By Xavier Doom of
Xavier Doom's Slayground
RIC FLAIR vs. HARLEY RACE AT STARRCADE '83
The Starrcade contest with Race was
typical of NWA main events in those days: it was solid
and exciting. Both men delivered a great cage match.
Flair won, starting his second reign as NWA World
champion. It was the first time the NWA title changed hands inside a
cage. Another fantastic match (and my personal
favourite of the night) was the dog-collar match between
Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine. This was the hottest
feud of the year, with Piper the overwhelming choice of
the fans. I hesitate to use the word "classic" to
describe any match, but this one qualifies. Piper
whipped Valentine's ass in what people today would call
a hardcore contest. Another highlight of Starrcade '83
was an NWA World tag title match that saw champions Jack &
Jerry Brisco lose to Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood.
Still, Crockett managed a good card in '84. Headlining
it was NWA World champ Ric Flair, who was now the promotion's
cowardly and heelish top man. Flair battled Dusty Rhodes
for the title in a contest dubbed a "million dollar
challenge". The guy that won got the cash. Special
referee for the bout was boxing legend Smokin' Joe Frazier.
Flair won the bout when Frazier stopped the match due to
a cut on Rhodes' forehead. The idea was that Dusty was
far from done, and that Frazier's inexperience as a
wrestling referee allowed Flair to save his title and
pad his bank account at the same time. Poor Dusty. The
card also featured rising star Tully Blanchard, who
retained the TV title in a great match with
Rick Steamboat.
Starrcade '87 brought a change in location.
For the first time in the event's five year history,
Starrcade was not held in whole or in part in Greensboro.
This card was the NWA's first venture into pay-per-view.
It was also a disaster. The WWF, far more popular and
powerful at this point, flexed some muscle and ran the
first Survivor Series ppv the same night. Most cable
operators went with the WWF, leaving the NWA high and
dry. This was just one more nail in the coffin of Jim
Crockett Promotions, and demonstrates the ruthless tactics
the WWF used to try and monopolize the sport. Anyway,
the actual card wasn't bad. Ronnie
Garvin went into Starrcade as NWA World champ. He
defended against former titleholder Ric Flair in a cage.
This was Flair at his absolute physical peak. The Nature Boy put
on a great show and beat Garvin to start his fifth NWA
title reign.
In 1989, the card was nicknamed "The Night of The Iron Men" and featured
two round-robin tournaments. In the singles division,
we got Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger and The Great Muta.
The tag division saw The Road Warriors, the Steiners,
The Samoans and Doom. The premise was simple: you would
wrestle three times this night against each opponent.
You were awarded points for wins, no points for loses.
I don't remember the scoring system, but you got more
for pins and submissions than you did for disqualifications
or countouts. Anyway, what this all meant was that you
got this as your card: Lex Luger vs. Sting, Ric Flair vs.
The Great Muta, Sting vs. The Great Muta, Ric Flair vs.
Lex Luger, Lex Luger vs. The Great Muta, Sting vs. Ric
Flair, the Steiners vs. Doom, The Road Warriors vs. Doom,
the Steiners vs. The Road Warriors, The Samoans vs. Doom,
The Samoans vs. the Steiners and The Samoans vs. The Road
Warriors. Not bad, huh? Some of the matches were
rushed a little. After all, the NWA had
three hours to present 12 matches. In the end, Sting
prevailed as The Iron Man, and The Road Warriors became
The Iron Men. It was great. Unfortunately, the NWA
dropped the format. I guess it put too much focus on a
handful of wrestlers, and left the rest of the promotion's roster
at home twiddling their thumbs. Still, a great card.
The 1990 card happened as the owners of the NWA name were
embroiled in a dispute with the people who ran Turner's
wrestling organization. In another month, the promotion
would officially adopt the name WCW. Maybe the NWA
braintrust wasn't happy with the entertainment-style
wrestling that the promotion was presenting. There sure
were some stupid angles going on at the time.
