Mike Reviews Shows Considered To Be Stinkers – WCW Starrcade 1997

Happy Stinky Friday Everyone!

After reliving the terrible Main Event of Starrcade 1997 for my WCW Fan Favourites review a few months back I decided to review the show as a whole seeing as it was uploaded by F&C this year.

Presented as the show where WCW would finally get revenge on the nWo after the group had terrorised the promotion for 18 months, Starrcade 1997 would end up being nothing of the sort and just continued the usual booking malaise that the promotion was suffering from at the time.

It’s not like WCW’s business took an immediate nosedive following Starrcade 1997, but it was a bad show at the time they didn’t really need one, especially as the WWF was starting to kick it’s push of Stone Cold Steve Austin to the next level.

However, is the show itself THAT awful or does the Main Event and stodgy booking just make it feel worse than it actually was? Let’s watch on to find out, I guess.

You can view the full card by clicking below

WCW Starrcade 1997 Card

Starrcade 1997 is emanating from the MCI Centre in Washington, District of Columbia on the 28th December 1997

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Dusty Rhodes

We get the big dramatic opening video package that looks like it came right out of The Crow, and it’s very well done actually. You can see why this show drew so much interest back in 1997

We see that the wrestlers who aren’t booked for the show are sitting in the crowd to watch this, including luminaries such as Greg Valentine. The commentary team then yap on for a bit, because this is a WCW show and we always need to have downtime following the opening video and pyro so that the crowd can be flattened out. The gist of the yap session is that there are arguments over who the referee will be for the Main Event and that Kevin Nash hasn’t shown up to the event

Opening Match
WCW World Cruiserweight Title
Champion: Eddy Guerrero Vs “The Ice Man” Dean Malenko

Eddy had been a smiling babyface when he first got to WCW, but he turned Heel in 1997 and ended up becoming one of the best acts in company with his imperious in-ring work and perfected villainous scowl. Malenko had initially been a Heel upon his WCW debut in 1995, but he had gradually become a babyface over the course of 1996 and 1997 due to fans appreciating his smooth in-ring abilities. These two had notably wrestled one another quite a few times in ECW, with the bouts being so good that it helped earn them their WCW contracts during one of the most notable “talent raids” ECW endured in its lifetime.

Eddy hams it up as a sneering cowardly Heel here, whilst Malenko shows some good intensity as a grumpy fired up babyface, so it’s a decent match, although not quite as exhilarating as their best efforts. In fairness, they look to be focusing more on working their spot on the card rather than going out there to steal the show. Honestly, I think either approach works for the opener so long as it’s done correctly. You’re either going out there and doing the basics well in order to gradually warm the crowd up for the night of action ahead, or you’re going out there to tear it up and start the show with a bang.

The crowd responds well whenever Malenko splats Eddy with a big move or strike, and boos whenever Eddy Heels it up, but they’re a bit quiet aside from that. It doesn’t quite feel like the atmosphere you’d expect for the biggest show in WCW history, possibly because they did that amazing intro video and set off all the pyro, only to then just let the fans cool down for a few minutes so that we could get the commentary team whittering on. Eddy does his best to rile the crowd up though, and he is able to draw some reactions out of them, although he was probably hoping for a bit more.

Malenko gets an extended babyface shine, with Eddy taking some lovely bumps for it all, including a beautiful looking back suplex at one stage. Eddy is eventually able to snap Malenko’s neck over the top rope for the cut off and then targets Malenko’s legs, actually drawing some faint “Eddy” chants from certain sections of the crowd. Malenko sells it all well and Eddy looks good on offence, so it’s a solid heat segment. Malenko’s leg continues to bother him throughout the bout as well, with him getting a back breaker at one stage but being unable to follow up immediately due to recoiling in pain. Eddy manages to kick at Malenko’s leg to block the Texas Cloverleaf and the Frog Splash to the legs gives Eddy the clean win in a way that makes sense.

