Hello Humanoids
It’s me BadjokesBlogs back at you once again with another blog. Today we’ve got Blog six of the Montreal aftermath playthrough, alongside the awesome Hanmister Younger. It’s the most important blog so far as we go through our first pay per view which also so happens to be the biggest show of the year, Starrcade 1997.
IF you want to see our previous shows mine can be found Here
Hanmister’s can be found Here
WCW Starrcade
Starrcade 1997, was held at the Provo Marriot Center in Utah, with an audience of 27,376 people. The first match of the evening was a pre-show battle royal which included a host of mid-carders and openers. The most notable names being Booker T, Goldberg, Konnan and Ray Traylor. Goldberg continues his streak, winning the match by eliminating Ray Traylor. Booker T had a good showing getting the most eliminations.
C- for a pre-show Battle Royal is an acceptable start to the show and gets people on the card who I didn’t have any other plans for. Goldberg’s win, means that he will now start a major storyline in the next couple of weeks and the Booker T vs Savage storyline will continue but I just couldn’t find the time for them to have a match on this card.
The main show begins with a hype video for the Sting vs Hollywood Hogan feud, which gets us an A rating and gets the crowd hot for the show.
As promised on the go home blog last week, it’s the Steiner brothers vs the Faces of Fear for the WCW tag team championships opening the show in a no DQ match. Scott Steiner gets the pinfall after twelve minutes, hitting Meng with a Frankensteiner to retain the tag team titles.
I was not expecting a rating as good as the B- we got, and this is a great way to kick off the show and bodes well that this could be a good show. Scott Steiner had the best performance of the match getting a B which is good to see but everyone performed well and I may keep this story going for a few more weeks now.
The family feud between Eddie and Chavo Guerrero is up next. The match had good heat and it is Eddie who gets the win, pinning his nephew after just under seventeen minutes, when he hits the frog splash.
The C rating is a little bit of a disappointment as I was expecting a better match and I certainly was not expecting to get the “didn’t seem to click and it made for an awkward bout” road agent note, and I’m really hoping their chemistry improves over the next few months, as this storyline continues.
Following the match, Eddie Guerrero goes overboard with his celebrations, really rubbing the fact he won into his nephew’s face. Running around the ring and hugging the referee. The D raring is maybe about right and the segment keeps the story going.
Next up Dean Malenko comes to the ring and says he plans on being a fighting champion now he has won the cruiserweight championship, and so he is issuing an open challenge to anyone to come and face him, and he will be back later to see who answers the challenge.
Wow oh wow an E+ rating, this segment completely bombed, I wasn’t expecting this at all, so I’m thinking now this open challenge idea will be just a one-night thing.
Two cruiserweights who may be looking to challenge for Malenko’s championship in the near future are up next, as Rey Mysterio takes on Kidman and in an upset win, Kidman beats Mysterio with a Shooting Star Press.
The C rating for this match gets the show back on track and Rey’s C+ rating is a positive, and the Kidman win gets him some positive momentum. I have big plans for him in the future.
Backstage Alex Wright is preparing for his match with Ric Flair but before he can get out to the ring, he is stopped for an interview and he taunts Flair telling him that tonight is the night Flair retires, as he has the old stuff and I have the Wright Stuff.
A D- rating isn’t great and it is clear that Wright needs help on the mic so that is what I will be getting him in the next few weeks.
Now onto the match itself, and in just under twenty-two minutes Alex Wright defeats Flair and sends him out of WCW by submission with an STF
I probably bought the C- rating on myself, as I booked the match to go for twenty-two minutes which was a bit too long. I asked both guys to go for an all-out match. Maybe it could have been the best match of the night if I had cut a few minutes off. Wright now has the Kudos of “retiring” Flair and he will be getting a new gimmick starting on Nitro and hopefully, he can take advantage of this and move himself up the card.
To add insult to injury Alex Wright continues the beating on Flair screaming at him “I retired you! I have the Wright stuff! Now leave”. The D- rating clearly shows that Wright needs improvement, but I expect him to do that fairly quickly.
Our second championship match of the night is next, as Chris Benoit defends his newly won television championship against the leader of the flock Raven, in a falls count anywhere match. After fifteen minutes and forty seconds, Benoit retains the title pinning the man from the Bowery with a dragon suplex.
I’m happy with the C rating for this match, but once again the road agent has said that the match went a little bit too long for what we were aiming for, which was another all-out fight.
With the match over Benoit has the left the ring and The Flock comes out and helps Raven to his feet, when Al Snow comes through the crowd, grabs a mic and jumps in the ring and tells Raven “this isn’t your Flock anymore it’s mine now Flock off” as Saturn Sick Boy Hammer and Kidman beat Raven down and out of the Group and WCW.
