The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Starrcade ‘97

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Starrcade ‘97

Nash gets booked to lose but doesn’t turn up, Hogan gets booked to lose but somehow pins Sting clean in the middle of the ring and WCW finally pull the trigger on that big Buff Bagwell push. Yeah, this show sucks

Here it is. The show WCW spent over a year building up. The show to finally blow off the Hogan run as champion and bring Sting back with a bang. Here’s how it should have gone down: Make it no DQ. Hogan comes out first and jaws with the crowd. Getting them even more riled up. Then he gets the mic and runs the town into the ground, calling Sting a bunch of names in the process. Then Sting rappels down from the rafters into the ring behind Hogan without him seeing. Hogan gets nothing for a good 5 minutes. Sting just whomps him from pillar to post. This brings out the Outsiders but Sting pulls out a bat and beats them down. The rest of the nWo pile out here but the WCW locker room empties out and brawls with them to the back to show the solidarity of the WCW workers. Hogan is left alone but jumps Sting. He does an assortment of normally illegal stuff like choking and whatnot. Sting looks to be beaten. Big boot. Legdrop. 1, 2, HUGE kickout. Sting then totally no sells everything Hogan has and kills him off with a Scorpion Deathdrop for the belt. Decisive pinfall victory. Hogan doesn’t get anything back. Then you debut Bret Hart to set up three months of main events right off the bat between Bret and Sting.

Of course that would stop Hogan from main eventing every PPV and cause him to lose money. So what happened is far screwier. This one stinks to high hell of politics. It’s basically the beginning of the end. Although it has to be pointed out that WCW had a huge year in 1998 with Goldberg rising to power. The more I think about it though, the more I think they just got lucky with him. They got a guy that looked a lot like Steve Austin and had him destroy like 50 guys in a row. Then go over Hogan clean when the time was right. Unfortunately for them it was fucking Nitro so no one paid to see it. But that’s in the future. For now it’s Starrcade ’97.

December 28th 1997. We’re in Washington, DC. Hosts are Fat Tony, Dusty Rhodes and Mike Tenay. Deep breath.

We open with a cheesy video shot in a warehouse somewhere with Sting prowling around and crows and whatnot. Tony shills tonight as the biggest night in the history of the entire world. Or something like that. Not overselling the show, or anything. “The grandest night, ever” according the lead announcer. For further torture WCW randomly replace Heenan on commentary with Da Dweem thus removing any chance of something amusing coming from the announce position. At least Mike Tenay is there but I’m pissed off with no Heenan. Even a half assed and drunk Heenan is better than Dusty Rhodes. He’s probably only been restored because they want him to turn heel in a few months. Although that never felt pre-planned. Rhodes can’t even string together his opening sentence. I really need to stop barracking commentators because I just know someone will get a hold of me doing it next year and rip me a new one. Tony tells us that Kevin Nash isn’t here tonight. FEEL THE WORKRATE! Nash v the Giant was the second main event of this card and it’s gone. Just like that.

