The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Starrcade ’94

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Starrcade ’94

The biggest show of the year has Brutus Beefcake in the main event. Sigh

This would be the first major show for Randy Savage and they teased that he’d be doing a “Butcher” and attacking Hogan after the main event.

December 27th 1994. We’re in Nashville, Tennessee. Hosts are Fat Tony, Bobby Heenan and Scheme Gene on interviews. Some country singer performs the American National Anthem. Fast forward! The announcers debate what Savage is going to do tonight because that’s far more interesting than The Butcher. We get pre-recorded comments with Savage claiming to be “the number one wrestler in the universe”. He calls Hogan #2. Whether he’s calling him faeces or the second best wrestler, I don’t know. It’s Randy Savage though so it could be either. Chances are he doesn’t even know himself. Okerlund tells Savage to turn up at Starrcade and he can get to meet with the Hulkster. Keep in mind Savage was basically an announcer when he left the WWF and wasn’t really a big loss. He was a big gain for WCW though because he’s another big name for them. The potential for Hogan v Savage was there but unlike the Flair program they didn’t want to hot shot it. Tony talks about Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which named Hogan as wrestler of the year. Apter you should be ASHAMED of this. PWI have a WCW sponsored ceremony to present Hogan with the WOTY award. Absolute bullshit. Heenan rips up the issue and I’d have done the same. And spat on it. I’m also fast forwarding his acceptance speech because winning a bullshit award doesn’t deserve a bullshit speech too.

US title – Jim Duggan (c) v Vader w/Harley Race

Vader was looking worryingly disinterested against Dustin Rhodes at Clash 29 but thankfully Dustin busted his ass. Before the match even starts Vader piles into Duggan on the floor but Duggan rails him and goes inside to beat up Race too. Vader has already lost the mask. Tony reminds us that Vader is the #1 contender for the WCW title and Heenan thinks he should be wrestling Hogan tonight. Couldn’t agree more. Duggan bails again to give Vader a kicking on the floor and Vader hasn’t even been in yet. Duggan with the 10 count punches in the corner and a clothesline. Then he clotheslines Vader back outside. Heenan talks about Duggan not being intimidated. Duggan with a crossbody for 2. Duggan with a stalling slam on Vader and the crowd is enjoying themselves. Duggan sorts that out with a sloppy chinlock. Vader decides it’s time to come back but that becomes a slugfest with Duggan not giving Vader an inch. Duggan cuts Vader down again and drops an elbow for 1 with Vader using the ropes to escape. Up goes Duggan for an elbow off the ropes but that misses. That’s high flying Hacksaw style! Duggan is now struggling with his ribs and Vader takes advantage of that with elbows and jabs. Vader with a slam and he’s in position for the Vaderbomb, which connects. Rhodes took two of those at Clash 29 and kept going though. Duggan gets the rope rather than kicking out. So Vader goes up again. Duggan is up and he kicks at Vader’s legs. However he runs into the Vader Attack. BOOM! Race finally sees an opening to cheat and choke Duggan on the ropes. He’s really in trouble now and Vader mounts the buckles again. He’s after the moonsault, which misses. Both men are back up and Vader hits an avalanche. Duggan doesn’t go down though and when Vader goes for another Duggan explodes out of the corner with a clothesline. Duggan calls for the Three Point Stance and Vader staggers into it. He falls into the ropes but Race gouges Duggan’s eyes while the ref is looking at the shoulders. Supposedly that saves Vader but he was under the ropes anyway. Vader pretty much powerslams himself but Race has the referee busy. Duggan drags him back over but Vader is up. Duggan calls for it again but collides with Race who happens to be carrying the 2×4 and Vader hits the wheelbarrow bomb for the win at 12.02. **. Duggan looked fairly motivated, perhaps because his push was coming to an end and wanted to put on something memorable. Unfortunately for him Vader was in no mood to do anything so just popped in a few spots and went to the finish. This all doesn’t alter the fact that Vader is WAY above the title and is only getting it because there’s going to be such a delay on pulling the trigger on the Hogan-Vader feud.

