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Episode 19: Starrcade Series Retrospective
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We've reached the end of WCW's first supercard, and the end of our first series as well. In this episode, we take a look back at the Starrcade series as a whole and discuss the series' themes, along with some of the highs and lows and surprises we've encountered watching the Starrcades. Plus: New series awards, a performer stats guessing game (play along!), and our Ultimate Starrcade cards! Finally, find out what we'll be covering next! For all this and more...let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction & App Data Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
We'd like to take a look at some interesting data that we've gathered onto the app. Wow. What were those words? You haven't even said Shyvana yet. I mean, come on. Yeah. Data.
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring' Show
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by the master of the street fight, Alec Pridgen. I fight in the street, what can I say? And the master of the bunkhouse match, John Mullins. It's always good to get on the top. How's it going tonight, guys?
Stargate Series Retrospective
00:01:05
Speaker
Very good, very good.
00:01:07
Speaker
It's a little windy in my house, but that's good. It's probably the air. It's generally good to have air where you live, yes. Yes. We've reached the end of the Stargate series, so tonight we're taking a little time to have a look back at the series as a whole. So first, let's have a look back at these shows and some statistics about them.
Pay-Per-View Statistics and Analysis
00:01:32
Speaker
Starrcade as a series ran from 1983 to 2000, covering a total of 18 shows. Beginning in the era of closed-circuit television, it soon converted over to pay-per-view. That went well. Yeah.
00:01:49
Speaker
Across its run, it had significant highs and drastic lows, ranging from a dismal 16,500, as you just referenced, Al, to a terrific 650,000 pay-per-view buys, though it most commonly hovered around the 100,000 to 175,000 range, with eight of its 14 pay-per-view shows in that range. That's pretty good numbers, honestly. Yeah, honestly, that's not bad at all. Especially for the time. Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
The top three Starkades in terms of pay-per-view buys were, in third place, Starkade 1996 at $240,000.
00:02:25
Speaker
In second place, Starrcade 1998 at 450,000. Big jump. Yeah. And in first place, Starrcade 1997 at 650,000. Craziness. The bottom three Starrcades in terms of pay-per-view buys were, in third place, Starrcade 1995 at 95,000.
00:02:46
Speaker
Aw, it's actually a decent show. Yeah, it is. In second place, Starrcade 2000 at $45,000. Wasn't a decent show. And in first place, thanks to Vince McMahon, Starrcade 1987 at $16,500.
00:03:03
Speaker
Now, if that was attendance, that'd be good. Yes. Well, you know, it's funny that the first three years were all higher than that in its infancy. You know, sometimes it takes a while for something to get going. Yep. It grew from like a baby to adulthood, all 18 years.
Attendance and Match Statistics
00:03:20
Speaker
And its teen years were like the most volatile, so have the most attention needed. Yes. At least it got to the age where it could vote, you know? Yeah.
00:03:30
Speaker
for now. Just to include it as well, the highest closed circuit attendance was Starrcade 1986 at 47,000 and the lowest was Starrcade 1984 at 26,000. The series took place across eight different arenas in six states and Washington DC.
00:03:49
Speaker
North Carolina held the most shows, with five, with Washington D.C. and Georgia tied for second with four each. Tennessee took third with three shows. Two shows, Stargate's 1985 and 1986, took place in both North Carolina and Georgia.
00:04:06
Speaker
For arenas, South Carolina's Greensboro Coliseum, Georgia's Omni, and Washington, D.C.'s MCI Center are tied for first with four shows each, though the Omni and the Coliseum share a Stargates 1985 and 1986. They don't get a half. No, they still get full credit. Okay, fair enough. Cheaters. Don't get to dub what, though. No. In second place is Tennessee's Nashville Municipal Auditorium with three shows.
00:04:36
Speaker
For the actual arena attendance, the highest attended Starcades were in third place, Starcade 1997 with 17,500. In second place, Starcade 1986 with 30,000. And in first place, Starcade 1985 with 32,000. However, the 1986 and 1985 numbers, as I mentioned above, include two arenas. So we should also take a look at the single arena numbers.
00:05:04
Speaker
So just to be clear, all three of them had larger physical attendance than the actual pay-per-view number is for 87. Yes, yeah. Wow. That's pretty sad when you think about it, isn't it? I think it's marketing, really. Yeah. I know it's cheaper to just kind of go all in with like three or four people and have them come over and watch the show, though. So maybe that's what people are doing later on.
00:05:29
Speaker
So the highest attendances for single arenas were, in third place, a three-way tie between the Omni for Starrcade 1985, the Greensboro Coliseum for Starrcade 1985, and the Greensboro Coliseum for Starrcade 1986, with 16,000 each. So we had to get the exact same number in two different places at the exact same time. Yeah, these may be rounded slightly, I'm not sure on that. Sure, sure.
00:05:53
Speaker
In second place, the MCI Center for Starrcade 1998 with 16,066 people. And in first place, the MCI Center for Starrcade 1997 with 17,500. There were quite a lot of matches on Starrcade. In some cases, I think we can agree it felt a bit excessive. Yeah, a little bit. In fact, eight of the 18 Starrcades had 10 or more matches.
00:06:24
Speaker
The top three Star Cades in terms of matches were, in third place, a three-way tie with Star Cades 1985, 1986, and 1989, each of which had 12 matches. Dirty Dozen. Yeah. In second place, Star Cade 1999 with 13 matches. Baker's Dozen. Baker's Dirty Dozen.
00:06:46
Speaker
And in first place, Starrcade 1990 with an incredible and rather annoying 14 matches. I believe that is a butcher's dozen. Is it? Yeah, I think so. No, I think that'd be if it was Starrcade 1994. I was going to go with like a golf term, like a super albatross. There you go. Quadrable birdie. No, that would be good. Yeah. There's no par. There's no par sixes that I know.
00:07:14
Speaker
Incidentally, three Starkades are tied for the lowest number of matches. Starkades 1987, 1988, and 1994 each had seven matches.
Defining Stargate's Identity and Themes
00:07:25
Speaker
It was quite a run across those 18 shows, and we looked at each show in turn, but now we'd like to take a look at a larger question.
00:07:34
Speaker
What exactly is Starrcade as a series? What, if anything, is the series' identity? What themes are repeated, and what changes about the series over the years?
00:07:48
Speaker
I think let's start with what I've always heard about Starrcade, that it's WCW's version of WrestleMania. That's the most common sentiment, yeah. It's always been a bit funny to hear that given that Starrcade came first, but history is written by the victors after all. You'd think a spell checker would be enough to invalidate that claim.
00:08:12
Speaker
What does that comparison mean to you guys when someone says that Starrcade is WCW's WrestleMania? What are they trying to say by that? I mean the general idea I think is they're just saying it's their super show. It's the one that all their storylines of the year are supposed to be building up to. That's what WrestleMania is for the WWE or WF at that point.
00:08:33
Speaker
In theory, here's all these matches we spent five, six months, a year maybe sometimes, getting you two, and here's the payoff, everything else leads you back to here again.
00:08:43
Speaker
I think that your biggest show should just be interchangeable with your identity. Like you could take the WWF and replace it like, we're gonna watch WrestleMania tonight, you know? And that makes sense as a show. Okay. I get ya. It has to be, at least as an identity standpoint, interchangeable. Is the one that people think about when they think about your company? Absolutely. Okay.
00:09:10
Speaker
bad marketing on their end, they could have called it something else. But I think that when you talk about Starrcade, you should immediately think of all the superstars, you should think of all those other things. And if someone forgot to say WCW, you could easily insert Starrcade in there and they're like, oh, I know what you're talking about. Right. Okay. I get you. Yeah, I think we're on the same page on that. To me, it's
00:09:32
Speaker
This is the central show of the year, is what people are trying to say in that case. It's the one that everything builds to, and it's the one that WCW would pull out all the stops to put on the biggest show that they possibly can. So given that, is that Starkade's identity?
00:09:49
Speaker
Early on, I don't think it is. By the end, I think they seem like they were going that direction. They kind of faltered the last show, but I mean, 98 is definitely a buildup of all these storylines.
Stargate's Narrative and Execution Challenges
00:10:00
Speaker
It's like six months of Goldberg's world title run and the push back to the NWO, whether it'll end or not, or it'll come back again. 97 obviously has more than a year of buildup to the Sting Hogan match. 96 doesn't quite work for that.
00:10:18
Speaker
on its own, because 96's main event is only built up for like two months, but it is part of a larger store that started back in July, I think is Batch to the Beach. So it kind of works that way, but early on it definitely didn't start out that way.
00:10:32
Speaker
Really, other than Dusty said he's got a challenge where the winner is. Admittedly, on the third try, it took him to get the promo out, because that sounded like cut out. Yeah, I'd forgotten all about that. I was looking back at him recently, like, oh, right. Before Dusty had to cut that promo three times. Yes. Other than him challenging the winner of that match, it's not really a, here's A3, now you're going to watch A4 based on this. Right. It's really not until they get in 296, I would say, that we get in that mindset. Okay.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, John, what's your feeling on that? Does it kind of feel like the central show for the company or? I've already compared this to a child and I'm gonna take a little more philosophical approach to this and kind of take a couple pages from Joseph Campbell and talk about the hero's journey. Sure. Starrcade is kind of like Achilles.
00:11:22
Speaker
Okay. In that he's going to go through trials and labors and everything, but ultimately there's going to be certain things that happen, the Achilles heel, it will be their undoing as a company through missteps and other people just delivering a final blow. And sometimes it's kind of like, as they're sieging Troy is like going up against the WWF. See that? And Vince McMahon is a pretty good Paris, I think. There you go.
00:11:50
Speaker
I know it's a little esoteric out there. No, I think I get where you're going at. Yeah, it's its hero, it's their baby, and they kind of live or die by it. And there is a lot of growth in those formative years. And sometimes when they get the formula right, they just
00:12:08
Speaker
They either repeat it into, I don't, can't handle anymore because, you know, kind of Starcase and the Ric Flair show, that points. But I mean, that's in a lot of ways, that's good though. It's iconic. It's something that you expect. And then they, when they try to twist it, it sometimes just falls apart or in some cases gains a lot of fans.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I think the answer, which I think you guys are both getting at as well, is sometimes that it sometimes serves this big central role.
00:12:41
Speaker
And for me, I kind of feel like that is how the series starts. Maybe not for the entire show, but at least for the Flare and Dusty stuff for the first few years. There's this massive storyline that the show revolves around or is at least all like punching towards. And I know we get a bunch of random stuff from other companies too, but at least there's this like, the reason you're coming to see this show is Flare versus Dusty. And it's like three year storyline.
00:13:10
Speaker
And I think 1986 would have felt like that, too, except the Magnum TA accident happens. So you derail a lot of plans. 1987 feels reasonably focal with a bunch of stuff around Horseman, though the world title feud is only about two months old there. In 1988, again, feels very focal that Flair versus Luger has been going on for a little while and is reaching its culmination there. So at least if you're looking at kind of the world title picture, I think that there is a lot in those early shows that feel like, OK, this is the we're building to this.
00:13:40
Speaker
across a year. But then 1989 happens. The double Iron Man tournaments. And certainly there's story points to those, but it doesn't feel like a focal point show. It's more of a weird experiment.
00:13:55
Speaker
And from then on, Stargate seems to vary quite a bit. So you've got 1990 that feels very focal, if strange with the black scorpion angle. But 1991 and 1992 are back to almost total non-storyline stuff. Yeah, true. 1993 and 1994, back to focal. But 1995 is another tournament. And then 1996 through 2000, I agree with you, Alan. I think at that point they're like, yes, this is our big show of the year that everything's building towards.
00:14:22
Speaker
Though 1999 is so hyperactive, I really can't say that anything relates to anything truly important. And 2000 is quite focal with its villain, but not so much with its hero. So, I guess for me, I do think that Starrcade manages to be a focal point show for much of its run, but is that enough for it to be WCW's WrestleMania?
00:14:45
Speaker
I'm not sure. For one thing, WSTW rarely ends its feuds at Starrcade. True. In many of the instances that we've kind of talked about, something strange would happen as I think you were getting at John.
00:14:58
Speaker
that would keep the feud going to be resolved later, or would just leave it lacking a resolution. That's like Rhodes winning the title at 1985, only to be stripped of it because of interference that he successfully countered. Piper beating Hogan at 96, but it turning out that the match wasn't even for the title, and Hogan just acting like he won. Sting winning the title at 97, only to be stripped of it because of a non-fast fast count. Nash beating Goldberg at 1998, only for things to go weirdly sideways with the finger poke of doom.
00:15:27
Speaker
Thighways is an understatement. Yes. And of course, Hart keeping the title at 1999, but giving it up only to form the NWO and then have to retire. So yeah, as you pointed out at the time, John, three years in a row, they failed to end their storyline properly toward the end there. That's true. Yeah. Yep. But
00:15:47
Speaker
For another thing, being the focal point and ending point of storylines is not all that defines WrestleMania, to which we're comparing Starrcade right now. WrestleMania is also the show where the WWF often pulls out all the stops, putting on the biggest spectacle that they can in terms of stunts, gimmicks, glitz and glamour, or celebrity
Stargate's Spectacle and Presentation
00:16:07
Speaker
involvement. And Starrcade only sometimes manages that, I think. 94, I think, is probably the closest they get.
00:16:15
Speaker
94 as the interesting Mr. T batch. Yes. And there's some other people surrounding that. Yeah. Yeah. They have the awards ceremony stuff, which I hated, but is them doing some more pomp and circumstance of things. 93 is another one that kind of gets that there's something special going on here with the Rec Flair stuff throughout it.