15 Minutes

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: EDDY GUERRERO
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was good, but it never really kicked into a higher gear and the fans never quite got into it the way you would have liked them to. They decided to go out and work an opener rather than a classic cruiserweight clash, and they nailed the brief, although you’re welcome to argue whether that was the right decision or not. I personally liked how the work on Malenko’s leg actually effected his performance as the bout wore on and it played directly into the finish too. It was psychologically sound and solidly wrestled, but it never really thrilled like you would hope a match from these two would

Kevin Nash was supposed to wrestle The Giant here, but he had severe acid reflux and thought it was a heart attack, so he’s not arrived to Starrcade. As much as people like to snark about Nash avoiding doing jobs (quite fairly in most instances), I’ve suffered from severe acid reflux in the past and I totally buy that you could mistake it for a heart attack, especially if you have a family history of heart attacks like Nash supposedly has. So, seeing as Nash hasn’t made it to Starrcade; Scott Hall comes out to cut a promo, leading to Giant walking out and giving Hall a Powerbomb after Hall peppers him with some punches first. Obviously, WCW couldn’t really do much about Nash no-showing, but this wasn’t really an adequate replacement for not delivering the advertised Nash/Giant match. They probably should have cooked up a better explanation rather than “oh, Nash isn’t here” and they probably should have had some kind of replacement match rather than just doing an angle like this. I do like how Hall attacked Giant first before Giant beat him up though, as it was Hall’s fault that he got beaten up rather than Giant being a jerk and attacking someone for no reason

Second Match
nWo Vs WCW
The nWo (Randy Savage, Scott Norton & Vincent) w/ Miss. Elizabeth Vs Ray Traylor and The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner) w/ Ted DiBiase

The storyline here is that Rick and Scott aren’t getting along, which would eventually lead to Scott turning on his brother in 1998. Savage wasn’t initially supposed to be in this match, but they were short a Konnan, so Savage has agreed to step in. However, Savage wasn’t showing up to do a show he wasn’t booked on unless he got to win, so they’ve changed the winners of this one just to appease him (sorry for the spoiler). So that’s two people who were advertised to wrestle on this show who now won’t be without much in the way of explanation, and we’ve still got more to come! No offence intended to Konnan, but subbing in Savage for him is an upgrade at least.

Savage is the star of the match here, which makes sense considering that he’s a Main Eventer mixing it up with the mid-carders. Savage is up for taking a decent number of bumps in fairness to him, which I believe was partly done to appease Scott Steiner, who was very angry that the finish of the match got changed from him winning to him taking the fall for Savage. Vincent is as assuredly rubbish as you’d expect in there, but everyone else enters competent performances, so it’s not a terrible match, although it does kind of amble along and the fans are a bit flat for it.

Surprisingly, Traylor probably gets some of the biggest reactions on the babyface team, possibly because he’d turned back to team WCW after formerly being in the nWo, which is ultimately the storyline hook for this one. Things breakdown and Vince ends up getting DDT’ed off Rick Steiner’s shoulders by Scott Steiner, but the pin gets broken up. Scott Steiner continues to run wild on both Vincent and Savage, but Norton ends up saving Savage from a Frankensteiner and Savage follows up with the Macho Elbow for the three count.

12 Minutes

WINNERS: RANDY SAVAGE AND THE TWO WARM BODIES
RATING: **

Thoughts: Team WCW winning here made a lot more sense when it was Konnan in there instead of Savage, as it would have given the WCW side a crowd-pleasing win over some of the lower ranked nWo guys who wouldn’t have been hurt by it. However, once Savage got added he kind of had to win because he was so far above the other five on the pecking order, meaning the crowd gets flattened out further after a Heel already won in the opener. The match itself was okay, if a little long at 12 Minutes. They could have probably done the same match in 8 Minutes and it would have been fine. There was never really much of a proper heat segment really either, with momentum getting traded like it was an undercard tag match in Japan or something. Scott Steiner looked like a beast at the end and didn’t get hurt by the finish, as it essentially took two people to defeat him, but the match itself meandered a bit too much for me. Seen better, seen worse, although you’d arguably expect more for Starrcade and WCW’s biggest show ever

Mean Gene Okerlund hocks he hotline. Dial now kids, the olives for Gene’s Martini’s don’t come cheap! Gene brings in James J. Dillon, who was the babyface authority figure at the time. Dillon announces that Nick Patrick will be the referee for the Main Event, which Dillon thinks will be fine. Let’s see how that works out…

Third Match
Bill Goldberg Vs Steve “Mongo” McMichael

Goldberg was initially a bit of a Heel in his early WCW run, as he attacked Mongo and stole the latter’s Superb Owl winning ring, leading to Mongo then cleaning Goldberg’s clock with a pipe to claim it back. Thus, we have this match in order to settle things between the two former American Footballers. Goldberg doesn’t get much of a reaction for his entrance here, and he doesn’t have the pyro he would be known for once his push kicked properly into high gear.