Cruiserweight title – Eddie Guerrero (c) v Dean Malenko

Eddie jumps from behind but Malenko opens up on him to a BIG response. Leaping calf kick gets 2. Suplex and Malenko opts for punches instead of covering. Eddie goes handheld and looks for a rana but gets planted with a powerbomb for 2. Malenko hauls him back up for a spinebuster and the crowd is going nuts for everything here. They’re jacked. Eddie runs into a powerslam for 2. Eddie looks frustrated so he bails out and takes a walk. He comes back in quickly and clips Dean’s knee. Eddie stomps on Malenko’s face and stops off to play up to the crowd. You can hear “Eddie” chants in there. Malenko dumps Eddie on the ropes. Clothesline gets 2. Crowd has a buzz about it. This crowd WANTS to cheer stuff. It’s hot without being pushed. Seeing as they can’t think of anything they start chanting “USA”. Clearly in support of, erm, one of the two American wrestlers in the ring. Eddie begs off and offers a handshake but Dean dropkicks him. Sign in crowd – “Hogan fears EMO”. Well that’s bizarre. Malenko stamps the fingers and adds in another dropkick. Eddie gets thrown into the buckles and back suplexed for 2. Eddie escapes another suplex and hangs Malenko backwards over the ropes. Eddie slingshot stomps the head then slingshots onto the leg hanging out of the ring. Eddie sandwiches Malenko between the ring post and the steps and dropkicks the steps. Malenko’s legs are now fucked. Back inside Eddie works at the knee. Powerbomb gets 2. That had some stink on it. Eddie tries for some lucha libre wheelbarrow action but Malenko counters into an Ocean Cyclone for 2. Malenko was actually on one leg at the end of that to sell during the move. Nice. Backbreaker from Malenko gets 2. He crumbles selling the knee right afterwards. To the ropes where Eddie manoeuvres looking for a rana but Malenko shoves him off in mid air. Malenko lands on his feet but drops because of his knee. Malenko with a roll up but Eddie is in the ropes. Malenko returns that powerbomb with added stink. Malenko goes for the Cloverleaf but Eddie kicks his knee out but a follow up dropkick misses. Eddie recovers quicker and hits a missile dropkick to the knee. FROGSPLASH and it hits the knee for 3 at 14.56. ***. A hot opener but not their best work. Eddie’s defined heel status helped them to tell a straightforward story that the fans could buy into but the finish somewhat deflates them.

PROMO TIME – Scott Hall. You can tell we’d headed into the Attitude era because we have an in ring promo in the middle of a PPV. “Hey, yo”. He cuts a babyface promo calling DC “too sweet”. He asks the crowd if they’re with the nWo or against them. When he asks who came to see WCW the crowd just erupts. It’s frightening the volume levels. This crowd is fucking pumped. Hall thinks more of the crowd are in support of the nWo but the fans don’t seem happy with Hogan beating Sting. Hall reminds us he has a title shot at Superbrawl. Yeah, you’re not getting that. He tells us Nash isn’t here to HEAT. He says Nash has gone “down there”. Down where? This really is fucking ridiculous. Mainly because Kevin Nash, get this, thought he had a heart attack on the afternoon of the show. A heart attack. It was indigestion. Nevertheless he phoned in sick because he didn’t want to job to the Giant. Bischoff should have just fired his lazy ass. Or put on Scott Hall v the Giant. So following through on that second thought Hall calls out the Giant telling him he’s about to win on default. The two sweetest words in the English language. The Giant happily strolls out here. Looks like he put on a few pounds over the holiday. He says he’ll be here waiting for Nash and when he comes back he’ll beat him. Hall goes after Giant but gets beaten down and powerbombed. No match of course. That’d be silly. The crowd was going INSANE here but you can’t help but notice they totally screwed the crowd over there. Heart attack. Yeah, right.