BACKSTAGE Duggan talks about how he kept hitting Vader but he kept getting up. Don’t ever count Hacksaw out because he’ll be back. He blames Race for the loss.

ELSEWHERE The Butcher has a late Christmas present for Hogan, it’s a tombstone marked “Hulkamania. Rest in agony”. As if that isn’t bad enough we get ANOTHER promo from Avalanche. Fucking hell. The one at Clash 29 was surely bad enough. Basically the three heels cut pretty much the same promos as Clash 29 and no one cares. The other being Kevin Sullivan, natch.

Jean Paul Levesque v Alex Wright

Oh great, France v Germany. Who the hell am I supposed to route for? Levesque would go on to become Triple H after realising he had no future in WCW when he was being booked as Steven Regal lite. Interestingly enough Bobby Eaton took his place and made a far more entertaining duo in the process. And Triple H became huge in the WWF so everyone won. Every time I hear German techno I end up doing Wright’s stupid little dance. Thanks a fucking lot WCW! You warped my fragile little mind. Triple H is supposed to be French here even though he can’t speak a word of it, he just attempts the accent. He looks like a jerk though so that compensates for a lot. Wright is also new to WCW, which is a clever ploy by WCW. You see they’ve put two guys in there who the crowd don’t really know so they don’t give a shit about the match right from the get go. Then they book it to go over 10 minutes. *Slow clapping*. So they run a bunch of basics with HHH doing his pompous heel stuff. He’s blatantly green and so is Wright but at least they don’t screw any basic stuff up. Then Wright goes to a lengthy armbar and they’ve got this ass backwards. The babyface in charge doing rest holds. So the crowd doesn’t even have anything to cheer, either way. So they don’t. The crowd is just sat there totally silent. It’s not even these guys’ faults; the bookers/agents should have given them more guidance. As it stands this is painfully boring. The headlock to hammerlock counter pops up and Wright works the arm a bit. Eventually HHH gets sick of this shit and just lays the boots in to finally draw some heat although not much. HHH with a fucking spinning heel kick. You don’t see that these days. Snap suplex gets 2. And now he’s out of stuff as they set for a spot of some sort and HHH just kicks Wright in the side of the head for 2. He looked to be improvising. Guess something went wrong. Wright misses a crossbody and falls outside. HHH does the curtsey business but the crowd doesn’t buy it because it’s not a trademark yet because they haven’t barely had either guy on TV and they’ve thrown them out there on fucking Starrcade. How fucking dumb do you have to be to run WCW? This fucking dumb. Wright manages a sunset flip back inside but HHH punches him in the face. HHH with a poor powerslam for 2 and next it’s a chinlock and this match has no steam left in it at all. Crowd is totally disinterested. Wright fights out but HHH hits a dropkick and I don’t understand why he’s hitting all the glitzy stuff. Whirl backbreaker from HHH and that draws a reaction from the crowd and he adds in a curtsey to punctuate that. But it was more an “Oooh” rather than a “booo” reaction. They liked it. Because he’s doing more impressive stuff than Wright. Jesus, this is the kind of advice I give to guys who’ve never wrestled in front of a crowd before not guys wrestling on a fucking PPV. A double knock down garners a groan from the audience. Wright flips over in the corner with HHH going ridiculously low to avoid contact and gets the roll up for the win at 14.02. ½*. At least they put the babyface over and gave him something. The match seemed to be two guys who didn’t know what they were doing wrestling for 14 minutes as if it was a tryout and the promoter wasn’t sure which one he wanted to book face and which one heel. But they had very clearly defined roles and no one in the back gave them any help, I would guess, at planning a match that the crowd would get into. In the end the crowd doesn’t care, the wrestlers get down on their performance because they got no reactions and nobody wins. Especially not the PPV audience that got to sit through a match between two guys who had no business being on a PPV unless they were being carried by someone else. A lesson to any rubbish curtain jerker though – that’s how Triple H started out now look at him!

