trashcan shot misses so Norman cracks him in the head with it.

 

Norman gets the hockey stick and Tony tries to sound like he knows something about hockey. The Big Wiggle is broken up and there go the shin guards. Why are wrestlers so obsessed with taking opponents’ clothes off? Jimmy Hart jumps on Norman’s back and Norman gets to have his one instance of physical dominance. They head to the back with Knobs hitting him in the head and Norman stumbles back to the entrance.

 

There’s a camera waiting on them and Norman gets in a chair shot to the ribs. It’s your usual hardcore match from the late 90s meaning there’s a table set up with Norman going head first into it. Knobs goes into a bunch of boxes which are empty. He screams anyway because he’s Screamin Norman Smiley. They get to the food stuff and not yet prepared food is tossed around. They fight into an elevator and the door shuts. Jimmy opens it up but when he swings the trashcan it hits Knobs and Norman gets the pin and the title. Yes, Jimmy Hart just physically ended a match.

 

Rating: D+. It’s a hardcore match from the late 90s. The problem is that it’s Brian Knobs in there instead of someone that means something anymore. In WWF this would have been people like Al Snow or Road Dogg, as in people still relevant at the time. This wasn’t anything of note and is the same match you would see a dozen times over the next year on PPV.

 

Post match Jimmy is thrown into some hamburger buns.

 

We recap the Revolution vs. the Filthy Animals. It’s your usual stable gang warfare. There was a pole match involving getting Torrie out of a cage. There was a moment where Rey (Animals) was hung by the leg from the top of a cage and they destroyed his knee so he’s not in this.

 

The Revolution talks about what if’s and Saturn goes into a rant about dinosaurs.

 

The Animals say they’ll win and they’re not worried.

 

Disco talks to Tony Marinara and Tony says he’s going to get his boys.

 

Jarrett has what looks to be a 2×4 and is going to look for someone.

 

Filthy Animals vs. Revolution

 

This is an elimination match. It’s Eddie/Kidman/Asya (Chyna ripoff) vs. Torrie/Saturn/Malenko. Shane Douglas of the Revolution is on commentary. Eddie and Kidman clean house as they’re trying to keep Torrie (a spry 24 here and drop dead gorgeous) out of the ring. We start officially with Eddie vs. Dean which works almost every time. They head to the floor so Saturn takes them out with an Asai moonsautl. Kidman dives on them too and then Torrie sets for one. Asya gets her hands on Torrie and it turns into something like a catfight.

 

Kidman plants Asya with a Sky High as Torrie has a bad ankle. Eddie shoves Kidman into Malenko as he’s checking on Torrie but it lets Malenko roll Kidman up for the first elimination. Eddie is destroyed by Malenko and Saturn, taking a backbreaker/knee drop combo. Asya comes in and beats on Eddie a bit, hitting an eye popping Davey Boy Smith delayed vertical for two.

 

Back to Eddie vs. Dean with Dean in control via a suplex. Eddie gets out of it and hits a standing rana for a pin to eliminate Dean and get us down to Eddie/Torrie vs. Saturn/Asya with Torrie having an injured ankle still. Asya comes in and beats on Eddie with another suplex getting two. Saturn accidentally superkicks Asya and a frog splash makes it 2-1 with Saturn vs. Torrie/Eddie.

 

It’s so weird thinking of Eddie as a Filthy Animal when he left as one of the Radicalz with a lot of the Revolution in two months. Saturn hooks a sleeper hold on Eddie but a jawbreaker gets him out of it. Scratch that as he’s right back in it. Now Eddie puts a sleeper on Saturn. Why do people that just easily escaped a sleeper think it’s such a good move to use immediately afterwords?

 

Saturn tries a spinning springboard clothesline but Eddie steps to the side and dropkicks him down. Something like a tornado DDT gets two. Eddie jumps into a Death Valley Driver for two. Shane is losing it on commentary and is more entertaining than anything I’ve ever heard him say or do. Saturn misses a top rope elbow so Eddie tries the same move he got rid of Dean with but it only gets two. Eddie tries a top rope cross body but Saturn rolls through into the Rings of Saturn to give us Saturn vs. Torrie. Torrie kicks him low and Shane gets on the apron. Saturn hits Torrie low which gets him the pin for the win.

 

Rating: C-. Not bad but I really don’t get the idea of having the girls in there. This would have been a lot better if they just had a tag match with the four guys or maybe threw in another dude to fight Asya. There wasn’t anything great here and the ending was really pretty stupid. I can think of worse ways to kill ten minutes though.

