Matt Speaks Out – Starrcade 1994

WCW Starrcade 1994
December 27, 1994
Nashville, TN
Nashville Municipal Auditorium

The current WCW Champs were as follows:
WCW World Champion: Hulk Hogan (7/17/1994)
WCW U.S. Champion: Jim Duggan (9/18/1994)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Harlem Heat (12/8/1994) (yet to air)
WCW World Television Champion: Johnny B. Badd (9/18/1994)

Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan.

Country music singer Aaron Tippin handles the national anthem.

Randy Savage has come to WCW. Will he slap Hogan in the face or shake his hand? We’ll find out tonight.

Hulk Hogan was voted PWI’s Wrestler of the Year. WHODATHUNKIT? Let’s get to the ring already.

WCW U.S. Heavyweight Champion Jim Duggan vs. Vader (w/Harley Race)

So Duggan is pretty much fail as US champion and with Austin out of action due to a knee injury, Vader takes over in the feud and he’s here to knock Duggan down a peg or two. The commentators still acknowledge Vader as the #1 contender to the WCW world title, but that’s been put on the backburner because of the Hogan/Butcher feud. If he comes away with the US title here, there would be no denying him of a WCW world title shot. Notice all the hoops Vader has to go through just to get a shot at the title over Hogan’s buddies? Vader brawls with Duggan in the aisle way and gets sent headfirst into the barricade. After that, Duggan beats up Race in the ring and whips him into the corner for his signature bump to the floor. Back on the floor, Vader gets whipped stomach first into the guardrail. They finally meet in the ring where Duggan delivers a freakin’ crossbody block for two. He follows up with a SLAM and some clotheslines. Duggan misses an elbow drop from the second rope for Vader to take over with jabs. Pump Splash gets two. Duggan avoids a second Pump Splash, but goes down to a body attack. Vader misses a VADERSAULT, but catches Duggan in the corner with a splash. Duggan answers back with a running clothesline. THREE POINT STANCE connects. Cover, 1-2-NO! Race thumbs Duggan in the eye from the floor! Ref doesn’t see a thing though. Oh the physical complications like temporary blindness for example that referees have to live with. It’s just awful! Vader get slammed in mid-air as he comes off the middle rope, but Race has the ref Nick Patrick distracted to prevent the count. Duggan goes for the THREE POINT STANCE again, but Vader sidesteps him and sends Duggan into his own 2×4 courtesy of Harley Race. Vader delivers the wheelbarrow facebuster he’s been giving guys who evidently don’t want to take the Powerbomb and gets the three-count. (13:06) We’ve got a NEW U.S. Champion. Quite the positive reaction too. Duggan did seem motivated as this is one of his better matches post-Mid South. **½

The Three Faces of Fear are standing by with Gene Okerlund in the back. Butcher has Hogan’s Christmas present in his hands. It’s a tombstone that reads – “Hulkamania: Rest In Agony”. I don’t think he’s going to like that gift very much, Butcher. Better save the receipt. Sullivan hints an alliance with Randy Savage just for fun.

Alex Wright vs. Jean-Paul Levesque

Watching this match in 2008 is so odd. If you went back to 1994 and told everybody what this Levesque would accomplish over the next five years, no one would believe it. Not even Levesque himself. Heenan calls Wright the “Wundercoon”. Yikes. Good thing the guy is white. Wright flips out of a wristlock and takes Levesque down with a headscissors. Neat spot where Wright jumps over the ref to get at Levesque in the corner. Lots of bland mat work follows. Levesque handstands out of a headscissors and pops Wright in the face. So that’s where Austin Aries gets that from! Enough of the wrestling, Levesque takes Wright to the corner and kicks the crap out of him. Spinning Heel Kick from Levesque connects. Wright whiffs on a crossbody and falls out on the floor as Levesque follows up with a Blueblood bow and a baseball slide. Back in, Levesque stops a sunset flip with a fist. Wright elbows out of a chinlock, but runs into a dropkick. Back to the chinlock. Wright escapes again and runs right into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker! Levesque misses a flying elbow and Wright makes his comeback. That leads to a double-KO spot. Levesque whips Wright into the corner, but Wright back flips over him and rolls up Levesque for the 1-2-3. (14:03) That was a lot of PPV time for these two. Wright would go on to win a few mid-card titles throughout the rest of WCW’s existence. Levesque on the other hand wouldn’t hang around much longer and headed to the WWF. As they say, the rest is history. **

