Mike Reviews Shows Considered To Be Stinkers – WCW Starrcade 1994

Happy Stinky Friday Everyone!

We close out our journey into 1994 WCW today by looking at Starrcade, an event that carries a questionable reputation to say the least. We’ve got Hulk Hogan and The Butcher clashing for the WCW Title, Kevin Sullivan taking on Mr. T (Yes, THAT Mr. T), The Avalanche looks to bury Sting, and Randy Savage will be showing up to either shake Hulk Hogan’s hand or slap his face.

You can view the full card for the event by clicking below, as we explore whether Starrcade 94 truly is a Stinker or not;

WCW Starrcade 1994 Card

Pics come courtesy of a review from Paul Matthews

Starrcade is emanating from Nashville, Tennessee on the 27th of December 1994

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

Evad Sullivan is dressed as Father Christmas.

The US national anthem is sung by Aaron Tippin.

The announce team yaks for a bit, as we get a recap of RandySavage talking about Hulk Hogan.

Bill Apter awards Hulk Hogan with the PWI Wrestler of the Year award. Yeah, sure. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Owen Hart, Mitsuhara Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada all had some of the best matches ever seen in the history of wrestling in 1994 and were all major stars in their respective promotions, but HULK HOGAN was the real star of 1994!

Opening Match
WCW United States Title
Champ: “Hacksaw” James Duggan Vs Vader w/ Harley Race

Vader was getting a decent push in preparation of heating him up for a feud with Hulk Hogan in 1995, so this is a continuation of that. Duggan had managed to win a feud over Steve Austin, and now he’s having to defend his belt against Vader. From the start of Starrcade to the opening bell of this contest, we’ve had to wait 13 minutes. 13 smegging minutes! That’s just inexcusable for a major pay per view event. I get wanting to set the scene for the folks at home somewhat, but that’s beyond ridiculous. Don’t leave us standing around on such a big event like Starrcade. We’ve paid to see wrestling, so let us see some wrestling! Vader attacks Duggan as he makes his entrance, but Duggan manages to fight Vader off and stands tall in the ring, with even Harley Race taking a punch from Duggan in the process. Duggan continues to clobber Vader in the opening exchanges, with Vader selling it well and the crowd being into the idea of these two big men slugging it out.

Duggan actually manages to body slam Vader at one stage, but Vader kicks out of the follow up pin at two, and he even manages to kick out of Duggan’s trademark Old Glory Knee Drop at one stage as well. The commentary team didn’t make as big a deal of that kickout as you’d think they would, seeing as Vader just survived one of Duggan’s main signature attacks. Vader eventually starts slugging back after spending the majority of the opening exchanges on the backfoot, with Duggan going on to miss the Genichiro Elbow Drop from the second rope. Vader sends Duggan to the floor following that, and that appears to be the cut off, with Vader working Duggan over back inside the ring. Duggan sells that well and Vader is his usual violent self in there, so his stuff looks good, most likely because he really is just hitting Duggan as hard as he can in safe places. Vader flattens Duggan with the Pump Splash from the second rope, but Duggan manages to get his foot on the ropes to break up the pin.

I like how that was almost blind luck from Duggan, with Vader possibly accidentally swinging Duggan’s leg onto the rope. You can say that Duggan got lucky or spin it as him being resourceful, but either way you’re protecting one of Vader’s big moves that he’s actually won matches with before, which is always good to see. Make your special moves look effective and they’ll stay over, even if you don’t always win with them. Vader tries to finish Duggan off with a Moonsault, but Duggan is able to dodge it and then makes the comeback, with the crowd getting behind the Champion in his quest to retain his US Title. Duggan gets a big Three Point Stance Clothesline, which looks like it will end things but Race breaks up the pin with a thumb to the eyes, which the referee of course misses. That’s another example of someone’s signature move being protected though at least. Race again gets involved by distracting the referee when Duggan catches Vader with a Powerslam, and that allows Vader to get his Wheelbarrow Facebuster move for the three count.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: VADER
RATING: ***