TV title – Johnny B. Badd (c) v Arn Anderson w/Colonel Rob Parker/Meng

More WCW hilarity here as Honky Tonk Man refuses to job to Badd unless he gets paid more so Bischoff tells him to fuck off. This is all speculation on my part but he was never seen in the company again and left due to management disputes. He literally walked out of the building so close to the show that the announcers didn’t know what was going on. So WCW does what it always does and goes to the reliable guy they have no interest in pushing. It’s usually Ric Flair but seeing as he’s “retired” it’s Double A instead. He brings psychology before the bell by threatening to punch Badd while the ref has his back turned. When Badd balls his fists up Arn warns the ref about it thus keeping the ref on Badd’s major offensive weapon – his punches. Arn pulls the hair a few times but denies it vehemently. Colonel Parker signed Blacktop Bully over the festive period. Yikes. Not the best of work there Colonel. Badd and Arn don’t seem to click too well. I guess that’s because they’re making the match up on the fly. No problem for Arn but I don’t know how much Badd scripted his matches. I would guess moderately. They run a few basics on the mat and Arn lets Badd look pretty good with technical stuff. They run some test of strength stuff and Arn gives Badd all of that too only to claim that Badd was pulling his hair. Heh. Which is even funnier because Arn did it earlier on himself and got away with it. Arn takes a few hip tosses and armdrags and whatnot. He’s bumping around to make the champ look really solid. Compare that to Honky just running around like a coward and it works better. Arn draws Badd into a boxing contest, which Badd wins with ease but Arn picks him off with the SPINEBUSTER. Oh, that’s so nice. No cover from Arn. Heenan puts it down to him being disorientated after the punches. But it could just be Arn meaning to soften up Badd for a future match. Just sayin. Shades of Wilbur Snyder and Arn uses the ropes because he’s a good stereotypical heel. He doesn’t wait for the ref to spot him though because he wants to put more of a hurting on the champ. Anderson left betwixt the eyes gets 2. Arn goes to a chinlock and it’s hard to judge his actual strategy in this one because it’s so thrown together. Badd battles out so Arn puts the sleeper on. Badd reverses it into his own. Arn jawbreakers out of that. Badd with the flying headscissors and he starts throwing punches. Ref doesn’t stop him. It always bothered me when people primarily use punches as their preferred strike and just get away with it. Sure one big punch is ok but the constant punching. It’s just cheating. Badd hits the diving sunset flip for 2. Arn grabs the ropes to block a monkey flip and uses the ropes for 2. He argues with the ref about him stopping the count because of the cheating and Badd promptly rolls him up for the win at 11.21. *1/2. Well that ok but for what it was. It didn’t have the same sort of Honky Tonk Man gets his comeuppance vibe about it but there ya go. The office were so happy with Arn’s effort and willingness that he won the title himself a few weeks later. Or maybe that was the plan all along and that’s why they threw him in here at the last minute. Either way Badd’s title run didn’t have much steam left in it. Which is insane really because the crowd loved him.

SHILL – Tony plugs the PWI magazine again and the Nasty Boys won “tag team of the year”. Jesus fucking Christ. How do you sleep at night Apter?