 

Jeff and Creative Control are beating up Buff Bagwell now.

 

Curt Hennig vs. Buff Bagwell

 

This is a career vs. career match and the video package during Curt’s entrance doesn’t really do much of a good job of explaining why that’s the stipulation. There’s no Bagwell due to the beating so here are Jarrett and CC. Hennig tries to fight them off but he’s outnumbered. Here’s Bagwell who is fine and has a 2×4. He runs off the heels who have been in about 5 scenes tonight and the match begins.

 

Hennig controls early and we head to the floor with Bagwell going into the railing a few times. As they’re getting back in though Hennig is shoved off the apron and into the railing himself. And he still managed to do it perfectly. This is far closer to a brawl than a match which is Russo 101. Hennig is a lot more popular because he’s talented and old school while Bagwell is more or less a douche.

 

Off to a sleeper (popular move tonight) by Hennig which goes on for a long time. Buff fires off some punches and dances a lot but the fans do not care at all. Why would you think that in an old WWF town in a country that takes wrestling seriously that fans would want to see that dancing stuff? Not that it matters as Hennig controls 80% of the match but walks into a Blockbuster that is as out of nowhere as it sounds to make Hennig “retire”.

 

Rating: D. What a boring match this was. The fans were all over Bagwell who was the face in this I think and they gave Hennig a standing ovation after the loss. The match was awful, primarily because Bagwell wasn’t any good at making people care or being able to have an interesting match. He had a good finisher and a good body and that’s it. Hennig would unretire the next night and had his next televised match in 8 days.

 

Sting, the heel in his match against Bret, says he should be champion because he never lost the title. It’s Showtime.

 

WCW World Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Bret Hart vs. Sting

 

Sting is in a t-shirt and tights and has big hair. Feeling out process to start and they stare each other down a lot. Bret slugs away and the fans pop HARD. They brawl to the floor because Bret Hart is incapable of having a wrestling match in a ring right? Sting wrestles like a heel, raking Bret’s eyes to break his momentum. This is a very interesting thing to see as Sting is wrestling as a heel in front of a crowd that believes him to be a heel. This has happened all of maybe twice ever.

 

Bret gets in a single shot to take over and the crowd explodes. Sting kicks him in the little maple leafs and actually hits the big elbow for two. They go to the floor again and Bret is sent into the announce table. The Stinger Splash onto the table misses and we head back inside. The referee goes down and here’s Lex with a ball bat to beat up Sting. Bret beats up Luger and puts him in the Sharpshooter which somehow gives Bret a DQ win. Bret doesn’t want it that way but he’s stuck with it.

 

Scratch that he’s not stuck with it as Bret demands we keep going so we keep going. Bret goes off on Sting with the original Five Moves of Doom including the Canadian hitting a Russian on the American. The elbow is blocked by a boot to the chin and Sting limps into the Scorpion which he has some torque on for once. Bret counters that into the Sharpshooter and Bret is in the Finals.

 

Rating: D+. This match right here sums up Vince Russo’s issues in a nutshell. Sting was past his prime at this point and Bret wasn’t great but he still could have a decent match in the ten minutes they had here. Did we need the run-in and the ball bat? No, we didn’t. The ending they did here could have worked fine and would have made a good ending kind of like his Summerslam 91 match. However, Vince Russo says no that’s not a good idea and we need to have people running in and weapon shots because I guess the fans can’t enjoy wrestling. That’s Russo in a nutshell: he had no faith in actual wrestling.

 

Sting calls Bret back in for a handshake post match.

 

Benoit says it’s an honor to wrestle Bret again here and he’ll test the Best There Is/Was/Ever Will Be moniker.

 

Luger is already in a neck brace and says it’ll be a permanent thing. He can’t wrestle tonight either so he’ll pay the fans something for an apology. The details aren’t really clear.

 

Vampiro vs. Berlyn

 

This is a collar match and Vampiro has Jerry Only of the band the Misfits with him. Berlyn is Alex Wright in something resembling a Neo-Nazi deal. It was rather weird to say the least. Dr. Death Steve Williams and Oklahoma, one of the creative writers making fun of JR. Immediately Berlyn hits the referee. Vampy kicks Berlyn and Wall hits Vampiro. A second referee comes down as Wall beats up Vampiro and Berlyn is on the floor.

 

Wall misses a big boot and gets crotched as Berlyn beats up Jerry Only. Oklahoma’s impression of JR is pretty good. I think the match has started now but I’m not sure. Oklahoma makes up a bunch of football stats for the three guys as Wall hits a HUGE chokeslam and is tied to Vampiro now. Berlyn yells at the Wall who takes the collar off.