Thoughts: They possibly went OTT in trying to protect Duggan there, as he dominated the early exchanges of the match and then had two clear visual victories over Vader that Vader only survived thanks to Harley Race getting involved. I’m not saying that Duggan should have been buried here, but I also think Vader could have got a slightly stronger win without making Duggan look weak in the process. I get that Vader cheated and relied on Race quite a lot considering how big and scary he was, with the idea being that he was ultimately a bully who perhaps wasn’t as tough as he always let on, but if he was going to challenge Hulk Hogan (the 1994 WOTY I should remind you…) then he should have probably dispatched one James Duggan a bit more easily than this. Duggan was a star and no chump by any means, but it’s not like a semi-clean loss to Vader was really going to send him tumbling down the pecking order. Vader SHOULD be beating Jim Duggan. Duggan’s a set-up guy for the more important babyface. I found the level of protection Duggan got here to be tad excessive. The match itself was a good way to open Starrcade overall, as it was an energetic big man brawl and the crowd got into it. It’s just a shame we had to wait so long to actually see if after the seemingly never-ending pre-amble at the start of the show

Mean Gene Okerlund is interviewing The Three Faces of Fear (Kevin Sullivan, The Avalanche and The Butcher) backstage in the locker room. The Heels have a headstone for Hulkamania, because it’s going to die tonight you see.

Anyway, Butcher says he’s going to win the World Title tonight (yeah, dream on mate). Avalanche says that he finally has Sting one on one, and he hopes that Sting has paid up his health insurance, because he’ll need it tonight. That’s really thoughtful of Avalanche, what a swell guy. Sullivan seems pretty confident that he and his buddies will stand tall tonight at Starrcade. Avalanche then yells and jumps around a lot. Well, that was certainly a segment that happened.

Match Two
Jean-Paul Levesque Vs “Das Wunderkind” Alex Wright

Levesque is Triple H playing a snobby Frenchman, whilst Wright is a smiling techno dancing German babyface. This is essentially a 1994 WCW version of a Young Lion’s match in New Japan, as it’s two inexperienced, yet mechanically sound, youngsters going in there and keeping it simple. Why they’re doing this match on Starrcade of all places is beyond me, but I get what they’re going for with it. The OSW Review lads brought this up in their review of Starrcade 94, but Levesque’s music doesn’t suit him at all here. He’s supposed to be a snooty French aristocrat, yet his music sounds like something you’d hear during a battle in a Dynasty Warriors game. Wright’s music does at least sound like something a German techno dancer would enter the ring to. Most of the women in the crowd swoon over Wright, and you can see why as he’s very attractive a very 90’s way.

The work here is totally fine, as they mostly stick to doing stuff like arm drags, dropkicks and basic holds. The crowd doesn’t really care that much about it, but it’s “perfectly cromulent” action as Scott Keith would say. It’s certainly not the calibre of match you’d expect to see on the supposed biggest show of the year, but for what it is, it’s fine. Eventually Levesque decides he’s had enough of technical wrestling and starts delivering punches and kicks instead, which is the cut off. I must say that I’m a sucker for stuff like that, as the villain essentially throwing in the towel on the wrestling contest and making it a fight is a great way of admitting that the babyface is actually the better wrestler of the two in a fair contest. Wright sells well whilst getting worked over, and Levesque looks good on offence and does some decent Heel mannerisms whilst getting the heat on his German foe. Levesque eventually misses an elbow from the ropes though, which leads to Wright making the comeback with some forearms and uppercuts, with some of them being laid in pretty snug. Wright manages to dodge an attack in the corner from Levesque, and a roll-up nets Wright the three straight after.

WINNER: ALEX WRIGHT
RATING: **

Thoughts: This had no real business being on a show the magnitude of Starrcade, but as a match it was totally fine. Both wrestlers played their respective roles reasonably well and the action was acceptable, if not especially exciting

Match Three
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Johnny B. Badd Vs “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson w/ Colonel Robert Parker and THE MONSTER MENG

This was supposed to be Badd taking on Honky Tonk Man, but Honky wouldn’t do a job on pay per view without a contract, so Eric Bischoff fired him and now Arn is getting the Starrcade gig instead. They don’t really do much to explain it, with Arn just coming out and the commentary team musing that Honky was too scared to show up. Badd is pretty over with the crowd during his entrance thanks to them getting a kick out of his confetti gun. Arn of course immediately complains about Badd trying to throw punches, owing to Arn being an old school grappler at heart. Badd gets the better of things in the early going, with Arn getting frustrated by it and constantly trying to find ways to halt Badd’s momentum. It’s solid wrestling for the most part, although it’s a bit heatless because all of the build was for Honky Vs Badd and Arn has just been parachuted in at the last minute without a storyline reason, so the crowd are a bit cold to the match.