00:16:39
Speaker
We get notable, if confusing, celebrity involvement at Starrcade 1984, 1992, and 1994, but otherwise there's not much of that going on. If the idea is to get people watching the product who don't normally, we might also count 1990 and 1995 for involving wrestlers who weren't normally part of the show. And 1992 does that as well, but we've already counted that.
00:17:03
Speaker
As far as pulling out the big stunts, sure, that happens from time to time. We get a couple shows revolving around the scaffold match, for instance. I didn't say that we're all good. True, true, true. And a couple around Battle Bowl.
00:17:17
Speaker
We get a number of major storylines that up the ante with notable gimmicks, like the Magnum Tully I Quit match or the Piper Valentine Dog Collar match. We get a variety of cage matches, or even the Tuxedo Street Fight between Valiant and Jones if you want to count a true abomination. But certainly, Starrcade does have a lot of points where you see special match types that aren't normally held. At the same time, though, a lot of the run features fairly standard singles and tag matches where the only really notable thing is the storyline.
00:17:45
Speaker
I'm not sure that this is the show where they're pulling all of the stops in terms of the match types that they're putting on. Yeah, I can see that. Especially early on, it's just, let's take different people from different regional territories and get them a match. So the person in, you know, NWA Florida might have been building up to some big dangerous match with somebody, so I just don't have one on this show.
00:18:05
Speaker
I think the show is kind of built on experimentation, to really say that they're pulling anything out. They can't pull all the stunts out because they don't have a good idea of what actually works. And anytime they find something that works, they omit it from the next show, pretty much.
00:18:24
Speaker
Good point. Yeah. Yeah. It's more about experimentation and they take out some of the key elements and replace it with something that frankly doesn't stand up. So the one beautiful thing or horrible thing about Starrcade is each year it can be a polar opposite of the next. So you have no idea what you're going to get reading who's on the card or who's coming up and paying attention throughout the year kind of is going to indicate what you're going to get usually. Yeah. Usually. Yeah. Okay.
00:18:53
Speaker
And then the last thing that I mentioned for kind of defining WrestleMania is the glitz and glamour. So I guess, yeah, what's you guys feeling on that part of Starrcade? Like just the like bigness and epicness of presentation, where it just like feels, regardless of what's actually going on on the show, just like feels like a bigger show.
00:19:13
Speaker
Early on, definitely not. I mean, players' robes aside, yeah. Those are always a thing, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that was the most glamor and glitz bowling alley I've ever seen.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely for sure But otherwise it just it'd be someone Holding like a sheet in front of the entryway and someone walks through it or they that one year they try to do like flash paper Actually see the fat of the flash paper that's still on fire Slowly falling from the sky above the crowd and like oh my gosh go out before you hit. Yeah
00:19:48
Speaker
No, they switched from illuminated flags to lasers to other types of projections. Not consistently. They have tried. They have certainly tried to add glitz and glamour. The only thing that has been consistent has been flares, robes, except for a few matches, you know. But I think that's a stylistic choice. And they did try to bring in Super Bowl rings and never gave them to them. Oh, yes. Yep. We definitely have one though, for sure.
00:20:16
Speaker
I feel like it's, again, the same way you guys are saying. They do it, but it's inconsistent. Across the run, I've noted many times how plain the set can feel and how underwhelming the entrances can often be. Some shows really stand out. I recall really liking the set for 1989, for instance, with everybody posed on those platforms above the stage and then they walked down the stairs to the ring. That was really cool.
00:20:42
Speaker
But others, like 1999 and 2000, just don't have much of an epic feel to them as far as the presentation is concerned. Here's a big drape in front of the screen and we'll just put the logo on it, yeah. You know, WrestleMania would often have something really special happen, like Shawn Michaels' zipline entrance in 1996, or the ring cart's entrances at WrestleMania 3 in 1987. Or people riding on the camels at WrestleMania 9.
00:21:06
Speaker
or Diamond Dallas Page driving Rhythm & Blues to the ring in 1990s WrestleMania 6 in his pink Cadillac. That did happen, yes. That is true, yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
There was a lot of showmanship at WrestleMania, special entrances or aspects to the presentation that just didn't happen at any other show. That just generally isn't the case with Starrcade. Even the entrances that are special, like Starrcade 1997's emo poetry entrance for Sting, kind of come off underwhelming in some other way.
00:21:37
Speaker
and the ones that don't come off underwhelming, like Goldberg's entrances or Luger's 1999 entrance, they're just the entrance the wrestler is always doing. There's no upgrade for Stargate. At least they upped the ante for the Black Scorpion. That's true. He heard that glorious... The weird UFO. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That had to be one of Flair's shining moments. Oh, man. So with all that,
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure that the comparison between Starrcade and WrestleMania is as clear cut as it might seem on the surface. I would propose instead that across the Starrcades we see five identities into which each individual show may or may not fit. Okay.
00:22:21
Speaker
We have Focal Point Starcades, Pivot Starcades, Experimental Starcades. That's all of them. Yep. Partnership Starcades, and Undermind Starcades.
00:22:37
Speaker
So, focal point shows we've already discussed. These are the Starkades that end up as the culmination of a storyline that's been running for months or longer, providing a big match that at least should be the finish of that storyline, whether or not it actually works out. Until Nitro. Yeah, exactly, especially in the later shows.
00:22:55
Speaker
So, for examples of those, I'd call out like 1984, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, and 1998. All of these clearly fit into this category and others debatably could.
00:23:11
Speaker
Pivot shows are those that, instead of ending storylines, change them into something new. For instance, 1984 doesn't end Flare vs. Rhodes, but it uses an admittedly confusing referee ruling to push it into 1985 and to up the intensity. 1989 uses the end of the Iron Man tournament to start showing tension between Flare and Sting, which will lead to their conflict.
00:23:36
Speaker
Well yeah, the point of that one is that Sting is an outsider, they realize he's an actual threat, so they bring him in on that show.
Experimental & Partnership Events
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah. 1994 resolves a storyline in Hogan vs. Butcher, but immediately introduces Hogan's next challenger in Vader. 1998 throws everything for a loop in Nash vs. Goldberg, and 1999 does similarly with Hart vs. Goldberg. So it isn't always good, but there's often some notable pivot in these types of shows.
00:24:05
Speaker
Experimental shows, like you noted, John, are very common as well. These are the shows where Starrcade was used to try something different with all or much of the show. Most of the time it's some kind of tournament, but it also experiments in presentation. So these are shows like 1985 and 1986, which ran at multiple arenas, as well as 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, four years in a row there.
00:24:29
Speaker
and 1995, which all consisted in whole or in part of tournaments with the Iron Man tag and singles tournaments, the Pat O'Connor Memorial Tag Tournament, the Battle Bulls, and the WCW vs. New Japan competition. Sometimes an experimental show can also be a focal point show, but more often they tend to be mutually exclusive. However, they are frequently also pivot shows, using the ending of the tournament or a special event to kick off a new storyline or change an existing one.
00:24:58
Speaker
89 is kind of a weird aspect of that too where there is one consistent commentary throughout the entire show, which is Jim Ross. But then for the singles ones, it's him and Terry Funk. And for the tag ones, it's him and Jim Cornette. So poor Jim Ross is stuck to the whole night and these people get to come and go, grab a drink, sit down, just chill for a while.
00:25:22
Speaker
So, partnership shows are the shows that bring in people that you wouldn't normally see, or those which intentionally highlight multiple territories. The early shows from 1983 through 1987 frequently fall into this category as we see matches involving the titles of multiple smaller promotions, and in 1987, matches used to bring in wrestlers from the newly purchased UWF.
00:25:46
Speaker
But we still get flashes of this in 1990, 1992, and 1995. While Jim Crockett promotions in WCW would usually take center stage, many Starkades do spread the wealth, as it were. Yeah, I could do that. Sure. Definitely add some extra interest and flavor because you're going to get something new that year. You might be more inclined to make that extra trip or pay for pay-per-view.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of the time I think we've found this aspect of the Stargates really interesting. People like Zangiev and Hashimikov at 1990, I believe that one was, the Russian team there, and the WSW New Japan stuff at 95. Those people that they bring in on a temporary basis are often really intriguing and interesting to watch.
00:26:33
Speaker
But at the same time, you have Liger. He's a weird exception, but also proven in that role, because he's come and gone several times through these shows. So he's back in New Japan as if that's a New Japan thing, but he's also been there before, so it's a little confusing. Yeah. I think 95 is, when you were listing off the types, 95 was really the only one that kind of jumped into my mind at all.
00:26:54
Speaker
as partnering up because every single star that they brought over were superstars over in Japan. And I think just about every one of them gave a stellar performance against their United States counterpart or combat. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one of the more intriguing aspects of Starrcade is that in that it is not necessarily a focal point show for WCW. It can often be a showcase of these partnerships or of these other territories exposing you to people that you don't normally see, which opposes its use as WCW's WrestleMania, but presents it with an interesting identity of its own.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's like the one, I guess, 1997 War Rumble, where they're having issues with the tendons and with contract stars, so it's them and AAA. And so it's a bunch of random AAA people in matches that never appear before or since. Right. And finally, there is the undermined category. Now, this isn't a category that WCW would have planned any stargaze to fall into, but it does happen with an unfortunate frequency. True.
00:28:07
Speaker
Whether it's unexpected injuries, preventing matches entirely, bad booking decisions rendering a match disappointing, post-match or post-show changes reversing the ending of a match, or the infamous January curse, Starrcade frequently ends up surprisingly unimportant or even almost meaningless in the end. It isn't an identity I'd want to assign a show into, but I can certainly do that with a surprising number, especially if we look at a show's immediate aftermath.
00:28:37
Speaker
1984, 1985, 1986, 1997, 1998, and 1999 are all very clear examples to one degree or another. Kind of bunched up at the beginning and end there. That's, I guess maybe while they're figuring it out and then when they've forgotten how to do everything. Yeah, I could see that. So, given all of that, what is Starrcade?
00:29:05
Speaker
It's multifaceted. It's often a focal point, but often more of a pivot than an ending. It's frequently experimental, and it's how Jim Crockett promotions in WCW showed off their partnerships locally and globally. And sadly, it's a show that often doesn't go as planned, or that sets up an interesting angle and sees it go wildly off course soon after. It has a complex identity, not a unified one. But across 18 years, could it have been otherwise really?
00:29:35
Speaker
There's so much that changes across its run, so many different things that the company tries, that its first supercard is almost certainly going to get caught up in all of that. And that, I think, brings us finally to its true identity. Starrcade is WCW.
00:29:53
Speaker
It may not be WCW's WrestleMania, the show that planned to be the big central show for the year at which everything will come to a head and the company will pull out all the stops. But what it is, is the clearest representation of the state of the company itself. Is the company working on its partnerships with all the territories or with New Japan? Starrcade gathers them together. Is the company looking for new stars and new angles? Starrcade gives them a shot.
00:30:20
Speaker
Is the company in good health with a lot of potential? Starrcade shows the signs of what might be coming. And is the company coming up on a big stumble or about to experience a downturn? Starrcade is the canary in the coal mine.
00:30:34
Speaker
It may not always be planned as WCW's central show, but it always shows what is central to the company itself at any given time. WCW's highs and lows, its successes and its struggles, those come out of the backstage area and offices and onto the TV screen in Starrcade. That I think is Starrcade's identity in the end. Starrcade is WCW.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a checkup or a status report. Yeah, and having seen other WCW shows, not for our show yet, but having seen other other series, I don't think that there's another series that I've seen so far that really feels so identifiably this is the state of the company.
00:31:20
Speaker
And it's in part because other ones have these stronger identities themselves that I don't think you get to feel it as much. And that's something we can see if we still feel that way as we go through other series. But with Sarcade, I think the very fact that it doesn't necessarily have its own strong identity, that it's just this oldest show of the company, helps it to fully reflect what's going on in the company at that time.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. It's kind of the blank slate on which the company can paint. Right. Or the picture that they can reveal. It's like it's already there. There you go. They just have to remove the veil and see where we're at.
00:32:06
Speaker
Back to what I was saying before, it has to be interchangeable. And I didn't think of Starrcade at all when I thought of WCW, but they are intrinsically bonded. I can't see it any other way. And most of my WCW thing was just a video game.
00:32:27
Speaker
It's nice to see a lot of the interplay develop. I think Starrcade is not like WrestleMania in that it's able to be used interchangeably with the company name, like with WWF from WrestleMania as much, at least in conversation with people that maybe aren't into it as much.
00:32:46
Speaker
But at the same time, it is, like you said, it is intrinsically tied to the company. It is their first. It is their first show, their first big supercard. And because of that, it just seems to have this deep-seated tie to whatever's going on, whatever the status of the company is at this point. And you just see that coming out. So
00:33:12
Speaker
heavily on the screen. And it's not even something that they plan. It's not something that they push out there. It's just this is the show that it's their mirror. It's their reflection.
Performer Statistics and Quiz Segment
00:33:25
Speaker
So we've had a look at the Starrcade stats, but now we'd like to take a look at some interesting data that we've gathered on the performers who appeared on the shows.
00:33:35
Speaker
All right, so we're gonna do this with a little bit of a quiz thing. I'm kind of hoping that you guys haven't been paying attention to the times that I've revealed some of this to you between the shows, but we'll see. I can promise you I have not been paying attention. I'm not sure if I should say good to that or not, but good. We'll say that. To be honest here. Okay. First up, who appeared as a competitor in the most matches? Any guesses?
