FEEDBACK - WCW STARRCADE 1998

[Deleted]

Post your feedback for the next Review-A-Wai where we chat WCW STARRCADE 1998, featuring the end of Bill Goldberg's streak.

Post any comments, feedback or historical questions regarding this event.

Catch Review-A-Wai on Wednesday morning.

WCW STARRCADE
Sunday December 27th 1998
Washington, D.C.
*Bill Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash for the WCW title
*Ric Flair vs. Eric Bischoff
*The Giant vs. Diamond Dallas Page
*Chris Jericho vs. Konnan for the Television title
*Billy Kidman vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Juventud Guerrera for the Cruiserweight title
*Billy Kidman vs. Eddie Guerrero for the Cruiserweight title
*Perry Saturn vs. Ernest Miller
*Prince Iaukea vs. Norman Smiley
*Scott Norton & Brian Adams vs. Fit Finlay & Jerry Flynn

[mcwaylon]

For the biggest show of the year, Starrcade 1998 certainly did not live to the billing. The cruiserweight opener was very good, as Kidman was fantastic during this time. It was great to see Kidman have two great matches in one hour with the triple threat and the ensuing match with Eddie Guerrero.

My biggest guilty pleasure in WCW was Norman Smiley, he was so funny with his dances and his “Big Wiggle” is the funniest comedy move ever. I pop every time for the move.

The rest of the card is terrible either for match quality or poor booking with the exception of the Page/Giant match. The Goldberg/Nash match was a poor way to end the streak, as it killed the mystic of Goldberg as an invincible warrior. I do not think this was the moment where WCW fell off the cliff, that moment would take place on next week’s Nitro with the Fingerpoke of Doom.

As for Starrcade I’ll give it 4.5 Taser shots into a jackknife out of 10, the first three matches are fun and the Page/Giant match was decent. The rest of the card was just garbage.

Question for John and Wai: At what point did you think WCW completely fell off the cliff? Was it at Starrcade 1998? The Jan. 4th Nitro? Hiring Russo? Etc.

[contrasoma]

Bruce from Vancouver:

As a WCW agnostic I was cautiously optimistic about this card. Things started off great with an excellent pair of Cruiserweight matches, and it was fun enough to stroll down memory lane with Norman Smiley and Perry Saturn. That said, things became turgid at the midway point, and the fucked finishes served as a convenient metaphor for WCW's contemporaneous problems with diminishing returns. Though I was never a fan, it was sad to see the palpable and unique mystique around Goldberg dissipate into just another carbon copy "champ gets screwed out of the title" angle by the time the show was over. That said, Flair selling Bischoff's kicks, telling us that a smarmy TV executive actually belonged in the ring with a decorated legend, was maybe the grimmest indicator of just how far this company would end up falling.

[ricflairsviagra]

Will from Mesa, AZ

disclaimer: in 1998 I was a WCW guy, not a WWE or ECW guy (quite yet). With that being said...

Outside interference in the last 3 matches? When historians detail the list of issues leading the demise of WCW, the lack of clean finishes in main events often gets overlooked.

The bright side is seeing the personalities of Eddy and Jericho being developed in WCW. They were great to watch back then.

As for scoring, you have to give this PPV a handicap: No Hogan, No Sting, No Luger, No Savage, No Steiner Brothers, No Harlem Heat. I give it 6 Nash Quad tears out of ten.


BTW, I place the following Fingerpoke of Doom as the worst moment in WCW history ahead of both the Arquette and Russo title wins. Two formidable opponents faking a finish is worse than a celebrity who wins the title on a fluke. Just my opinion. John/Wai: Where do you guys rank those three title wins from worst to 3rd worst?

[JDogindy]

John from Indianapolis

What the hell happened here? I'd argue Starrcade 1997 was more damaging to WCW than Starrcade 1998 (fun fact; the night after Starrcade '97, they had the Sting/Hogan rematch where the booking was very similar, meaning they actually would've had Hogan regain the belt after just one night and negate 18 months of booking just to please the Hulkster), but this event shows you just how incompetent a company can truly be by killing the golden goose just so a few egos can be satiated.

Also, like the Hogan/Sting rematch the Nitro after Starrcade, they also showed that they cared more about winning ratings than making money, because they put Bischoff's Presidency on the line against Flair the next night, and Ric Flair triumphed on the free show. Flair had stated that this angle killed off any hope he had for the company, because he found Bischoff citing financial problems as the reason for Flair accepting the match in storyline to be unprofessional.

The undercard wasn't that impressive, although Kidman got to shine by working almost an hour in two title defenses. Nonetheless, it's events like these that need to be remembered to show how bad booking can harm your company. Sadly, it seems that nobody wants to learn the lessons, as TNA is now a walking corpse, and WWE is trying to reinvigorate terrible ratings with a Roman Reigns vs. the Authority feud.