Harlem Heat w/Sister Sherri v Nasty Boys

Big brawl to start, which the babyface Nasties win with ease because that’s their game. Harlem Heat are actually the tag team champions BUT whether the actual title change has been shown on TV yet or not I don’t know. This is pretty much the same match as Clash 29 in that it sucks because everyone bar Booker T sucks. But unlike the Clash match, which sucked but was short, this is given an insane amount of PPV time. Not quite as insane as giving the HHH-Wright match 14 minutes but another one of those Nasty Boys matches that just goes on…and on…and on…and on. Hell, I’m complaining about the length of the match at 4 minutes and I know damn well it goes the best part of 20. Knobbs gets clotheslined over the top while Sherri has the ref distracted, which kicks off the heat segment. Knobbs comes back with the facecrusher for 2. Saggs tags in and the Nasties maul Stevie in the corner. Knobbs with an armbreaker and they work on the arm for a bit but he gets out and Booker comes in for the exact same spots only with better selling. Nasties make quick tags and isolate Booker’s arm for some time. This gets pretty dull so Saggs and Stevie opt to have a brawl up the aisle. Stevie boots him in the face and dumps him on the rail shins first. Sherri is organising things for Harlem Heat here. Booker clocks Saggs with a sidekick. The whole arm thing is now quickly forgotten as Saggs eats his own heat segment. What the hell is this? Everyone in the match has to take a heat segment? Booker runs a lengthy chinlock spot but worse is to come as Stevie Ray comes in to work over Saggs for what seems like my entire life but is probably more like a couple of minutes. It’s all bearhug too baby. It’s like watching a less talented Sid Vicious. Not content with that Booker runs his own BORE-HUG. Saggs evades a double team and hits a double DDT. Knobbs gets the hot tag and cleans house. Crowd is at least reacting even if this match is terrible. Saggs takes a posting and Sherri is up on the apron but she sprays Booker in the eyes. Stevie gets slammed off the top and the Nasties would finish Harlem Heat off if it weren’t for Sherri jumping into the ring to cause the DQ at 17.49. Yeah, what a perfect finish to a dull match. ½*. Really tedious. Unlike the HHH-Wright match where they kept doing the wrong thing so the crowd wasn’t reacting here they were just running rest holds for nearly 20 minutes in the hopes of getting away with doing nothing and getting reactions. Although they got reactions that doesn’t save the match from being almost painful to watch. Just dull as late night paid advertising.

PWI whore themselves out once again giving Sting an award for “most popular wrestler”. Apter says Sting, buyrates say Bret Hart. Won’t take my word for it? Here are a few examples…

Royal Rumble 0.9 (headlined by the Rumble match, which was won by Bret & Luger)
Wrestlemania 1.68 (headlined by Bret winning the title AND having MOTY with his brother in the opening match)
King of the Ring 0.85 (Bret-Diesel for the title. Owen winning KotR)
Summerslam 1.3 (headlined by Bret v Owen)
Survivor Series 0.9 (headlined by Taker v Yokozuna & Bret v Bob Backlund

You’ll notice the big buyrates were for the matches involving Bret. In particular the strong buyrate for Summerslam. And now WCW’s comparative buyrates for the same year.

Bash at the Beach 1.02 (headlined by Hogan v Flair – Hogan’s first major match for WCW and a huge boost for the buyrates)
Fall Brawl 0.53 (headlined by WarGames and Vader-Sting-Guardian Angel)
Halloween Havoc 0.97 (headlined by Hogan v Flair II)
Slamboree 0.48 (headlined by Sting-Vader)
Spring Stampede 0.53 (headlined by Flair-Steamboat)
Superbrawl 0.50 (headlined by Flair-Vader)
Starrcade 0.60 (headlined by Hogan-Butcher)

You’ll notice that Sting only headlined in one program (v Vader), which had been running since 1992. His popularity had taken a bit of a dip with Hogan coming in and was nowhere near that of the big WWF stars around that time anyway. You can argue you it any way you please I’m just looking at buyrates. WWF was ahead at the time. You’ll also notice that booking a shitty main event for Starrcade totally killed any momentum they may have had. That 0.85 is a baseline reading for the WWF. WCW’s baseline is more around 0.50. In general fewer people would buy WCW PPV’s, less people watched their TV shows so they were the second best company. Keep in mind that PWI totally sold out by going nuts about Hogan & Sting when Bret, Owen, Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon had the best matches of the year. Basically the whole thing was an embarrassment and WCW patting itself on the back.

Also you’ll note that Starrcade, WCW’s biggest show of the year, did horrible numbers despite having Hogan in the main event. The fans weren’t buying WCW PPV’s to see Hulk Hogan (or Sting) they were buying them (Bash & Havoc) to see Hogan v Flair. With WCW having blown that feud in two shows they now totally lose their momentum. Going to Hogan-Vader was probably far more sensible. You can’t even say that hindsight is 20-20 on that because surely only Hogan & Bischoff thought that Ed Leslie would make money as a main eventer. WCW would probably argue that Starrcade drew their 3rd biggest buyrate of the year after the highly successful two PPV with Hogan v Flair but the drop off is huge. Nearly 50% of their PPV audience disappeared when there wasn’t a worthwhile main event. Plus this 3rd highest show did far less business than any of the WWF PPV’s from the same year. Although WCW briefly recovered with both Uncensored and Superbrawl doing good numbers the rest of 1995 was a total bust and the ’95 Starrcade did an embarrassing 0.36. Which is a real shit because that show is a million times better than this one. So financially Starrcade ’94 did badly. Creatively? Well here comes the “triple main event”.