The height of Arn’s grousing is when he complains that Badd was pulling his hair, even though Arn barely has any hair to pull, which is always a good gag to show how whiny a Heel is being. Arn finally tries a punch of his own, and Badd quickly peppers Arn with a series of his own punches now that Arn has opened the door for this to be a slugfest. Arn manages to catch Badd with a desperation Spine Buster OUTTA NOWHERE though, although Arn is too stunned from the prior Badd punches to go for a cover. However, Badd has been sufficiently weakened by the big move and now Arn can work some heat, even adding in the old rope-assisted Abdominal Stretch at one stage. Badd sells everything well and Arn’s usual top class execution is on full display, so it’s a well worked heat segment, even though they’re still struggling to get the crowd into this due to the cold nature of the bout itself.

Badd eventually catches Arn with a flying head scissors and makes the comeback, with Badd desperately trying to get the crowd to react and them still not really obliging. Arn tries to reply with a rope-assisted pin attempt, but the referee catches Arn and stops the count. Arn stupidly decides to argue with the referee, even though Badd is now in the ascendency, and that leads to Badd catching Arn with a quick roll-up for the three count to retain his Title.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: BADD
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: This was absolutely fine from an in-ring perspective, but sadly the crowd reactions were sorely lacking, to the point that I actually started feeling sorry for the two wrestlers in the bout, as they were working hard and putting the effort in, but they just couldn’t get the crowd to bite

The Nasty Boys are the Tag Team of the Year for 1994. Yes, not The Holy Demon Army, The freaking Nasty Boys. I mean, I like The Nasty’s just fine, but COME ON!

Match Four
The Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) w/ Sister Sherri Vs The Nasty Boys (Knobbs and Sags)

Sherri’s debut back at a previous Clash of the Champions led to The Heat defeating The Nasty’s, so this is a continuation of that issue. This one is wild brawl to start, and it’s quite entertaining, with Booker and Sags fighting in the ring whilst Stevie and Knobbs fight outside the ring. Sags actually gets a Pump Handle Slam on Booker and seemingly has the bout won, but the referee is distracted by the Stevie/Knobbs fight on the floor and that allows Booker to survive. They eventually get this settled down into an actual tag match, with Booker getting a flurry on Sags, and seemingly really laying it in as well. The Nasty’s reply in kind, as there are so many potatoes here that you could fill a bathtub with Gnocchi.

Stevie and Knobbs have a miscommunication on an Irish Whip reversal at one stage, so Knobbs just goes route one and clotheslines Stevie as hard as he possibly can. When in doubt, just hit someone really hard, I guess. The Nasty’s look to be targeting the arms and shoulders of both of The Heat members, which is a rare bit of wrestling strategy from them. Eventually Sags ends up outside the ring though, and that leads to Stevie and Sags fighting down the aisle, with Stevie getting the better of things. That appears to be the cut off, with The Heat working over Sags in their half of the ring. Stevie Ray of course locks in a lazy rest hold at one stage, in this case a Nerve Pinch, which at least looks a bit better than his trademark chinlock, which has so much space you could drive an 18 wheeler through it.

Sags eventually manages to turn Booker inside out with a clothesline and then catches The Heat with a Double DDT, leading to the Knobbs hot tag. Knobbs keeps it simple with punches and clotheslines, and the crowd gets into the idea of him beating up the Heels. Things break down, with the ref getting distracted by Booker and Sags fighting outside the ring, leading to Sherri trying to throw something in Knobbs’ face. Knobbs dodges that though, leading to Stevie getting blinded instead, and then Knobbs slams Booker off the top rope. Sags comes off the top with an elbow to Booker, but Sherri interferes in the pin attempt and that leads to the referee calling for the bell in an exceedingly unsatisfying result to the contest.

WINNERS BY DQ: THE NASTY BOYS
RATING: **

Thoughts: I’m not sure this needed to be 18 minutes, especially with a finish that cruddy, but The Nasty’s seemed to always get 5-10 minutes longer than they actually needed for their WCW matches, even though they weren’t really equipped for doing more than 10 most of the time unless they were in there with a really good opposing team like The Rockers or Hart Foundation. It was okay for the most part, and eventually we were getting a Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl between the two teams in 1995, so doing a DQ to prolong the feud actually made sense here. It just would have been better if they’d done it in 8 minutes instead of 18, but most of the matches have got some time tonight and I guess they wanted to keep that going seeing as it was Starrcade and all?