Mongo was never really a good wrestler, and Goldberg was VERY green at this stage, so they have a sub-optimal slugfest for the most part that the crowd doesn’t seem to care that much about. A table gets involved at one stage, which isn’t a DQ despite this being a regular match as far as I can tell. Goldberg’s selling is really bad, something he would improve on over the course of his career in fairness.

Watching Goldberg work a basic standard match in front of an apathetic crowd is quite a sight actually, as only a month later he’d start getting really over when WCW decided to just have him wreck folks in short order. Here he’s essentially working heat on Mongo, and it’s about as terrible as you’d expect. Mongo makes a brief comeback, but Golberg punches him off the apron through the table (with the crowd chanting “EC-Dub” for it) and the Jackhammer ends it inside the ring for Goldberg.

6 Minutes

WINNER: GOLDBERG
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: Watching this you’d have no idea that Goldberg was going to become arguably WCW’s biggest star in 1998. The match was bad, Goldberg was working Heel, and the crowd was apathetic at best. The only positive you can say about it was that Goldberg was pretty dominant in victory, although Mongo wasn’t treated like an enhancement guy like most of Goldberg’s opponents would be for the initial months of 1998. Goldberg getting a pretty decisive win over someone who had been US Champ three months previously did raise his stock somewhat, but working regular matches was not his forte at the time and moving him to a Squash Master role until he was capable of doing a bit more was definitely the right call

Fourth Match
No Disqualification
Saturn Vs Chris Benoit

Benoit was feuding with Raven at the time, of whom Saturn is an associate, and the two were supposed to wrestle here at Starrcade. However, Raven had a flare up of a pre-existing injury at the time and couldn’t wrestle, so they’ve subbed in Saturn instead. That actually makes total sense seeing as Benoit was already working his way through Raven’s Flock to get a match with him. However, WCW decided to have its cake and eat it too by subbing out Raven on the day of the show when they knew in advance he wouldn’t be wrestling, which in effect is false advertising. How hard would it have been to shoot an angle on the go-home Nitro where Raven says, “I’m injured, so Saturn will wrestle in my stead to hurt Benoit and then I’ll pick the bones at a later date once I’m healthy”?

Benoit tries to do a Raven styled promo before the match, although that’s not really in his skillset and he trips over it a bit. I actually think that Benoit could cut reasonable promos, but it had to be authentic material, and that clearly wasn’t the case with the verbiage he was given there. Saturn was dealing with a leg injury at the time, so he wasn’t at 100% capabilities, and that is obvious at points here when he’s moving gingerly and doesn’t have yje usual spring in his step that you’d expect. They have a decent hard hitting exchange to start, with Sick Boy and Kidman making use of the stipulation to attack Benoit for the cut off, with Kidman even getting an impressive Shooting Star Press off the apron onto Benoit on the floor.

Benoit sells well whilst getting worked over, as you would expect, but the crowd is a bit muted, possibly because they’ve been denied the advertised match with no real logical reason outside of Raven just not fancying it tonight (that’s basically what his pre-match promo was all about) and they’re getting Benoit wrestling a subordinate instead of the Big Cheese. The match is pretty dull in the heat segment too, with Saturn mostly focusing on rest holds and punch-kick offence, because he wasn’t really up to doing more at the time. Benoit briefly rallies and locks Saturn in the crossface, but Raven’s goons get involved to rescue Saturn. Benoit manages to dodge a Saturn Moonsault, leading to all of The Flock getting bumped momentarily, but they soon head back into the ring to mess with him further. This eventually leads to Raven giving Benoit a DDT and Saturn locks in the Rings of Saturn for the referee stoppage finish.

11 Minutes

WINNER: SATURN
RATING: **

Thoughts: So that’s Kevin Nash, Konnan and Raven who were all advertised in advance to wrestle on Starrcade and none of them did, without an adequate explanation for either one, other than “I guess they’re just not wrestling tonight”. And you wonder why WCW eventually eroded away all the trust from their fan base eh? As for the match itself, if you saw it on paper that Saturn and Benoit were having a pay per view match you might expect it to be a fun hard-hitting contest, but in reality it was slow and pretty dull. The work itself all looked fine, but it felt like there was little energy or passion behind it, outside of when Benoit was occasionally cutting loose in his usual style. Raven and Benoit would end up having a great match at Souled Out 1998 to redeem this mess at least