Scott Norton/Vincent/Konnan v Scott/Rick Steiner/Ray Traylor w/Ted DiBiase

Traylor is in a sort of gimmick void and has started wrestling under his real name. He was previously in the nWo. Whatever happened to nWo for life? Now this should be a total no brainer. Crowd is going nuts for the babyfaces and the heels here all suck. The only guy you’re pushing is on the babyface team. It should be a slaughter. Randy Savage is out here with Miss Elizabeth because Konnan…isn’t here. Again, this isn’t explained he’s just not here. Although quite how Savage and Hall ended up without matches prior to the show so they can get shoehorned into matches is beyond me. Even for WCW you’d think you’d want all your top guys on your biggest show of the year. Or ever according to Tony. Even with Savage on the nWo team the faces should still go over. After all the Steiners are up in the top babyfaces in the company with Giant, Luger and Sting. Whereas Vincent is no one. Savage decides to start as an intimidation factor but he’s faced with Scott Steiner who isn’t intimidated by anyone. So they just stand there doing nothing for 90 seconds. FEEL THE WORKRATE! Savage swings a boot at Scott then goes to confer with his corner. FEEL THE WORKRATE! Savage bounces off Scott and they slap each other. Norton gets the cheap shot in though and we go right into heat on Scott, which is probably the last thing this crowd wanted to see. They work his back for a while but he’s not going to sell it and promptly does a tiger driver and a press slam. So that’s two more minutes of nothing. Cheers guys. Everyone spills in but the faces empty the ring out. Liz tries to protect Savage but Scott just moves her. Rick comes in and hits some clotheslines and a powerslam for 2. On Norton. Savage just about managed to tag him. Traylor comes in to take it out on Norton but he’s too powerful so we get another heat segment. Until Vincent tags in and gets creamed with a spinebuster. Logically this should be it now. Scott comes in for the rolling thunder belly to belly. The faces just decimate Vincent showing him up to be the jobber he is. Traylor misses a splash though allowing Vincent to tag out. Dumbass. Rick tags in to clean house. The nWo guys get taken apart again. The Steiners pick off Vincent for the Doomsday DDT. Norton saves and how hard would that of been to just finish it there? Frankensteiner off the top on Vincent and this time Savage saves. Again, why isn’t that the finish? DiBiase stupidly distracts allowing Norton to lay out Steiner and Savage drops the elbow for the pin at 11.05. So where’s Rick in all of this? Well, being the long term tag partner and brother of Scott Steiner, he’s naturally standing at ringside watching the pin. Erm. Vincent just got killed by two finishers so he’s a none factor. Somehow both Rick and Traylor manage to let their own manager Ted DiBiase distract AND Scott get double teamed AND then let the pin go down without a fight. What the fuck booking is that? 1/2*. Crowd even popped the elbow drop. I’m thankful that Konnan wasn’t in the match though.

FRONTSTAGE JJ Dillon says every WCW wrestler is here tonight in support of WCW. He talks about who the referee will be in the main event. He says they put all the ref’s names in a hat and they picked impartial referee Nick Patrick for tonight’s match. Dillon says that Patrick has been impartial since his return from suspension. Okerlund brings up politics. SSSSSHHH! Don’t say the P word. Hogan will have your ass run out the building.

Bill Goldberg v Steve McMichael

Sign in crowd – “Bathroom break”. Indeed. Goldberg takes offence to Mongo arriving, as do I, and bails to attack him. Yeah, in 1997 Steve McMichael was the bigger star. Hard to even conceive that. Goldberg throws him back inside and sets up a table at ringside. I hate it when a spot is blatantly set up ahead of time. Mongo with one of his many patented sideslams for 2. Yes, 2. Goldberg pops right back up and hits a flying shoulderblock for 2. Yeah, God forbid you sell anything. Not that he even bothered learning to sell until he signed for Vince. I can’t even tell who’s heel in this match (Goldberg, if you cared). Goldberg goes all shoot style with a kneebar. Thrilling. Goldberg has no idea how to make a submission hold look interesting. Goldberg sets up a spear for 2. Mongo has no idea how to sell it. Goldberg gets the table again and sets it up differently. For fuck’s sake. Goldberg has no fucking clue how to work. He goes to throw Mongo over the top through the table but Mongo falls on top for 1. Mongo stands handily above the table until Goldberg punches him through it and the crowd chants “ECW” so loudly WCW turns the crowd noise down. Mongo goes for the Tombstone but sells the back. How about selling the table by staying down for longer than five seconds? Goldberg finishes with the Jackhammer at 5.58. At least it was fairly short. That’s about all the positive to take from that. Didn’t make Goldberg look menacing or anything it just make him look inexperienced. Because he was. You’d think a company like WCW would have the resources to train someone how to wrestle AND make them safe in the ring. Not so with Goldberg. 1/4*. Goldberg was moved on from the Mongo feud shortly afterwards and the streak angle began.