One headlined this event. NWA World champ Sting had been attacked time
and again over the preceeding two months by a mysterious
masked man who called himself The Black Scorpion. Sting
was the victim of this man's vendetta. It was cheesy:
I once saw The Scorpion go up in a puff of smoke. Anyway,
Sting met The Black Scorpion in a cage to settle the
score here. It was a forgettable match that saw Sting
win and unmask The Scorpion as Ric Flair. Spare me.
For more details on this, visit the WCW Hall of Shame, featured at
my page.
This card also saw the one-time-only Pat O'Connor Memorial Tag
Team Tournament. The Steiners prevailed in the finals,
beating Team Japan, The Great Muta and Masa Saito. A
number of other "international" teams took part, including
a Canadian team made up of Danny Johnson and Troy "Mantaur"
Montour. Konnan and Rey Mysterio Sr. were the Mexican
reps. Tournament matches were short and bad.
WCW did much better in '91 than at the previous
Starrcade. This card gave us the first ever BattleBowl
competition. The concept was simple. Forty wrestlers were
"randomly" drawn into 10 tag matches, and the
winning teams advanced to a two-ring battle royale. It was
great, with just one flaw: the last two guys in the battle
royale should have had to fight it out in a pinfall-finish
match. As it was, Sting won the whole contest by dumping Lex
Luger over the top rope. That's a pic of Lex being lifted over the
top. Earlier in the card, there
were some dandy matches. One saw Sting draw Abdullah the
Butcher as a partner. They fought Bobby Eaton and Brian
Pillman. It was wild. Abby attacked Sting, who was then
assaulted by Eaton. Pillman wound up helping Sting, who
was supposed to be his opponent. Another good one saw
Rick Steamboat and Todd Champion advance after beating
Cactus Jack and Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker. Parker was attacked
by a jealous Abdullah the Butcher, who wanted to team with
his friend, Jack. Anyway, this format was changed slightly at
Starrcade '92, and then made into its own card in '93.
It was brought back in a lesser form at Slamboree '96.
But none of the other BattleBowls were as good as the
first one. What a crazy night. Yo, Bischoff, bring it back!
The 1992 Starrcade was the only one done under Bill Watts.
As the WCW executive vice-president, Watts did a lot to
lead the promotion in a new direction. Some of the things
he did (like outlaw top rope moves) were annoying. But
he brought a real old-style rough 'n ready feel to WCW,
and I think he helped the promotion gain a little ground
on the WWF (at least with wrestling purists). Anyway,
if Watts made one mistake in his
brief tenure as WCW leader, it was to push his greenhorn
kid Erik into the main events. Erik Watts may have had
a lot of raw talent, but raw was all he seemed to be.
Watts was one of 16 men in the 1992 BattleBowl. And it
was in a match teamed with Jushin Liger that Erik
threw the saddest dropkick in wrestling history.
I don't know how opponents Sting and Steve Williams kept
from laughing. This pic doesn't do it justice. If you
have the tape, check it out. (Again, the whole Erik Watts thing
is featured in my Hall of Shame.) Anyway, The Great Muta went
on to win BattleBowl in '92. It wasn't as good a BattleBowl
as the one a year previous, but it wasn't too bad. A fun night
of wrestling.
This 1993 card marked Ric Flair's return as WCW's top man after
two-and-a-half years. Flair had left the promotion in
the summer of '91 and went to the WWF. He returned
to WCW in early 1993, but was out of the WCW World title
picture until Starrcade. Big Van Vader was the WCW
World champ, and Flair was supposed to retire if he
didn't take the belt here. Watching the contest, it's
obvious that Flair was in good shape, but it was Vader who
was in his prime. Vader wrestled stiff, a hallmark of his style at
this point in history. But this was to be Vader's last
match as WCW champ, ending his 18 months on top of the
promotion. Flair regained the title and did an interview
after the card in which he displayed uncharacteristic
emotion. He was obviously happy to be home in WCW and
must have felt some vindication becoming the champion
again. Unfortunately, by the next Starrcade, he'd have
to make room for Hulk Hogan.
