Starrcade '97

Starrcade '97 (17,500)

Cruiserweight Championship 

Match 1- (c) Eddie Guerrero def Dean Malenko 

Segment- Scott Hall in-ring promo. Scott Hall takes a ‘survey’ to see who in the crowd is behind The nWo. Scott Hall calls out The Giant. The Giant powerbombs Scott Hall in the middle of the ring! 

Match 2- Vincent, Scott Norton & ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage def The Steiner Brothers & Ray Traylor 

Segment- Commissioner J.J. Dillon announces the only fair way to elect an official for tonight's main-event was to do a random drawing. Dillon announces Nick Patrick as the referee.

Match 3- Goldberg def Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael (11-0)

Segment- Raven says he isn't wrestling Chris Beniot tonight, so instead Perry Saturn will take his place to “finish what he started”

Match 4- Saturn def Chris Beniot 

Match 5- Buff Bagwell def Lex Luger 

United States Championship 

Match 6- DDP def Curt Hennig (c) 

Control of WCW Nitro

Match 7- Larry Zbyszko def Eric Bischoff (Bret Hart as Special Guest Referee)

World Heavyweight Championship 

Match 8- Sting def ‘Hollywood’ Hogan (c)

Analysis

Bobby Heenan wasn't on commentary due to what happened on the previous editon of Nitro, where he ‘aligned’ with The nWo! Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Dusty Rhodes made up the rest of the commentary team. Say what you want about WCW, but commentary was the ONE thing they did really well (most of the time) 

Matches 1 & 2 

The show opened hot with a Cruiserweight Title match as Eddie Guerrero successfully defended against Dean Malenko, in what was perhaps unsurprisingly, a really good match! I always enjoyed seeing the mix of synergies that occurred whenever the mat based wizard Dean Malenko took on a more high flying traditional cruiserweight. Make no mistake about it, Eddie was MORE than proficient on the ground, but this one just WORKED and it worked really well! It wasn't as flashy as the Mysterio/Guerrero trilogy, but personally I enjoyed that aspect. It was reminiscent of a really solid match you'd see on a modern edition of NXT (Circa 2019) as opposed to a more spot based match you'd see on AEW. The workrate was still excellent, and Eddie was as entertaining as ever! A really positive start to the show.

The second match however, wasn't QUITE as entertaining, as Scott Norton, Vincent and Randy Savage (team nWo) defeated The Steiner Brothers and Ray Traylor (team WCW) 

This wasn't terrible or anything, but Scott Norton and Vincent were average wrestlers at best (there was a reason that Vincent/Virgil was utilised as a manager for most of his career) and Randy Savage's most worthwhile trait at this point was probably his star power and his star power alone! Unfortunately, any star power Randy actually possessed was completely lost here. It was better served further up the card, as opposed to helping out in meaningless filler 6 man tag team matches. The finish was well executed as Scott Norton hit what was called a ‘fallaway slam’ (probably more closely resembling a modern day electric chair) leading to Savage hitting his patented elbow for the victory. Ultimately, I just didn't care enough about this match to warrant it taking place on PPV.

Match 3

It was time for GOLDBERG…GOLDBERG…

Which also means it was time for me to hit up cagematch, and see Goldy's official record by this point.

The mistake they made here was actually trying to make it some kind of a wrestling match, as opposed to the 30 second spear, jackhammer 1-2-3 affairs, that would later become synonymous with Goldberg's WCW run. Mongo was never that great in-ring anyway, and Goldberg was still visibly green as hell at this point. All of that being said, I would have had NO ISSUE whatsoever if this was a total squash, smashing Goldilocks over in the process! Excluding house shows, dark matches and anything non televised, Goldberg's official record now stood at an impressive 11-0! I wonder if he would beat Jade Cargill's record of 50 straight wins as TBS champ?

Match 4

Before Raven’s scheduled match against Chris Beniot (Yayyy) he cut a promo informing the crowd that he actually wouldn't be competing tonight at all (Booo) Raven says that he elects Saturn to “finish the destruction of Chris Beniot”. I won't lie to you guys, I was EXTREMELY disappointed about this, but a Saturn/Beniot match could still be quite fun, so let's see….

Sick Boy and Kidman got involved, as Kidman hit a shooting star press on Beniot while he lay supine on the outside. I'm guessing this was no DQ/Raven's Rules or whatever, but that wasn't actually stated until halfway through the match.

Saturn hit a moonsault, missing Beniot and wiping out the entirety of the Flock, until they got back up, again leading to Beniot successfully fighting most of them off. Raven would eventually square off with Beniot, nailing him with a DDT, allowing Satrun to apply his finish ‘The rings of Saturn’ for the win. Great name for your finish by the way!

The best part of Beniot matches are usually the general intensity/sequences executed at a breakneck speed. Sadly this match had neither, as Saturn simply couldn't keep up with Beniot. I'm still confused as to why they ditched the advertised match with Raven. If it serves some larger part of long term storytelling that's fine, but there's no reason they couldn't have done that AND still had a Beniot/Raven singles match on the BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR! That said the angle had progressed quite nicely for when they eventually did face off (presuming they ever did) I just wasn't a fan of using your biggest PPV of the year to advance what was in essence, a midcard feud.

Match 5

Buff Bagwell pinned Lex Luger following a ref bump and nWo interference. If you ever decide to watch this PPV in retrospect, feel free to skip this one. That's it, that's the review…

Match 6

Things would get SLIGHTLY better however, as Curt Hennig would wrestle DDP for the US Title. On paper, the booking here should have been relatively simple. Page was extremely over at this point, and Hennig's in-ring prowess was sadly on the decline. He was still having some OK matches here and there, his recent defence on Nitro against Disco Inferno being an example. Even so, the US Title scene was in MAJOR need of a face lift, and DDP was the man holding the scalpel! 