00:34:05
Speaker
In the beginning, I would swear there has to be flair because he's the main focus of the first, at least the first half of the shows. But then I'm trying to think how many gaps he has from being gone and then just not being on the show from injury. I mean, he feels like the safest guess. I'm not sure if it's correct, but it feels like the safest guess. What do you think, John?
00:34:25
Speaker
Ooh, I'm gonna go for like one of the Andersons. You want Art or Ollie? Well, let's do Arne. Okay, definitely not Ollie. I know he's your favorite. I'm hoping that that's why we put this together. All right, well, unfortunately, Arne may be my favorite, but he was not WCW's favorite, it looks like. So he's not in the top three. Oh, well. So top three appearances as a match competitor. Here we go.
00:34:51
Speaker
In third place is Rick Steiner with 11 appearances as a competitor. I guess so. That was my first thought, yeah. Second place is a tie between Lex Luger and Rick Flair, aged with 14 appearances. And in first place, this is Sting, with an amazing 17 appearances as a competitor.
00:35:19
Speaker
So all of these guys had multiple star gates where they appeared in more than one match. I agree with the star power there in that order. Although...
00:35:30
Speaker
Rick Steiner is a bit of a surprise. Scott was very close as well. They both get a high number of matches between 1989 and 1990 because they're in two tournaments, two consecutive tournaments there. But Rick appears first. Rick just has another couple of star gates where he appears. That's true.
00:35:51
Speaker
Speaking of Starrcade appearances, so who appeared as a competitor on the most shows? So not looking at individual matches. So you're looking at the number of Starrcades that this person appeared on. Hmm. I feel like that's got to be Flair then, because he's pretty strong, except the first at least half of the run of the show. Just counting once for each show, probably Flair, but we're wrong so far.
00:36:18
Speaker
No, Flair's a good choice because he comes back. Yes. Yeah. Later on. And I've already said that it's the Rick Flair show. Let's double down on this one, Al. All right. Sounds good. So yeah, as you might expect, this is actually a very similar list. In third place is Rick Steiner with seven. He's on seven shows. In second place is Lex Luger with 10 shows.
00:36:43
Speaker
And in first place is a tie between Sting and Ric Flair with 11 shows. Oh, there you go. That's fascinating to me because both of them have 11 shows. On those 11 shows, Ric Flair manages 14 matches and Sting manages 17 matches. Wow. Yeah. Is that incredible? Well, there are some shows where it doesn't have three in one show.
00:37:05
Speaker
a couple actually we are counting battle bulls obviously oh yeah that's true yeah yeah sting has uh let's see three matches on stark 889 because that's the iron man tournament i believe two matches on the first battle bull show and then three matches again on the second battle bull show because also invader separately because because he fights vader separately and then
00:37:25
Speaker
three matches on Starrcade 95 as well. Oh, yeah. Because he's part of the WCW versus New Japan, but he's also, sorry, two matches on that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he also has the triangle match on that. So he has a lot of shows where he has multiple matches, which tells you something, I think, about how dependable they found Sting as a performer.
00:37:45
Speaker
95 is the one where the storyline is that Flair is running in vain by not taking part in the tournament. But ultimately, he wrestles two matches in the same show as well. He also wrestles two matches, yes. And just his second one is for the world title. Yep. But that's matches overall. So who was a competitor in the most main events?
00:38:05
Speaker
Now, quick note here, I am only counting actual main events. That is the final aired match of the show. WCW likes to say that there's multiple main events on several shows. In fact, on 1989, JR claimed that every single match was a main event. So we're talking about the closing match. I have to draw a line to make this make any sense.
00:38:25
Speaker
My categorization, though, does mean that 1991 and 1992's Battle Bowls are considered the main events. I think that's fair, but just bear that in mind. So any guesses on that? Who was the competitor with the most main events? Stinglooker or Flare. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm counting matches right now.
00:38:48
Speaker
I'm so lazy when I do this. I sound so lazy when I do this, but I feel like you keep saying Flair because it feels like they're answering at a time. I'm going to change my order. Okay. Flair, Sting, and then Luger. All right. John and John going for the gold with trying to guess the top three. There we go. Okay. Well, here we go. Let's see how close you got. In third place, a tie between
00:39:12
Speaker
Hulk Hogan and Big Van Vader. I guess so. Each has three matches. Vader, two of them are battle bulls. True. True. Yeah. In second place, Sting. Yeah. With five main events. Cause he didn't actually main event until 89, I believe. Cause 89 is he's the fundamental player. Yep. And in first place,
00:39:34
Speaker
was probably fairly obvious, but yeah, I kind of had just enough doubt. Yes, you did. It's Rick Flair with 10 main events. Flair, in fact, was in the main event of every single Starrcade from 1983 through 1990.
00:39:52
Speaker
And again, in 1993 and 1995. I forgot that. In fact, he was in the main event of every Starrcade on which he was a competitor, except for one. That's 1998. He also appeared on 2000, but did not actually have a match. That's true, yeah. So that's kind of an amazing record there. Yeah. I forgot 95. I was like, I was counting around, like, I had nine. I was like, oh yeah, I forgot 95 because he gets... Yep. Yep. And Savage.
00:40:21
Speaker
A show is not just about competitors, though. There's all sorts of other roles to fill. So let's start out with the people you hear all night long.
00:40:42
Speaker
Shivani. That seems like a pretty safe bet, because he's only misses one show. Now, to be fair, there's a couple where they're split, so... Brain would be my second guess. That's a pretty good treat, yeah. He's got 94 to 99, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Who do you think he is in second place, Al? John's betting Bobby the Brain hand. Ooh. Temeru, the show's with the most... there's way too many matches, like who calls all of them?
00:41:12
Speaker
I feel like it's got to be Shravani and then Bob Coddle maybe. Okay. I'm going to go with third Jim Ross. You got a third place guys. So let's see. It's not Johnny Weaver. Cross him off the list. Johnny Weaver has the called too many matches award. I think even for the limited amount that he called, I feel like I've got to have Shravani Coddle and Heaton. I don't know. I don't know if I have Coddle and Heaton in the right order.
00:41:37
Speaker
Not enough dusty. That's true. In third place is Bobby the Brain Hienan with 46 matches. In second place is Jim Ross, good old JR, with 60 matches. And in first place is indeed Tony Schiavone, earning his title as the voice of WCW with 108 matches called across the Starrcade run.
00:42:07
Speaker
He has more than both combined then? Yes, just barely. Yes. Wow. So no real surprise that he's in the lead as Shivani appears as a commentator on 12 of the 18 Starkades. That's twice JR6 Starkades. In third is a Bob Centric tie between Bobby Heenan and Bob Cottle with five Starkades each. There you go. Because he was an early lead guy. I thought he might have made it.
00:42:31
Speaker
And I only guess Shivani is because back in, I think it was either 85 or 86, he makes his first appearance and you're like, you're going to like this guy. He's going to be around for a long time. Yeah. Is he the greatest commentary in the history of our sport? You know what? He can't beat tonight. He can have that for tonight. Next up, what about managers? What's your guess for who managed in the most matches? Ooh.
00:42:56
Speaker
I feel like it's gotta be Paul Jones. See, he was there a lot. He was there a lot, yeah, definitely. Now, he is also covering a small area, so that's possible when it took him long term, but at a certain point, manager stopped being a bunch of things, so. Forgive me for not remembering his name, but who was the manager in 95? Sonny Ohno. That's who I'm gonna choose, because that's a whole Starrcade. Yep. And almost a half, because he gets an overlap in the next one.
00:43:22
Speaker
In third place, a tie between Paul Ellering and Harley Race, who each have six. That's true, yeah. In second place is Paul Jones with seven matches managed. Yeah, which is funny because Harley Race was technically the manager for the Kongs. But for a reason, he just doesn't show up. Yeah, so he could have tied it if they didn't. And in first place, we actually have a tie. Oh. One part is Sonny Ono. Yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
The other is JJ Dillon. Oh, of course. Oh, good call. They each have 10 matches that they manage, but Ohno has the noteworthy achievement of seven of those appearances being on a single show, that being Starrcade 1995. Yes. Good, good, good call, John. Yeah, he has a couple more on the next show as well. Yeah. And then he has one more appearance as the Cats manager is where he gets his 10th one. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true.
00:44:21
Speaker
Next up, referees. Who refereed the most matches? Now, I'm gonna specify that I am counting any referee appearance here, whether they are the initial assigned ref, came out to replace the referee after a ref bump, or came out to rectify a referee's call. So any guesses on that for a referee work in a match in general? I need to know who the most honest referee is first. That would be Nick Patrick. That's who I'm gonna go with. Okay.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like he's a solid pick. Sometimes he's not on the last show at all for some reason. So that might mess up most of it. Yeah, it's my best guess as well. Nick Patrick? Yeah, go with that. All right. In third place, Tommy Young with 15. He was a notable referee during a bunch of the early shows. Yes, that's true. In second place, Randy Anderson with 22. And in first place,
00:45:20
Speaker
Good old Nick Patrick, the most honest referee in the business, with 36 matches refereed. Now, just to know, if we take only their appearances as the initial assigned referee, then each actually only loses one appearance. That does add Mike Atkins to the list, tying Tummy Young's new total of 14.
00:45:44
Speaker
So we've talked a lot about the people with a ton of appearances, but what about the people with the fewest? Well, I'm not going to list those off because in fact there are 123 people who only show up for a single match in any capacity on a Starrcade.
00:45:59
Speaker
I know I looked through it at my best and worst. I found some interesting names among them, though, considering either historical significance or how much they impressed us. So people with only a single appearance that I found found rather interesting. Steven Reichel, Ultimo Dragon, Jean-Paul Lavec, otherwise known as Triple H, Shinjiro Otani, Raven, Chris Jericho.
00:46:29
Speaker
Magnum T.A. Greg Valentine. And Steve Mongo McMichael. Even less. But it is interesting. I mean, Mongo is one of the horsemen, but he only has one Starrcade match. It's true. He's a terrible promo on one of them. And to be clear, this is any capacity. This is not just as competitors. These are people that only show up under any capacity one time.
00:46:57
Speaker
Associated with a match. Do you have all those guest judges? Yeah, I'm counting like guest judges and things like that I don't count them being in the crowd at 1997 so a few people had multiple appearances by doing that but that's not associated with a particular match
00:47:10
Speaker
So yeah, a few of these did show up on another show. Like, Magnum TA conducted interviews on other shows. Right. Mongo McMichael was interviewed on another show. Valentine and Ultimo Dragon showed up in the audience. But as far as actual match appearances, these are all some really surprising single timers. And there's quite a number of Match of the Night winners on that list. Regal, Dragon, Lavec, Otani, Magnum, and Valentine all earned Match of the Night honors on their single match appearance.
00:47:39
Speaker
I think he missed one. Did I? For our last one. They've been bigger than Mike Awesome. That's true, yeah. It's awesome you remember that. Last but not least, let's take a look at who's taken home the coveted Match of the Night and MVP awards the most. So first up, for each host.
00:48:02
Speaker
Guys, who do you think Al gave MVP to the most? Oh, Ric Flair. John's guessing Ric Flair? I think I gave Eddie at least two. I can't remember if I gave him three. Good guesses from both, because actually it's a tie. It's a tie between Ric Flair and Eddie Guerrero with two each.
Series MVPs and Top Matches
00:48:22
Speaker
There you go. They are the only people that perceived MVP more than once from you. Yeah.
00:48:27
Speaker
Alright. John, who do you guys think John gave MVP to the most? Lager. I know who that is, for sure. Who do you think it is, John? Dusty Rhodes. Alright, yep. That's true. John is right. Dusty Rhodes got John's MVP three times. I know because I was the only one that voted for him. Because you guys would not do it.
00:48:51
Speaker
He was always really, really close, son, of a lot of his appearances, yeah. I believe his final one he gets for when he's a member of the commentary team on 95. But now, choosing any luchador or luchador light or cruiserweight is a good call. That's a very good call, yeah. That's a... And for me, who do you guys think I gave MVP to the most? R.N. Anderson. I was going to say the same vote as the Atelier Blanchard.
00:49:18
Speaker
Actually, this is Sting. Oh, of course. Should have thought that one. With three awards. Now we'll go to the really interesting thing. Who do you guys think got the most MVPs overall? Adding up all the hosts. Sting or Flare? I feel like Flare is actually lower than you might think, which is weird. Sting is a pretty safe one. You know what they say Sting or maybe Tully because he's crossed over with enough stuff.
00:49:47
Speaker
Third place is an eight way tie. Come on, Dusty. We're so decisive. Come on, Dusty. Between Roddy Piper, Jeff Jarrett, Diamond Dallas Page, Jushin Thunder Liger, Eddie Guerrero, Rick Steiner, Vader and Cactus Jack with two votes each. In second place,
00:50:10
Speaker
is a four-way tie between Ricky Steamboat, Dusty Roads, Nikita Koloff, and Lex Luger with three MVP awards each. And in first place
00:50:26
Speaker
is a two-way tie between Ric Flair and Sting with five each. Oh my gosh. Yep. There you go. Woo. All right. So that's MVPs. Now the other award that we always give is Match of the Night. So Match of the Night participations, and we're only looking at competitors here, not referees or managers. Who do you think competed in Al's Match of the Night choices the most?
00:50:52
Speaker
He likes Guerrero. He likes Guerrero a lot. I'm going to go with him and I'm going to go with Thunder Liger for fun. Okay. Guerrero and Thunder Liger. Who do you think Al? See how well you know yourself. Yeah, right. Man. I think it might even, might be Nikita faking in there from trying to remember what I've given to you. I think I got a couple of times from him. I think you did give him a couple of times. Yeah.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, so probably him or he's a solid pick or even Dark Horse, at least for me, is DDP. Okay. It is actually Ricky Steamboat. Oh, of course. Yeah. With four match of the nights from you. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right. For Jon, who do you think competed in Jon's match of the night choices the most?