 

I have no idea what the point of this is or if the bell ever rant in the first place. Oklahoma: “This Berlyn is tougher than Chinese algebra.” Wall walks out and Vampiro hits a release superplex. Only (not a wrestler) comes in for the double team and The Nail in the Coffin (Michinoku Driver) sets up a camel clutch with the chain for the pin.

 

Rating: N/A. The bell never rang so I don’t think this was an actual match. As for the match, I have no idea why it’s on the card as Vampy and Berlyn were ever chained together at any time. It wasn’t a good match or anything either as Wall was the one out there doing most of the work while a singer that most people probably didn’t know was beaten up. I don’t get the point of this at all.

 

Steve Williams comes in and beats down both guys post match. So THAT was the point of it.

 

Scott Hall (POP) talks about Rick Steiner not being here for the title vs. title match. Hall is the new TV Champion because Steiner can’t defend it. He was already the US Champion. Hall issues an open challenge for later.

 

Hennnig is leaving and is congratulated by some guys as he leaves.

 

Kimberly is here, an hour and thirty five minutes into the show.

 

Meng vs. Total Package

 

Luger is the Package for those of you uninitiated. He’s in the neck collar and hasn’t been wanting to wrestle at all lately so this is a continuation of that story. Luger gets his shirt ripped off quickly and there go the pants too. Again, WHAT IS WITH THE RIPPING OFF OF MEN’S CLOTHING??? Luger goes to the eyes and manages to suplex Meng despite having a bad neck. The suplex isn’t sold either so we’ll call it even.

 

They go outside for a bit and Luger hammers away as they come back in. Meng tries the Tongan Death Grip but he can’t get past the neck brace. Instead he steps on the throat while we talk about the main event. Powerslam gets two for Lex. He rams Meng’s head into the buckle. I guess when they say Total Package that doesn’t include intelligence as YOU DON’T HIT A SAMOAN IN THE HEAD. Meng starts his comeback as this is going in slow motion. Liz has some spray or something but it hits Luger instead. Meng takes the brace off and the Death Grip ends it.

 

Rating: D. In other words, Liz was Jimmy Hart, Luger was Brian Knobs and Meng was Norman Smiley. I’ll give Russo this: I’ve seen him go shorter than this between using the same style of an ending. This was another match where I have no idea what the point of this being on the PPV was but I’m sure it made sense at the time. I’m not being serious with that last line but I thought I’d try being nice for a change.

 

Bret says he’ll win and Luger walks behind him ranting about his loss. Bret doesn’t stop talking.

 

David Flair is “polishing his crowbar” for his time where he’ll try to hold Kimberly down against her will later or make her scream about how she can’t take it anymore.

 

US Title/TV Title: Scott Hall vs. ???

 

Booker T accepts the challenge. Hall is so over it’s incredible. Since it was more newsworthy when he was sober than the other way around though, that would never result in a world title run. He says Nash is coming and they’re going to have a party later. Hall rams his shoulders into Booker for that signature spot of his. Booker fires off a hook kick and is booed during the cover.

 

Side slam gets two. Hall gets knocked to the floor but comes back with a chokeslam for two. Much like any other match with it being thrown together on the fly like this, there’s not much to it because there’s no story or hatred to it. Fallaway slam puts Booker down and we go to the floor again. Off to a sleeper as the fans are looking at something to the right of the ring. Here are Jarrett and Creative Control AGAIN. They go after Booker, he fights them off, Booker gets caught in the Outsider’s Edge and Hall retains.

 

Rating: D+. Again, WHAT WAS THE POINT??? In this case I’m talking about the run-in. This is what, the third match they’ve been involved with? We get it: he’s trying to disrupt things. Can we please have a match that ends cleanly? Is it that much to ask? Oh wait Russo is running things SO OF COURSE IT IS. This gets really frustrating after awhile.

 

Midnight, the black Chyna ripoff, makes the save for the post match beatdown.

 

Lex can’t find Liz.

 

We recap Kimberly vs. David Flair. She wanted to sleep with David Flair but got Ric instead. David went insane because of it and wanted to beat her for some reason. I still don’t get the point of this.

 

Kimberly vs. David Flair

 

Let’s get this over with. She does look good at least. Kimberly stretches a lot to try to distract David. Within thirty seconds, Flair is kicked low (no effect) and the referee is shoved. David gets the crowbar and she gets on her knees in front of him. Crowd: “SUCK IT SUCK IT SUCK IT!” She reaches for his crotch and pulls his cup out so she can kick him in the balls. The fans are dead.

