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WCW Starrcade 1997: 25 years later. The start of the end for WCW.


The Natural

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1997 is by my favourite year of wrestling.

WWF giving us the greatest wrestling match ever in Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin at WWF WrestleMania 13, *****. Hart Foundation vs. Steve Austin/USA, Bret Hart's best ever year and Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker inside Hell in a Cell at WWF In Your House 18: Badd Blood, *****. I love that HIAC match, any other year it would be MOTY.

WCW with Sting/WCW vs. nWo, Diamond Dallas Page vs. Macho Man Randy Savage trilogy making DDP, THAT Booker T promo and a ***** in Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero at WCW Halloween Havoc. What a match.

ECW arrives on PPV with ECW Barely Legal, the long build to Taz vs. Sabu at said event, Jerry Lawler invades the ECW arena and the barbed wire match between Terry Funk and Sabu at ECW Born to be Wired is the most graphic match I've ever seen.

Context before WCW Starrcade 1997, such a transformation between Surfer Sting with the blond hair/bright colours to the long hair, Crow inspired character wearing black/white. Sting didn't speak. WCW wronged Sting at WCW Fall Brawl 1996 and Sting was rightly pissed. Sting took the nWo out to a huge pop at WCW Uncensored 1997 and would attack nWo members either coming from the crowd, repelling from the rafters or underneath the ring on WCW Monday Nitro. How can one of the best built matches in wrestling history with the obvious finish turn out to be the worst payoff in wrestling history?

The biggest reason is Hulk Hogan primarily then Eric Bischoff. Hulk Hogan had creative control and was notorious for it. "That doesn't work for me, brother." Hogan and Bischoff laughably claim Sting wasn't right, in shape and didn't have a tan. Hogan pins Sting with the Legdrop of Doom and what was supposed to be a fast count by Nick Patrick. Bret Hart restarts the match and Sting submits Hollywood Hogan with the Scorpion Deathlock. The next night Sting and Hulk Hogan rematch on WCW Monday Nitro which Sting wins after numerous runins. The WCW World Heavyweight Championship is declared vacant on WCW Thunder and Sting regains it at WCW SuperBrawl 1998 before losing it to Randy Savage at WCW Spring Stampede. Hogan regains it from Savage the next night on WCW Monday Nitro. Sting then joins the nWo Wolfpac which he fought so long who was a thorn in his side and Bret Hart is wasted in WCW. Fucking stupid..

In the ideal world Sting runs through Hulk Hogan becoming WCW World Heavyweight Champion at Starrcade 1997 who stays stoically as the Crow character who barely speaks representing WCW and goes on to face Bret Hart for it.

Hated Hulk Hogan since a kid for always winning, a sore loser when beat fairly, his repeated backstage politics especially vs. Sting at WCW Starrcade 1997, how selfish a main eventer he was and worse of all, he's a racist piece of fucking shit. I have utter contempt for the Hulkster. Fuck you, Hulk Hogan. Fuck you, Eric Bischoff

I still maintain this was the beginning of WCW's downfall which followed Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's undefeated streak beating him for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade 1998, the Fingerpoke of Doom over the WCW World Heavyweight Championship between Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan on the first Nitro of 1999, squandering Sting/Bret Hart and Vince Russo's booking.

Thanks for reading.

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agreed on all accounts.

the "Sting didn't have a tan" is such a bullshit cop-out. Like, i understand that it's shorthand for 'he didn't come in the shape we expected him to and he had outside the ring issues going on at the same time', but come on. If it's that huge of a deal (and it kinda was!) then you need to be following up with him months ahead of time to make sure everything is copasetic. IF it's not, you need to either get him on the right path to still make this happen, or pivot away. 

the complete lack of direction for Bret Hart is criminal. i don't understand that, just like i don't understand WCW's non-use of Madusa throughout 96 and 97. I've said this before, but the fact that she literally threw the WWF belt in the trash but never won the WCW gold is appalling. 