The Nasty’s send Sherri to Pity City following the match, which is probably the best way for some babyfaces to do something physical to a Heel woman and not come across as total jerks, seeing as they’re not hitting her. That’s not giving you permission to rub your smelly arm pit on the face of a woman you don’t like though lads, so please don’t do that.

Sting is the most popular wrestler of 1994. Sting is a beloved figure in wrestling, so I’ll allow that one.

Mean Gene is interviewing Sting backstage, which gives Sting an opportunity to cut his usual bombastic promo about how his fans are his lifeblood, and tonight he’s going to be a giant killer. I’m a sucker for Surfer Sting, so I enjoyed this a lot.

SuperBrawl V will be the 19th of February 1995. If WWE Network still exists in some form when the time comes for me to work on February’s reviews, then I’ll make sure to fit that one in.

Mean Gene interviews Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart backstage. This is actually Hogan’s first ever Starrcade, and here he is wrestling The Butcher. Hogan said he’d hoped that Butcher would change his mind on having the match tonight, but Butcher isn’t going to do that, so the power of Hulkamania will take care of Butcher later on. Mean Gene tries to move on to Jimmy Hart following that, but Hogan cuts him off because he hasn’t finished yet, and then addresses Randy Savage. Hogan seemed legitimately annoyed at Gene there. Oh come on Hulk, Gene was probably already 4 Martini’s in by this stage in the night, cut him some slack!

Match Five
Special Score Settling Contest
“The Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan Vs Mr. T

Sullivan is the leader of the dreaded “Three Faces of Fear” stable, who have been opposing Hulk Hogan recently. Mr. T was Hogan’s buddy in the WWF back in the 80’s, so he was brought in for a run in 1994 WCW, even though his fame had waned considerably in that time and he hadn’t yet started getting the nostalgia pops that he gets today. Like, if you brought Mr. T out today he’d probably be more over now than he was in 1994, because we’re happier to indulge in nostalgia now than we were in the 90’s, which was a very cynical decade where such things were more frowned upon.

T actually throws some reasonable punches early on, with Sullivan selling them well. The downside is that T is pretty much exhausted following that, and he’s sucking wind for the rest of the match. Sullivan does the best he can to drag T through the rest of the match, with him mostly keeping it simple so that T doesn’t really have to do much more than lie down and get stomped. Evad Sullivan and Jimmy Hart come down to help though, with Hart distracting the referee so that Evad can clock Kevin with Hart’s megaphone, and that leads to T getting the improbable victory.

WINNER: MR. T
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: This was no good man, but Kevin Sullivan did the best he could to try and make it borderline watchable, so I’ll be generous with the rating. Outside of some nice looking punches at the start, T was pretty useless though, as he was knackered following that initial flurry and Kevin had very little to work with

Kevin Sullivan gets his heat back following the bout by beating Evad Sullivan up, which he kind of needed to do in order to be remotely taken seriously as any kind of threat to Hulk Hogan following that loss.

Match Six
The Avalanche w/ Kevin Sullivan Vs The Man Called Sting

Lanche would be better known as John “Earthquake” Tenta, a big Hogan foe from 1990 who was brought in for a payday. Eventually the WWF would get angry at this gimmick, feeling it was too close to Earthquake, and that meant that Lanche would have to become a shark instead. To be fair to the WWF, Tenta has a natural disaster themed name and his music is basically just his WWF theme, so I get why the WWF thought the gimmick was a bit rum on WCW’s part. They mostly walk around taunting to start, possibly because the match is going to go for 15 minutes and Lanche wants to conserve some energy? The crowd seems to buy into the idea of this being a big match at least, with them cheering whenever Sting does something. I guess if you were a long time WCW fan who had been around since Turner bought JCP, you’d see this as a homegrown hero in Sting taking on a big Heel from the rival promotion, so you’d naturally be a bit more interested in this one than a regular match?

Lanche eventually uses his size to take control of things, with Sting getting squished both in the middle of the ring and in the corner. Sting sells it all well, and the crowd stays with the contest, but it’s not exactly the most exciting battle you’ll ever see. Sting does fight back with some kicks to the leg, and that leads to Lanche bailing outside to regroup, before getting into the ring and working a headlock. This match has felt kind of disjointed thus far, although I can see what they’re going for with Sting constantly attacking Avalanche’s legs, I guess in order to prep the big man for The Scorpion Deathlock? Lanche is always able to regain control though, and continues to slowly work Sting over. Sting’s selling continues to be good, but the match really feels like it’s going nowhere. Sting tries to take Lanche down with a Sleeper, and the crowd continues to inexplicably be quite into this, but Lanche manages to survive the hold and makes it to the ropes.

