WCW Starrcade ‘96
December 29, 1996
Nashville, TN

Background: The Wrestlemania of WCW: Starrcade.

WCW was absolutely rolling. The nWo angle was perhaps the hottest thing in wrestling ever. WCW was kicking the WWF’s ass in pretty much every way. And WCW looked to continue that trend with Starrcade, putting in the main event slot a huge main event of WCW World Champion Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper. The WCW style was always awesome in-ring action at the top of the show, star power later. And it worked for a while.

You really see all the pieces come together for this one. Temporary international stars such as Jushin Lyger. The international WCW Cruiserweights such as Ultimo Dragon and Rey Mysterio Jr. The workhorses from ECW in Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Midcard WWF guys like Jeff Jarrett. And of course, the top guys. The Hogan, Nash, Hall, Luger, Giant tier. Amazingly WCW was missing a lot of guys for this one too (No Steiners, no Harlem Heat, no Jericho).

So let’s see how the granddaddy of them all came together in 1996.

The Card

A lot of the hype for the main event (“the match of the decade”) is that Hogan never beat Piper (why did no one care here about that build-up but everyone shit on when the Warrior used that logic 2 years later). They must be just counting pinfalls, since Hogan beat Piper by DQ at the Wrestling Classic.

J-Crown Championship vs. Cruiserweight Championship
Ultimo Dragon (J-Crown) vs. Dean Malenko (Cruiser)

Japan vs. America I

The J-Crown is like 8 belts. Ultimo Dragon looked bad ass with them.

Great hold for hold wrestling early on….makes sense since these two were both top 10 in the world as technical wrestlers at this point.

Crowd solidly behind Malenko. Dragon was still a heel here.

Funny announcer quarrel about a half-crab. I love it when Dusty and The Brian get on Schiavone.

Nice STF/Crossface. It’s practically the opposite of John Cena’s STF in terms of how bad ass it looks.

Dragon with the backflip fakeout to Suicide Dive. I love that spot. Shame no one understood it in Dragon’s WWE 2003 run. I blame the 619.
Really enjoying this one. Match is slowly building the pace.

Admittedly a little too much with the leg grapevine here. Kinda killed the crowd.

Great series of reversals lead to a Malenko powerslam! Crowd popped for that.

Tombstone from Malenko! Nice false finish!

Ultimo Dragon pinned Dean Malenko to unify the titles in 18:30. Match gets really hot with big moves and reversals. A great sequence ends with Dragon hitting a trap Dragon suplex for the win. Gave this 18 minutes and other than the slow part in the middle, this was really good. Great way to start Starrcade. Also it is worth noting that Malenko was really over.

WCW Women’s Championship
Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

Hokuto is wearing a gas mask?

Vacant title. Is this a tournament final? I have no idea. I don’t even remember a WCW Women’s Title.

Lee Marshall is brought in as an expert on Women’s wrestling. Sure…

USA vs. Japan II

Hokuto busts out a Scorpion Deathlock. Odd finish steal there.

Horrific floatover DDT from Madusa.

Weird Tornado DDT from Madusa where Madusa landed on her feet first. No idea if that was intentional.

Botched counter to a powerbomb…if it even was supposed to be countered. This match sucks.

Akira Hokuto wins the title by pin in 7:06. Sonny Oono attacks Madusa with the American Flag…then Hokuto hits a sloppy brainbuster for the win. A lot of blown spots. Bad match. The title wouldn’t last either. And the Brian points out Japan 2, USA 0. Tough way to start with two heels winning.

Piper with an insane promo. Sky Low Low and Jurassic Park made this promo. He goes on about Icons. Then we get into instruments. This is nuts. Roseanne Barr makes the promo too.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Jushin Liger

Japan vs. USA III.

This is a dream match I believe.

Handshake. Liger really isn’t a heel like Dragon and Hokuto.

This is a weird match that Liger just dominates.

Jushin Liger pins Rey Mysterio in 14:16. Liger Bomb kills Mysterio’s comeback. Apparently this is a Japanese style, but it kinda killed the crowd. Rey basically got squashed. Dragon vs. Malenko was a lot better. This was okay I suppose, I mean it was wrestled well at least.

No DQ
Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

This spawned from Jarrett kinda being in the Horsemen but not really.

I think Jarrett is supposed to be the face and Benoit the heel…but it surely isn’t working out that way crowd wise.

Not really a lot happening. A lot of punching and kicking. I wonder if Benoit isn’t doing tech stuff because it’s a no DQ match.

Schiavone makes it a point that Benoit doesn’t get DQed for throwing Jarrett over the top rope. That stupid rule was still in place?

Arn Anderson walked by Benoit. Does that mean he’s pro Jarrett in the Horsemen?

Big pop for Double A though.

Dungeon of Doom out here. No idea what’s going on.

Jeff Jarrett pinned Chris Benoit in 13:48. Anderson DDTs Jarrett…and Kevin Sullivan smashes a wooden chair over Benoit’s head! When Double A tosses Jarrett back into the ring, Jarrett’s hand ends up on Benoit for the pin. I actually that finish is a little creative, but the booking and people involved was all over the place. Match was pretty lame as well. Nothing happened. Strange.

