EL DANDY~! Tape Review: Starrcade 95

~I’d like to thank stud BOB~! Barron for sending me this, along with GAB 96, Best of Starrcade 83-87, and Canadian Stampede for my viewing pleasure. For this PPV, we take you back to a concept that was introduced BEFORE the actual invasion of the nWo seven months later, as Sonny Ono, majorly pissed off at WCW, decides to bring in the Foreign Army, pitting a 7-match series of single matches for WCW stars to wrestle New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) stars. This was for the World Cup of Wrestling, by the way, which meant ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but almost every match had some intrigue to it. The list of matches:

-Chris Benoit vs. Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger-The “Two men with a detailed junior past” match.

-Alex Wright vs. Koji Kanemoto-The “Young Lions” match.

-Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono-The “Established Stars” match.

-Johnny B. Badd vs. Masa Saito-The “What the fuck were they thinking?” match.

-Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Eddie Guerrero-The “I’m a bigger dick than you” match.

-Randy Savage vs. Yoshihiro Tenzan-The “Old vs. New” match.

-Sting vs. Kensuke Sasaki-The “You took my U.S. Belt you Japanese bitch” match.

-Sting vs. Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger-The Triangle Match to decide who faces Randy Savage for DA BELT.

-Winner vs. Randy Savage-WCW Title

-Just so you know, there is no star ratings, or any kind of ratings for this review. I’m here to tell you about the wrestling that is on this PPV and I’m here to tell you whether or not you should watch it. You’ll figure out pretty quickly how this works. And with that, we start the PPV with GUSTO~!

Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger vs. Chris Benoit-For fans of both people, like myself, this could be toted as a dream match. These two have a STORIED history, and because of that, this match should rock the fuckin house. Of course, this is after Wild Pegasus for Benoit, and before North American Credibilty, so he was just in his feeling-out process. This match starts with the basic feeling out process and then after some Benoit offense Lyger GOES TO WORK, BABY! He busts out a sweet Koppo, and then hits the Crack Shoot off the apron and I feel empowered to embrace the power of Lyger and his dickishness towards the US (WAVING THE JAPANESE FLAG~!), but instead, I am forced to love the power of Benoit’s MULLET! I don’t know why, but I just liked the mullet. Lyger hits him with everything but the kitchen sink, but since this is Nashville, the Brainbuster and the LYGAHBOMB~! are powerless. Benoit makes with the comeback, hitting the Rolling Germans before they became part of his regular moveset in the States, and then hits the Diving Headbutt, and this is starting to look good for Benoit as he cinches up for the Dragon Suplex, but Kevin Sullivan comes out and RUINS THE FINISH by distracting Benoit so that Lyger can hit a fuct-up Frankensteiner roll-up for the pin. This match was rocking bells until the finish. 1-0, NJPW.

Alex Wright vs. Koji Kanemoto-YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! KOJI FUCKING KANEMOTO! Rejoice in the rudo young lion goodness he possesses in this match, as I wanna just sit back and watch him kick the shit out of people. This unfortunate person is Wright. Tony Schiavone is ungodly in the pimping he gives both guys with their history. I don’t really listen because Koji is in there getting worked over by Wright with his offense and I’m deeply saddened that the IWGP Jr. Champ is getting worked by a German dance fiend. So then, Koji is like, “FUCK THIS!” and LAYS INTO him with some sweet kicks. Koji has some of the best kicks around, people. Kanemoto does all the swanky moves, including the BEE-YOO-TEE-FUL moonsault, which he DOESN’T COVER WITH because Koji is such a fuckin dick. I LOVE IT BECAUSE THE FANS HATE IT!! Koji is like 14 in this match and Wright is like 12 and they are having a fine wrestling contest because they won’t let up on each other. Alex with the German Suplex, Koji with the 2nd rope Twisting Senton AND a Tiger Suplex, perplexing the announcers with the swankness of that move, and then Alex gets caught, Snake Eyes, Jackknife pin, over, and I, the viewer, just watched a nice match. Weird ending, though. 2-0, NJPW.

Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono-Luger…of course, has little to no talent, and Chono is your EMPEROR OF KINGS (© Justin Baisden, all rights reserved) and he’s gonna try his hardest to get a good match out of Lexy…we shall see. So since Luger is fighting later that night, this should be quick. It’s all Chono, all the time. Yakuza Kick here, Yakuza Kick there, Yakuza Kick every where. STF, Luger breaks, and then Luger catches him coming off the top with a back elbow…and the Rack finishes. And you, the reader, and I, the reviewer, both look at that and say…QUE? Chono tried…2-1, NJPW.

Johnny B. Badd vs. Masa Saito-Saito isn’t really that great, and Johnny B. wasn’t exactly Marvelous yet, but he did have Kimberley looking FINE! That’s always a plus. Hey, at least Kim waited until she reunited with DDP to look like a ho. Saito is some kind of bully or something, and he whoops Badd’s ass, but nobody cares. The same formula for the last the three matches. Japanese beatdown, superman combeack, finish. So Saito is foreign and doesn’t know that over the top rope is DEATH, so he gets the BIG DQ, and we are tied up at 2 apiece as I just wasted 10 minutes for that segment that’ll I’ll never have again. Badd hits this somersault pescado that was pretty bad ass, almost flipping completely over Saito after the match.

Shinjiro FUCKING Ohtani vs. EDDIE~! Guerrero-Wow. This match is unbelievably great, and what sucks is the fact that like NOBODY has watched it before. Where do I begin? Ohtani, for those who don’t know, is the EPITOME of being a dick at this time, while EDDIE~! was the FACE. Yes, Eddie as a face. These two have fought each other before, with Eddie being under his “Black Tiger” moniker back in Japan, and all I know is that this will be SWEET. Of course, nobody knows who the fuck Ohtani is, so Eddie must show the awesomeness through him. Like for example, the beginning, where Eddie wants to lock up, so Ohtani just brushes him off by going to the ropes. Then, when he does lock up, he goes to the eyes. That’s just brilliant. They take it to the mat, where Ohtani seemingly wins, and then when Ohtani goes to the eyes again, Eddie goes to his, evening it up, showing that the little things do count. Then Eddie takes control with some speedy stuff, like a rana, and then hits a HUGE Powerbomb as I wonder if Ohtani is gonna get through this. He then kicks out of the Brainbuster, proving he’s still alive. One of the great things about Ohtani is the way he does transitions. Like for instance, after an Eddie corner clothesline, Eddie tries again, but Ohtani flips up and over a la Ric Flair, hits his springboard dropkick sending Eddie to the outside, and THEN hits the Springboard Plancha, giving him the momentum, turning Eddie into a man in trouble, and then standing on his face to a chorus of boos. BRAVO! THEN, when EDDIE goes for the Brainbuster again, Ohtani turns it into a SNAP German Suplex that made me jump for joy. Then he hits that Springboard Spinning Heel Kick, into him going up top, but Eddie gets that Super Rana and then the BLACK TIGER BOMB~! but it can’t get the win. Ohtani then goes completely bonkers with the Minoru Tanaka rolling kneebar, totally out of context, and holds onto it for the FULL 5 count, because he’s a DICK. They go outside and Eddie works him over, then hits a HUGE Springboard Back Crossbody to pop that crowd big. Ohtani is bleeding from the nose and mouth now, so he reverses a suplex into his own, and hits a FUCKING SWANK Springboard Dropkick to the back of Eddie’s head that made the crowd ooh and ahh as Eddie MUST have had whiplash from that shit. Then he goes for the Dragon Suplex, but Eddie elbows out, and hits a rana rollup leading DIRECTLY to the good old Malenko-Guerrero pinfall sequence, and Ohtani comes out on top to put NJPW up 3-2. The commentary in the match is priceless, as Dusty and Brain exchange barbs at each other for the hell of it, just to make the match seem more great than it is just by commentary’s sake. Speaking of Dusty, after the match was over, he said this: “Unbelievable. The best…the best.” When DUSTY RHODES says that about a match, you know it’s good. Great fucking match.