Fifth Match
nWo Vs WCW
Buff “The Stuff” Bagwell Vs “The Total Package” Lex Luger

Buff had turned Heel at the end of 1996 to join the New World Order and was gaining traction as a cocky Heel. Luger had been the WCW World Champ earlier in the year, so getting a match with Flexy Lexy at the biggest event of the year was quite a big deal for Buff. According to the commentary team, Buff had supposedly got some non-pin victories over Luger during the build but hadn’t managed to pin him yet, with him trying to do it here at Starrcade. Honestly that feels like a story you should tell with a babyface hunting down a Heel rather than a Heel hunting down a babyface for the illusive pin, but I guess WCW had its own eclectic way of doing things at the time. Buff does get a funny moment on the way to the ring saying that he’s now calling Luger “Lex Loser”, before doing an exaggerated pleased-with-himself Heel laugh. Heels finding their own lame jokes hilarious is always good fun.

Luger gets the better of Bagwell to start, leading to Bagwell bringing down Vincent to back him up for the rest of the match. I mean, if you could bring out any nWo member to help you out against a former World Champion, why on Earth are you picking VINCENT as your go-to guy?! Was the guy who sorted out their rider for the evening too busy making sure the bottled water made it to the locker room safely or something? Anyway, Vincent eventually gets involved and that leads to Buff getting the cut off and working some heat, leading to Luger doing a lot of signature yelling whilst getting worked over. Bagwell’s heat segment isn’t especially thrilling, but he does try throwing in some character work to try and rile the crowd up, which Saturn didn’t really do that much in the previous bout.

Watching this you can totally see why they had plans for Bagwell at the time, as he looked the part, was solid enough in the ring and he had a lot of undeniable charisma. Sadly his 1998 neck injury essentially derailed his career, as did a number of poorly thought out false starts as a babyface. This match doesn’t have a tonne of crowd heat, nor is it particularly exciting to watch, but they give Bagwell enough offence that it does help with elevating him somewhat. At 17 Minutes it’s probably about 5-7 Minutes too long, and they could have achieved what they wanted with it with a shorter run-time, but it’s not terrible. It’s just a basic match worked in front of a less than fully engaged audience.

Luger’s comeback wakes up the crowd a bit, with Vincent getting clocked at one stage as well for good measure. The fans are excited to see the Torture Wrack, but Vincent climbs in again and gets taken care of by Luger, meaning we don’t get the Wrack just let. Referee Billy Silverman ends up taking a bump, meaning that there’s no one to call it when Luger gets Bagwell in the Wrack. Randy Savage, Luger’s next feud, comes into the ring to fight with Luger, and he gets Wracked as well, with of course the referee missing it all. Scott Norton runs down to clock Luger with an international object and then he drapes Bagwell on top for the three count from the revived referee.

17 Minutes

WINNER: BUFF BAGWELL
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Where the heck were Luger’s friends during all of that? Giant and The Steiner’s were all in the building, couldn’t one of them headed out to help Luger when he was fighting off four men all by himself? The overbooking at the end brought it down a bit for me, as they could have given Bagwell a cleaner win and actually elevated him somewhat. Instead, they sent in an army to beat up Luger and then draped Buff on top, which just made Bagwell look like a fluke winner. Obviously the nWo are Heels, so them cheating makes sense, but the booking was counterproductive to what the goal of the match was, that being trying to move Bagwell up the card a bit. You can do a finish like that when Luger is fighting a Hogan, Savage or Hall because those guys are all already over and don’t need a “rub” from beating him. However, when it’s a rising star like Bagwell; I think Bagwell himself needs to actually have something to do with the win, even if it’s just him rolling Luger up with a handful of tights or something

Sixth Match
nWo Vs WCW
WCW United States Title
Champion: Curt Hennig Vs Diamond Dallas Page

DDP had received a solid push in 1997 and had even gotten a big pay per view win over Randy Savage back in April 1997. Going after the US Title was the next logical step in his progression, although he wasn’t originally going to be competing in this match. Ric Flair was initially supposed to be opposing Hennig here, which made sense as they’d been feuding since September 1997, but Flair was out with an injury at the time, so DDP stepped up to challenge Hennig instead. DDP had a long-lasting rib injury at the time, so his mid-section is taped and Hennig of course targets whenever he can. DDP gets a decent chant from the crowd at the start of the match, but the crowd then dies off again as the match properly kicks in.