This was a bit slow for my tastes, but the pop for DDP's title win made it ALL worth it in the end! Not the best match in the world, but WCW finally got the decision right here putting the title on Page. 

Match 7

Nearly there Gang. Bret Hart as the ‘guest referee’, as Larry Zybysko defeated Eric Bischoff for control of WCW Monday Nitro. The fact this was Bret Hart's first ‘in-ring’ appearance for WCW, was in my eyes at least, absolutely insane!

The match itself would turn out to be really weird, as for some reason Bret Hart kept breaking up the action whenever Zybysko was on top, citing BS rules such as open hand slaps and ‘chokeholds’. Scott Hall loaded Eric's karate shoe with a steel plate, leading to him ‘knocking out Zybysko’. Bur instead of awarding the nWo the victory, Bret instead chose to punch Eric in the mouth and lock a sharpshooter on Scott Hall, before raising Zybysko’s hand. So what was with Bret screwing around with Zybysko earlier in the match if that was always his intention? I've watched enough of WCW by now to know that sometimes, they added unnecessary drama just to confuse the audience for the sake of it.

As a match, this was trash (obviously) Eric must have been one of the clumsiest, uncoordinated non-wrestlers I’ve ever seen! But to be fair to WCW, this was never about the match, and was always all about the angle. From that point of view, it was ACTUALLY ok. It provided clarity on Bret’s allegiance in WCW, while giving the Southern based ‘wrasslin’ company a win, albeit a small one, over the nWo! 

Oh yeah, and as part of the stipulation, Larry Zybysko was awarded a match against Scott Hall at Souled Out. But we'll get to that another time. In summary, this was a really bad match, but depending how invested you were into all of the nWo stuff, a solid segment. Not quite PPV worthy in my eyes, but in terms of pure entertainment this was a highlight of the show, even if thats not saying much at this point.

Main-event 

Sting/Hogan. Title on the line! First things first. Sting's entrance was EPIC. The match however, was not. To be fair, more than likely it was never going to be a technical masterpiece anyway. But if booked correctly, it could have still been emotional and thoroughly enjoyable (Think Rock/Hogan at Mania X8) HOWEVER, here's what WCW decided to go with on the night. Hogan initially won via pinfall, with Bret Hart claiming Nick Patrick's count was too fast (It wasn't) The match was restarted, with the replacement referee Bret Hart raising Sting's hand after he applied a leg lock submission. Here’s another problem, Hogan DIDN'T ACTUALLY TAP to the scorpion deathlock, because ‘Montreal’ I guess. Collectively, all of this ensured that what should have been a monumental moment for WCW, felt about as flat as a neatly folded scarf.

Interestingly, the story goes that before the match, Hogan asked Nick Patrick to count super slowly (Presumably in a move to embarrass Sting while protecting himself) Meanwhile, Sting EMPHASISED he wanted a fast count. An understandably confused Nick Patrick, in his own words, decided to ‘split the difference and count at a normal pace’. So we've empashed the match, finish, whatever you want to call it was dogshit. But why was that?

So, allegedly one of Hogan's main beefs here, was that Sting was ‘pale and out of shape’. He always wore a bodysuit, so unless pale was just a euphemism for something else, I don't see how that would have mattered. Maybe Hogan took umbrage with Sting having such an extended holiday period between the summer of ‘96 to the closing months of ‘97. Only he would ever know the answer to that one. But regardless of the reasons, this was a shitshow that reflected badly on EVERYONE. Hogan, Sting and the entire company of WCW. Even if Hogan was trying to “protect himself”, he failed massively as the whole thing just came off as a botchy mess, and when the details came out as to why, Hogan was the one who looked like a jerk.

Summary 

What should have been WCW's crowning moment, turned into an absolute car wreck. From a shoddy, poorly constructed undercard, to the mess of a main-event born from poor man management, letting ego's run wild (pun intended) and generally being botched (If you don't think it was intentional that is. If it was, shame on WCW, if it wasn't, my point still stands)

Sting/Hogan was THE MATCH everyone had been waiting for. Regardless of wanting to protect yourself, surely the logic states that if the PPV would have been a big success, it would have been good for business allowing EVERYBODY to make more money. That's the one thing I don't and probably never will understand here. It literally goes against EVERYTHING Al Snow has ever talked about! All jokes aside, intentionally sabotaging the main-event for your biggest show of the year, in a match that had been built for 18 MONTHS! Was beyond stupid. And as much as Bischoff likes to blame things like Time Warner corporations interfering with his business, he was in charge of booking the shows and managing whatever problems the talent had with each other. And on this night, he got it all wrong. Finally, it has been alluded by Eric Bischoff, that Hogan “wasn’t feeling it”, perhaps in a reference to Sting’s alleged real life personal struggles at the time. But if that was a legitimate concern, the match shouldn’t have gone ahead anyway. If it wasn’t, and Hogan was simply using it as an excuse to stay on top, then that’s also wrong for more obvious reasons. But here’s the thing, regardless what choices were made or who was to blame. THIS STILL SUCKED (and probably severely hurt WCW in the long run) I'm actually struggling to grade this but I'll go by my usual scale. Soooo…..

The show had already sunk to 2 stars once the main-event rolled around, but Sting did actually win the title which helps slightly. But unfortunately knowing what we do now about the sabotage, I have to knock a full star off for that alone. From a pure grading standpoint, this was the WORST PPV I have reviewed from this era to date!

(1 Star)