That sums the perfect reaction to this nonsense.
This brief exchange between WWE commentator Corey Graves and former WWE/WCW/TNA head writer Vince Russo a couple days ago was apparently newsworthy for some reason, so let’s check out said posts after the break…
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.)
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.
I’m not touching Survivor Series in a write-up. To sum things up, the Brock Lesnar vs. AJ Styles was a far better match than I was expecting – certainly the best Brock Lesnar match in recent memory – and the rest of the show was a huge, colossal waste of time. I only caught the tail end of the show and that was pretty much all I needed to watch.
Certainly not helping was the overcrowded bickering announcers, who were bitching all night about whose show is better as if anyone is supposed to care about that kind of garbage. It’s almost as though WWE finally decided to respond to TNA’s attempt at ripping off heel Michael Cole with heel Josh Matthews by giving us a show with more wretched commentary.
So fuck that show. I’ll do the Wargames musings next week when all this Starrcade stuff is out of the way. And if they ever decide to upload that Brock vs. AJ match onto their Youtube channel down the line, I’d say give it a watch. AJ looked like someone who took it to the beast, Brock looked like he actually gave a shit for once, and the end result is a nice little battle between two champions… which will undoubtedly be rendered completely meaningless if AJ drops the belt back to the failed experiment that is Jindermahinder.
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.
Oy, oy, oy… maybe continuing onwards wasn’t such a good idea…
So we jump ahead to 1999 and by this point, WCW was teetering on the edge; their glory days feeling like a fleeting memory. Eric Bischoff, the man who brought WCW to new heights, had been turfed and in his place was a man named Bill Busch, whose first big move was to hire former WWF writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara and have them steer the WCW ship. Seemed like a good idea at the time; the guys responsible for planting the seeds to the WWF’s rise to prominence would surely be able to replicate the same results here.
Well, that didn’t quite happen, now did it?
WWE recently announced the return of “Starrcade” as a live event in Greensboro… so why not celebrate the occasion by spending a week revisiting old Starrcade events from the WCW days… because I haven’t seen any of the NWA era shows beyond brief snippets here and full-length matches in compilations there… though, for the sake of fairness, I might look at one of those along the way because that’ll be fun to experience.
Unfortunately, today’s foray into Starrcade revisitation is the show from 1998… the one that some would argue was the first bullet in what would eventually be the downfall of a once prominent wrestling organization… though others would argue that first bullet came the year prior, but we’ll go with this one since the aftermath was slightly more damaging.
Well… she’s not wrong.
Spoiler: There are no “Aquaman played by Roman Reigns” jokes to be found here.
Why, yes. This does look familiar.
dtm666 