Raven decided in the week before Starrcade that he wanted to leave WCW, so that necessitated that he be kicked out of the Flock and I had Al snow waiting to debut, so it made sense to me that he take over as the head man of the flock.
The Malenko disaster continues as he comes back out to the ring to defend his Cruiserweight championship, and his opponent is the legendary cruiserweight Jushin Thunder Liger. However only one problem with this segment….. Jushin Liger does not speak English, so putting him in a verbal segment is quite idiotic and the segment bombed and gets an E rating.
The match isn’t much better and after twenty-one minutes, Malenko retains the title when he pins the Japanese legend in a D+ rated match. The main positive of which is Malenko outperforming Jushin Liger. However, I’m not too sure what to do with Malenko going forward after his poor promo earlier and this poor match.
Now we move onto the more high profile matches on the card, starting with DDP vs Scott Hall. This had fantastic heat and awesome wrestling, it’s diamond Dallas page who gets the win, with a diamond cutter after twenty-two and a half minutes.
Both guys getting B- ratings for in-ring performance is a highlight of the night so far, and maybe should have led to a better match rating than the C- we got. Once again the match went a little bit longer than is ideal and led to both men looking tired as the match came to a close.
Diamond Dallas Page celebrates his victory by jumping into the crowd and hanging out with his people, in a segment that gets a B rating.
Lex Luger is backstage getting ready for his match tonight when he gets attacked by his opponent Buff Bagwell and Randy Savage leaving him in no fit state to compete tonight.
A C- rating for a segment that was needed, as I couldn’t fit the Luger v Bagwell match on the card and I think it needed more heat anyway, so I will attempt to keep it going until the next pay per view.
Hogan has an interview backstage hyping up the main event tonight against Sting, saying that he’s going to make the Stinger wish he had never come back after Hogan has finished embarrassing him. The segment gets a B+ rating which is great and keeps the heat going for the main event.
Next up is the battle of the two big men, as Kevin Nash takes on The Giant. The match had fantastic heat and after twelve minutes Nash picks up the win when he power bombed the Giant after Scott hall had interfered.
A C+ for a match between two big men is about as good as you can expect. I think so I’m happy with that, but I’m worried that Nash seemed off his game. I expect it was just the fact he was working with the Giant, and hopefully, he will put in better performances over the next few weeks.
The semi-main event of the night, is the match I had really high hopes for, as Chris Jericho challenges Curt Hennig for the United States championship and after almost twenty minutes of back and forth wrestling, Jericho gets the win with a roll-up that surprises Hennig and wins Jericho the US title for the first time in his career.
The C rating for this match is probably as expected and I’m happy with both men’s performances and Jericho has shown that he can handle himself at this level, which I’m very happy about.
Jericho celebrates in the ring with his new championship, as the fans celebrate a championship leaving the NWO and coming back to WCW. The Rating isn’t important as this is just a stop gap segment before the main event.
As Jericho leaves the ring, the lights start flickering on and off, while Stings music plays and we see Sting up in the rafters just like the last eighteen months, and Sting makes his way through the crowd for the main event. An A star rating for the segment is the perfect way to set us up for the main event.
The main event of the evening is Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs Sting for the WCW world heavyweight championship. In an amazing match Sting beats Hogan clean, by pinfall in the middle of the ring after twenty-five minutes, to win the WCW Championship and put WCW firmly in control of the war against the NWO.
B- is a very good rating for the match and I’m very happy that I was able to get Hogan to give up the championship, as I was expecting him to play the creative control card to try and keep the title.
Sting is celebrating in the ring when Hogan gets back up, and wants immediate revenge. He starts beating down Sting, Bret Hart makes his way to the ring and stands in between the two men, before knocking out……… Hollywood Hogan to the cheers of the crowd
An A rating for the segment and the show is coming to a great end and Bret Hart has revealed his true colours as a member of WCW, which opens up a whole host of possible feuds going forward.
Bret Hart leaves the ring and Sting celebrates alone in the ring with his new championship to close the show with a B+ rated segment.
Show overview
B- for the show overall is a rating I am very, very happy with. The show started strong with the tag title match, and kept going ok until the Malenko mess of 97 threatened to derail the show. Kidman and Mysterio got us back on track. Benoit vs Raven was a good match and I’m disappointed to be losing Raven. Alex Wright has got the rub from sending Flair out of WCW. I’m happy with Jericho’s performance in the semi-main event, which hopefully means he can have a decent reign with the US title. Finally, what do you say about the main event? I’m very pleased with how it came off and there are some very good things in WCW’s future.
Goodbye
That’s Starrcade done, thank you so much for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, give it a share or a Retweet or a like. All love is very much appreciated. I’m going to have my next edition of Nitro out on Friday evening Follow me on Twitter Here
Also, remember to check out Hanmisters Blog, which should be out by the time you see this. That can be found Here
Follow Hanmister on Twitter Here
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