PROMO TIME – Raven. He’s been dodging Chris Benoit for some time so logically, this being Starrcade, the angle pays off with Raven having the match and losing. Right? Right??? Wrong. Raven tells the crowd his contractual agreement with WCW allows him total control over when he wrestles. So he doesn’t wrestle tonight. Saturn is wrestling in his place. Starrcade. Fuckers.

Perry Saturn v Chris Benoit

Raven and Saturn get “ECW” chants. Crowd LOVES Benoit even if he’s now been shunted down to Saturn. It would take WCW two years to eventually push Benoit to the title. Benoit cuts a terrible rehearsed promo that’s too highbrow for a wrestling fan. Worse still it sounds like he’d rehearsed it and flubbed a few lines. Saturn tries to jump him but Benoit dodges and beats Saturn down. Benoit invites Raven in and then spits at him. I guess he’s one of those Jew hating Canadians. Announcers are talking about Nick Patrick, predictably, considering whether or not he’s a good choice for the main event. Thing is – who the fuck books their show by drawing names out of a hat? Oh. Oh, yeah. Kidman tries to jump Benoit but he gets wiped out. Sickboy jumps out of the crowd to level Benoit and Kidman hits an SSP off the apron. Erm. DQ? This wasn’t announced as no DQ. Saturn grinds away with a few rest holds before hitting a moonsault for 2. Benoit brings a little psychology by taking a kitchen sink and then rolling Saturn up when he attempts the same move again moments later. Saturn goes to a chinlock. Ho hum. Suplex gets 2. Looked a bit like a brainbuster but there wasn’t enough snap. Back to the chinlock. The director is so bored he starts scanning the crowd for stuff. Benoit hits a sunset flip for 2. Saturn goes back to the neck and he is at least working a body part. Falcon Arrow and Saturn calls for the finish. He spends way too much time going up top though and Benoit clubs him off the top. Outside and Benoit hooks on the Crippler Crossface. That brings the entire Flock over for a beating. Tony points out this match is under Raven’s Rules, which is handy otherwise that would be another DQ. Benoit lays out the entire Flock. Back inside Benoit hits a snap suplex and calls for the Flying Wolverine. That hits in glorious fashion but the Flock runs in again. Benoit clears them all out, again. Raven is finally in there but it’s distraction for Van Hammer to jump and Raven hits the DDT. Saturn with the Rings of Saturn but Benoit is unconscious from the DDT so this over at 10.50. *1/4. What I’d politely refer to as a methodical pace on that one. The stupid rules eliminated any chance of a good match but Raven’s DDT was SWANK. Keep in mind the idea behind this match was that Benoit kept being thrown the Flock instead of Raven so instead of Benoit getting his hands on Raven he gets laid out and beaten by the second guy in the group. While I appreciate Saturn is the Flock’s Enforcer the finish screws with the psychology of the angle and the booking doesn’t help the feud. Plus this is Starrcade and they just put over ANOTHER heel. Don’t worry it gets better!