Sting goes after the legs again and then tries a slam, which doesn’t seem consistent with his previous strategy, and Avalanche lands on top of Sting in order to snuff out that comeback attempt from the Stinger. Avalanche preps for the Aftershock (I guess it’d be the Landslide now that Tenta is an Avalanche?) but Sting dodges it and then makes the comeback. Sting successfully gets the Stinger Splash, but he doesn’t realise that the referee is in the corner behind Lanche, which means that the referee gets squished in the process. Sting manages to body slam Avalanche following that, and the crowd goes HOSS for it. Sting tries to follow up with the Scorpion Deathlock, but Kevin Sullivan attacks the Stinger. Sting does his best to fight off both of the Heels, but that proves too much for him and Lanche is able to get the Landslide. Hulk Hogan runs down with a chair though to clear the ring, with a second referee coming down to award Sting the win via DQ because I guess he saw Sullivan’s involvement? Hey, a replacement ref who isn’t dumb, what a novelty!

WINNER BY DQ: STING
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: They should have used the Glacier name for Tenta instead of Ray Lloyd, because this one felt like it was wrestled in slow motion at points. Despite that, it had decent reactions from the crowd, but it was very disappointing to see this sort of performance from John Tena, as he’d been a lot better during the peak of his WWF run and could work at a quicker clip than what we saw here. The great crowd reactions kept it bordering on watchable, but it wasn’t an especially good match and the finish dragged it down a bit, although I understand them not wanting Avalanche to lose so soon into this push. The crowd seemed happy enough with the finish though in fairness, as the reaction was less “you cheated us out of a clean finish” and more “we’re glad that the guy we liked won”, which was a bonus

Jimmy Hart is the Manager of the Year. It was him or Ted Dibiase when it came to North American wrestling for 1994 really. I guess you could go with Paul E. Dangerously maybe? He did a good job with 911 and Sabu in 1994.

Main Event
WCW World Title
Champ: Hulk Hogan w/ Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart Vs The Butcher

Hogan had hit WCW during the summer of 94 and initially things had been a success. He had drawn two good buy rates taking on Ric Flair and the company had received a boost from having him come on board. However, once the Flair feud was over things started getting a bit cartoony, with Kevin Sullivan putting together a wacky 80’s styled Heel faction of himself, The Avalanche and The Butcher (Brutus Beefcake), with their goal being to destroy Hulkamania. The group was named The Three Faces of Fear, with Butcher getting his name because he had “butchered” his long-time friendship with Hulky in order to join the group.

Though Hogan had done good business with Flair; Butcher wasn’t anywhere near as interesting an opponent for him, even with the whole betrayal angle they had going on. Certainly not for a Starrcade level event at least. They might have gotten away with it on a Clash of Champions or B-Show pay per view, but there was no way people were buying that as the Main Event of the biggest show of the year. And yes, I know Eric Bischoff always thought SuperBrawl was a more important show than Starrcade, but stuff his opinion and all who sail in it. They honestly would have had a better chance at popping a buy rate by going with Avalanche, as he had been a big Hogan foe at one stage and it had been nearly five years since their initial feud by this stage, so they might have been able to drum up some interest by going back to it, especially for lapsed fans who hadn’t been around for John Tenta’s mid-card babyface antics in the WWF during the previous couple of years.

It says everything really that the big selling point for this show wasn’t the actual match between Hogan and Butcher but whether the debuting Randy Savage would slap Hogan in the face or not. I can see it now “Quick honey, fetch me a telephone and my credit card, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage might actually SHAKE HANDS on pay per view! We won’t want to miss a moment like that! I don’t care if that money has been set aside for our daughter’s medication, we need to see if Randy Savage will slap Hogan or not. She’ll understand”

I do love “American Made” as entrance music for Hogan though, especially as WCW Era Hogan was the first time I ever saw him rock the Red and Yellow, meaning the song has some nostalgia for me. WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel sends Sullivan and Lanche to the back prior to the match, leaving this as a one on one encounter, which leads to the usual Hogan match breaking out, which is fun when the opponent is interesting and kind of boring when they aren’t. Butcher would fall more into the latter category sadly. He was a decent enough babyface act prior to breaking his face in 1990, but I never really cared for his Heel work in the WWF and I only really dug his Heel run there when he was teaming with Greg Valentine.