This has been an odd crowd at Starrcade in all honesty. They have been given some reasonable star power at points, and they’ve still sat on their hands for the most part. Hennig is happy to bump around for DDP here, and only really gets any offence when he’s targeting the ribs or cheating, which helps with making DDP look like a genuine contender that Hennig has to resort to that stuff in order to have a chance. It’s a solid match and worked smartly, but the crowd just doesn’t get that into it and leaves it feeling flat. Even the WCW wrestlers sitting in the crowd look bored, and when DDP tries to stomp his feet whilst in a rest hold to get the crowd to clap he ends up having no joy with it.

I actually feel a bit bad for DDP here, as this is one of the biggest moments of his career up to this point, where they’ve trusted him in a major Title match on a Starrcade, and Hennig is clearly doing everything he can in order to make DDP look good on his big night, but the crowd just aren’t biting on it, even though they’re doing everything right. Hennig tries to steal it with a rope assisted pin, but DDP survives it and kicks out, as they continue to try and make him look like a big star here by surviving stuff that would normally lead to a lesser star getting pinned. Thankfully the crowd does at least pop for the Diamond Cutter, as DDP uses it to win the belt OUTTA NOWHERE.

11 Minutes

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: DDP
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: The crowd didn’t care for that one really, which hampered my enjoyment of it somewhat. That being said, it was a solidly worked match between two people who were putting proper pay per view effort in, so it was a decent watch overall. Hennig was totally unselfish here, bumping all over the place for DDP in an effort to make him look like a star, and the match succeeded in elevating DDP up a further rung of the ladder, closing the best year of his career up to that point with some gold

Seventh Match
nWo Vs WCW
Control For Monday Nitro
(Special Referee: Bret Hart)
“Easy E” Eric Bischoff w/ Scott Hall Vs “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko

The story here is that the nWo wanted control of Monday Nitro to turn it into an nWo themed show (Weren’t they on it enough already?). They experimented with it at one stage, and it had been kind of a disaster, with fans tuning out in droves. However, they ploughed ahead with this stipulation bout at Starrcade, whereby Larry Z must win in order to save the world from more nWo Nitro. The nWo had been trying to recruit Bret Hart following his initial debut, with the hook here being that we might finally find out what side Bret has decided to fight for in the nWo Vs WCW. Interestingly, there seems to be a side issue here where Larry will earn a match with Scott Hall, leading to one of the rare examples of a wrestler having to beat a manager in order to earn a match with a wrestler, when normally it’s the other way around.

Schiavone has fun on commentary by making fun of Bischoff’s weird move terminology from his play-by-play days, which was probably something he was itching to do for a while. As one of the people in this match is a non-wrestler, and the other is Larry Zbyszko, they of course do a lot of stalling, although Bischoff does do a decent job as an insufferable cocky jerk in there. Well, the best gimmicks are when people turn their natural personality up to 11, I guess. Larry does eventually grab hold of Bischoff and work him over, with Bischoff selling it all well and it giving long suffering fans the chance to see the evil boss taking a pummelling. That being said, the heat for this isn’t what you’d think it’d be considering just how much Bischoff was hated at the time.

They at least don’t even try to suggest that Bischoff is anything close to a match for Larry physically, with Bischoff getting easily schooled every time it’s a fair fight. Bischoff’s only offence comes from catching Larry unawares when Larry is busy arguing with Bret about something. Bischoff’s offence looks absolutely terrible, with it being a mixture of terrible punches and kicks that are clearly not making any contact. This does at least get the crowd behind Larry somewhat, with him getting some chants. They try to suggest that Larry has done the rope-a-dope here, with him taking everything Bischoff has to offer and then shrugging it off to take Bischoff even more, which I don’t think the crowd realises but the commentary team makes a good attempt to get it across at least.

Hall loads up Bischoff’s foot with something when Larry is arguing with Bret again, but the item goes flying off into the crowd when Bischoff does the kick, which means Bret sees it and decides that the nWo isn’t for him, leading to him beating up both Bischoff and Hall, with the Hall Vs Bret battle generating the biggest pop of the show thus far. Bret then raises Larry’s hand, with Larry’s music hitting. I guess that means that Larry wins by DQ because Bret saw the metal plate that was on Bischoff’s foot? Dave Penzer just announces Larry as the winner though, so I guess it was either a DQ or Bischoff submitted in there somewhere?

