Mike Reviews WCW Starrcade 1995

Happy Friday Everyone!

If you get to see this Starrcade review then it means I managed to get to it a year ago before WWE Network sadly went away. I’ve reviewed Halloween Havoc and World War 3 previously, so you can get yourself up to date with the goings on in WCW during this time period before we pick things up here with the Starrcade review.

The big story going into Starrcade is that New Japan Pro Wrestling are working with WCW here and are going to do a mini-tournament with WCW in order to decide the World Cup of Wrestling. Some of those matches should hopefully be good, whilst some others probably won’t be.

You can view the full card for Starrcade by clicking below;

WCW Starrcade 1995 Card

Logan has also reviewed this one, so go give it a read!

Starrcade is emanating from Nashville, Tennessee on the 27th of December 1995

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes

Thankfully the announce team manages to keep the pre-amble short, which is impressive when you consider that Dusty Rhodes does like a ramble now and then.

Opening Match
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #1
New Japan: Jushin Thunder Liger w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: Chris Benoit

These two of course wrestled a lot in Japan, with Liger being the one to take Benoit’s “Pegasus Kid” mask during one of their many bouts. The action is really good here, with the match being pretty even in order to show that both wrestlers are capable of winning. Liger is ostensibly having to work as a Heel here due to being from the rival promotion, but Benoit had only just become a Horsemen who are a Heel faction, so it’s a bit awkward for him to try and wrestle as a babyface. The crowd does have respect for Benoit, so he gets some scattered cheers during the match, but mostly the crowd just watches and enjoys whenever they see some good wrestling or cool moves. Tony Schiavone is making a real effort on commentary to call the action and get the move names correct because WCW hadn’t crushed his soul yet (It would eventually though, as it did for everyone else). Liger has some chances to win it but makes cocky cover’s, and that allows Benoit to kick out. Benoit fights back and looks to have things in hand, but Kevin Sullivan runs down to distract Benoit as the Horsemen and Dungeon of DOOM were feuding at the time, and that leads to Liger getting a rana for three.

WINNER: JUSHIN LIGER
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: Good wrestling here, although both wrestlers were ostensibly Heels here so it made it difficult for the crowd to really get into the story being told. I didn’t like the finish much either, as this is supposed to be a serious tournament and in the opening contest we’ve already had a goofy Attitude Era styled distraction roll-up finish. I get that they possibly wanted to give Benoit an out for losing, but if they were so worried about Benoit doing a jobski then why not put someone else in there to put Liger over like Dean Malenko?

Current Score: NJPW 1-0 WCW

Mean Gene Okerlund is interviewing Eddy Guerrero in the locker room. Eddy seems a bit uncomfortable cutting a white meat babyface promo here, but he’d get into a better groove with his promos when they turned him Heel in 1997. Gene does a good job of helping Eddy through the promo, teeing him up with lines etc when Eddy needs it.

Match Two
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #2
New Japan: Koji Kanemoto w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: “Das Wunderkind” Alex Wright

Kanemoto had previously been Tiger Mask III until he went back to being himself and kicking the heck out of people. Kanemoto was currently the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champ at the time, and he’s happy playing a jerk Heel whilst Wright is an established WCW babyface, so they should have a clear Heel/Face split for this one that the crowd can get into. We of course get a shot of a lady swooning in the crowd for Wright and his Bros styled 1990’s good looks whilst Wright makes his entrance. In a funny moment we get the crowd chanting “USA” in support of Wright, the techno dancing German. Kanemoto shows off his cocky personality whenever he’s in control and Wright actually shows some decent fire when fighting back, which was sometimes lacking from Wright’s act, as he was normally a smiling babyface without much in the way of an edge during this time period.

Both competitors play to the crowd in order to try and get them into the match, and it works a little bit but not as much as the wrestlers need it to for this one to not feel a bit flat. Wright’s selling is good and he fights from underneath well for the most part, but the crowd still doesn’t bite how you’d want them to. They haven’t just gone out there and done moves either, they’ve sold consistently, played their respective roles well and tried to include the crowd in the contest, but it just hasn’t worked for whatever reason. This is one of Wright’s better pay per view efforts during this initial WCW babyface run from a purely in-ring perspective though, and he gets some near falls before taking a Snake Eyes and a jacknife pin from Kanemoto for three.

