Jumping ahead to 2004… and for those who know what that means… well, you know what that means. And if you don’t… well, that banner more than speaks for itself. In a bit of a departure, I’m watching the DVD release of the Rumble that was part of the Royal Rumble anthology set since it saw release before June 2007.
Category: Wrestling PPV Musings
Royal Ramble 1994
Skipping ahead to 1994 here…
For those who don’t know… this is home to the only instance where the Royal Rumble had co-winners and there’s a reason why they never did this again… because it was stupid. It was so stupid that when the same thing happened years later (not on purpose), they restarted the match. But setting that aside… there’s the rest of the show and, well, let’s get into it.
Royal Ramble 1988
30 years ago, the first Royal Rumble took place on the USA Network. It would eventually become a popular concept in wrestling and the first stop on the “Road To Wrestlemania” that everyone likes to promote. (I myself circumvent that whole road and take the shortcut that skips all the bullshit stops along the way, but that’s another story.)
Today, we look at this historical first show and then over the next four days, I’ll be watching random Royal Rumbles and giving them quick little write-ups. And then maybe next week, I’ll do a post on this Sunday’s event.
WCW Starrcade 1997
Last month, I did a week’s worth of wrestling musings covering seven different Starrcade events. One of the events I contemplated looking at for this period was Starrcade 1997, a somewhat important WCW event in that it was the culmination of a year-long build up to the eventual confrontation between Hollywood Hulk Hogan and the Man Called Sting. I have never watched this show. Never got the opportunity to do so.
So here we are… twenty years after the fact, I finally get around to watching this in all its glory… and I instantly regret it.
NXT Takeover: Wargames (Nov. 2017)
Yeah, sorry. I would’ve had this up sooner, but quite honestly, I wasn’t feeling it.
Maybe it was the fact that I watched a rather pointless Survivor Series PPV with only one worthwhile match before getting around to watching this show. Maybe it was due to the fact that while I was intrigued by WWE bringing back an old WCW concept, my mind wondered how they were going to screw this up rather than anticipating the moment. Maybe it was because of all the praise this show has been getting, deserving or otherwise. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t been watching the weekly NXT show in a good while and other than a handful of names, I hardly know anyone on the card.
Whatever the case may be, I would watch the replay whenever I could and even load it up on the Network… and no matter how hard I try, I simply couldn’t get into this show. As such, my musings will be very brief, save for two matches in particular.
WCW Starrcade 2000
Well, kids. We’ve reached the end of our Starrcade Week of write-ups. Tonight, WWE will be hosting its own Starrcade event from the Greensboro Coliseum and hopefully, this will make it over to the WWE Network somewhere down the line. And it seems almost appropriate that on the eve of the first new Starrcade wrestling card, we look at the final event to grace PPV back in 2000.
And so, here we are… the last ever WCW Starrcade Pay-Per-View event.
WCW Starrcade 1990
Oooh… It’s Sting vs. the Black Scorpion… by which I mean the masked wrestler and not the Roger Corman-produced superheroine film that spawned a short-lived TV show.
This is a random choice… and to be honest, I don’t know why I went with this one other than to have a “classic” era Starrcade to fill the slot or something. In hindsight, I should’ve tried my luck again and went for one of the 80s iterations. However, what’s done is done and we can’t take that back.
Would’ve been nice…
Starrcade 1983: A Flair For The Gold
1983… the year the Granddaddy of them all was born.
This is my first time watching the inaugural Starrcade. I have seen bits and pieces of it via DVDs and online clips, but never got around to watching the whole thing until I got access to the WWE Network. In fact, a lot of the old NWA stuff is new territory from a bygone era that I was never that widely exposed to.
This is a point worth mentioning because it can certainly color my perceptions of the matches and all that stuff. Another point worth re-iterating when it comes to these musings is that they are just that; random thoughts, brief thoughts, observations, and just general impressions. Don’t take this to be some kind of critical review because that’s not my intention. (They’re labeled MUSINGS, not REVIEWS, which should be very distinct from each other.)
WCW Starrcade 1996
I debated between watching this show and the 97 version for today’s slot and after a bit of personal reflection, I opted to go with this one and save the 97 show for next month. This had “less” stuff going on compared to that other one and I wanted to watch a Starrcade that wasn’t complete shit for once. And while this might not be great, it was at least good enough… but that’s jumping ahead here.
WCW Starrcade 1993
Warning: The above image never appears on today’s subject matter, since by this point, the Hollywood Blonds tag team has long since split and went their separate ways.
Another Warning: The above parody turned out to be not an accurate portrayal of old Ric Flair, who nowadays looks like a living skeleton. On the up side, at least he’s still alive and kicking… so good on ya, Ric.
All “kidding” aside, we go back to 1993 where we have Ric Flair putting his career up on the line against Big Van Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. This was a last minute change from the originally-intended main event that would’ve seen Psycho Sid Vicious Justice Guy beat the Mastadon for the title… but then Arn Anderson and a pair of scissors wished Sid the best of luck on all his future (softball) endeavors and we got this match instead.
And for what is essentially a last-minute booking job, they did a rather fine job of building to this main event throughout the show, as cameras showed Ric Flair leaving his house, taking a rather somber limo ride with Mean Gean, and other backstage bits to somewhat give the impression that this could very well be the end of a long career… that wouldn’t come along until a decade and a half later, but I digress. The point is that this is a wonderfully told little backstory that did enough to get you up to speed on the stakes of this show’s main event.
But first… we have the rest of the card to blow through.
And blow we shall…
Or rather, blow the show shall while we witness it fall way the fuck apart.
dtm666 