Buff Bagwell v Lex Luger

Buff manages a hilarious new name for Lex on the way out “Lex Loser”. Did you spend all night thinking of that one Marcus? Ok, now THIS ONE is a no brainer. Luger was world champion a few months back and Bagwell is nobody. Luger kills him and racks him for the win. Right? RIGHT? Nope. Oh boy. The idea of the build up to this one is Luger keeps losing on count out against Bagwell. So logically this would be no count out right? Wrong again. This is basic booking. It’s easy. It writes itself. The announcers are back on Nick Patrick and discussing how he will call tonight’s match. There’s building up a potential finish and there’s telegraphing the finish of your biggest PPV of the year. This would be the latter. Normally Luger is ok, even after about 1992, as long as he has someone worthwhile to work with. Bagwell isn’t worthwhile. He’s trying to be vintage Flair here but he’s more David than Ric. Not content with time wasting solo Bagwell bails to call for Vincent to come out. When will they realise that no one gives a shit about Mike Jones? Amazingly they kept him there for another three fucking years. Anyway, back to the match. Bagwell uses Vincent as cannon fodder to give him the advantage. The referee loves missing stuff and let’s Vincent occasionally interject by conveniently turning away. I know it’s a referee thing but the nWo guy just came out here. Gee, will he cheat? Bagwell spends most of the match working the back to try and eliminate the rack. Then they sit around in a chinlock for a while. Director gets bored again. Me too. When they are doing stuff in this match it looks awful. Horrible fake looking stuff like standing around waiting to get hit with a clothesline. This is all hung together by Bagwell chinlocking the life out of the match. The crowd, amazingly, is still red hot. They know they’re sitting through a bad match but it can’t go on forever. Another chinlock from Buff who is now taking the piss. Luger tries to rally but gets slapped in a sleeper. It’s just another fucking chinlock. The crowd don’t buy it. They know it’s not a finish. Luger fights out again into a back suplex. Buff tries for a running splash but that gets knees. The knees were actually up as Bagwell took off proving him to be an idiot. Luger suddenly stops selling so he can hit a bunch of clotheslines. Vincent tries to interject himself but Luger knocks him off the apron. That should be it, right? Crowd goes nuts expecting the rack. Luger hits a suplex instead. Vincent tries to come in again so Luger throws him onto Bagwell. Vincent gets clotheslined out and now, surely, we get the rack. Right? Right? RIGHT? Nope, Luger stomps away instead and the ref gets bumped. Oh, fuck you WCW. Luger with a powerslam and now FINALLY Bagwell gets racked but the referee is down. Oh great. Out comes Savage to assault Luger from behind. Luger fights him off and press slams him. Now Savage gets racked. Yeah, that’s…something. The ref is STILL down so out comes Scott Norton to knock Luger out with a chain. Crowd senses evil. Referee is too fucking stupid to notice Scott Norton standing in the ring and counts three anyway at 16.36. -*. The match was nothing, the finish (especially in this context) is woeful. The groan from the crowd and even the announcers is kinda sad to hear. The crowd was pumped. The match sucked but they were nice to it and didn’t shit on it thinking they’d be rewarded with a finish. Nah, fuck the fans. Just put the nWo over AGAIN. This makes it 5/5 in terms of heel wins tonight. That’s if you even count Goldberg as a heel. And another thing – who gives a fuck about Scott Norton? Aside from Antonio Inoki who somehow put the IWGP title on him. TWICE. Of course this can all be amended by just putting over babyfaces in the next three matches. Clean.

US title – Curt Hennig (c) v Diamond Dallas Page

Originally Flair was slated to be competing here but DDP is stepping in because Flair is injured. DDP is over, HUGE. Far more so than Luger was in the last match. Page goes after a really early Diamond Cutter but Hennig shoves him off. DDP has taped ribs so Hennig goes after those. DDP avoids further punishment with a headlock, which normally would be fine if the crowd hadn’t been killed by the last match. The headlock takeover’s look really good here. DDP has obviously been working on them. Hennig goes back to the ribs to cut off any momentum Page was trying to build. This match is totally dying on its ass. Hennig works away at the ribs and hits a clothesline for 2. Now it’s chinlock time. Yawn. They go to a brawl to try and wake the crowd up. Hennig gets punched out of the ring and DDP dives out after him. Into the crowd for a quick brawl. Then DDP drags Hennig groin first into the ring post. DDP goes for the Cutter but Hennig grabs the ropes to block and pins using the ropes…for 2. You could almost sense the potential for yet another heel win. Crowd dies again as Hennig puts another beating on Page. He calls for the Perfectplex but DDP gets out of it. DDP does a sweet floatover into the Diamond Cutter and that finishes at 10.51. 1/4*. That was 10 minutes of nothing BUT the babyface went over for the title, which counts for quite a lot. DDP heads into the crowd to celebrate.