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16 minutes ago, twiztor said:

agreed on all accounts.

the "Sting didn't have a tan" is such a bullshit cop-out. Like, i understand that it's shorthand for 'he didn't come in the shape we expected him to and he had outside the ring issues going on at the same time', but come on. If it's that huge of a deal (and it kinda was!) then you need to be following up with him months ahead of time to make sure everything is copasetic. IF it's not, you need to either get him on the right path to still make this happen, or pivot away. 

the complete lack of direction for Bret Hart is criminal. i don't understand that, just like i don't understand WCW's non-use of Madusa throughout 96 and 97. I've said this before, but the fact that she literally threw the WWF belt in the trash but never won the WCW gold is appalling. 

My turn to agree with you on all you say.

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https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/21539546

https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/hulk-hogan-sting/

https://theduckpin.substack.com/p/hogansting-i-25-years-since-starrcade

To this day, it's the most a match has made me mad.

WCW's biggest show ever and they royally shit the bed.

Edited by The Natural
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It’s a horse that’s been beaten to death 100x over, but yeah you give the fans Sting squashing Hogan in less than ten minutes to close the show, and before that you give them Hart/Flair to blow off a quick, easy “best wrestler in the world” build (that Omega/Danielson got two decades later in Queens) for 20-30 minutes to make up the “good wrestling match” part of it, and you’re done. 

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3 hours ago, twiztor said:

agreed on all accounts.

the "Sting didn't have a tan" is such a bullshit cop-out. Like, i understand that it's shorthand for 'he didn't come in the shape we expected him to and he had outside the ring issues going on at the same time', but come on. If it's that huge of a deal (and it kinda was!) then you need to be following up with him months ahead of time to make sure everything is copasetic. IF it's not, you need to either get him on the right path to still make this happen, or pivot away. 

the complete lack of direction for Bret Hart is criminal. i don't understand that, just like i don't understand WCW's non-use of Madusa throughout 96 and 97. I've said this before, but the fact that she literally threw the WWF belt in the trash but never won the WCW gold is appalling. 

Bischoff hired Madusa as a favor to one of his old AWA friends. I think he cared about womens wrestling as much as he cared about tag team wrestling

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5 hours ago, twiztor said:

agreed on all accounts.

the "Sting didn't have a tan" is such a bullshit cop-out. Like, i understand that it's shorthand for 'he didn't come in the shape we expected him to and he had outside the ring issues going on at the same time', but come on. If it's that huge of a deal (and it kinda was!) then you need to be following up with him months ahead of time to make sure everything is copasetic. IF it's not, you need to either get him on the right path to still make this happen, or pivot away. 

the complete lack of direction for Bret Hart is criminal. i don't understand that, just like i don't understand WCW's non-use of Madusa throughout 96 and 97. I've said this before, but the fact that she literally threw the WWF belt in the trash but never won the WCW gold is appalling. 

While I do agree with Nash that Bischoff deserves some credit for being the only guy to ever beat Vince at his own game (even if it was only for a year-and-a-half or so), the man's fatal flaw has always been his unerring devotion to Hogan. To this day he's a relentless apologist for the orange sack of shit.

As you pointed out, Sting doesn't "lose his tan" in a day, or a week. If the situation was that bad, you'd see it months ahead, and then you'd make the call on either running an injury angle to delay so Sting could get his head together, or you'd ditch the angle and pick a different savior. And they did neither of those because, yeah, "Sting didn't have a tan" is a phony overstated bunch of bullshit. Hell, even if Sting pulls a Jeff Hardy, what would you do? Run a last minute injury angle, throw Luger or Giant or hell Bret Hart into the match last second, try to save things... No, what clearly happened is that Hogan decided last minute that a career WCW guy wasn't worthy of a precious Clean Job From the Hulkster, so he had the ref slow count the fast count. That's not a booking decision; they still went ahead with the rest of the plan like the slow count didn't happen. It's Hogan being an egomaniacal asshole and Bischoff still covering for him a quarter century later.