WINNER: KOJI KANEMOTO
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Good effort from both wrestlers, but the crowd just wasn’t biting and it left the match feeling a bit flat as a result. Wright entered a solid performance as a gutsy babyface who had to fight from underneath and show some grit, whilst Kanemoto was a good cocky Heel who could back up his cockiness with his wrestling ability. Wright looked really good here though and it’s surprising that he essentially became an enhancement talent in 1996 until they decided to turn him Heel in 1997, as he was regularly improving in the ring and could have arguably been used in a bigger role

Current Score: NJPW 2-0 WCW

Mean Gene hocks the hotline (dial now kids, Gene’s wine cellar is getting a bit sparse this time of year). Sonny Onoo comes over and brags about how good New Japan is doing.

Match Three
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #3
New Japan: “Mr. August” Masahiro Chono w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: “The Total Package” Lex Luger w/ Jimmy Hart

Both of these two are ostensibly Heels in their home promotions but Luger will probably be the de-facto Face here just because he’s repping WCW. Luger is very over with the crowd here, and he dominates in the early going with strikes and power moves. Interestingly though, when Chono takes over and does his usual posturing and character work, he only draws murmuring boos from the crowd, even though based on how HOSS the crowd was for Luger you’d think Chono would be drawing more heat for taking it to the loudest man in wrestling. Chono manages to get the Step-over Toe-hold Face-lock at one stage, but Luger makes the ropes and then yelps loudly when Chono starts punching him, because Luger. Sadly Bobby and Dusty make fun of Tony when he calls Chono’s Mafia/Yakuza Kick correctly, which is annoying because Tony has actually made an effort to do some research into the wrestlers here and he should be commended for it and not made fun of. Luger manages to catch Chono in the Torture Wrack OUTTA NOWHERE and that puts WCW on the board.

WINNER: LEX LUGER
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: The crowd liked Luger, so when he was able to have a sustained run of offence the fans were into the action, but they didn’t really care about Chono, even though Chono was doing all the traditional Heel mannerisms that you’d think the crowd would have been riled up by

Current Score: NJPW 2-1 WCW

Mean Gene is interviewing Sting in the locker room. Sting lost the US Title to Kensuke Sasaki in Japan, so he’s got a chance at revenge tonight. Sting says that Lex Luger is his best friend, but that won’t stop Sting trying to win the Triangle Match later on.

Match Four
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #4
New Japan: “Mr. Torture” Masa Saito w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: Johnny B. Badd w/ Kimberly Page

This is a weird combo of guys. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Badd to wrestle someone like Satoshi Kojima or Yuji Nagata who would stylistically match up a bit better with him? Onoo insults Kimberly on the mic prior to the match, so she insults his manhood in response and gets a good pop for it. The commentary team do a commendable job of getting Saito over to the viewers at home by talking about how scary and tough he is, but Saito doesn’t really live up to the hype in the resulting match. I respect the commentary team for trying though. Saito does get a lovely version of his trademark Saito Suplex at one stage at least, with Badd taking a nice bump for it. Saito takes most of the match here, with the crowd not massively caring, although there are some scattered boos for the evil Japanese man and his diminutive manager. There are some fun snug strike exchanges, but aside from that the match doesn’t have much going on and the two don’t really work well together. Saito ends up throwing Badd over the top and that leads to Badd getting the win.

WINNER BY DQ: JOHNNY B. BADD
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Lame finish and the match meandered a bit, but I’ve seen worse. I’m not sure why it was so essential to have Saito be part of this, as there were examples of younger more exciting wrestlers they could have put in there with Badd that might have led to a more interesting match

Current Score: NJPW 2-2 WCW

Mean Gene is interviewing Lex Luger w/ Jimmy Hart in the locker room. Hart says that Kevin Sullivan has a short fuse (pun not intended, although Mean Gene tries to go there) and that’s why he cost Benoit earlier. Luger cuts a good promo to hype up the Triangle Match later on. Randy Savage gets the brunt of Luger’s scorn, as Luger had Savage’s number at the time. Hart won’t be coming to the ring for the Triangle Match at Luger’s request.