WCW World Television Champion Johnny B. Badd vs. Arn Anderson (w/Col. Robert Parker & Meng)

Honky Tonk Man was supposed to get a second TV title rematch on a major show in two months, but had a contract dispute and walked out on WCW right before the show. So Arn Anderson is our replacement who just so happens to be a much better worker than the so called #1 contender. Arn toils around with Badd to start; laughing and carrying on trying to make Badd look the fool. They play some armbar games for a while and Arn complains about hair pulling. Badd punches away on Arn, but runs into a Spinebuster. Arn pulls out the dusty old heel playbook and rakes some eyes across the ropes and chokes away. Arn even grabs a rope-assisted abdominal stretch! They blow the spot where Arn splashes you from a knucklelock on the mat. Arn stands out of it and elbows Badd instead. They trade sleepers until Arn breaks free with a jawbreaker. Badd surprises Arn with a tilt-a-whirl headscissors to start up his comeback. He catches Arn with a Knee Lift and the Flying Sunset Flip gets 1-2-NO! Arn tries for the Ric Flair corner pin, but gets caught. Arn walks away to celebrate thinking that he’s won and gets rolled up for 1-2-3. (11:22) A few weeks later, Arn Anderson would dethrone Johnny B. Badd to win his fourth and final TV title. **¼

The Nasty Boys were voted PWI’s Tag Team of the Year. Heenan ~ “You know – naming the Nasty Boys tag team of the year is like giving the Cindy Crawford beauty award to Roseanne Barr.”

Harlem Heat (w/Sister Sherri) vs. The Nasty Boys

Lots of brawling to start. Sags delivers his Pumphandle Slam to Booker T early on for two. Booker comes back with a flying forearm, but get caught with a front powerslam. Now all four men are in and Harlem Heat get splashed. Back to ringside brawling they go. Once that’s over, the Nasties take over and work on Booker’s arm. It’s like they have a fundamental understanding of wrestling all of a sudden. Stevie Ray breaks up an armbar and that sets up more brawling. Stevie Ray bicycle kicks Sags up the aisleway and drops his shins on the guardrail. That kind of messes up the match because Sags and Booker are the legal men. Back in, Booker catches Sags with a jumping heel kick. Stevie Ray tags and works a nerve hold. Once Sags starts to fight up, Booker tags and drops Sags with a scissors kick long before that was his finisher. That gets two. Sags jawbreakers out of a chinlock, but Stevie Ray cuts off the tag with a legdrop. The Heat work a bearhug for a while. Booker runs into a boot in the corner and gets the crap clotheslined out of him by Sags. Stevie Ray nails Knobbs on the apron to prevent the tag. The Heat attempt a double team backdrop, but Sags drops them with a double DDT. Hot tag to Knobbs, and we’ve got a pier-six brawl. Booker and Sags wind up on the floor while Sherri sprays something from an aerosol can into Stevie Ray’s eyes by accident. Ref doesn’t see any of that. Booker gets slammed down from the top to set up a Sags FLYING ELBOW DROP. Sherri tries to splash Sags from the top and nails Booker instead for the DQ. (17:48) Pretty uninspired tag formula with a retarded finish. *½

Sting wins PWI’s Most Popular Wrestler of the Year award. Heenan’s mad he didn’t win anything this year.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Mr. T

Mr. T corners Sullivan to start as Santa EVAD comes down to give out t-shirts to the kids. Sullivan dumps T on the floor and pulls his shirt over his head to freely beat him up. Meanwhile as Sullivan and T get back in the ring, Jimmy Hart runs down and sticks his megaphone in Santa Dave’s sack. Sullivan gets WHACKED and Mr. T gets the win. (3:51) Since Evad is an idiot, he sticks around after the match and takes a piledriver from big brother Kevin. CRAP