Of course, what they should have done was this: Sting beats Hogan clean and clear. Next night on Nitro, Hogan gets jumped out of the NWO in favor of their new leader, Bret Hart. Yeah you can argue that fans wanted to cheer Bret post-Montreal but let's not forget that right up to Montreal he was doing fantastic heel work with the Foundation. Just have him continue that, and build into a Hart vs. Sting mega-program. Hogan can take time off, then come back in yellow and red to save the day at a later point if he wants. But of course Hogan (and because of him, Bischoff) saw Hart as nothing more than a keepaway signing because Hogan was still indignant over the idea of Vince replacing him with Bret during the Steroid Trial New Generation and wanted to make sure Hart knew his midcarder IC and tag champ place. 

Anyway, eventually Goldberg gets so hot that even Hogan decides to play "do the right thing" and job to him, but you know that in the back of his mind he was getting that job back. The fact that he had to wait pissed him off so much that he got Goldberg 1.0 aka Warrior signed just to get an 8-year-old job back from him.

Last random thought; just occurred to me the other day. Plenty of people saw Goldberg as WCW's answer to Stone Cold. If you really think about it though, he's more of a conglomeration of Austin and WWF's other hottest babyface at the time, Ken Shamrock. He's got Austin's look, but he comes out screaming to pyro and does shooty stuff like arm and leg bars and judo throws and high kicks instead of just sticking to power stuff. Sadly, if they never decided to work faux-MMA shit into his gimmick, he probably doesn't end Bret's career with a kick he had no business doing... 

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Montreal followed by Starrcade a month later were both seminal moments in my fandom. I was only 9 and had been watching the WWF on and off since around '93, but the big difference by this point was that we had gotten our first PC with internet access via AOL. Suddenly, there's this whole new world open to me, and everyone is speaking a different language - 'work,' 'shoot,' 'creative control.' I became obsessed with how the sausage was made, and here I am 25 years later.

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Winning a round against Vince isn’t “beating” Vince. Vince beat Eric. WWF beat WCW, and it was all because of Starrcade.

I know I know alot of other dumb stuff happened but they were just nails in the coffin. The coffin was Starrcade. I don’t even buy the “yeah but” concerning Sting being out of shape. Was Hogan in shape? Was ANY WCW champion since a young STING ever in shape? I wish Sting would have challenged Hogan to a lap around the building. It might have killed Hogan. I think I said that in the other 25 years thread. Heck not long after this the criteria for being champion was to be out of shape as Dean Malenko pointed out lol! 

So seriously, fuck Hogan. He ruined it. He ruined it all. It was the best build up to a match ever. Better than Hogan/Andre, better than Austin/HBK, and better than everything else. Hogan wussed out of doing business because he’s a chickenshit and a liar. And that’s really all there is to it. 

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On 12/28/2022 at 5:02 PM, The Comedian said:

While I do agree with Nash that Bischoff deserves some credit for being the only guy to ever beat Vince at his own game (even if it was only for a year-and-a-half or so), the man's fatal flaw has always been his unerring devotion to Hogan. To this day he's a relentless apologist for the orange sack of shit.

As you pointed out, Sting doesn't "lose his tan" in a day, or a week. If the situation was that bad, you'd see it months ahead, and then you'd make the call on either running an injury angle to delay so Sting could get his head together, or you'd ditch the angle and pick a different savior. And they did neither of those because, yeah, "Sting didn't have a tan" is a phony overstated bunch of bullshit. Hell, even if Sting pulls a Jeff Hardy, what would you do? Run a last minute injury angle, throw Luger or Giant or hell Bret Hart into the match last second, try to save things... No, what clearly happened is that Hogan decided last minute that a career WCW guy wasn't worthy of a precious Clean Job From the Hulkster, so he had the ref slow count the fast count. That's not a booking decision; they still went ahead with the rest of the plan like the slow count didn't happen. It's Hogan being an egomaniacal asshole and Bischoff still covering for him a quarter century later.

 

I actually think that the whole finish was an ultimate booking decision. It was a bad, overbooked, change from the original booking but was ultimately the booking decision. I think Hogan started wussing out, Eric went back and forth with a few people like those people have said, but not Hogan because his biggest fear was not being friends with Hogan. As all of that was happening he knew what had to be done so he came up with what he/they came up with and tried to sell it, which wasn’t what had to be done. He covered every base but he covered them all halfassed. He got a clean finish, yet Hogan didn’t lose clean, yet Sting won clean. Yeah that should work and everybody will buy it and most importantly I’ll still be Hogan’s pal. Wrong dumbass. 