Mongo is out here to talk Horsemen or something. The Horsemen are unstable. Flair’s not even around anyway. Debra talks too. I don’t care.

We get some insight into Sting, who just turned crow. No idea who’s side he’s actually on at this point.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
The Outsiders© vs. The Faces of Fear

The Faces of Fear? Seriously?

Nick Patrick is the referee. I’m sure that note will have no effect on this match whatsoever.

So who do we cheer for here? The Outsiders?

Meng and Hall with a solid start. Good physicality.

Nash seems motivated here. Weird match to be motivated for though.

Now we’re getting some slow Nick Patrick stuff.

Weird legal man stuff. Meng was on the apron despite being the legal man. I’m sure that’s been broken tons of times.

Syxx is out here. Takes Jimmy Hart’s megaphone then leaves chasing Hart.

The Outsiders win when Nash pins Barbarian in 11:52. Jackknife for the win. Match made no booking sense. Outsiders were the faces for some reason…but had a crooked referee in their pocket. WCW announcers were rooting for the Faces of Fear. I would say wrestling wise this was a lot better than it had any right to be. Probably because it had a lot of Scott Hall, who was still trying at that point.

Dibiase and Hogan promo. Just running down Piper here. Hogan doesn’t understand time zones though. Hogan mentions that the belt stays with the nWo. That’s important here.

WCW US Championship Title Tournament Final
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddy Guerrero

Some story here…the nWo had been interfering and helping DDP win matches to get him to join. Nothing to do with Guerrero.

It’s a bit weird to see DDP has a cocky heel and Guerrero as an underdog face in WCW.

It’s also weird to see Eddy Guerrero dominating DDP in a WCW match. They were at two totally different levels 12 months later.

Pretty solid back and forth match here.

I do think DDP and Eddy’s styles don’t really click though. I assume solid back and forth is the best you’d get here.

nWo is out here. Hall though hits Page with the Outsider’s Edge!

Eddie Guerrero wins the title and pins DDP in 15:20. Eddie hits the Frog Splash after the Outsider’s Edge for the win. nWo beats up Eddy too, although he put up a good fight. Guerrero wrote in his book that he hated this finish as it looked like the nWo beat Page and not Guerrero…and he was 100% right about it. Match was fine.

The Giant vs. Lex Luger

Giant is nWo here…which I didn’t think made too much sense. Luger is now the face of WCW as Sting is off brooding and Piper is really Piper and not WCW.

Really long lock-up to start, then punches and kicks everywhere.

Luger brought his selling ability with him tonight. Which against the Giant, he should.

I think it’s crazy how the Giant used to just throw dropkicks like it was nothing.

Funniest ref bump I ever saw with Giant powering out of a pin and Luger landing on the ref.

Nick Patrick interferes and kicks Luger’s leg when he had the rack! He’s nWo!

Sting is here. But who’s side is he on?

Syxx ruins another rack attempt.

Sting drops a bat in the ring and tells both Luger and the Giant something, presumably that there is a bat in the ring.

Lex Luger pins the Giant in 13:23. Luger gains control of the bat and beats the crap out of the Giant. Pin afterwards. Huge pop. This was WCW’s first win over the nWo…which storyline wise is fine…but it’s interesting of all people the Giant was the first nWo member to lose. Match could have been A LOT worse. Pretty solid considering who was involved. Giant looks angered as the announcer’s say the nWo left Giant high and dry.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

Story matters here, because it’s a huge problem with the match. Piper showed up when Hogan beat Savage at Halloween Havoc. This led to the Eric Bischoff in the nWo reveal. In the match build, remember that Roddy Piper got to choose the terms of the match. Because he for some reason chose a NON-TITLE match. And WCW is hiding that by the way. Hogna mentioned the title earlier. The crowd thinks this is for the title.

Crowd is really hot for this. As they should be.

Hogan sells a lot for Piper. Match is very punchy-kicky of course. Not much else these two can do at this point.

Really punch-kick-punch-kick. I mean, I guess this match wasn’t done for workrate reasons.

Piper comeback…and the Giant is here!

Ref clearly sees the Giant there, come on.

Random fan in the ring!

Piper somehow kicks Hogan while up for the chokeslam, then knocks Giant over the top.

Roddy Piper beats Hollywood Hogan via sleeper in 15:27. Crowd erupts. And Piper doesn’t win the title. Because it’s non-title. Bizarre. Match sucked as well. Post match has Hogan and Giant arguing, and Hogan blames Giant for dropping the ball. Hogan the celebrates with the title. Um..he lost the match?

Pretty disappointing Starrcade all things considered. It gets some extra credit for DDP and Sting developments, but loses a little for the non-title main event and general horribleness of the main event. Dragon vs. Malenko was great and Eddy vs. Page was solid, but everything ranged from disappointing to meh. Benoit vs. Jarrett and Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders were just flat out confusing.

I’d say Dragon vs. Malenko alone had it in C+ territory, but the overbooked nWo stuff hurts the second half of the show. nWo interfered in the last three matches…is one clean finish too much to ask? I mean, this is supposed to be the big show of the year, right?

Final Grade: C