In 1995, WCW made a recovery, of sorts. This Starrcade
featured a triangle match that would send either Ric
Flair, Sting or Lex Luger into the main event to fight
WCW champion Randy Savage. As it turned out, Flair won.
He did so by countout, sneaking up and nailing Luger as The Total Package
held Sting in the torture rack.
Flair then took on Savage, and took the title. But the
best part of the show had to be mixing of WCW talent
with wrestlers from New Japan pro wrestling. It was sort of
like reliving the long-gone (and missed) WCW/Japan Super Show. The
one problem? In hyping the event, WCW was accused by
some people of coming across as anti-Japanese. Still,
fans were treated to a seven match series featuring
Lex Luger vs. Masa Chono, Masa
Saito vs. Johnny B. Badd, Chris Benoit vs. Jushin Liger,
Eddy Guerrero vs. Shinjiro Otani, Sting vs. Kensuke
Sasake, Alex Wright vs. Koji Kanemoto and Randy Savage
vs. Tenzan.
I don't know why, but I can forgive WCW for giving us
Roddy Piper vs. Hollywood Hogan as the main event in 1996.
Sure, each man was well past his prime when this
event took place. But what the hell, I enjoyed seeing
Piper back at Starrcade for the first time since '83. He threw a
dropkick!!! And it was better than anything Erik Watts ever
tried. Piper and Hogan didn't put on
a wrestling clinic, but the
match did feature Hogan's first clean job since WrestleMania
in 1990. As it turned out, this started a bit of a trend.
Hogan would lose to Piper, Lex Luger and Jacques Rougeau (!) in
the next year. The undercard of Starrcade '96 featured some strong
contests, as Eddy Guerrero won the US title in a tournament final
match against Diamond Dallas Page. Jushin Liger and
Rey Mysterio Jr. put on a great match which meshed the
Japan junior style with the lucha approach.
The 1997 Starrcade had potential to be one of the best cards in WCW
pay-per-view history. There was a certain electricity about this one.
If you were watching a year ago, you probably remember the hype surrounding
the main event. Sting was making his comeback after 15 months on the
sidelines and in the rafters. He was WCW's phantom; a seemingly
unstoppable force who was coming back. His opponent was WCW champ Hollywood Hogan.
Considering the hype that surrounded this one, fans were expecting nothing
short of Sting squashing Hogan. Well, the match progressed nicely, when
all of a sudden, Hogan dropped the leg on Sting and got the three-count.
A clean three count. What a stunner. Immediately following this,
Bret Hart (making his WCW ppv debut as a referee) came to ringside and ordered
the match restarted, saying Sting was robbed by a quick pin.
Sting quickly put Hogan in the scorpion deathlock and won the match and
title. It was pretty confusing. I've heard that the Hogan pin was somehow
botched. There were rumours of miscues and double-crosses. I don't know what
happened, but I do know this: the match ruined 15 months of build-up, and
helped kill Sting's heat. Anyway. Earlier, Hart was referee for the Eric
Bischoff vs. Larry Zbyszko match. Zbyszko prevailed after Hart clocked
The Bisch. Buff Bagwell scored
one for the younger generation of stars by beating Lex Luger. And how can
you complain when WCW gives us Dean Malenko vs. Eddy Guerrero? Guerrero won.
Other matches include the much-hyped Ric Flair vs. Eric Bischoff contest.
Flair's recent "heart attack" and Bischoff's cowardly attack on Flair's
family have been widely criticised because they play on a terrible real life
problem: heart disease. I usually moralize about these types of angles
(I was openly critical of Scott Hall the drunk and Steve Austin the
crucified.) Somehow, the Flair angle strikes me as less offensive.
It was just this kind of
angle that was the stuff of legend back in the old days when wrestling
was real (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) and fans defended their heroes to the
death -- especially when those heroes were defending their families.
Let's hope we get a chance to watch Flair and Bischoff put on an
entertaining contest.