As for what they should have done next had Hogan not wussed out, it almost doesn’t even matter. They would have been able to push and sell whoever and whatever they would have wanted. Goldberg wouldn’t have even even had to have existed. They had Sting vs Scott Hall, or Bret Hart, or Ric Flair as potential backup plans had Hogan went down clean if you remember. When those are your built in back up plans you know you have it going on. He could have wrestled Benoit, Raven, and just anybody really. They could have advertised any match on TV for a ppv and it would have sold. But no they had to ruin it. 

Edited by BloodyChamp
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insta004-1.gif

Sting's entrance at WCW Starrcade 1997 is one of the best in wrestling history. I really liked that bodysuit, Sting wore it for another month then replaced it with the long singlet attire he's sported since February 1998 with a few exceptions.

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It was a great entrance even though the light show messed up. There was still something cool about the giant screen going haywire. Anyway it only goes to show you that nothing could have messed this match up. The build was that perfect, the anticipation was that high and Sting was that unstoppable. One thing did mess it up though, one thing that didn’t count when it seemed like nothing could mess it up because it wasn’t possible. It was impossible for Sting not to win that match. Then Hogan says hold my b...

Spoiler

dick

to Eric Bischoff.

Edited by BloodyChamp
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Something that always bothered me about Bischoff's account was the idea that he and Hogan jointly came up with a plan because Sting came not ready to do business. Of course Hogan comes up with a plan that has him pinning Sting clean first.

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Sting had good matches right on. That’s 1 reason it’s such a shame. Sting vs DDP from Nitro is a GOAT match. I know he wasn’t always motivated but he was good enough that he didn’t have to be. He could do this shit in his sleep like Owen. Meanwhile I kinda think he could have been motivated a tad by not being freaking castrated at Starrcade. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I hate to sound like Bischoff, but this is such a  lazy take. While it was a somewhat unsatisfactory ending in hindsight (certainly not as a 10 year old watching live), a clean decisive Sting win would’ve meant no rematch at SuperBrawl, and a Hall/Sting main event (or any other combo except maybe bringing Sting/Savage forward 2 months) would’ve done worse numbers than the rematch actually did. 

Even if you accept the questionable “He’s not tanned, Brother” reason, pivoting away and not even having the match WOULD have been way worse than what they actually did. Certainly by Uncensored 97 it was clear fans wanted Sting to be the one to take down Hogan and Starrcade always made the most sense for that from that point. Luger/Giant/Bret/Flair would’ve all been a let down in that spot, and would’ve had to likely to the job to keep Hogans big title loss for when Sting was eventually ready. Dragging out their first confrontation until 1998 likely would’ve cooled it off even more and we would most likely be pointing to that delay as being the reason for the death of the company.

But back to the wider point, their PPV buyrates and TV ratings show there was very little negative effect on business as a result of the finish of Starrcade 97 (or 98 for that matter). It’s hard to think it killed business when Goldberg hadn’t even started his rise at that point. The summer and fall of 99 is when the real drop offs for ratings and buy rates happened, with the end of Russo v1.0 driving the final nail in the coffins with fans. I’d still argue everything was still salvageable up until Havoc/Starrcade 99. Fans would’ve still gotten behind Goldberg as late as Havoc 99, but he still would’ve needed a strong heel/group of heels to work with afterwards. Funnily enough, Bischoff leading a group of heels is probably the best possible story they could’ve told at that point, but clearly not a realistic option considering Russo hadn’t failed at that point.

I actually don’t mind what Russo’s initial plan seemed to be (again except I’d have had Goldberg stay champ after Havoc 99 and still do a Sid rematch at Mayhem as a title match and just switch make the tourney to a No 1 contenders match instead of vacant title tourney), which really does seem like it was cruelled by injury to Goldberg right when it was getting started. I don’t know that it would’ve necessarily turned business around to the point they were challenging Vince, but it may have kept their ratings attractive enough as a TV property to make it worthwhile for a different buyer.