Butcher’s main problems here are that his selling is overly cartoon-like and goofy, his offence doesn’t really look that good, his character is pretty generic and it’s close to impossible to actually buy him as any sort of threat to Hogan. It would be like if WWE had tried Main Eventing WrestleMania with Roman Reigns taking on someone like Baron Corbin during the Vince McMahon years. That being said; in that scenario Vince would have probably put Corbin over just to mess with people, but pretend that this would be happening in a universe where Vince wasn’t a spiteful cry arse who made stupid booking decisions just to screw with his fan base. Hogan treats Butcher as a bit of a joke too, even busting out some wacky Kung-Fu styled attacks at one stage, which is done to elicit laughs from the crowd in what is supposedly a big grudge match.

When Hogan is actually taking the match seriously he does fine, selling well and bumping for Butcher’s offence as best he can. Butcher angers up my blood by working a nerve pinch at one stage, which long-time readers of my work will know is my all-time least favourite rest hold. Hogan has his fans in the building who are into this, but most of the crowd doesn’t get overly invested in the action and spends a lot of time looking over to the entrance way, possibly because they know the bout is unlikely to end until either The Faces of Fear or Randy Savage show up.

Butcher eventually locks in the Sleeper, although it looks pretty loose (maybe he was taking lessons from Stevie Ray), and they do the old hand drop spot which leads to Butcher letting go of the hold just before the hand drops for three. So not only is Butcher an ineffectual goon, he’s also a moron to boot! Hogan does the old Hulk Up routine following that, which is finally the cue for Sullivan and Lanche to run down and attack him. Hogan fends them off and drops the leg on Butcher for the three count. Wow, they didn’t even give Butcher the dignity of a DQ loss. That’s the clearest indication of just how non-serious a threat Dizzy Hogan was to his best buddy here at Starrcade.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: HULK HOGAN
RATING: *

Thoughts: This was pretty lousy, even by mid-90’s Ed Leslie standards, as his offence looked horrid and the booking made him look like an absolute chump. Hogan alternated between working hard and not appearing to be that bothered. You’d think that considering Hogan was wrestling his real-life close friend on the biggest show of the year, he would have bust a gut to have the best match he possibly could in order to help his friend out, but that’s not exactly what we got here

Randy Savage runs down and looks to be siding with the Heels (Which I guess would have made them The Four Faces of Fear?) but it’s all a SWERVE and he ends up helping Hogan fight them off to remain a babyface. Interestingly I think Scott Keith mentioned in one of his Wrestling Observer Flashbacks that at some stage in 95 they wanted to do Hogan, Savage, Sting and Flair as the new Four Horsemen, which honestly strikes me as the most lopsidedly strong babyface faction ever. I mean, seriously, who in WCW at that time would have been any kind of a threat to those four guys if they decided to team up? I’m not surprised they didn’t go with it.

Hogan and Savage don’t have long to celebrate their new alliance though, as Vader accosts them backstage and declares himself the #1 contender to Hogan’s World Title, which would end up being the Main Event of SuperBrawl V. Hogan hanging out with all the babyfaces backstage was a nice touch though, with The Armstrong brothers getting to be faces in the crowd chumming up to The Hulkster. Jerry Sags ends up being like Moe facing off with Drederick Tatum in the stadium brawl, as he tries to separate the Vader and Hogan argument, and ends up being the only guy between the two at one stage and has a great deer in the headlights expression where he realises that he might have to fight this giant scary man. Tremendous, and one of the highlights of the entire show.

Is It Really A Stinker?

By the standards of what you expect from the supposed biggest show of the year, Starrcade 1994 was a definite Stinker. Had Avalanche Vs Sting been a better match, then it might have moved things up to Stinky, but that match ended up being really dull, so there wasn’t enough on the undercard to make up for the last three matches underdelivering. Vader Vs Duggan was good, with Anderson/Badd, Heat/Nasty’s and Levesque/Wright all being okay, so it wasn’t like the whole show stunk or anything. But those last three matches really dragged Starrcade down and it never really recovered in my opinion.

Had this been a Clash of the Champions or a less important pay per view, then I might have been a tad more generous. But this was supposed to be Starrcade, and as a result I don’t think the show really deserved any unearned extra generosity in all honesty. The first half of 1995 was hardly a banner period for WCW, but we’ll get into that as far as we can until WWE Network gets shut down when WWE moves to Netflix here in the UK.

Final Rating – Stinker
(Scores done on a scale of Stinker/Stinky/Odourless/Pleasant/Fragrant)