2 Disco Inferno run-ins out of 10.

[steelerfan7585]

Joe from Portland

I tried to watch Starrcade 98 it was just to bad after watching AWA Superclash 85 last week I could not get into it. I went back and watched Starrcade 85 main evented by The Nature Boy Ric Flair vs The American Dream Dusty Rhodes for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship may I suggest that you and Wai review this show in the future.

I give Starrcade 98 2 Teasers out of 10 and Starrcade 85 7 WOO's out of 10.

[Hacksaw Jim Powers]

Chris in Ottawa

Gentlemen, gentlemen - best of the season to you.

I used to live in DC, and if I'd known that the fate of the free world was decided there on a daily basis like Tony Schiavone said in the intro, I would've had trouble sleeping.

Between the finishes in the Flair and Goldberg matches and Jerry fucking Flynn being on the card on WCW's biggest show, Starrcade '98 is one of the shittiest big events in history!

And of course, who could forget my favourite version of The Giant - the fat, smoking giant!

But whoever it was at the WWE Network that redflagged Jericho's Even Flow ripoff and DDP's Smells Like Teen Spirit knockoffs ought to be fired - those were some of the best things WCW gave the world.

Look...
- Eddie versus Kidman was great.
- The Goldberg and Nash interstitials were hilarious.
- Schiavone said "Take your chair and go to Calgary, you lamebrain."
- Fucking Konnan wrestled with like ten hoop earrings on.
- And Norman Smiley's theme song was better known as bumper music that was used at the bottom of the hour on The Jim Rome Show for years.

But that's about all that was positive about this.

The free world's fucked, thanks to Starrcade '98. 0 out of 10.

[thelackofpants]

Ryan From Calgary;
When this show came out I was at the height of my wrestling viewing. I was never able to watch the Pay Per Views, but I would watch Raw and Nitro religiously, and read the reports from the PPVs on liveaudiowrestling.com. Watching it again, I can't help but think that it wasn't that either WWF, WCW, or even ECW were putting on amazing shows, it was that professional wrestling itself was so over with so many people, that it felt great. They were selling tickets and sending those people home happy at the end of the night. The audience was growing and that covered up for a lot of deficiencies.
When that is compared to today's product, of which I now only watch the PPVs on the network, and I never watch the TV product, they are putting on excellent matches almost every time out, but they don't have the right combination of writing, performance, and audience to connect with new fans, and grow their audience. I was looking forward to this show, but given the amount of Jerry Flynn, I can't give this any more than five out of 10.
Questions:
Where do you rank the end of Goldberg's streak compared to Tatanka, Adam Bomb, Anderson Silva, Fedor, and Ronda Rousey?
If you were to give the streak gimmick to someone in NXT to come to the main roster, who would it be, and how far would it go?

[stampedecitysean]

Sean in Calgary,

WCW summed up in one pay-per-view...great cruiserweight wrestling, midcarders with great promo skills not given a sniff of success, Bret Hart under utilized, and overpaid has-beens clogging up the main event picture.

Totally random but Konnan was on Jericho's podcast earlier this week.......and Jericho made a crack about "still" not knowing what the hell Konnan was talking about! It was classic, Konnan isn't the sharpest tool in the shed and Jericho was trying to be nice but I couldn't help but laugh.

On a side note, I'm trying to track down the clip of Jericho when he was at Nitro and got the crowd cheering with his "as I walked down the streets of Toronto today and walked beside my fellow Canadians"......(crowd pops)...."and I thought to myself"....(crowd cheering patriotically)...."man, I'm really glad I moved to the US, because Canada sucks!"...

The single greatest heel line I've ever heard. Jericho circa 1998 never gets old! Gold Jerry! Gold!

Four and a half hot dogs stuck in Paul Wight's beard out of ten.

[magicmonks]

Chris from London, England

Hi gents

Really love listening to your Review-a-Wai and Review-a-Raw shows every week. Some observations on Starrcade 98:

• The amount of product-selling at the top of the show before you even got to see any action was crazy, I couldn’t get the name ‘Scheme Gene’ out of my head. And the oversized NWO credit cards! Shameless!

• Loved the cruiserweight efforts at the top of the show. Although towards the end of Kidman match #2 it felt like he’d been out there for hours.

• The myriad NWO factions were so confusing, by this point it all seemed so pointless. Also the fact that they were still referring back to the Outsiders appearance from two-years previous for context showed how bloated the NWO concept had become. 

• WWE Network overdubbing Jericho’s music with his 1999 WWE entrance music was really, really weird. Hardly like he had an actual song like Rob Van Dam’s Pantera entrance, it was just some bad Even Flow derivative.

• Flair’s promo was great. Swivel-eyed, maniacal Flair angry with the wrestling world that had left him behind was great.

• What a cheap way to end the Goldberg streak, a goddamn cattleprod... the only thing missing was the Mountie-style buzzing sound effect coming out of the arena PA.