Happy Wednesday Everyone!
We return to the rebooking series this time because I felt like having a bash at WCW Starrcade 1994, mainly because Scott reviewed it during the tail end of last year and it inspired me to try it. The real show featured Hulk Hogan taking on Ed Leslie in the Main Event whilst Kevin Sullivan fought Mr. T, which didn’t end up being a critical success.
Let’s have a go and see what I can come up with. Hopefully it will be fun stuff!
You can view the full card for the event by clicking the link below;
Opening Match
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Johnny B. Badd Vs The Honky Tonk Man
10 Minutes
In real life this match didn’t happen because Honky didn’t want to do a job without a contract. I dig Honky’s act and there could have potentially been some fun stuff you could do with him, so I’ll sign him up and get him in there so we can finish this feud off. Badd can end up getting the win and both wrestlers can move on to new things. Hopefully it should be a fun opener with lots of crowd interaction. We won’t beat Honky into powder or anything but the result will be clean.
Match Two
Meng w/ Robert Parker Vs Dustin Rhodes
10 Minutes
Meng had entered the company earlier in the year as hired muscle for Parker and his Stud Stable, and he hadn’t had a big singles match on TV or pay per view yet. Dustin had been feuding with Parker for a big chunk of 94, so we’ll have him taking on the bodyguard here in Meng’s first featured bout. Dustin can get his share of offence in here but ultimately Meng will pick up the clean win so as to have a strong Heel in the upper mid-card that we can program with the top babyfaces in a pinch.
Match Three
Jean-Paul Levesque Vs Alex Wright
10 Minutes
I don’t mind this match that much, although I think the initial run time was a little long so we’ll cut it down to 10 minutes but not make many other changes than that, with Wright catching Levesque for the flash pin to keep his push going.
Match Four
WCW Tag Team Titles
Champs: Stars and Stripes (Patriot and Marcus Bagwell) Vs Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) w/ Sensational Sherri
15 Minutes
In real life the Heat had won the belts at a TV taping prior to this show, so they ended up working a non-Title match on Starrcade 1994 because their Title win hadn’t aired on TV yet. Here we’ll move the Title change to the pay per view, seeing as it’s the biggest show of the year and changing a belt is a notable event. Sherri will get involved in the finish in order for the Heat to get a tainted win and leave the door open for some rematches. Heat will try a post-match attack, but The Nasty Boys will run down to make the save to establish them as future challengers. We’ll shoot an angle on the TV building up Starrcade where the Heat and Nasty’s trade some verbal barbs so that this rescue isn’t completely out of the blue.
Match Five
Steve Austin Vs Sting
15 Minutes
In this reality Steve Austin still loses the US Title to Hacksaw Duggan but he does so in a way that doesn’t make him look quite so weak. With that feud dealt with, we can make an effort to build Austin up by giving him some wins on TV and eventually finding himself in a feud with Sting. This will be one of Austin’s biggest pay per view singles bouts in his WCW career and we’ll let him get the lions share of the offence here in order to show that he’s on Sting’s level until Sting is able to eek out a win. Austin can be angered by this defeat and can start showing a harder edge in his matches on route to eventually getting a rematch and possibly picking up the victory in order to establish him as more of a threat in the upper card singles ranks.
Match Six
Kevin Sullivan and The Butcher Vs The Nasty Boys (Knobbs and Sags)
10 Minutes
This is the alternative way of using Sullivan and Butcher on this show, as rather than stinking things up in singles matches with Hogan and T we’ll instead put them in a tag situation so that they can get a win. Harlem Heat will be the deciding factor here, as they will ultimately cost The Nasty’s the match, thus setting the groundwork for The Nasty’s to come after them for revenge. Sullivan and Butcher get a win, The Nasty’s are protected and we’ve got a ready-made feud over the Tag Titles to do next year once the Heat have closed the book on Stars and Stripes.
Semi-Main
WCW United States Title
Champ: Hacksaw Duggan Vs Vader w/ Harley Race
12 Minutes
Not much need to change this one as it’s a good match. We’ll just put it on later in the night so it feels more important. Vader goes over to win the belt and set him up as a challenger for Hulk Hogan.
Main Event
WCW Title
Champ: Hulk Hogan w/ Jimmy Hart Vs The Avalanche w/ Kevin Sullivan
12 Minutes
I don’t really think there was any real great option as challenger for Hogan going into this one as clearly the end game was Vader and anyone else was kind of a stopgap. Thus we’ll give Avalanche the slot, as John Tenta was a relatively fresh face in WCW and you could possibly intrigue some casual fans by going back to one of Hogan’s more noteworthy feuds of the Hulkamania Era. The main issue I suppose is that “Hogan Vs a Big Monster” is also the story we’re going to be doing with Vader, but you can also kind of play into that by making Hogan have a lot of difficulty dealing with Avalanche here in order to send the message that Vader will be a really tough opponent for him as well. We’ll protect Avalanche in the finish as Sullivan can run in for the DQ when Hogan has the match won, leading to Randy Savage showing up to help Hogan fight off the Heels. Hopefully Savage being there and the fact we haven’t done a DQ or Count Out all night will placate the fans somewhat on the non-finish
In Conclusion
Let me know how you feel about this one. I think the show should be better purely from an in-ring aspect if nothing else as there isn’t anyone on the show who I’d say was actively horrible at this time and it’s slightly more believable that a big monster like Avalanche could take Hogan as opposed to The Butcher, so that match has somewhat more going on in the way of stakes.
We’ve set the table for further storyline advancement and feuds, with Harlem Heat/Nasty’s and Austin/Sting being able to continue following this. We’ve also given Vader a big win in the semi-main and he can now target Hogan in 1995, where we’ll have to do our level best to make sure that Hogan doesn’t no sell the Powerbomb in one of their first interactions.
We’ve got a good mix of Heel and Face wins, plenty of pin-fall finishes and overall I think that the card here overall feels like a bigger event than the real one. WCW didn’t really have a lot of marquee matches to deliver outside of Hogan/Vader once the Hogan/Flair feud was over, so there’s going to be some time needed in order to get people ready, which I think we’ve started here.
Please let me know what you think about this revised card and also feel free to share your own ideas in the comments section below!