Match Five
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #5
New Japan: Shinjiro Otani w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: Eddy Guerrero

Otani is one of the best Junior Heavyweight stars in New Japan history, although he’s sadly had numerous health issues in recent memory. Eddy had recently jumped to WCW from ECW, although he did have experience working in Japan as Black Tiger. This one has some excellent wrestling in it, with Eddy getting the better of it early on. All of the commentary team go out of their way to put Eddy over, showing that even early on into his WCW stint Eddy already had a reputation for being a good in-ring performer. Eddy gets to hit most of his big moves, such as a Powerbomb and a Brain Buster, but he can’t put Otani down and eventually Otani is able to hit two fantastic high flying moves in the form of a Missile Dropkick and a dive to the floor.

That gives us the heat segment, which features Otani putting a walloping on Eddy whilst Eddy sells it all really well. I will give the New Japan guys credit in that all of them have seemingly understood the assignment here as they are doing their best to work in a more heelish way in order to try and rile up the WCW fans. It’s just that for the most part the fans aren’t buying into it. Otani is choking Eddy on the ropes, stomping on his head and ripping away at Eddy’s face, all in an effort to make the fans angry, but they aren’t biting. You can argue that the fans don’t know who these Japanese guys are, but almost all of the WCW guys thus far have at least received some kind of positive reaction from the fans, so surely the fact alone that the Japanese guys are beating up the guys the fans like whilst being heelish should be enough for the crowd to be engaged, especially as some of the wrestling has been really good.

Eddy eventually fights back, getting a Body Slam out on the floor and then following with a big dive of his own, as they are both busting out the A Material for this bout here at Starrcade. There’s a great moment when Otani gets a Springboard Dropkick to the back of Eddy’s head and a fan stands up in the front row in absolute shock at the brutality of it. That leads into a pinning counter sequence, which ends with Otani on top to a chorus of boos.

WINNER: SHINJIRO OTANI
RATING: ****

Thoughts: They worked and worked and worked there, and eventually the fans were getting into it by the end. Otani was a great Heel and Eddy was a great Face and they worked together like a dream. It’s a shame we didn’t get a rematch of this one on another WCW pay per view at some stage as I would have absolutely loved to see a Round 2

Current Score: NJPW 3-2 WCW

Mean Gene is interviewing Randy Savage in the locker room. Savage says he isn’t thinking about the Triangle Match later on as all he cares about is the World Cup right now. Savage actually puts Luger over for winning earlier and says that he’ll set things up for Sting later on. Savage closes by saying that he’s in the Zone and he’s going to even the score up next. This was a good promo from Savage and I like how he focused on the World Cup as it made it feel more important and not an afterthought.

Match Six
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #6
New Japan: Hiroyoshi Tenzan w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: Randy Savage

Savage was the WCW Champ at the time, so I don’t like Tenzan’s chances here. Savage was legitimately carrying some injuries at the time, so he spends most of the match selling whilst Tenzan works him over. Savage is a good seller and Tenzan’s stuff looks fine, so it works well enough as a match story, but it doesn’t give the crowd a lot to get excited about. Savage manages to hold on and survive Tenzan’s pin attempts until an opportunity to fight back presents itself, which comes when Tenzan misses a Moonsault. Savage quickly gets a messed up Suplex and then follows with the Macho Elbow for three.

WINNER: RANDY SAVAGE
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: I thought the story of Tenzan working over the injured Savage but Savage being resilient enough to snatch a win at the end was well told within the match itself, but the crowd didn’t really get that into it because they weren’t really interested in watching some Japanese wrestler they didn’t really know beating up the World Champ. Plus, Savage only had to hit about three moves in that match, and the suplex that set up the elbow looked pretty awful, so that marks things down

Current Score: NJPW 3-3 WCW

Bobby Heenan has a freak out over WCW getting back into it as he’s cheering for New Japan due to Onoo bribing him.

Mean Gene is interviewing Ric Flair in the locker room. Flair is all about winning the World Title tonight and goes on a classic Flair rant about how he’ll be fresh in the Triangle Match whilst Luger and Sting will have already wrestled.