00:51:41
Speaker
I think I know this one. Go for it. I'm going to go with Legion of Doom. They definitely got a lot of praise from you in the shows they showed up. I can't recall if I actually gave them a match tonight, but I definitely talked a lot about Skywalkers and I talked about some other matches. Okay. Who do you think?
00:51:59
Speaker
Liger's a pretty solid pick, I would say. I have to remember how Dusty's matches end up, because sometimes you can get it from other things. Yeah, either those two or maybe even... Complete the Scorpok. Complete it. I think Steak might sneak in there as well. Okay. All right. Well, here's your answer. It's a four-way tie. Hey. We have.
00:52:28
Speaker
Tully Blanchard, Hawk, Animal, and Sting with three each. And Blanchard is just the heart of the Scorpohawk. There you go. He's the Blanchard. Yes. And it is an animal. All right. And for me, who do you think competed in my match of the night choices the most?
00:52:53
Speaker
Probably Sting. I think I saved Bet. I'm gonna go with that. And I'm gonna throw in Luger. And then Flare at the end. Okay. You guys are completely wrong, actually. Yeah. We have a three-way tie between Diamond Dallas Page- I should've thought GP'd.
00:53:11
Speaker
Tully Blanchard. And, of course, Arne Anderson. Each has three. And finally, who do you think competed in the most matches of the night as voted by everyone? If multiple people voted for the same match, then they counted multiple times. I mean, strong competitors, obviously, you'd have Sting and Steamboat. I think, through a combination of that, I think Tully ends up being there, but I'm not 100% sure. Because he's in, like, singles and tag matches, it throws off that a little bit.
00:53:40
Speaker
Steamboat's in there, because we've always given him high praise any time. Even if we're not giving him MVP, we're making sure that that match is at least highlighted by one of us. I definitely got a lot of cases where we called him, yeah. I think Vader's going to be potentially in the third. Okay. And I got to go with Sting. Okay. Sting and Flare are just two. You can't remove them from Starrcade. Okay, sure. But you can remove them from our match of the night top three.
00:54:09
Speaker
In third place is a tie between Arne Anderson and Diamond Dallas Page with six each. In second place is Ricky the Dragon Steamboat with seven. And in first place, just barely edging Steamboat out, is Tully Blanchard with eight.
00:54:29
Speaker
which is particularly impressive considering he was only on four Star Cades from 1984 through 1987. So in his early short run, he amassed a total that no one ever overcame of Match of the Nights.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah, and he had no way to come back to wrestling. He was actually out of wrestling after like 1990. That's incredible to me. That tells you how dependable that guy was. Or he just went up against good people. Yeah, that too. But yeah, he was like the dependable sting of that era, I would think. There you go. For sure, yeah, I'd say that. With all the data out of the way, it's time to give out some series awards.
00:55:09
Speaker
So each show, we've awarded our Match of the Night and MVP, but now we're gonna look at things across the entire series. So to start off, let's go for our series MVPs. I'm not cruel enough to make you pick a single person, so we're gonna narrow it down to three, and you don't have to put them in any kind of order. It's just three people you wanna highlight. So who are your series MVPs?
00:55:35
Speaker
It has to be, this is Sting. For one, Jushin Liger, Dusty Rhodes. There you go. Can I honorable mention two people? Of course. Both water Pokemon, Steamboat and Glacier. Glacier managed to somehow appear without even doing anything. It's amazing. He was an MVP. No, yeah, it's fun. He was saving that show, I think, without even being there, yeah.
00:56:04
Speaker
I think, honestly, if I had guessed beforehand, I would have been pretty close to that. Those all clearly stood out for you across the shows. That's good. Dusty, to me, spans both WWF and WCW, in my opinion, either him or his kid. I get him confused all the time anyway.
00:56:25
Speaker
They did appear together to be fair. They appear together both promotions, yeah. Yep. But it's definitely one of those things that I associate with wrestling in general. And he is a great commentator, too. And I was just enamored with Jushin Liger. And of course, there's no denying that I have an affinity for Sting. I mean, who doesn't, right?
00:56:46
Speaker
Mine are probably not that surprising either. I have Ricky Steamboat. Okay. Argue with the ultimate old school wrestling good guy. I have Vader, the classic instructable heel. Yep. He's working on a three submitted mega heel and concert world champion Ric Flair as somehow a sympathetic underdog. Yes. And this match is amazing. Yeah. Always world champion somehow you're like there's no way he can win this match and become champion again. And he's this guy who's constantly cheating and getting advantages and here he is.
00:57:15
Speaker
what you want to see him win. It's amazing. And obviously number three for me is Eddie Guerrero. He's a lot in a really condensed area. And for me, even when he wasn't in the best matches at the show, like 97, for instance, his forms are so good, I had to give him the PPP, which I gave him that year.
00:57:35
Speaker
Well, for my series MVP, since Starrcade is such a lengthy series, I wanted to pick people who were notable across the span of the series. Sure. People who not only had good performances or helped my enjoyment of shows, but who did it for a significant portion of the series or across the eras that it covered. So there's a lot of people who could certainly make a claim to being series MVPs based on a small number of appearances, but I'm making a significant number of appearances a requirement for mine. Fair enough. So that brings it down to my three. Okay. My three are Rick Flair,
00:58:03
Speaker
Mr. Starrcade, as Tony Schiavone once put it, a simply great performer across all his appearances and the absolute focal point of all the early Starrcades. He absolutely has to be on my list. Sure. Extremely reliable and one of the greatest in-ring performers of all time, besides being one of the most amazing promo men with a mix of over-the-top, high-energy promos and subdued, earnest, genuine promos. He is essential both to Starrcade and my list. Yeah.
00:58:31
Speaker
Next up, Sting. Sting gives us all for the show every time he comes out. Not every match is a winner, but Sting does what he can with whatever he's given. Give him Rick Flair in A Great Story, awesome. Give him Vader in a knockdown drag-out match, great. Give him The Black Scorpion,
00:58:47
Speaker
He'll roll with it. Yeah, I'll try betray him and screw up the finish for the most important match in WCW He will still keep going. He's sting Many shows right on his shoulders and he's faced with multiple matches on several shows, but he never lets you down and third Tony Schiavone
00:59:04
Speaker
There you go. Okay. The voice of WCW. Tony works on most of the Star Cades, as I mentioned before, and provides a steady voice, playing the straight man for a rotating cast of commentators. He rarely stands out the most, but he's always there, describing the action and engaging the others in discussions. He's the one around whom the commentary revolves on most shows, the rock that can keep things going and bring things back in focus when they drift. He's a huge and important part of Star Cade, and I think he needs to be honored here. Yeah, I can definitely see that.
00:59:35
Speaker
Next up, let's take a look at our matches of the series. Much like with the MVPs, I'm not going to make you pick a single match. Instead, we're going to do three in no particular order. What are your matches of the series? All right. From 96, I'm going to do Mysterio versus Liger. Okay. And also from that same year, Malenko versus Dragon. Okay.
01:00:03
Speaker
Sure. Those were both awesome. Yeah. And one of my favorite, I can't say it's the favorite match, but it's definitely a powerful one. That Sting versus Vader fight was amazing. The Starrcade 92 King of Cable match final? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was really cool. Yeah. I liked that one a lot.
01:00:24
Speaker
96 was a special year for me. Like there was a lot of great acrobatics and they was exciting for me and had probably one of the strongest openers ever. Yeah. No, no, I agree. That was awesome. Yeah.
01:00:37
Speaker
I will say there is a little overlap, because as my third one I put in, the Sting Vader Can-A-Hable final from 92. Okay. I have Steven Regal versus Ricky Steamboat from Starrcade 93. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember you loving that one a lot. I rewatched it and it was up just as well. That's good. It's the best match I can recommend that doesn't have a clean finish, that has a stoppage in time, which is fine. Okay.
01:01:01
Speaker
And I have the rock and roll express was the Anderson's and the cage match. All right. I rewatch that. And again, it holds up amazingly well. Yep. Something we said at the time, if you're trying to tell someone what, what old school tag team face and peril dastardly heels, got to get the comeuppance matches are, you would show them this one. Absolutely. Best sample of that. Yep. Match has it all. Yeah.
01:01:26
Speaker
All right, well, we've got a little bit of overlap again. Okay. Because the first one on my list, Starkey 1986, Rock and Roll Express versus the Andersons. There you go. And yeah, I agree. And number one, you knew Arne was getting on one of my lists somewhere. Oh yeah, sure. Absolutely. I'm sure there's a list that's just called Arne. Yes. Here's his matches.
01:01:47
Speaker
This was just such a perfect look at the 1980s style of tag team wrestling, a match between perhaps the best face and heel tag teams in wrestling at the time. In fact, two of the best ever. Nobody gets crowd sympathy like the Rock and Roll Express, and nobody brutalizes an opponent like the Andersons. This is tag wrestling, and tag wrestlers should be required to study this match to see how it's done. Absolutely. Next on my list, Starrcade 1985.
01:02:13
Speaker
Magnum TA versus Tully Blanchard. The brawl to end all brawls. Brutal, intense, pushing both guys to their limit. Bit bloody. Yeah. It doesn't have a ton of openly creative spots, but that's because it doesn't need them. It goes for raw emotion, grabs you and doesn't let go.
01:02:33
Speaker
The ending is absolutely epic, with the hero going so far to win that he struggles to pull himself back, and we fear that he might fall into anger and hate. But he pulls back and remains a hero. I re-watched this match for making this choice, and I actually did, like, get a little teary-eyed at the end of it, again. So, I was like, the moment that happened, I was like, whoop, it's on my list. No, I can absolutely see that. My last one is Starrcade 1993, Flair versus Vader.
01:03:02
Speaker
Fair enough. Flair enough, if you think. It was very, very close between Sting versus Vader and Flair versus Vader. And before, when I asked myself which I liked more, I came down on the side of the Sting match, and that is still an epic, amazing, career-defining match.
01:03:18
Speaker
But so is this one. Sure. And it just feels like such an absolutely perfect Flare story, with the canny ring veteran searching his opponent for one weakness, finding a spot where he can create one, and taking advantage of it at the slightest opportunity. Flare beats Vader in a totally different way than how Sting beat Vader.
01:03:36
Speaker
Add the tremendous crowd reaction and interaction, and this one just edges slightly ahead this time. Just the epicness of the complete storyline coming together with that one just pushes a little ahead. All right. Now the awards nobody wants.
01:03:54
Speaker
First up, least valuable performers. The people that, if we're being honest, you'd rather not have seen. I'll make this short and sweet and quick. Marinera, good squad. Nasty boys. And any assassin number. If you're not important enough to give a name.
01:04:18
Speaker
You don't need it. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. And the nasty voice, it's just the promos and everything just is like, like the marinara voice is like, it's grating. It's bad. It's bad. I know one of Al's, by the way, I'm fairly certain. I'm sure. Give us a guess. Jimmy Hyatt.
01:04:42
Speaker
It has to be. You think so? Is he on there, Al? He might be. Okay. Okay, this is no order. Hulk Hogan. In 1994, he had no chemistry with his longtime friend and bored us. In 1996, he mostly fought Piper in a slow, silly match. In 1997, he booked himself to dominate the conquering hero Sting. All I need to explain for that one. Second pick, Wahoo McDaniel. Aww. Nothing personal. We got to stand.
01:05:12
Speaker
Another old-school guy who wouldn't seem to go away. The looking at him was so confusing. On one show, he's a veteran in tag match, designed to minimize entering ring time. So he's revealed his star power by putting his mouth over and through the heavy lifting. On the very next show, however, he'll be a high-profile singles wrestler who's got to deliver a full match in the ring. And I was like, do you guys not watch these shows? Clearly, one is better than the other. And yes, my third one is Jimmy Valiant. OK. He's going to get out of town.
01:05:43
Speaker
and then hang around anyway in a mask. Yes. Nothing against the guy personally, but he didn't have much offense or visible skill in the ring. In spite of that, he was given numerous high profile matches and lots of time in the ring. His matches never got good. One was decent, although I'm being generous. Yeah. He had knees that would never quit.
01:06:03
Speaker
I will admit, he was in consideration for mine, but the latter two matches with him were both okay, so I was like, uh, no. I think I did kind of come around to him a little bit by the end. See, for me, it was only the last match that was okay, so that's part of what I turned to. Yeah, yeah, there you go. All right, for mine.
01:06:23
Speaker
First up, we've got Hulk Hogan. Hogan is not on here because he's a bad performer, although he had three appearances on Stargate and all of them were bad. I still think Hogan's a pretty good performer overall, particularly in terms of crowd interaction and general charisma. The other bad matches get him close, but what pushes him to the list is Stargate 1997, where his backstage maneuvering was at least partially responsible for turning WCW's most epic storyline into WCW's most epic disappointment.
01:06:52
Speaker
Next up, the Butcher. I realize the guy only showed up once, but he was in the main event of Starrcade and clearly had no business being in the main event of Starrcade. Butcher has nothing. There is not a single element of a professional wrestling performance that he pulls off adequately. And the third one for me, agreeing with you, John, the nasty boys. Yes. Congratulations, guys. You can share this one.
01:07:17
Speaker
These guys had a couple really, really, really long and boring tag matches. They successfully made me hate matches involving Sting, Hawk, and Booker T, which should say something about how much I dislike their performances.