Larry Zbyszko v Eric Bischoff w/Scott Hall

This match is for the rights to Nitro. If Bischoff wins it becomes nWo Nitro, which it did just before this show and tanked miserably in a one off experiment. Special referee for this match is one Bret Hart. Yes, the hottest commodity in all of professional wrestling. The man who just a month prior to this got kicked out of the WWF in the Montreal Screwjob, one of the most famous double crosses in the history of wrestling. Coming into this Bret was hotter than Hall & Nash when they debuted in WCW. Hell, hotter than anyone else in wrestling bar perhaps Steve Austin who was about to become white hot thanks to a feud with Mike Tyson. This guy was an unbelievable steal for WCW. He could have walked into the main event in any promotion in the world. He’s just signed a huge money contract. He’s fit and able. So WCW books him as a referee in a match between the guy that runs the company and an announcer. I mean, wow, that’s pretty special. Larry gets a shot at Scott Hall @ Souled Out if he wins, which is why Hall is out here. Of course that was just used as a gimmick to turn Dusty Rhodes heel. Sigh.

Anyway. I’ve always hated Larry and I can’t stand Bischoff so I’m not exactly excited about this one. Seeing as Nitro is quite important I’m surprised WCW has sent forth such a weak old geezer to compete. Especially considering Bischoff’s black belt in karate. Crowd is really into Larry. There’s a lengthy “feeling out process”. Eric connects with a kick, which brings forth lengthy celebrations from the guy that runs the show. Bischoff is looking confident. Tenay points out that karate is one dimensional and generally in MMA fights the wrestler wins because he has more stuff. Bischoff bails to chat to Hall who suggests the Crane Kick from the Karate Kid. Bischoff doesn’t do it but he might as well because this match is already extracting the urine. Bret has had nothing to do here totally negating his presence in this match. Larry finally gets fired up after 3 minutes and rubs Bischoff’s face into the mat. Bret takes offence at that. Sleeper but Bret thinks it’s a choke. The only entertaining thing here is Eric screaming like a girl every time he gets touched. Bret tells Larry to get off the throat again. Why book him to be such an ass? Larry works at a standing figure four but Eric gets the ropes. Larry works over that leg and Bischoff continues to scream and bails to get a word of advice from Hall. Larry goes out to throw him back in. Bret Hart shows a deal of bias towards the nWo leading the announcers to speculate he’s with them. Which he ended up as, kind of, but he’s actually booked as a face tonight. Not that you’d know because they’ve got him doing contradictory things. Bischoff kicks away at Larry with some of the weakest strikes I’ve ever seen. Larry is giving him the old Rope-A-Dope. Bischoff takes about 20 seconds to completely punch himself out. Larry suplexes him. Swinging neckbreaker and Larry isn’t looking for pins. He wants to put a punishing on Eric. Tree of woe and up jumps Hall to slip Bischoff a foreign object. Why do the tree of woe because Bret has been a stickler for the rules. He’ll only get Larry to break it. Why be that stupid and unfocused? Anyway Bischoff has a foreign object in his shoe so he kicks Larry once and knocks him out. Bret smells the evil and knocks Eric on his ass. Hall jumps in wanting a piece of the Hitman so Bret straps him in the SHARPSHOOTER and the crowd goes completely mental while Hall taps out. Ever think putting Bret in a match might have worked out there? Larry chokes away at Eric at the same time. This leads to Bret raising Larry’s hand at 11.11. I would guess the decision is a disqualification but who the fuck knows with this company? -**. Match was horrible AND a total waste of Bret Hart’s debut AND didn’t even have a finish in order to protect ERIC FUCKIN BISCHOFF? Seriously now. I doubt the WCW booking committee could book a good match at this point. Amazingly they’d actually book an entire good SHOW at Souled Out. They booked good matches with clean finishes. Obviously Hogan was nowhere in sight.