Sting vs. Avalanche (w/Kevin Sullivan)

Sting takes the Vader approach and kicks at the legs, but Avalanche is just too fat for that and pushes Sting around. Avalanche grounds Sting with a headlock. We’re ten minutes in and you can tell Tenta is blown. Poor guy. Avalanche delivers his powerslam and gets two. Sting jumps on his back for a sleeper and gets him down to a knee, but Avalanche grabs the ropes for the break. Avalanche falls on top of Sting to block a slam for two. Another powerslam by Avalanche sets up the AVALANCHE DROP, but Sting pops up while he’s posing and clotheslines him down. Sting dropkicks Avalanche into the corner, but the ref Jimmy Jett gets stuck behind him. Stinger Splash! Whoops. Sting gets the slam and applies the SCORPION DEATHLOCK. With the ref still completely incapacitated, Kevin Sullivan comes in to break it up and gets destroyed. Sting tosses Sullivan into Avalanche’s arms and runs him into Sting in the corner. AVALANCHE DROP connects, and here comes Hogan with a chair. The heels scurry and ref Randy Anderson runs down to DQ Avalanche. (15:27) This was there. Most of the time Sting worked well with the big guys, so it wasn’t all bad. *¾

Jimmy Hart wins PWI’s Manager of the Year award. Heenan says, “That’s like Forrest Gump winning the Einstein Award for Intelligence – it just doesn’t happen.”

WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. The Butcher

You know why this match never headlined a WrestleMania? Because it sucks. There was talk of this being Hogan vs. Vader since he won the #1 contender’s match, or Hogan vs. Avalanche (definitely couldn’t have convinced anyone he was the masked man, but anyways), or Hogan vs. Butcher. In case you haven’t been keeping up, Butcher (Brutus Beefcake) was revealed at Halloween Havoc to be the masked man who had been attacking Hogan this whole time. He claims to have done what he did because Hogan stopped being his friend when all the WCW fame and glory came. Yeah, okay. Did somebody say WB high school drama?! Butcher controls to start as they fight out to ringside where Butcher delivers some painful looking back rakes! Jimmy Hart takes a chair away from him and Hogan answers back with an atomic drop? Really? Hogan gets the chair and delivers a couple weak shots to Butcher in plain sight of the ref and doesn’t even get warned. Butcher’s the first guy in the ring and catches Hogan with the High Knee. Butcher misses a diving forearm and Hogan takes over with chops and bites Butcher down on the mat. Hogan telegraphs a backdrop and Butcher takes advantage with a throat thrust. Butcher takes over with chokes and continues with a nerve hold. Hogan elbows out, but runs into a double throat thrust and gets caught in the SLEEPER. The arm drops twice and even three times. Butcher releases the hold and turns around to celebrate, but Hogan’s arm is back up and he shakes his finger. It’s HULK UP time. Here comes Avalanche and Sullivan. Big Boot to Butcher, and the other two Faces of Fear get nailed. Hogan hits the LEGDROP for the 1-2-3. (12:07) Hogan finds a chair and wards off the TFOF until Randy Savage runs down. Is he part of Sullivan’s group? Of course not. He double-crosses the heels so he and Hogan can have a moment in the ring. Ahem, where’s Sting at? The original plan was to give Butcher the belt so he could drop it to Savage and then have Savage job to Hogan again so he could regain the belt. Obviously they decided to hold off on that plan. If you enjoy ten minutes of incredibly embarrassing chairshots and choking for ten minutes, then this is the match for you! *½

This PPV just went up a notch as Vader challenges Hogan during his celebratory interview. He sees fear in Hogan’s eyes and in his soul. Hogan decides that maybe it’s Vader time right now and we’ve got a pull apart brawl on our hands.

The 411: Well this is the worst Starrcade to date. I’ve recapped the first twelve and none of them have reached this low. Nothing over *** and you could certainly skip this show and never know it existed storyline-wise. Thumbs down for Starrcade 1994.
Final Score:  4.0   [ Poor ]