Critique of Worst Matches
01:07:33
Speaker
Okay, moving on to worst matches of the series. The matches you really wish you had never seen, the ones that made you sit and think, well, that's a few minutes of my life I will never get back.
01:07:45
Speaker
My first one is Hogan vs Butcher from Starrcade 1994. Yeah. The biggest spots of the match are a back break and a sleeper hold. Yep. It is slow, so awkward, and feels three times longer than it is. I honestly remember this match being a good 20-30 minutes, but it's actually 12. Yes.
01:08:04
Speaker
But Al, what about the epic butcher selling, where he kind of leans forward and just kind of stares at Hogan, making no discernible moves or facial expressions? That helped the ranking of this one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. My second worst one, no offense to half the people involved, that is Sting and Robert Hawk versus Nasty Boys. Yep. Which legitimately was almost 30 minutes. Yeah. And felt like 60.
01:08:29
Speaker
Someone put the nasty boys in a match, they go in nearly 30 minutes. Even with Sting, it is slow and painful.
01:08:36
Speaker
It is booked to have them dominate, but they are not capable of making them interesting. They just don't have the offense or character or anything to make that work. Just slow holds and like sitting on a guy and it just takes forever. And then obviously, as a bonus, the ending was botched due to an apparent injury and then a word of malfunction leading to one of the people being fired. How many matches include that in their aftermath? Yeah.
01:09:00
Speaker
In my third worst match of the series, the first battle bowl match. Oh wow, okay. How can a match be both boring and too hard to follow? Haha, good point. It should be one or the other. Yep. This two ring battle royal, which involves throwing someone from one ring into another and then over the top rope to the outside, is full of random wrestlers in a camp space. There are tiny moments in the middle that work, ending stages from being worse than the other matches above. Okay.
01:09:29
Speaker
Not too late for me to change one of them. No, no, no, yeah, you can feel free. Battle Ball is very good. What you feeling, John? 97 Hogan and Sting. Two people that I want to like, but can't. Yep, I see that, yeah. I get ya.
01:09:48
Speaker
If you could make Sting not be enjoyable, that's got an aura emanating from you. I'm not saying Sting himself wasn't, I'm just saying the match. It's very hard for you to be against a match.
01:10:01
Speaker
Valiant and Jones. Which one? The one where he strips him naked or the other one? Let's go with that one. That's 84. They were both bad. Yeah, the first one where it's just him beating up Paul Jones and bringing his tuxedo off slowly. Yes. The tuxedo thing was kind of cool initially, and I think when we were talking about it, it was a little bit nicer, but at the end of the day, it wasn't a good time. Yeah, sure. And 99, Brett Hart and Goldberg.
01:10:29
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. Just the referee bumps. Yeah. And that was enough. Normally that doesn't bother me, but I'm trying to look at it as stark, hey, what do you need to avoid? I want to give you a warning on that one for sure. Yeah. And that one I remember too, you were really upset. You described it as one of the rare times that you disliked Roddy Piper as well because of how he comes out at the end. Yeah. I can see that now. Yeah. Now thinking back on it. Yeah.
01:10:58
Speaker
No, it makes absolutely no sense. Again, the theme here is there's people I want to like, and then you basically trash that for me moving forward. Not that I think rotted pipers trash, but I didn't get it. I get that, yeah, absolutely. Yes, they live at nothing else. Yep, classic. And my fourth worst match needs to be a descending order of bear hug timers.
01:11:26
Speaker
We I don't think that's the stat that you went through it. I don't think you should compile that I did not do long largest longest bear hugs in matches. Sorry
01:11:35
Speaker
I will say Desirama mentions for the one minute long match between the skyscrapers versus Big Cat and where the hell Guy's Nightingale was. I don't even remember. Motor City Batman. Thank you. And also the elimination tag match between the Zambui Express, Sasson and Rowan and Buzz Tyler. Yes. Which is not my worst because it's only six minute formative action. Action and giant air quotes, to be clear.
01:12:03
Speaker
Whereas Butcher again felt like 30 minutes, and the one other watch actually was 30 minutes, and Battle Ball was at least 20 minutes as well. Yeah. I think you're getting at something that I used as a judgment call as well here. Yeah, I started with a list of 14 bad matches here, which, as we may note, as many matches as our biggest pay-per-view card. That's true, yeah. You could have filled Darken 890, is it?
01:12:29
Speaker
1990. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I had to narrow it down somehow. And honestly, I just ended up going with length for the most part. There's a lot of terrible matches that at least have the grace to be short. Many on my list were about five minutes tops. These are three that did not show that mercy. Hogan versus butcher star Kate, 1994.
01:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, I remember saying at the time that this was just as bad as the number of awful matches we'd seen over a bunch of prior Starcades, but multiple times as long. An awful match poorly performed with DQ rules ignored and a strange ending besides. Yeah, yeah. Starcade 1989, the Samoans versus the Steiners. Yeah.
01:13:08
Speaker
This one gets in there for the offensiveness angle. With offensive commentary and mockery of the Samoans, combined with a massive amount of stalling, the actual action is okay, but it takes forever to get going, and then when Rick gets back in, it just stalls again. Also, bear hugs. Bear hugs. Bear hugs. All that and a terrible top rope throw DQ ending. And finally,
01:13:36
Speaker
It pains me to say this one, but yeah. Starrcade 1993, Sting and Hawk versus the Nasty Boys. So much stalling. So many botches. So much rules confusion. Such a screwed up finish.
01:13:58
Speaker
I was going to give this some grace because Sags clearly gets hurt. By the way, I think I finally identified where it happens. It looks like he pulls his back trying the pump handle slam. Oh. He's clearly moving fine before that and clearly moving badly after that. Oh, okay. So I'm pretty sure that's where it happens. I'd say we watched a check, but I want to watch it again, so I won't.
01:14:17
Speaker
But yeah, I was gonna give it grace because of that, but it's just so, so long, boring, botchy, and bad leading up to that point that it doesn't even earn a pass through sympathy. No. But at least this gave us the Scorpahawks. Yes. Gift that keeps giving. Yes. Let me assure it one day. Until it doesn't.
01:14:38
Speaker
But for the series overall, we've actually got some other awards to hand out here.
Commentary Team Highlights
01:14:42
Speaker
So first up, I'd like to go for the best commentary team. Which commentary team did you enjoy the most?
01:14:49
Speaker
Uh, it's gotta be Bobby Heenan and Tony Schiavone. All right. 1994 Starrcade. When Bobby Heenan gets my VP for making that show tolerable by his presence. The duo works so well together. They can build up matches that are just dumb and they can make matches that are interesting, at least sound interesting to some extent. Yeah. My only announcer of VP, so I have to pick that one. Yep. Okay.
01:15:13
Speaker
I had to waver between Tony Schiavone, Bobby the Brain Hienan, and Dusty Rhodes. And that trio exists both in 95 and 96. And then there's a couple other guest ones in 96. I can't remember off the top of my head. Lee Marshall and Mike Tenet. Yeah, they're only there for a couple of the matches. The core is in there.
01:15:33
Speaker
I've teetered between the two, but the going butt over teakettle has told me that I should go with 95, even though 95 has plenty of offensive content. True. If I can rule that out. No, yeah. But that isn't true. I still think that the commentary, even just that one phrase,
01:15:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Can only edge it out, but it's such a tight split. In fact, if they had maybe toned down some of the subject matter, 95 would cinch it. 100%. I love Dusty. Yes. As a wrestler and a commentator, he's the other voice of Stark. Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah, sure. I knew going into that that you were going to love Dusty as a commentator, definitely. You don't know what he's going to say. Yeah. He doesn't know what he's going to say. Yes.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yep, John, I'm agreeing with you totally. Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Dusty Rhodes. Starcase 95 and 96. I think 95 does edge out 96 performance in the general smoothness of it, despite, again, some humor that I wouldn't have preferred.
01:16:40
Speaker
Because they're kind of distracted by the new stuff. Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of distraction in 96 and the other commentators coming in make it a little less smooth. But yeah, no surprise here. Honestly, I was pretty open about this team being my favorite in WCW. So fair shot at any time they show up across all the series we do, they will probably end up getting this award. But we'll see. They just feel like a good group of pals just sitting down to watch the show together. They have really good chemistry and they play off each other really well.
01:17:08
Speaker
So, yeah, some questionable comments aside from time to time, I had a lot of fun with their appearances. I will say I leaned slightly more towards 94, because as funny as Dusty is, he can sometimes get distracted from the match, which is interesting in his own right. Yeah, for me, that's actually kind of a plus. But if you're looking at it, trying to be objective on it. Oh, yeah.
01:17:31
Speaker
As a straight actual show commentary, it's more straightforward and flows better on any four because it's not the third person there. But I please enjoy Dusty as well. Yeah. You don't have to worry about two other people chiming in like right now.
01:17:48
Speaker
I will say, just as an honor to mention, I guess, the bits they do where it's Jim Ross and Jim Cornette when they're in the tag parts of that first tournament, it's actually really good. They worked really well. They do some excellent, excellent commentary. I wish I had just left them there the whole time. Instead of, as much as I like Funk, it distracts them, they pull people in and out.
01:18:07
Speaker
The other one, it wasn't really in the running, but the one notable for me was Jesse Ventura. I keep on thinking of like, is Arnold going to show up? Is this going to be the predator? The only comment here, it doesn't have time to bleed. Yes. All right, next up, let's take a look at best promos.
Memorable Promos
01:18:26
Speaker
I'll start us off. First up, I have Rick Flair from Starrcade 1993, his post-match locker room promo. That's a good one.
01:18:36
Speaker
This is an interesting one for me, and I wasn't sure at first I was gonna put it on, and Starrcade 83 was kind of similar, but this I felt like was the more evolved form of that, I guess. Yeah.
01:18:47
Speaker
This is the genuine Ric Flair, honestly thankful to the fans, happy to be back, and taking the time to ensure that he builds up his opponent rather than crowing about his victory. It's not a real character promo, it's the man himself. It's unpolished, but it's because of that that it stands out and becomes so wonderful and memorable. This is a man reflecting honestly on the blessings that he's received.
01:19:13
Speaker
Next up, Ric Flair, Starrcade 1988 post-match. So in contrast, this is full on ranting lunatic character Ric Flair, and it is awesome. This was when he beat Lex Luger and was telling him, you'd never have another match against me again. I'm going to have all of my lawyers and all the money against you, and yeah, all of that.
01:19:37
Speaker
This was the first time I felt like we actually got to see the true Flare character promo, the absolute maniacal villain Flare. The promo is slightly mucked up by the Bunkhouse Stampede announcement, but Flare!
01:19:49
Speaker
but Flare is still brilliant. I remember that. And third, we have Dusty Rhodes in the build-up to Starrcade 85, the Hard Times promo. You know you're cheating. I'm slightly cheating here, I will admit, but it's one of the most legendary promos of all time. I know it wasn't actually on a Starrcade, but I did play it on an episode. So I say that I can pick it.
01:20:14
Speaker
This is Dusty Rhodes at his best showing his incredible connection with the fans, engaging them emotionally and creating one of the most famous and incredible moments in wrestling history. But I recognize that that may be a little bit of a cheat. So I'm going to give you guys a fourth choice that is actually on a Starrcade and that surprises the hell out of me that I'm going to say it.
01:20:36
Speaker
Sid Vicious and Dan Spivey, Starrcade 1990 after their match, after their horrible, horrible match that nearly ended up on my worst matches list. That promo where they lift Paul Heyman in the air and just shout at him is hilarious and had me in stitches. I don't know that I necessarily actually call it a good promo, but for entertainment value, it's great.
01:21:03
Speaker
And finally, honorable mention, Sting, Starrcade1989. Whatever he was going to say before the show suddenly went off the air. I'm sure it was amazing. All right, promo choices from you guys.
01:21:17
Speaker
Oh, it's RK-75 where it stings before his match. When he starts to turn it a little bit, again, people keep asking about Luger. Right, yeah, yeah. Sarcastic sting. Sarcastic sting, yeah. That was really good. It's nice to have a little nuance to him. Genuine sounding, I would say. Yes.
01:21:39
Speaker
to not have this plain white baby face that feels no emotion. He's a guy who's just tired of being asked this question. It feels like he's being challenged by people asking this all the time. Yeah, yeah.
01:21:51
Speaker
Oh, another good one is Turkey87, the Timmy Garvin and no one else promo. From about eight. Timmy Garvin speaks nonstop for like three minutes straight. Change his subject a couple of times. Ask himself questions and answer the questions. Yes. The Micro Machines promo, I believe we might have preferred to it as, yeah. All the while, Michael Hayes is waiting to talk and does not get to talk.
01:22:16
Speaker
looking more and more miffed in the background the whole thing yes yeah that was great seeing wisely stays in the back not even the shot he's got no chance yeah
01:22:25
Speaker
Okay, to A7, you also have the most of the unintelligible, but verily happy Nikita Koloff. I think just unified his two belts. It makes my heart feel good. Yes. Yes. Goes full Cookie Monster. It's amazing. Yes. Your best definition ever, John. Yes. I think you're stealing John's choices from the gestures he's giving us. Oh, I'm sorry. You both are, but that's fine. Oh, good. Even my honorable mention. That's fine.
01:22:52
Speaker
You can restate them. We can agree. It's fine. Well, I've sort of spoiled it, but so have you. My number one was the best in the world, Nikita Koloff. Yes. That's 1987, the Cookie Monster Koloff. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Yeah. And I did watch that a few times, more than many of those matches. Yes.
01:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, I re-watched that after watching his match, and I was like, oh yeah, this is a great promo, this is ridiculous. The first one that I wrote down was Hard Times, for sure. But I couldn't include it because I wasn't going to spend that one token to get the non-choice. That's my honorable mention. That speech changed my outlook for who I chose as MVP. Yes, it did. Yes, yes, it did, yeah. It was transformative. It's probably one of the better promos.
01:23:46
Speaker
all of wrestling, not necessarily just Starrcade or... Yeah, it is legendary, yeah. Yeah. October 29th, 1985. Okay. I even wrote that down. The 93 Flare promo made me feel like Flare was a human.
01:23:59
Speaker
He talks about his plane crash, he talks about what he drew upon and all the resilience and everything that he had to do to be the great champ that he was. There is a little bit of lifting himself up, but he talks about, and rightly so, about filling arenas and how he had to control his anger and performance. So that was really humanizing, even though he's not just a character and that made me appreciate him more.
01:24:25
Speaker
I did spend the coin of going outside the box for my actual third, which is the video promo for 1997, the unmade Highlander Sting Hogan thing where it says, he watches from the shadows. He watched the fall of an empire. And I just hear it in Sting's voice and that's good enough.
01:24:48
Speaker
That was really, really well produced. That may not be the best video presentation that WSW ever did, but it's really good. It sets the mood immediately. The point where they have the jagged glass and they have Hogan just ripping his shirt and everything. It definitely had the most production value out of more than actually probably most of the video packages, and that's why I want to think of it as a promo. No, I get you. It served the same purpose for me.
01:25:17
Speaker
especially from a character that wasn't supposed to talk. So yeah, I read his words and went there. There you go. Now, is that better than the kid reading poetry for his entrance? Are you?
01:25:28
Speaker
No. I mean, yes. Yes. Sorry. I'm going to mention two angry Vader promo after Starrcade 94. Yeah, the 94 one where he comes in screaming unintelligibly. That ends Starrcade better than the match because the match is terrible.
01:25:49
Speaker
He's like, okay, yeah, we had this terrible Butcher Hogan match that lasted for six years. But now we have Vader to look forward to. I also like his 93-bit afterwards where he's just hurling lockers and chairs around and screaming, I want it back!
01:26:05
Speaker
I want it back." And I'm like, oh my gosh, there went your deposit on the building. The only other speech that sounded good that was even close, it's not physical, but the way he's talking about he's not going to be a stepping stone, I can't recall. Oh, right, yeah, the 2001 with... That was good. With general, with... Yeah, that guy. We'll just call him you more. Blue pills. Yes.
01:26:28
Speaker
Not all matches are the usual sort of singles or tag match.
Gimmick Matches Discussion
01:26:32
Speaker
So what was your favorite gimmick match on the series? I'm not mentioning one because it's on the card. But the second one that is the six-man ladder match, 2000 opening match. Young Dragon. The ladder scaffolds and everything. I like that it allows not only cooled, constructive, and physics lessons,
01:26:54
Speaker
ladder matches to me, especially that kind, allows you to showcase a large degree of talent, teamwork, and having people running, having their backs hit up against the ladder seems to make me cringe more than any other, you know, chair slam or any of the other stuff, you know, like spikes and stuff aside, but any of the other moves, it just seems to amplify it.
01:27:13
Speaker
And there's just, it's so adaptable, especially when they use the turnbuckles and everything. You just can't use that with just a hidden weapon. You know, it's one of those things, you know, what's going to happen. You expect it to happen. And it either happens really the way you see it, or they do a nice twist. Okay. So I like those. Not the whole holding the hands up and stuff crap, but yeah, everything else about it. It's great.
01:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, I can do a similar approach with the ladder match, but it probably lean more towards the Benoit Jarrett one. Okay. It's more visibly a sort of test of will between the two people. Whereas six men wanted people coming in and out. So you can be bigger with it and just change people out. Whereas you got to really pace things and think about all this stuff, where someone falls, can they get back in to stop the guy? Do you have to do in a singles ladder match like that?
01:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, and that was exceptional. Everything it did seems to make sense. They did, yeah. And for mine, which I'm going to take a bet that this is probably the one that you didn't mention because it's on your card, John. Dog collar match, Piper versus Valentine, Stark 883. Yeah. Special collar match, yes. No doubt. The dog collar slash special collar match, yes. That's pretty much my favorite match.
01:28:25
Speaker
Like ever this was equal parts insanely brutal and creative and just absolutely stunning to watch I enjoy it not just for the intensity but also for how well they use the gimmick They really involved the chain not just for tug-of-wars or whipping but with loads of interesting concepts right up to the end of the match It just doesn't seem to ever run dry of ideas for how to use it which and I've seen a lot of like chain or strap matches and I generally don't like them so this one just really blew me away and
01:28:53
Speaker
Anyone have a worst type of gimmick match? Four corner strap match. Four corner strap match. That's pretty bad, yeah. Especially the 1986 one, the first one, because it was so dragged out, literally. The Wahoo and Rude one is that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was, no. Yes. It was horrible. Yeah, that was really bad. Particularly horrible. Yeah. Well, the only thing I can praise about the match is the bizarre intro music for Rick Rude. Yes. That says something about the match.
01:29:21
Speaker
that that great thing yeah I mean I would probably lean towards tuxedo matches or the general just you beat up the manager matches yeah whether that get that Oklahoma as well and 99 star gate because it's not meant to be an competition it's meant to be they get to come up with on this guy
01:29:40
Speaker
But they always seem to drag them past the point where it feels satisfactory, it feels more like it's a trained professional fighter just beating up some guy at the ring. Particularly the Jones first one. A guy just beating up this defenseless dude that he's tied to the ropes. It's horrific. Yeah. For mine, sorry, Jon. Scaffold match. No, I got it. Yeah, I didn't think of that.
01:30:05
Speaker
We had two of them and I thought they were equal parts boring and terrifying to watch. I really, really struggled to picture any chance that there could be a scaffold match out there I would ever actually enjoy. I just hate those. I totally hate those. That's gonna be my goal. I gotta find one of those for you. That's actually good. Yeah. It may not exist.
01:30:24
Speaker
Is it the fear of them falling or the boredom? It's both. It's both. I mean, it's just like I'm sitting there bored out of my mind and I'm scared to death that, you know, something's going to go horribly wrong. There's a real risk. Yeah. Like I can't enjoy. Like Cornette. I don't feel like the risk is worth it because the match is not interesting. It needs to be on fire is what they need.
01:30:46
Speaker
Like, with a ladder match, I know there's a ton of risk involved in it, but they're doing cool creative things, so I'm like, okay, this is risky, but you're also, I feel like, they're in control. It's so insulting to say it this way, but it feels like, with a ladder match, you're putting yourselves on the line for art. Yeah. Isn't that beautiful? And I just, I feel so bad saying this, honestly, but I just, I don't feel like I can say that for a scaffold match.
01:31:11
Speaker
I will say the one thing that it does that's really bad is the people that paid all the money to get the good seats get the worst view. That's, that's very true. Yeah. You're kind of staring straight at the whole show. Yeah. Like the people in the nosebleeds are just looking straight at the thing like, Oh, they've got a great shot. Yeah. I just, I can't make myself like those.
01:31:29
Speaker
Was the second one the one I came up with the wrecking ball match where you have to grab a chain and go through some bearing to win? I can't remember. I know you came up with that. I can't remember if that was for the first one or second one. It was a Battletoads reference.
01:31:42
Speaker
the Power Bomb match thing. Oh yeah, yeah, that was almost mine too. The condition was never actually met for the whole match. Yes. It only happened once, thankfully, but come on. If that had been a longer match, that would have been one of my worst matches of the series, and if it weren't for scaffold matches, that would probably be my worst gimmick match too. Fair enough.
01:32:05
Speaker
Alright, here's a fun one. The best performer with a single Starrcade appearance. Shinjiru Utani. Yep. That match with Guerrero was awesome. Had one of my favorite pins, the multiple roll-ups at the very end. Wasn't that awesome? That was so intense, yeah.
01:32:23
Speaker
I mean, there was some overselling, but, you know, that's okay. But he highlighted Guerrero's abilities, and he had Greethless, and he didn't look like he had the physique to do the things he was doing. He had amazing reach, and I wanted to see what else he could do, not just in arm length, leg length, but he was able to pull off multiple styles and, you know, holds and acrobatics. So I really wanted to see more out of that wrestler. Okay.
01:32:49
Speaker
Mine actually it came across we're watching because I figured okay I have to go back to the older shows It's been probably a year because I've watched some of these matches Yeah for the show on that so I don't fully forget about stuff on like 83 84 85 etc So I really focus on trying to go back to those because they were less fresh on memory So actually despite having a couple of web PPs that were one of people like Regal and awesome I actually went back to my very first match tonight, which was Jack and Jerry Briscoe
01:33:17
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, they were neat. They were neat, especially the rope balance. Yeah. In one performance, they represent old-school wrestling, dirty heels, technical prowess, simple but effective characters, and are willing to go out losing. Yep. Yeah, no, they were excellent, yeah. They have historical importance because they end up selling their share of George Sampson's wrestling to Vince McMahon, so they are important in the long run as well.
01:33:40
Speaker
I'm going to agree with John. Shinjiro Itani was my selection. Oh really? The dude could go. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely great in the ring. Whether we're talking holds, throws, matwork, or his incredibly graceful springboards. Still the most assured and flowing that I have ever seen there. I really, really hope that he shows up on another show sometime because I want to see more of that guy. Honorable mention to Magnum TA.
01:34:05
Speaker
who I adored his only match. He does show up on other star games in a promo and interviews capacity. So I considered him still applicable to this, but technically he shows up more than once. So I decided to go with a Tani for my actual choice. I'm surprised. I wouldn't even have picked a Tani if I hadn't had to iron out whether I liked 95 or 96 for commentary. So I watched both to 95 just to see how I felt about it. And I was just impressed by the guy. He's amazing.
01:34:35
Speaker
Really think he's still wrestling in 2020. Yeah. Yeah Most improved is there anyone you thought wasn't too great when they first showed up or just had a lot of work to do? But later on they really improved and turned things around
01:34:51
Speaker
John, you're laughing. Give us your choice. It may be controversial. All right. Ric Flair. I thought so. I did not like Ric Flair, but as he developed, I don't know if I still like Ric Flair, but I think that he honed his craft. He definitely is not the character that I typically root for.
01:35:12
Speaker
But you cannot deny his abilities. Mr. Starkade. And you absolutely see him develop his character over the first few shows where I remember us saying on that first one, he's just kind of generic babyface, fairly good at it, but generic babyface, not really drawing out a lot. Then 84, you've got this like midpoint between I'm the honorable champion, but I'm totally willing to take a win that way. Yeah, yeah.
01:35:41
Speaker
And then 85, it's finally like, oh, this is Ric Flair. Yeah. And then he develops things, little minutia as the years go on. And then like, you know, he loses some stuff, but that's okay. But he gets it all back. He's one of the most fleshed out characters. I think that there is just a bit of honesty to it for a dishonest character. Yeah.
01:36:01
Speaker
Weirdly, the one way he doesn't improve is that he wins his first match with the cross body on top rope. And spends the rest of his career paying back the karma for it, yep. It's amazing. All right, Al. I'm probably gonna steal yours, but it's a pretty big jump from a couple years apart, which is DDP. Yep, I'm in agreement on that, yeah. Because he, yeah, he's a good character in 92, or 91, 91 actually. 91, yeah. He's a decent wrestler at that point, but he's definitely not the DDP you know him as.
01:36:30
Speaker
And then he comes back, later you see the real workhorse version of that character, the fight from beneath kind of guy, the fight to the pain. And then he just goes, well, I will say, I didn't know I liked him and they gave him VP his first show. Eddie Guerrero's transformation from face to heel is pretty impressive as well. Right, yes, yeah. He got a VP in 97 just based on his character work, not even for the actual match for me, so.
01:36:56
Speaker
Yep, I'm in agreement with you, Al, on Diamond Dallas Page. He's good character-wise when he shows up on Starrcade 91, like you said, but he doesn't have a lot in the ring. But by the time he shows up again on Starrcade 96, he has become one of the best storytellers in WCW. Capable of putting on a well-crafted and highly detailed match with basically anyone he goes up against.
01:37:16
Speaker
including David Flair. So that's an amazing transformation. And it's clear the dedication and hard work he had to put in to get to that point. So yeah, he gets my award for that. I will go. I don't mention going from sort of okay in a tag to being strong enough singles is Nikita Koloff. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We commented a lot on watching his improvement in the early years as well. Yeah.
01:37:42
Speaker
The Nick Patrick.
Best and Worst Stargate Events
01:37:45
Speaker
Not picking best ref bump. But he does have that. And finally, the best and worst arcades. So I'll let you each go ahead and do your full list, I think. Let's start with your three worst and do your three best following. Worst arcades. Starrcade 1991. Battle Bowl. It's the Battle Bowl show.
01:38:09
Speaker
Nothing else. 92 is half battle bowl and has his own issues, but it has enough really strong stuff that carries it way above 91. Yeah. 1994 Starrcade. Hogan Cade at its worst. Yeah. The show is designed to put all his buddies on the show, make them look strong, and well, make him look strong in everyone else. It even drags that people like to ding to meh matches.
01:38:35
Speaker
The last one was tricky because there's a bunch of ones for different reasons, but I went with StarkeyDeath97. Okay. The Great Disappointment. Alright. You should have known we were having so many matches change the last minute, outright cancelled or ruined in some way. In the case of Too Bad, you already paid us. Yes. Top of that, behind the scenes, people ruined the main event, I need to put the storyline, and it just hurt everything.