Match Seven
World Cup Of Wrestling Match #7
New Japan: Kensuke Sasaki w/ Sonny Onoo Vs WCW: Sting

Sasaki defeated Sting for the United States Title in Japan, so Sting has a shot at revenge here. Sting brings Old Glory out with him here and gets a pretty amazing reaction for his entrance, but then Sasaki attacks him and the crowd almost immediately dies. I’m not sure why they didn’t let Sting do a fast paced babyface shine there in order to capitalise on the crowd being into him rather than having Sasaki attack him right away. Sting does eventually fire back, and we get yet another example of WCW’s inconsistent over the top rope DQ rule, as Sting clotheslines Sasaki over the top to the floor and it’s not a DQ because the match isn’t supposed to end yet.

Sasaki is soon back in control, although he is actually drawing some Heel heat whilst doing it now, and he leans into it, showing once again that the New Japan guys understand that they are supposed to be the Heels tonight and that they’re doing their best to play up to it. This is probably the most crowd heat that any of these World Cup matches has had thus far, with Sting being really over with the crowd and Sasaki actually managing to draw boos from the fans. Sasaki applies his own version of the Scorpion Deathlock (which he took from his mentor Riki Choshu) and that gives the fans a chance to chant for Sting and he uses that support to power out to a good reaction. Sting ends up slipping out of a Samoan Drop and gets his version of the Scorpion Deathlock and Sasaki has to uncle in order to give Sting the win.

WINNER: STING
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Sting and Sasaki actually managed to get the crowd emotionally invested in this one, and Stings win ended up getting a monster pop as a result. It was a decently worked match too, with Sasaki doing some nice power stuff and Sting timing his comebacks well

Final Score: NJPW 3-4 WCW
WCW Wins The World Cup

The rest of Team WCW celebrates with Sting following the bout, as Mean Gene presents Sting with the trophy.

We get a video package for the Triangle Match.

Co-Main
Triangle Match
Winner gets a World Title match straight after
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs Lex Luger Vs Sting

This match sees one person waiting on the apron for a tag whilst the other two go at it inside the ring. Luger and Sting are buddies, but they have both already wrestled tonight whilst Flair is fresh. Luger and Sting were legitimately close friends in real life and actually worked pretty well as a tag team, but they seemingly had negative chemistry as opponents. Flair had great chemistry with both Luger and Sting, so this match is entertaining whenever Flair is in there and not very good when he isn’t. I also partly think that fans just didn’t really want to see Luger and Sting wrestle one another because they liked them more as partners and friends, whereas Flair against either Luger or Sting was usually always good so fans just instinctively looked forward to seeing it.

Flair and Sting do a great bit to start, with Luger visibly enjoying watching them go to work from the apron. Flair actually throws Sting out of the ring when the referee is distracted by Luger at one stage, which kind of leads to Flair working a heat segment on Sting whilst Luger tries to get the “hot tag”. I do like how Flair isn’t choosing to tag out, because then he’s out of contention for winning, so if he’s in control then why would he want out of there? At one point it looks like Luger will break up a Sting pin, which is treated as some kind of betrayal, but is he supposed to just stand there and lose the match? Luger gets tagged in following that though, which leads to Luger throwing Flair around whilst Flair begs off in classic Flair style.

Flair eventually starts targeting Luger’s left knee, which gives Luger another chance to yell loudly whilst getting worked over. Luger manages to fight back, which leads to Flair tagging out so that we can get Luger Vs Sting. Luger and Sting have some decent exchanges and some really sloppy ones where it doesn’t feel like they are on the same page at all. It makes for a messy series of exchanges that the crowd doesn’t get into, and it kind of kills off the match really, which is a shame as it had been really good up until Flair tagged out. The finish is pretty awful, although it is in line with Ric Flair’s devious cheating character. Luger has Sting in the beginnings of the Torture Wrack but the referee catches a stray boot to the face. This allows Flair to come in and kick Luger in the leg illegally and then throw Sting out over the top, which leads to both Luger and Sting being counted out outside of the ring, meaning that Flair advances to face Randy Savage.