BACKSTAGE Sting gets promo time saying that he does rely on his fans but that’s not a weakness, it’s his strength. He makes himself the underdog by bigging up the size of Avalanche.

Kevin Sullivan v Mr T

This is laughably described as a “main event” although Buffer doesn’t get to do introductions. T still has his stupid looking ref gear on from the last show. As if this match doesn’t have potential enough to suck bottom out comes Evad Sullivan dressed as Santa Claus. Sullivan, Kevin, does his best selling a few lame looking worked punches from BA. T gets thrown outside where Sullivan puts the boots in and steals his zebra shirt. Pikey. This sure is ugly. T starts fighting the cameraman because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He also can’t take his shirt off as it’s stuck over both his fists. Are you still holding onto the can, Homer? Jimmy Hart runs out here and puts his megaphone in Evad’s sack. T still can’t get the shirt off. Evad blasts Kevin in the back of the head with megasackphone for the pin while Hart has the referee distracted at 3.49. -*. What a sack of shit. T can’t even dress himself and looks like a total incompetent moron although not as much as dumb as WCW look for booking this. It’s rare you can do a match that bad when you don’t even have five minutes to tell your horror story. Kudos.

POST MATCH Kevin Sullivan beats the crap out of Santa. Evad can’t dress himself either but at least that’s the gimmick. Kevin is clearly pissed off at the babyface cheating in this one and whips Evad repeatedly to teach the cheating bastard a lesson. I couldn’t agree more. He deserves that trashing. And more.

BACKSTAGE Hulk Hogan gets mic time. He’s focusing on killing the Faces of Fear cancer with the power of Hulkamania. So Hulkamania cures cancer now? Is there nothing it can’t do? Jimmy Hart tells us he’ll never turn his back on Hulk Hogan and warns Randy Savage to pick a side. It stinks of Jimmy Hart turning heel. So much so they should have just done it. Hogan threatens to throw the rulebook out the window tonight. He seems upset. Since when has he adhered to the rules anyway?

Avalanche w/Kevin Sullivan v Sting

They have a taunt off. Then a shouting contest. Say, how about some wrestling? Nah, shoving contest. Avalanche being a former sumo wrestler should win easily but doesn’t. Tenta refuses a clean break in the corner. So boring. And we’re only 2 minutes into this thing. Sting kicks at the legs to reduce Tenta’s size down to something similar to his own. Tenta plods through some offence. Sting goes back to the legs. Does this sound like 5 minutes of action? Sting goes for a slam but can’t get Tenta off his feet. Who thought Tenta would make a good main eventer anyway? The Earthquake gimmick was kind of over but he was just another heel for Hulk Hogan. This whole thing isn’t working because he’s just not up to much by himself. The result is total apathy from an already pissed off crowd. This is also another fine example of the fans waiting for the main event and WCW not having the smarts to book something short right before the main event. WWE do that with diva matches and whatnot. I don’t think Bischoff ever really understood how to put together a card. He did hit on the right formula in 1996 and then ran it over and over again making sure that the guys in the opening match stayed there and Hogan stayed on top. Odd how Bischoff wanted to destroy the WWF and yet he kept signing WWF guys and pushing them. Sting goes back to the legs. Tenta clotheslines him. This is so boring. It’d be fine if it was a TV match but up near the top end of the biggest PPV of the year? Tenta hits a powerslam for 2. The onus should be on Sting to up the pace every once in a while here. He’s simply not doing it and Tenta doesn’t have that entertaining but intimidating style that Vader has so nothing is happening and no one cares. Tenta goes to the BORE-HUG! Yeah, that’ll do it. Sting gets out into a sleeper. That goes on for a few minutes and then here comes the psychology as Sting goes back to the legs and again goes for a slam. This time he gets Tenta up but he falls on top for 2. Tenta goes back to the powerslam and calls for the finish. But Sting pops up and hits a clothesline. The crowd goes nuts and that’s what I’m saying! Sting’s quick offence just hasn’t been there in this one. The ref gets squashed in the corner and STINGER SPLASH! Scoop slam! SCORPION DEATHLOCK! Great burst of offence. Kevin Sullivan jumps in to make it 2 on 1. Sting just throws him at Tenta, who catches him and slams him into Sting. Tenta does the Avalanche Drop but out comes Hulk Hogan with a chair. He’s a bit early for the main event isn’t he? Apparently something is a DQ so this is over at 15.26. 1/2*. Well that was all kinds of terrible. There was a brief moment near the end where Sting wrestled as he should of throughout. The rest of the match was a total waste of time.