Randy Savage vs. Yoshihiro Tenzan-Savage is the champ at the time, and Tenzan is a Young Lion (sorta), so I’m not expecting much. Savage has a messed up elbow, and Tenzan (spelt Tensan by the crack WCW crew) whoops his ass with everything he has. As someone who has seen Tenzan in the last year, his old tights are fuckin hilarious. Tenzan misses the big Headbutt, but Savage doesn’t miss the Big Elbow, and we are tied at 3 apiece. This match was nothing more than a showcase for Tenzan’s talent. Plus, you knew Savage was going over because he was champ.

Sting vs. Kensuke Sasaki-Ah, yes. No-selling face-painted Sting against no-selling US CHAMP Sasaki. Of course, since it isn’t on Japanese ground, Sasaki will not defend the title, but, you know, that’s life. Sasaki is off and on with his moves, and I’m not really expecting much. Man, Sasaki looked so weird back then. He looked…fatter, and had the weirdo tights. Same moveset, same no-selling, same everything else, but man this was a crappy match. You knew Sting was going over when Sasaki hit the Northern Lights Bomb and DIDN’T EVEN COVER him. Sting with the Deathlock, and they win the cup, yada yada yada. Nothing match. Big win, all that crap.

Triangle Match: Sting vs. Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair-OK. BACKSTORY: Flair turned on Sting at Havoc, which we could ALL see coming, but what I don’t think ANYONE would know is that it led to the reformation of the Horsemen. Meanwhile, LUGER AND STING are bickering and such, and Flair and Luger…well, their hate only goes back a decade or so, so there you go. What’s interesting is that in this match, Luger is the heel to Sting, but he’s the FACE to Flair. Go figure. We start with Sting and Flair for about 10 minutes, which rules because Sting hits about 1 million press slams and Flair just acts like an asshole, and then after going to Luger’s corner, Luger tags himself in and start going to town on Flair. They do pretty much every spot they’ve done in every one of their matches. Which still fucking ruled. And then Sting and Luger go at it as the crowd is TORN, and the ref gets knocked out, so Flair takes advantage and tosses both Luger AND Sting over the top rope, which is DEATH in WCW at the time, and they both get counted out so Flair wins the match. Also, Luger held Sting’s leg to keep him from beating the 10 count, so that continues the SHADES OF GRAY~! angle and stuff. Very nice match that worked the Triangle formula well. More Sting/Luger would have been nice, but oh well. That leads us to…

Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair-It’s like the Main Event for WM VIII, except that this one is gonna suck more! How much? We’ll just have to find out. It’s basically back and forth. Flair blades because it’s a title match at Starrcade, and then Savage helps him out with it. It’s not a bad match, but not a great match, either. Flair cheats, Savage is trying the comeback and what not, and then there’s a Horsemen run in, Anderson nails Savage, and Flair wins the belt back for a twelfth time. As far as Savage/flair matches go, this isn’t great, but Flair bleeds like a motherfucker, so there you go. Horsemen stand tall, end of show.

Conclusion-This PPV is readily forgotten when it comes to the good PPVs of that era between the time when Hogan came to WCW, and then when he went nWo. The whole World Cup idea was a great one, because it showed the versatility of the wrestlers at the time. Showcasing the younger talent, along with making both NJPW and WCW look good was a big confidence boost, since at the time, NJPW was getting their asses WHOOPED by AJPW, and the fact that WCW wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. If you want to see what the big fuss is over Ohtani, and how good Eddie and Chris were when they were allowed to have an actual moveset, take a look, and don’t stop at the main event for once, cuz it actually is quite good.