 

David picks up the crowbar but Kanyon comes out to beat him up. Now here’s DDP to hit the Diamond Cutter on David. His ribs are killing him though. DDP gets the crowbar but Arn Anderson comes out and takes the bar away from him. David hits Arn with the crowbar and leaves, I guess ending this.

 

Rating: N/A. Get me a wrestling match and I’ll rate it. Kimberly looked great.

 

Arn is taken out on a stretcher to fill in some time.

 

We recap Sid vs. Goldberg which is part of Sid’s Millennium Man deal where he was going to break Goldberg’s record for a win streak which turned into a comedy deal where chokeslamming people counted as wins and all that jazz. They kept having big brawls and the Streak might have been broken. It’s not mentioned but who cares about stuff like that I suppose.

 

Sid says he’ll never say I Quit. It’s an I Quit match if that wasn’t mentioned.

 

Sid Vicious vs. Goldberg

 

Sid jumps him during the entrance and the piped in chants begin. You can tell as no one is moving yet everyone is chanting. Sid is knocked to the floor and they slug it out again. Sid is WAY over and there’s a cobra clutch slam to Goldberg. Another cobra clutch slam sets up a chokeslam and make that a pair of them. Goldberg counters a choke into a cross armbreaker and is booed out of the building. Back to the arm and Goldberg isn’t sure what to do. Off to something resembling a cobra clutch and Sid is out cold in maybe 20 seconds to end it minus saying I Quit.

 

Rating: F. Well let’s see. In an I Quit match between two monsters, it was a standard Goldberg match with a sloppy looking hold to end it. What was the point of this? I know I’ve asked that a lot tonight but that’s what I leave most of these matches asking: what did that happen for? Nothing match and it does little for either guy.

 

Lex blames Liz for the loss and threatens her despite not being able to find her.

 

WCW World Title: Bret Hart vs. Chris Benoit

 

Long feeling out process that leads to Bret hooking an armbar. The fans are for Bret but they’re not against Benoit if that makes sense. Benoit tries a comeback with various strikes but a sunset flip is rolled through into a Sharpshooter attempt. Benoit avoids that into a Crossface attempt but Bret grabs the rope. They’re still cool though and have a handshake.

 

Bret throws him to the floor and a fan jumps out of the crowd in a hockey jersey and face paint to beat up Benoit. It’s Malenko so Bret beats up him and mark run-in #1 since Bret Hart vs. Chris Benoit in Canada with over 15 minutes isn’t enough to have a good match right? Benoit fights back with more basic stuff like a backdrop. Bret might have bad ribs so Benoit starts firing off the suplexes.

 

A tombstone looks to set up the swan dive which hits but here’s Scott Hall to take out the referee. Nash is here too with a chair but here’s Goldberg to fight them off. Hall and Hart fight up the aisle as Benoit is down. The Outsiders leave and we have a second referee. Goldberg jumps the Outsiders and beats them to the back as Benoit starts in on Bret’s knee. Since the world title match isn’t important enough we go split screen to see the Outsiders get pulled off Goldberg.

 

Ok NOW we can get into the title match, 12 minutes into it. Benoit hooks on the figure four and Bret’s knee has been worked over. Bret grabs the rope and goes to a comeback, hitting a backbreaker for two. A top rope superplex hits and both guys are down. Benoit’s back is getting messed up quickly here which means it’s Sharpshooter time soon. Benoit falls on top of Bret in a slam for two and goes to the outside to try to clear his head. He counters a suplex back in and hits the Rolling Germans. He goes for the Crossface but Bret rolls out. Bret grabs the legs into the Sharpshooter and Bret wins the title.

 

Rating: C+. Pretty good match but the run-ins crippled it just like the rest of the matches tonight. I mean seriously, you have two of the best ever out of Canada and this is what you decide to do to them? The match was kind of a mess on top of that as different parts were worked on until the ending where Bret picked the back which made sense. It’s a good match but it was running with an anchor.

 

Tony calls this “just another chapter in Bret’s career.” Nice way to sell this as a huge moment.

 

Overall Rating: D. I have no idea what they were going for here. The CONSTANT run-ins aren’t redeemed by a long and fairly good main event. How many times have you heard that about Impact in the past say two years? Two matches, as in the main event and the elimination tag are over ten minutes long. The idea is to have short matches on TV to set up the long ones on PPV. Russo never quite gets that, but there are a lot of things he doesn’t get. Nothing to see here for the most part.

 

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