PWI AWARDS – Jimmy Hart “wins” Manager of the Year. We “voted” for him apparently. I did no such fucking thing.

WCW title – Hulk Hogan (c) v The Butcher

Here we go then. Ed Leslie gets to main event a PPV because he’s friends with Hulk Hogan. Because he’s a clean cut sporting hero Hogan comes out here with a chair and threatens to bash Butcher with it. Leslie chants “Ironman” to himself. Er, yeah. Buffer even screws up Hogan’s entrance calling him “the king of Hulkmania”. HulkAmania, surely. Then they play Hogan’s music again. Is the match over? Sweet! No, it’s only just starting. About fucking time too. Hogan overpowers early. That turns into an uninspired brawl. Hogan pulls the hair. Good grief. What a role model, eh? The likely winner of this bout – male patent baldness. Butcher busts out the BACK RAKE. “This is Butcher at his best” – Tony. Which is why he probably shouldn’t be in this match. Three or four more back rakes. I’m surprised Hogan has any skin left on his body after that! Butcher goes to bash Hogan with a chair but he’s such a badass that Jimmy Hart takes it off him. Ooh, I’m scared of the nasty heel. He can’t even overpower a 140lb runt. Hogan grabs the chair and nails Butcher in the back drawing a DQ and ending this farce at 3.11. Nah, not really. The ref just lets him break the rules because they don’t apply to anyone who spends more than 80% of their life working on their tan. Another chair shot. HEY! He chokes away with the chair and impartial referee Nick Patrick is showing distinct bias towards the world champion. Back inside Butcher does some choking of his own. You set a precedent ref! Butcher with a slam but he refuses to cover because he wants to inflict more devastating moves. Like a fist drop, which misses. Remember this is the main event of Starrcade! Hogan bites Butcher thus drawing the DQ at, yeah right. Come on ref, that cheating bastard is breaking the rules! Butcher does some truly awful selling in the corner so Hogan rakes his eyes. What the fuck is this? More punching and biting. I’m begging Nick Patrick to do something about this flagrant breaching of the regulations. Butcher comes back with the NERVEHOLD! Oh yeah, feel the tension! Butcher could win within seconds with this hold. Or maybe it’s a rest hold. Butcher sort of chops away at the fallen Hogan and goes back to that devastating rest hold painful nerve hold. Eventually Hogan powers up so Butcher goes to that nerve damaged neck area. Sleeper is on but Butcher releases it too early. This is basically the exact same thing as the nerve hold only now Hogan hulks up and we all know where this is going. Sullivan and Tenta run out here early and get punched off the apron. Legdrop for Butcher finishes at 12.05 while Kevin Sullivan politely waits for the pinfall to go down before commencing the post match beatdown. Can’t have a DQ ruining the exciting conclusion of the match can we? DUD. Utter garbage.

POST MATCH Hogan quite happily holds his own against all three Faces of Fear. This brings out the real main event of Randy Savage coming out here. He tells the Faces to leave and Hogan is thinking he’s about to get a new enemy and an exciting new main event series to kick off 1995. But then Savage just jumps the Faces and celebrates with the faces. Hope that makes sense.

The 411: Fuck this show. Everything sucks especially the “triple main event”. If you consider this is WCW’s version of Wrestlemania then it’s an even bigger pile of drek. Up there with the worst shows WCW has ever put on. And people wonder why I hate Hulk Hogan.
Final Score:  2.5   [ Very Bad ]