01:39:00
Speaker
just well mentioned for Darkade 1984 for being so, so throughout the show and then just annoying us so much with the controversial ending. Yes. Darkade is 86, which goes on for- That's the extra hour show, yeah. The extra hour show. And also the first scaffold match won as well as that, the double. And narrowly beating out 90, losing out rather to 97 Starrcade's 1999 Starrcade. The random OCD Starrcade? Yes.
01:39:30
Speaker
All right, and your three best. Okay, so that was a little trickier. It is, it is, yeah. Because I got to really pick all the match on the show, then narrow down best and worst and see which throughout weighs the other. A little tricky time with this one. I think I ended up going with Circuit 1988 that feels like a very solid show throughout, has a good main event, and delivers throughout.
01:39:56
Speaker
It's past the point where the only shows are kind of random, so here's a random guy from this territory you've never met and never see forever again. It feels because it's the DCP show at this point, it's more uniform as being their kind of show. Okay.
01:40:12
Speaker
Okay, so I've got to pick a tournament show because there's so many of those to pull them out. The one that has the most interesting matches without going all the way along, and more importantly, I think is most accessible is probably 1995 Starrcade. Because you know, those are my favorite show overall. You could show someone that show as a wrestling tournament event show. I think they would enjoy it. They would get all the subtext and everything.
01:40:39
Speaker
And that was not a sale of every match, because I didn't like the triangle match, it just takes forever. But there's enough on there, I think, makes it pull ahead. And the third one was a little tricky with. And I actually really broke down the number of matches, good again, good versus bad. I had to basically ignore the main event's follow-up and pick everything else as a show. So I started in 1998, weirdly enough. Okay. Oh, interesting. The peaks and valleys show. Yes.
01:41:07
Speaker
Cuz the two strong openers. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it does. Yep two matches that surprise you delivering so well. Mm-hmm. They're smiling that KO one There are obviously are some down points in somewhere. They're not it's not as good as it could be but honestly if I ignore those matches most probably pretty good and even the Kevin S Goldberg match up until the Chicane re
01:41:29
Speaker
Do you use a fancy word for it that he use? He's actually a decent match better than I actually expected going into that match. Oh, yeah. The match itself. So I'm like, yeah, it's like a surprise. All right. John, why don't we do your three worst than three best? All right. I'm going to go with the worst, 97. Okay. Which I have the word why with about 50 whys.
01:41:52
Speaker
It has lots of potential, but falls short of greatness, cascading series events that just do not speak for the investments they put into Staying's Ark at all. And what's really bad is I'm like mad at myself listening to that. I'm like, Jod, you should have been more appalled other than just saying, this is what they do.
01:42:17
Speaker
I did not like 90 for like the whole Nationalist, no one gets along. There's so many tags, so many tag teams. Out of 14 events, there's I think 12 of them are tag or something like that. A good dang portion of them are. Yeah. I don't remember exactly how many, but yeah. Cause there's tag matches outside of just the tournament. Yes. Yeah. I want to say there's at least eight. Yeah. There's a huge number of tag matches on that show.
01:42:42
Speaker
And none of them were really like stand out in the grand scheme that makes me say, oh, I really liked the Canadians versus whatever. Like I can't even recall. I've just kind of pushed that one aside, but I do remember at the time it was very hard to watch. 94. 94, 94, 94. A hogan.
01:43:04
Speaker
It was almost as big of a disappointment as 97. Wow. It's not Thunder and Paradise anymore, you know? Yeah, yeah, I get ya. You don't have any of the feel-good things that you might have from him being in that other wrestling show or that other wrestling thing. Yeah. It's more Sega Agent Club than Thunder and Paradise. Yes. The only thing that was close to those was 91, 92, toilet bowl.
01:43:31
Speaker
It's really confusing matches. Like, it wasn't as drawn out as 90 in any way, but the Battle Bowl was just so long. Yes. Funny, because if you look at 89, they alternated the tag in singles matches. Yes. And then at 90, they just throw four tag matches. Oh, yeah, I was like, oh my gosh, come on. Assembly line here. Yep, yeah. We need a break from this tag match to bring you a tag match. Yes. All right, your best ones.
01:43:59
Speaker
Okay. 96. Some people don't, I can see why you might not want me to choose that one, but I thought there was a lot of great performances and had a really great opener. Two of my favorite matches were Mysterio and Liger and Malenko and Dragon.
01:44:16
Speaker
Two of those happened and they kind of tilted the scale for my perception of the entire Stargate, even if it wasn't really fully deserving. But if I wanted to show something, get someone interested, I was like, just at least watch the first half of this. If you like this, then yeah, absolutely. Maybe we should see some other ones.
01:44:34
Speaker
95. 95 is the one I rewatched and has a great commentary team, had big names, flair, savage, had all kinds of great new names in it. Again, you have a little nationalist thing, but I think it was more of a pairing. They did manager aside.
01:44:54
Speaker
And, you know, they did that for show and everything, but managers side, I think that it was somewhat respectful and some of their stuff. I think that they showcase their talent. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. On both sides. And that was big for me.
01:45:10
Speaker
And I'm gonna have to agree with Al, 88. It's a solid Starrcade short. It's not frilly or anything, but it's a watch where it's an easy watch and you can feel good about it.
01:45:24
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. It's just kind of run smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. You have two big names at the end. You have some interesting tag teams, but you know, you do have the assassins and Koloff. You have that whole, whole Russian angle. Yeah. That one should have been a lot better. And if Nikita could have played around for that one. Oh yeah. Yeah. If Nikita was the mentor. And it has the one match that is sort of like.
01:45:47
Speaker
It has sting. It has roads. It has road wards. It's the roads versus roads. It's just I had to root for everyone on that. Absolutely. All right. So for my picks.
01:46:00
Speaker
So my three worst. Number one, we've got Starrcade 1991 Battle Bowl. Yeah! A complete show of meaningless, often boring tag matches leading up to a meaningless, mostly boring, and confusing battle royale with bizarre rules. There's decent things to be found on this show occasionally, but it's a massive slog. It could have been an interesting experiment, but it just ends up dull and overcomplicated.
01:46:23
Speaker
Next up, Starrcade 1994. This was awful. A few matches are okay, but several are very, very bad. And when all three of us pick a match between two total rookies as our match of the night, you know things are in a slump.
01:46:40
Speaker
The main event, the focal point of the show, is on my worst matches list, so that's a major knock against it too. Yes. When you add in all those award ceremony bits that slow everything down so much, this becomes pretty much impossible to watch. And for my third one, Starrcade 1999. Yeah, that'll come in.
01:46:58
Speaker
an absolute mess of a show, disorganized and hyperactive, and it never lets anything properly develop, which is at least a slight blessing in disguise because almost everything on it is insane stupid or both. Even WCW's best can barely manage to do anything with what they're given for most of the show. Idiotic, impossible to follow, and filled with botches, a truly horrible watch.
01:47:25
Speaker
It says something that one of the people was kidnapped, presumably to be murdered, and has completely glossed over super quickly. Yeah. That's for the audience at home. Yeah. And my three best, I think we've all said this one actually, Starrcade 1988. Yeah.
01:47:42
Speaker
It was on both of you guys. It was far from a smooth show in terms of presentation, having seriously backslidden quality there, despite being the first show run by an actual television company. But as far as the actual matches went, it was terrific. It starts hot and only has a single true misstep in the JYD Koloff vs. the Russian Assassins match. And really, that wasn't that bad.
01:48:06
Speaker
It has one of Luger's best matches, it features the Rise of Sting, and it has some really, really fun Rick Steiner moments that made it a really enjoyable show. That one was just pure fun for most of the show, which is an easy recommendation for people. Absolutely. Second up, Starrcade 1992, the second Battle Bull show.
01:48:28
Speaker
There's a strange misstep in the middle with Muta vs. Chono, but aside from that, I had a lot of fun watching this show. All the more amazing considering it uses the Battle Bowl concept the 1991 used. It just does it better, using a streamlined approach that doesn't take up the whole show, and results in a battle royale that's far easier to follow and has more clear storylines in it.
01:48:51
Speaker
Most matches are at least good, but add in an absolutely amazing King of Cable match between Sting and Vader, and a great Tag Team Championship match, and you've got a tremendously fun show. And last for me, Starrcade 1995.
01:49:06
Speaker
This was such a strange experiment, but it turned out to be a good one. We got to see a bunch of New Japan performers we didn't normally get to see. The Best of Seven Story was a fun one and used very well, and the Triangle Match World Title Match storyline interwoven with Luger Sting and Best of Seven Stories fits in quite well. Not every match is a home run, but there were several real winners and no absolute duds.
01:49:28
Speaker
That's true. I can't remember which of you guys said this, but yeah, it would be super easy to use just like intro someone to wrestling. Yeah. Oh, no doubt. This is a show you don't have to know what was going on going into this. Yeah. It's simultaneously one of the weirdest Star Cades because of that and one of the best Star Cades because of that, I think. It doesn't get bogged down in anything, really.
01:49:50
Speaker
Going back to the very beginning discussion about the type of Star Cage there are. For me, mine was more simplified. Mine is a super card show, which 88 technically still is. It's the tail end of that. There is the experimental slash tournament show, which 95 is part of. And then there's the modern wrestling show or modern of its time of the 90s, which 98 was. That's why I broke down my picks. I get you. There you go.
01:50:17
Speaker
So if you need to watch Starrcade, and you do need to watch Starrcade, watch 88 and 95. We all voted for those. And go for it.
01:50:29
Speaker
So we've given our awards and our analysis, but there's one more thing that we'd like to do here to just have some fun with this. Our ultimate Starcade cards. So here's the rules for this. Each of us designs a Starcade card featuring eight matches, drawn from the actual Starcade matches. We can only use each performer as a competitor once.
01:50:49
Speaker
so someone can show up as a manager or commentator or interference or some other role on other matches, but you can only use them once as an actual competitor. For instance, if you picked Flare vs. Race from Starrcade 1983, you couldn't use either as a competitor in other matches, but you could still use matches where Harley Race was a manager. You can use any match in any position, you're not required to pick an actual main event for your main event. Alright, so my Super Starrcade.
01:51:19
Speaker
Probably similar rap with a lot of you guys, but that was fine. I have... I forget it's a strong opener. Okay. Followed by... Yeah, that one was really good, wasn't it? Yeah. I realized I didn't have DDP anywhere on my like... I didn't have DDP somewhere on here, and that was the best one to pick for me. Okay. Anywhere versus Kidman for the Cruiserweight title. Mm-hmm.
01:51:47
Speaker
I like that on the show, the Oracle show, obviously with Mysterio and Liger, because it's a Cruiserweight match, but it's got its own other elements to it because it's people outside and it's the impromptu nature of it. I feel like it has its own sort of feel to it. The Rock and Roll Express is the Anderson for the tag titles. Yeah. And a Cage followed by Vader versus Sting in the King of the Cable tournament final. Then I have Jeff Jarrett versus Chris Benoit in the latter match. Okay. Yep.
01:52:15
Speaker
and my main event, I put mine as the world title, be official. Lex Luger versus Rick Flair from 1988 Starrcade. All right, yep. All right, John, you wanna go next?
01:52:28
Speaker
This had such a great opening for me. And I want to put in the first on my supercard. Number one is 1996 is Malenko versus Ultimo Dragon. Yep. Sure. And then I really wanted to switch it up into something more classical and technical and wonderful. And I didn't mention it before because I was saving it for this. 1986 Rock and Roll Express versus the Anderson's Cage Match. It's textbook and wonderful and dripping with technique.
01:52:55
Speaker
The third one, I'm trying to get a lot of the big names on this card, so I went with Guerrero versus Mysterio versus Kidman from 1998. It was a great match, a lot of weird interaction between me, didn't know who was going to fight who.
01:53:09
Speaker
Number four, Magnum TA versus Blanchard. It was pretty raw, very different than the other ones. I wanted to do something quick and light and aerial and then grunge and then just alternate that. In light of that, I want to go back to the high-flying acts of Luger and Muda, 1989. Oh, the kicking match that you and I both loved. Yeah, it was great.
01:53:33
Speaker
It was a fun match. It also gets Luger on my card. He had a lot of great matches, and I wanted to get Muda in there too, so that was a fun match for me. And then could easily be my main event, but I really think it belongs somewhere else on the card. Piper versus Valentine, dog collar match. Probably my favorite match out of all. I would not say that to someone and say, you need to watch this because it's not clearly for everyone. But as far as creativity, using the prop,
01:54:01
Speaker
There isn't any other gimmick match that works. Yeah. Yep. Period. You're going to have the TVMA Starrcade with the Magnum and the color match. Yep. Yep. Right. Not for kids. Number seven.
01:54:17
Speaker
I love everyone on this. Sting, Rhodes, Road Warriors. Yep. Great match. Yeah. Probably not the best match, but as far as participants goes, I think that would draw a lot of people. And my eighth match, just because I think it could potentially, looking at legends and greats and everything, I'm choosing 95s, Flare versus Savage. Oh, interesting. Okay. And it's not the best match, but I do think,
01:54:45
Speaker
as people tie into superstars that they love. I think that there's a big falling for Savage and there's a big falling for Flair. And it would be criminal not to have Flair as the main event, I think. Okay. That's his slot. Sounds good. The only thing that I regret is I was not able to get Steamboat on there and I love that guy.
01:55:07
Speaker
That's why you do Steamboat Regal, that's when you get on there. If there was a Steamboat Vader match, a mythical match, I would have that down there. That would be good. That would be good.
01:55:18
Speaker
I will say a note on, do you think it's Savage? So it is 2020 when we're recording this. I was at a gas station and they have a big display for Slim Jims. Apparently a larger Slim Jim. And it has a brand new Savage still on them. Nice. Like a brand new thing. Nice. So it is still a thing in 2020. Yeah, a Savage Slim Jims.