WINNER: RIC FLAIR
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Flair Vs Sting or Luger was in the *** to **** range, whilst Luger Vs Sting was in the * to ** range depending on how messy it was at any given point, so we’ll go with **1/2 as the final score. The finish did kind of suck, but I also appreciate that it suited Flair’s “Dirtiest Player in the Game” moniker, so I’ll give it a little bit of leeway

Jimmy Hart runs down and asks to manage Flair up next, and Flair takes him up on it.

Main Event
WCW Title
Champ: Randy Savage Vs Ric Flair w/ Jimmy Hart

These two had actually already feuded in 1995 due to Flair attacking Savage’s dad back at Slamboree, and they would feud into 96 also, with their feud doing well at house shows and playing a big role in WCW finally becoming profitable. Savage won the belt in the World War 3 Battle Royal the previous month and now he’s putting up against his hated foe at Starrcade. Paul Orndorf comes down to watch in a neck brace, as The Horsemen had piledriven him on concrete recently. I don’t think they ended up paying that one off sadly due to Orndorff not being able to return to the ring. The crowd reactions aren’t great for this, and it actually sounds like Savage is getting some boo’s despite being the babyface.

Savage tries an axe handle to the floor, but Flair catches him on the way down and starts working him over, targeting his heavily bandaged left arm. Hart even gets some cheap shots in too for good measure. Savage sells it all well and makes the odd sporadic comeback, as the lack of crowd reactions here is really distracting, as it’s not like they’re having a terrible match or anything. Granted, it’s hardly been super exciting, but I’ve seen worse. Hart throws Flair his megaphone and distracts the ref, but Savage gets it and hits Flair with it before dropping the elbow. Flair blades off that but the ref isn’t there to count, which allows The Horsemen of Arn Anderson, Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit to run down. Savage fends them off for the most part, but Arn hits him with an International Object behind the referees back and that allows a bloody Flair to pick up the Title.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: RIC FLAIR
RATING: **

Thoughts: Just a match and they didn’t seem to be on the same page for parts of it. Flair’s win actually got a pretty big pop from the fans though.

The Horsemen do the big celebration following that, with Brian Pillman going particularly over the top with it in order to play into his “Loose Cannon” character, with him going as far as to whip Savage with the Title belt. That was brave of Pillman, especially if he didn’t clear it with Savage first.

In Conclusion

The World Cup of Wrestling had some really good wrestling at points, but sadly the crowd wasn’t always invested it, which left some of the matches feeling a bit flat. Still though, there were three really good matches in the World Cup and I enjoyed Kensuke Sasaki Vs Sting as well. Sting really was an underrated MVP for WCW, as he was so over that he got the fans to actually care about the World Cup in the deciding match. When Sting finally won the crowd exploded, showing that if they’d done a better job building up the Japanese wrestlers prior to Starrcade then the concept as a whole might have enjoyed better crowd reactions to go along with the good wrestling.

The Main Event matches didn’t really deliver in practice what you’d expect from seeing them on paper, but Flair was very entertaining in his parts of it at least, and after seeing Hulk Hogan dominating the promotion for 18 months it was nice to see someone else on top for a change. Overall I’d call Starrcade a thumbs up just for the match quality of the World Cup alone, but I’d say that Fall Brawl might be the best overall pay per view effort from WCW for the year.

Recommended show

And that’s it for me reviewing WWE Network shows I think (I’m writing this on 30th December 2024 and it looks like the Network goes away tomorrow). I’m going to really miss the Network and it’s gutting that it wasn’t financially viable enough for WWE to keep it around in some form, but I suppose it’s one less subscription to pay every month. Having WWE’s cavernous archives a mere click away was something a young me could only have dreamed of, and I’m really melancholy to see it go away, but sadly we can’t have nice things in this world I guess. I’m glad I chose to never throw away my physical DVD/VHS collection though, and I did consider it a few years back, but I always had a fear that the Network wouldn’t last and sadly that fear has come to pass.

Anyway, I guess I’ll have to find alternative things to review going forwards (And I probably will have been doing for quite a few months by the time you read this).

Here’s Semisonic to play us out