11 Minutes

WINNER: LARRY Z
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: The Hall Vs Bret bit was great, and Bischoff was a good Heel in there, but aside from that the match was pretty naff, and they didn’t do a good enough job actually explaining what the finish was. The crowd cheered for Larry winning though, and he saved the world from anymore nWo Nitro, so let’s just be grateful for our good fortune and move on I guess

Main Event
nWo Vs WCW
WCW World Heavyweight Title
Champion: Hollywood Hogan Vs Sting

The nWo had debuted their own Sting in the autumn of 1996, which had led to WCW guys questioning whether the real Sting had joined the group as well. This had led to Sting going all emo and stalking the rafters of the venues WCW ran, upset that people in WCW had questioned his loyalty to the promotion. Eventually Sting showed that he was indeed still on Team WCW by attacking Hogan at Uncensored 97, which led to a nearly yearlong build for the two finally clashing at Starrcade. The result was a monster buy rate, with fans chomping at the bit to see Sting defeat Hogan and claim the Title. Indeed, the fan base had been living through nearly 18 months of #LolNwoWins and the time was ripe to start winding the group down, with Sting’s decisive win over Hogan being the perfect way to start the ball rolling. Common sense dictated a strong Sting win, but this was WCW, where common sense went to die.

This match is deathly dull and mostly features Hogan working Sting over. It looks like it’s building to Sting finally making the big comeback to win the match, but instead Hogan drops the leg on Sting and pins him clean to win. Referee Nick Patrick was supposed to do a fast count following the leg drop, but he just did a normal one (With rumours abounding that Hogan slipped him some cheddar in order to “accidentally” count too slow). As a result, Sting has just lost after a year of build and looks like a chump as a result.

Guest Referee from a previous match, Bret Hart, comes down and demands that the match restart, which would have made sense if there had actually been a fast count, but as there wasn’t it just looks stupid and if anything makes Hogan look sympathetic that he won the match clean and is now getting forced into wrestling again. Sting quickly fires up and locks Hogan in the Scorpion Deathlock, which leads to Bret ringing the bell even though it doesn’t look like Hogan actually submitted, and thus Sting “wins” the WCW Title in the most uninspiring and lame way possible.

13 Minutes

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: STING
RATING: DUD

Thoughts: I don’t think I can accurately describe just how much of a disaster this match was, as they pretty much killed Sting in one night and then ended up pissing away further goodwill by not having the decision stand and making the two men face off again at SuperBrawl VIII for the held up belt. Hogan apparently thought Sting didn’t look impressive enough physically, which is why he demanded this limp-wristed booking, and then Patrick exacerbated the lameness of it all with his non-fast count. Honestly, I could have lived with Hogan battering Sting for 8 minutes or so with it all building to Sting making the superman comeback and winning clean, as it’s not like Sting needed to squash him or anything. But this match was the worst of all worlds, as Hogan not only dominated the match, but Sting didn’t even get to look strong in the closing sections. Just a sickening and ferociously awful match

They try doing the big roster celebration after that but COME ON!

Is It Really A Stinker?

Yes, I’d have to say that Starrcade 1997 is a stinker, even if only for the Main Event alone. It’s not as if there wasn’t some decent wrestling on the show at points, with the Cruiserweight and US Title matches both delivering on that front, but the majority of the card was below average, and the last two matches were pretty awful.

DDP winning the US Title was a nice moment that DDP had genuinely earned with his hard work throughout the year, but that was really the only pure babyface moment of the night, as Larry and Sting’s wins felt tarnished somewhat by the booking so you couldn’t really celebrate them to their fullest.

It didn’t help that the crowd at Starrcade was possibly one of the worst pay per view crowds that WCW had all year, with only really the Souled Out crowd “topping” them in that aspect. In fairness to the fans, it’s not like they were given a classic evening of action, so you can understand why they sat on their hands for the majority of the evening.

It didn’t help that people no showed the event or didn’t wrestle when they’d been advertised, and the crowd was given very little information as to why other than “they’re not here, here’s something else”. It felt like WCW was almost treating its fans with open contempt with stuff like that, and it’s no surprise that fans eventually started turning away from the company as a result.

There’s quite a few “beginning of the end” moments for WCW’s hot streak, but Starrcade 1997 is generally the one that gets talked about the most, just because it was such a big event at the time and they did such an amazingly bad job of sticking the landing. In truth though, WCW was initially okay following the event, and they were a profitable company in 1998 who continued to sell tickets and draw decent ratings. Starrcade 1997 didn’t immediately kill off WCW’s business, but it started to cool it at a time where the WWF was beginning to heat up again, which is probably it’s enduring legacy as an event.

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