01:55:39
Speaker
A lot of my matches are going to sound very familiar, actually, I think. So here we go. Okay. Starrcade 1998's, Hooventook Guerreira versus Rey Mysterio versus Billy Kidman. Great opener, really exciting. My second match was Starrcade 1995's, Eddie Guerrero versus Shinjiro Itani.
01:55:58
Speaker
which I'm figuring that actually what they were fighting for in the first match was whether Eddie Guerrero would have to fight Shinjiro Itani or not. Something like that. So we still have a storyline going on there. Yeah, that was such a great match. And apparently become a face in the meantime, but you know, whatever. The third match, Starrcade 1983, the dog collar match between Piper and Valentine. That just has to be on there. I mean, that's so good.
01:56:25
Speaker
Fourth match, Starrcade 1986, Rock and Roll Express versus the Andersons. It's on all three of ours, I believe. Understandably so. Yeah, it's amazing. Fully warranted. Number five, Starrcade 1985, Magnum TA versus Tully Blanchard. I'm also going for the TV MA, Starrcade. Apparently so. Number six, Starrcade 1993.
01:56:49
Speaker
Regal versus Steamboat. I had to get Steamboat on my card, absolutely. I was torn between that and the Briscoe tag match. I was really going back and forth between those, but Regal versus Steamboat won out.
01:57:00
Speaker
For me, I decided I want to have that tag match and the Anderson. Yeah. Yeah. One of the opposite. Yeah. Seventh match, Starrcade 1992, the King of Cable match, Vader versus Sting. I know I picked Flair versus Sting for my matches of the series, but this one just fit better with my Starrcade card. Sure. Because my main event match was Starrcade 1988's Lex Luger versus Rick Flair. There you go.
01:57:26
Speaker
I knew I wanted to have Luger on there. I knew I wanted to have Flare on there, obviously. I mean, I'm so much used to it, I felt like Flare's gotta be the main event, you know? Even though I said that's not a condition, it's a condition. I had to rework half the card to not choose Vader and Sting. Yeah.
01:57:45
Speaker
It was tough to choose on, like, okay, if I picked Flare versus Vader that took out Flare, that took out Vader, that meant I couldn't choose Sting versus Vader. I was having a hard time picking the follow-up match for Sting that I really wanted to be on my card. He's been in a lot of good matches, but it wasn't, like,
01:58:06
Speaker
There wasn't like that super strong awesome one that I definitely wanted to be on there. Where if I chose Vader versus Sting, I was like, Luger versus Flare is still awesome. It's a really, really great match and it's a really great Luger match. So it gave me a great one for him. There were choices. I was like, this feels like getting it to the highest level for both of them that I can get to for both of them. Yeah, I gotcha. For me, Sting, Rhodes, and Road Wars is such an efficient pick. It is very cool, yeah.
01:58:35
Speaker
That decides your whole card right there. It kind of like messes with everything else. Yes, yeah. All right, so now we're going to twist each other's cards slightly. Each of us will pick matches from our own card for each other to twist by giving those matches a new gimmick. Okay. It can be a wild and crazy gimmick if you want, or it can just be like, hey, wouldn't this be neat? So I will kick this off with one for Al. Sure.
01:59:01
Speaker
Let's say... Sure, what the heck, Al, Guerrero vs. Itani? Ooh, um... Do it a ladder match, which would be great on its own, but they are fighting for the greatest prize in the world, which is Sinjar Itani's jacket.
01:59:20
Speaker
That's a pretty sweet jacket. You mean Sasaki's jacket, that one? I don't know. Atani's top gun sort of thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah. I mean, they couldn't be fighting for the America jacket, because he's not on the show anymore. Yeah, sadly, no. Yeah, it could be jacket versus jacket, actually, because Guerrero also had his White Flames one. Oh, that's true. And that explained why it was occasioned in the back of the shots earlier. Yeah, yep. It's hanging out there. There you go. Back with the jacket ladder match. Okay, yep, that's good.
01:59:48
Speaker
And for Jon, I will have you do... King of Cable wasn't really a gimmick match, it was just a brutal fight. So let's see, what would you turn King of Cable into as a gimmick? Sting Invader? Sting Invader, yeah. Oh man, it would be like a weightlifting challenge.
02:00:10
Speaker
There would be various machines brought into the thing, and whoever could do the most reps with a percentage of their weight would get to hit each other with that machine. Okay. Or, you know, use it in some creative fashion. I don't know. It would be like, I just want them to work out and then somehow battle each other using these machines. There you go, yeah, yeah. Why do I make the mistake of asking you a question and then taking a drink of water, by the way? That's a terrible mistake.
02:00:36
Speaker
We might keep it cable related. The weights are long barbell, two giant CRT televisions. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to go for like the weightlifting cables. No, no, no. Those giant TVs. There you go. Okay. No, they just have to put together, reassemble a VCR. In real time. Oh my gosh. I've got an embarrassment of riches here on Crazy Gimmicks. All right, Al, what one you want me to do? Okay, let's see.
02:01:06
Speaker
Wait, is this on both of ours? What did you do with Ricky Steamboat and Steven Regal? Oh, man. Okay. With those two, it's hard to resist saying a ladder match, but I'm going to try and resist saying a ladder match. So let's see. Are we saying it's still for the TV title, so you've still got the 15-minute thing? Well, it's still a time limit. You could change the time limit. Yeah. Let's say it's a two out of three falls match, but both falls have to be accomplished within the total 15-minute time limit, or Regal just wins.
02:01:36
Speaker
Oh, okay. And also, you have to win in two different ways. So you can only win one by pinfall, one by submission, one by count out, and none of them can be by DQ or you can win the match, but I don't know anymore. No top rope shenanigans.
02:01:56
Speaker
Because regal's like you you're not gonna just get a fluke win or prove you're better than me in one way He says to steamboat. You've got to prove you're totally better than me. So this is the Bad man versus mr. Freeze fight. Yes, you can only beat him that way once. Yeah, there you go apps. Yeah All right. What do you want John to do? Okay, let's do Do the EP versus current headache for the US title? I would do a
02:02:25
Speaker
Black Mirror Match, where you can only use the finishing moves of your opponent.
02:02:33
Speaker
to get the pen. Okay. That's nice. So Kurt Hennick has to use the diamond cutter and DDP has to use the Hennick Plex. Let's just call it the perfect Plex and that's a better name. Yes. I like that. I like that. That'd be creative. And that just shows that you have knowledge of your opponent. Yeah. And you have to each in the beginning deliver a speech in their voice or like trying to mimic their style.
02:03:00
Speaker
That'll be easy for DDP. All he has to say is perfect over and over and that would tell me yes Yeah, you need to get a minute of opening remarks and then your match Hey, I'm not saying they're switching clothes or anything, but I like that It'd be interesting to see if DDP could work out as many like transitions into the headache flex as you can for the diamond cutter Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah that'd be cool. I like that All right, John. What one do you want me to do? Ah
02:03:30
Speaker
I'm only going to choose one because I know you have such great reverence for the match. It's hard to rework it in my mind. So I'm going to ask you to do it. I want you to do the 1986 Rock and Roll Express versus the Anderson's. You can even obliterate the cage if you want or reuse the cage in a different way. Oh my gosh, you won't be a mess with perfection. I know, exactly. That's what this is about. I had a perfect one for that. Oh, crap. Let's say...
02:03:55
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay, yeah, here's an idea, okay. It's actually a standard tag match except that it starts with a standard singles match between two of the competitors, and whichever of those teams wins gets five minutes at the beginning of the match.
02:04:13
Speaker
with the other team only having one competitor. This was like a knockout rule. And it has to be the opposite competitor, so it'll be Arne Anderson and Robert Gibson starting this. And then, of course, Gibson will, unfortunately, through Gilas cheating, lose that first match. Of course. And that means that Ricky Morton has five minutes of just pure selling against the team of the Andersons before Robert Gibson can even think of getting in. That would be interesting.
02:04:40
Speaker
I realize that's not much of messing with the formula there, but let's make it an interesting conditional thing. It's a sort of deconstructed war games match almost. Yeah, I honestly was thinking, how can I make this kind of war games-ish in my head? To get the high ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:04:59
Speaker
I gotta say, Al, I am interested in hearing what your idea was. You wanna hear my one? Go for it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the match as it happens is a cage just above the rope, so it covers the area, right? Right, yeah. So they raise the cage a little bit, so it just hangs slightly above where the ropes are. They have to fight in the ring and get a pinfall. Where it gets a pinfall, they can just climb up the inside of the cage, up across the ceiling to get through a hole in the top.
02:05:27
Speaker
Okay. It's a reverse cage match. Okay. And they climb to the top of the cage to kick it out. There you go. That sounds uncannily like an idea from TNA. It is similar to it. Yeah, that didn't go very well for them, but I'm sure the Endersons and the Rock and Roll Express could do it rather well. I just like the visual because there is like the cage that's around the ring. Here it just raised just above the ring, just above where the ropes are at. So you can see a cage, but it's not acting the match until you try to climb it. Okay, that's cool. All right, that's pretty cool, yeah.
02:05:54
Speaker
I mean, it harkens back to the floating cage above the ring during the match. Yes, yes. Oh, yeah, they would not have it secured properly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think this would be safe at all. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. Heavens no.
02:06:10
Speaker
What do you want him to actually do? I want him to take my favorite people and make them into a wonderful John-esque match. Okay. Sting and Rhodes versus the Road Warriors, Animal and Hawk. Oh, gawl. All right. Let's take a match type that only one person actually liked once.
02:06:37
Speaker
and then didn't relax second time. Okay. Oh, I see where this is going. I don't think you quite see where this is going. Okay.
02:06:44
Speaker
we would have a version of the spring breakout scaffold match. So there's two scaffolds on the outside edge of the ring. Outside of the ring is not the people, it is a giant pool of water. All right, so you have to win by throwing them off the scaffold into the pool, which means you get the visual Dusty Rose doing a belly flop and or a cannonball into a pool off a scaffold.
02:07:10
Speaker
I approve. But over tea kettle. Yes. Oh, of course. Yes, of course. You gotta fill that tea kettle with water. Yes. This makes sense. I gotta work a dragon's true leg open there somewhere. Yeah.
02:07:23
Speaker
That's great, yeah. Nice, I like that. There's not enough water sports in Stargate. Yeah, yeah. Well, if you want to make the scaffold match a little more workable, to give it sort of an H design, so you've got two parallel scaffolds, and then when connecting them. So if you want to have them fight in the middle, and they're sitting between sides, you can do that. So you have one road war in each side, and then you know, sitting in dusty on one side, they could swap over. Okay.
02:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, I like it. I would still be terrified as heck watching it, but I like the idea. They fall in water. Exactly. In theory. Yes. Hopefully. That wraps up our coverage of Starrcade, WCW's first supercard, and our first as well. But it's not the end of Let's Go to the Ring. With our first series wrapped up, where are we going from here?
02:08:15
Speaker
Well, first up, before we started our Starrcade run, we did a pilot of sorts to work out exactly how we were going to cover this stuff. So, next month, we're going to release that unaired pilot episode for your enjoyment. So it'll be a little flashback to where we began and a little flashback to where Sting's career began as well. So coming up next month, Clash of the Champions won.
02:08:41
Speaker
Next, while most of WCW's pay-per-views are in some series or another, there's quite a number of shows that aren't. We'd like to cover those as well, and we're going to do them between our various series. So this time, we're taking a look at the Bunkhouse Stampede from 1988.
02:09:00
Speaker
This type of match was referenced all over Starrcade, so we've gotten really curious to see one, rather than just say, hear it announced over the loudspeaker as Ric Flair tries to cut a promo, or hear it explained to us by a cowboy with soothing guitar music. So, that'll be coming up in June, the Bunkhouse Stampede 1988.
02:09:19
Speaker
And now, our next series. We've been sitting here in the late 90s for a while. And frankly, we could use some time away from WCW's decline. So we're going to go back to the early days of WCW to watch.
02:09:36
Speaker
I want you at Wrestle War 91. World Championship Wrestling presents an ironclad event of man versus metal. Wrestle War 91 featuring War Game. We declare war. Witness a grueling double steel cage confrontation where anything can happen. Don't miss the duel in the desert live from Phoenix, Arizona. You can be there front and center only on pay-per-view. Dismissed!
02:10:08
Speaker
That's still the show of one of the Starkades. That's right. It is time for Wrestle War. Running for only four shows, from 1989 through 1992, Wrestle War takes us back to the late 80s and early 90s, the early days of WCW and the latter days of its relationship with the NWA. Some things to get excited about on the series overall. We get Flair versus Steamboat. Nice.
02:10:35
Speaker
The Rock and Roll Express versus the Midnight Express in something other than a scaffold match. Hooray! And not one, but two War Games matches. Nice. I'm really looking forward to covering this set. So, our upcoming releases are... In May, Clash of the Champions won. In June, Bunkhouse Stampede 1988. And in July, starting our new series with WrestleWar 89, Music City Showdown.
02:11:05
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Links will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about the Star Cades that we've reviewed. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or TuneIn. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
02:11:35
Speaker
Many thanks to Pro Wrestling History and OSW Review for attendance, closed circuit, and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Thank you all for listening to us during our first series and we hope to provide you with much more entertainment as we go forward into WCW's other shows. And in these trying times, may you be blessed with peace, comfort, safety, and health.
02:12:00
Speaker
This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. And don't count the three on that pinfall. Just roll out. Tuck and roll.