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On 12/28/2022 at 11:32 PM, BloodyChamp said:

 

As for what they should have done next had Hogan not wussed out, it almost doesn’t even matter. They would have been able to push and sell whoever and whatever they would have wanted. Goldberg wouldn’t have even even had to have existed. They had Sting vs Scott Hall, or Bret Hart, or Ric Flair as potential backup plans had Hogan went down clean if you remember. When those are your built in back up plans you know you have it going on. He could have wrestled Benoit, Raven, and just anybody really. They could have advertised any match on TV for a ppv and it would have sold. But no they had to ruin it. 

 

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Raven is the guy I would’ve moved Sting onto. They were both such similar characters(remember when Raven made his debut, and stood on opposite sides of Sting with Hogan scared to death in the middle). I could imagine a scenario where raven would try to convince sting that they should team up, and destroy the nWo together once, and for all, with Raven helping Sting for weeks. Even having both as a tag team. But then he alludes in his actions to destroy his WCW buddies too, and that’s a step too far for the brooding Sting. It’d be like a Mega Powers situation, and ends at Starrcade in a Death Drop Vs. Evenflow battle. Sting is a comic book character, and WCW Raven should’ve been larger than life  to feel like a threat.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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On 1/19/2023 at 11:06 AM, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Raven is the guy I would’ve moved Sting onto. They were both such similar characters(remember when Raven made his debut, and stood on opposite sides of Sting with Hogan scared to death in the middle). I could imagine a scenario where raven would try to convince sting that they should team up, and destroy the nWo together once, and for all, with Raven helping Sting for weeks. Even having both as a tag team. But then he alludes in his actions to destroy his WCW buddies too, and that’s a step too far for the brooding Sting. It’d be like a Mega Powers situation, and ends at Starrcade in a Death Drop Vs. Evenflow battle. Sting is a comic book character, and WCW Raven should’ve been larger than life  to feel like a threat.

Sting vs The Flock may have been a better use of Sting in 1998 than what they actually did, but I don’t see that playing out in the way you described. He could’ve transitioned to a feud with The Flock instead of the stupid Wolfpac angle (and The Flock angle not being so aimless from May until September).

In a weird way, the Starrcade match being a title match probably played a part of why Sting had such a poor 1998 compared to 1997. By being the “protector” of WCW, he needed to either be a dominant champion or not the champion at all. Hogan dropping the title to The Giant in the Oct/November due to Stings involvement (not necessarily direct interference, he could stop a nWo run in causing a distraction for Hogan leading to a Giant win) wouldn’t have hurt the build for Hogan/Sting at all. If anything, it would’ve put everybody in a better position going forward even if things play out relatively similar from there. The Nash/Giant match at Starrcade likely goes down on the show with Nash’s heart scare eased by being in a World title match on the show. The start of the nWo split can take place in much the same way, except with both Hogan & Nash’s failures against the Giant being the prompt instead of the weird Savage/Bischoff angle. Giants joining the nWo in May makes more sense if he is the guy to drop the title to one of the nWo factions. 
 

In that hypothetical, Sting can have his Hogan issue still go thru to Super Brawl. Instead of the throwaway Hall match at Uncensored, Sting can take a month or two off to keep the character fresh (with the excuse being that a still WCW Giant is champion and with Hogan being defeated, he is no longer needed to protect WCW). He could then return and have his saviour of WCW vs the nWo character be fresh again either once Giants lose the belt or turns, or transition to Raven at that point (again as WCW’s protector against its next threat). A 3-6 month run of Sting treating The Flock basically like he did with the nWo would’ve done more to elevate The Flock members more than what they actually did, just by virtue of being involved with such a hot character.

 

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True, I can see the same stuff Saturn, and Kanyon did with The Flock breaking up working better with Sting being the catalyst. Maybe even put Kanyon in The Flock so they can elevate another person with talent after the split. Because let’s be serious, the rest of the Flock outside Saturn, and Kidman had no hope.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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