WCW title – Hollywood Hulk Hogan (c) v Sting

Here it is. The match that pays off 18 months of storyline surrounding Sting. WCW was billing this as the single most important match in the entire history of the company. And it was. Sting has a new entrance although WCW’s ultra-sucky version of the Titantron looks rubbish. This is Sting’s first match since Fall Brawl of 1996. The idea being making the fans wait for Starrcade to put on this era altering match. Referee is of course impartial referee Nick Patrick. Hogan shoves Sting to start so Sting slaps him. SAD MIME RAGE! Hogan wastes a minute jawing with the fans. The pace should be fast though and there’s nothing approaching that here. The crowd roars every time Sting connects with anything so obviously there another minute of stalling. Complete with Hogan laughing for no reason and then kicking Sting down. The crowd is just waiting for Sting to start no selling but instead of that he does really bad selling. Half selling almost. Threatening to no sell and then falling over. Already the booking is horrible on this match. Sting dropkicks Hogan out of the ring. And then stands there. Doing nothing. Hogan takes a chance to have a word with some fans. See, what should have happened was Hogan walking out because he’s the chickenshit heel. Then Sting, being the hero babyface, goes and drags him back. Hogan gets back in there and gets dropkicked again. And falls outside again. And Sting stands there doing nothing. Again. I know Sting needed some protection because he hadn’t been in the ring in 15 months but come on! It’s not like we’re gunning for 60 minutes here. Sting grabs a headlock and Hogan tries to power out. Erm, you’re the heel dude. You don’t power out of the top babyface’s headlock. Not that he should even be doing a headlock because he should be absolutely desperate to destroy Hogan and the nWo. Speaking of which, none of them are out here, which makes Hogan look stronger because he’s facing Sting alone. Sting finally no sells a suplex and pounds Hogan in the corner. But Hogan goes to the eyes and there goes the heat again. Crowd just doesn’t want to see Sting get beat up. It’s clear they want to see him kick Hogan’s ass because that’s all they’ve been cheering for. Either Sting has horrendous dandruff or his face paint is coming off. Outside and Sting goes for the Stinger Splash but misses and hits the rail. So Hogan takes over, again. Which again the crowd don’t want to see. Again it’s probably to cover for Sting who is in horrible condition. Now here comes the dumb. Hogan leaves Sting lying with a slam and takes forever to drop the leg for the 3 count at 11.18. Now, while the count is quick it’s not the insanely quick count it was supposed to be. There are those who say Patrick got paid off, legit, by Hogan to not make a quick three count. Now why would Hogan want to sabotage Sting and thereby sabotage the entire company he was working for? Well, if he got this match to go down this way he makes himself the bigger star. He makes WCW need him all the more and destroys Sting’s credibility as a main eventer in the process. So he can get his belt back and keep earning those PPV headlining dollars. Yeah. Asshole. Bret Hart is out here to stop the ring bell being rung. He grabs the mic telling Patrick that this isn’t going to happen again. Not on his watch! He lays out Patrick and throws Hogan back into the ring. Now this gets a huge pop. Sting hits the Stinger Splash and Hogan deliberately fucks up a spot in the corner. I say deliberately because when have you ever seen Hogan fuck something up? He might be lazy and a bastard but at least he doesn’t fuck stuff up. He really is going out of his way to ruin this one. Another Stinger Splash connects. Bret is now the referee btw. Scorpion Deathlock is on, which is also the Sharpshooter. Bret goes to check on Hogan who doesn’t tap out but says he quits just so he has another defence and another excuse to protect his heat. Jesus fucking Christ. Can’t you just take a job? The bell rings this time at 12.53 and now we have a new WCW champion. -*** for fucking up your big payoff angle in the worst way possible. The only way this was worse was if Hogan got booked to go over. They couldn’t have made Sting look any weaker here. The WCW guys pile out here to celebrate but it’s too late. The damage is done.

The 411: Well they sure fucked this one up, eh? The opening match was good but its Eddie v Malenko so you can’t fuck that up. Everything else sucked. Three matches to the point of being offensive. A hot crowd did it’s best to help salvage an awful PPV but hindsight shows that the rot started here. The politics started taking over here. Avoid this.
Final Score:  2.0   [ Very Bad ]