PWTorch.com - PARKS: DVD Review - New Starrcade release looks at 1980's-focused overview of WCW's signature annual supershow

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PARKS: DVD Review - New Starrcade release looks at 1980's-focused overview of WCW's signature annual supershow

Mar 19, 2009 - 12:46:16 PM

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By Greg Parks, PWTorch Contributor

This column originally appeared in the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #1068/1069, cover-dated Feb. 14, 2009. If you aren't a subscriber to , you miss Greg Parks's outstanding weekly columns which appear as PDF-bonus articles...

One of WWE's latest releases, "The Essential Starrcade," features one of the shorter documentaries for these WWE releases. A lot of the ‘90s was glossed over, but then again, if you look at the lineups, there isn't much worth in-depth discussions on those cards either.

The documentary portion began with soundbites about what Starrcade meant to Jim Crockett Promotions, the NWA and WCW. Those who were interviewed for their opinions gave effusive praise to the concept of a WrestleMania-like show for JCP. David Crockett gave some background on Jim Crockett Promotions, his family's business, and mentioned how his family was in the entertainment business. Professional wrestling was one arm of that business. It was explained that Thanksgiving Day always featured a big show for JCP in Greensboro. These shows ended up being a pre-cursor to Starrcade. Greensboro was considered the home of Crockett Promotions and many people associated with Greensboro and the Coliseum were interviewed about the impact of the shows.

Dusty Rhodes noted that he was asked to come up with a concept for a big show. He said he and Barry Windham were discussing possibilities one day and Dusty came up with the "Starrcade" name. The NWA promoters voted on who would get Starrcade in their home territory, and JCP ended up winning out. The first Starrcade featured Ric Flair vs. Harley Race for the NWA Title in the main event.

There were soundbites from people in the TV business, recorded at the time, praising those in Jim Crockett Promotions. According to the interviews, Starrcade was originally only supposed to be held on Thanksgiving and only in Greensboro. That changed later on. Gerry Brisco said you knew the first Starrcade would be historic just by walking through the dressing room and seeing all the big names on hand for the event.

The first Starrcade was dissected in detail, and Rhodes was said that with Starrcade in 1983, the business went from wrestling to entertainment. Of course, Vince McMahon would prefer that WrestleMania be credited with that turn. They said that fans were doing all they could to get into the building for the show, so Crockett put the show on closed-circuit TV next door for the overflow of people. One of the two matches that were focused on from this show were Greg Valentine vs. Roddy Piper in a dog-collar match. Piper talked about how he made the collars and Magnum T.A said that while wrestling for Bill Watts at the time, Watts brought wrestlers in to watch that match and learn from it. Piper said he and Valentine did the match four more times, but none was better than the original.

The other match obviously was the main-event cage match of Flair vs. Race. "A Flare for the Gold" was the subtitle for the show. Interesting spelling and use of "flare" there. I remember watching that match from the original Ric Flair DVD. Gene Kiniski almost single-handedly ruined that match with his officiating. In a new bit of info for me, Rhodes said it was tough to convince Race to drop the title to someone like Flair at the time. The first show was seen as a tremendous success. Rhodes said they sold over $100,000 worth of tickets for the following year's events from fans who were leaving the arena.

Starrcade 1984 featured Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair in the main event, with $1 million on the line. There was only a brief recap of that night. Then they went into next year's show, talking about how great an economic boon for the city the shows in 1985 and 1986 were, setting attendance and gate records. That's the kind of stuff you hear these days about WrestleMania as well, how it pumps millions of dollars into the economy of whatever city they're in.

The shows in 1985 and 1986 were simulcast in Atlanta and Greensboro, much like WrestleMania 2 in 1986. Of the ‘85 Starrcade matches, the DVD focused on a match that wasn't a main-event in either town, the Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum T.A I Quit Cage Match. Arn Anderson said it was the most grueling and gory match he had ever seen. According to many, T.A was next in line for the title, likely at the 1986 show where he would've faced Flair. However, he ended up getting into a car accident, cutting his wrestling career short. I thought they went pretty in-depth on Magnum here, especially for a guy who never spent any time in WWE.

Starrcade 1986 had Nikita Koloff in the Magnum spot against Flair, but they didn't discuss that match, instead focusing on the infamous tag team scaffold Match with the Road Warriors against the Midnight Express where Jim Cornette injured both knees. Cornette and Road Warrior Animal provided most of the retrospectus for this match, with Cornette's comments looking like they were taken from the same interview he did for the Monday Night Wars DVD. Obviously they couldn't get any up-to-date comments from him, being in TNA and all. I wonder if when they interview these guys, they give them questions on a broad range of things in case they can't get comments for something else another time. It looks like Race's comments from most of the DVDs also came from one interview as well. Anyway, the 1986 show was close-circuited to a bunch of locations and was notable for being the first NWA event to gross $1 million.

The company moved Starrcade out of Greensboro in 1987 and to Chicago, in an effort to become more of a national promotion. They also ran on pay per-view for the first time, but they had a roadblock in their way. The WWF positioned their Survivor Series PPV on Thanksgiving night as well, and told cable companies that if they want to run WrestleMania in the spring, they'd have to run Survivor Series. Few cable companies wanted to lose out on WrestleMania, so many opted to show Survivor Series in lieu of Starrcade. Jim Ross walked through a minefield in gently explaining how it went down, noting that it was a "rumor" that the WWF pretty much held the cable companies hostage in this instance. David Crockett didn't mince words however and said it did happen. Unfortunately, he said the Crocketts leveraged the company's future on the PPV earnings, but the numbers were behind and that ended up forcing them to sell to Ted Turner.

With Turner on board, Starrcade 1988 moved to December (they had to get away from Survivor Series). The wrestlers mentioned that graphics, cameras, the entryway and overall production values improved thanks to Turner's media company. Flair said Starrcade gave the best action money could buy at the time. Not much was said about the Flair vs. Lex Luger main event, as they went right into a chapter about Flair pretty much being "Mr. Starrcade." He main evented the first seven Starrcades (eight if you count him as The Black Scorpion). He talked about his match with Vader as the main event in 1993 in Charlotte, noting that he had a lot of family on hand for that one.

Backing up a bit, the heads of WCW in the early ‘90s again took it on the chin in this one, as Dusty Rhodes even commented that they knew "jack-shit" about pro wrestling. For 1989's event, they tried a point system Iron-man tournament. JR said it was an interesting concept that didn't deliver on PPV or at the gate. Lethal Lottery and Battlebowl, starting in 1991, was another attempt at uniqueness. JR said it was a mistake not cultivating the concept, and the New Japan guys they brought in didn't have the mass appeal they were looking for. Dusty said it watered down the product.

Eric Bischoff said he didn't see Starrcade as the biggest PPV of the year for WCW because December didn't draw for PPVs. Wouldn't that be a self-fulfilling prophecy though? Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage came on board and them headlining the show gave the event its credibility back. The influx of new talent, such as Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash helped as well.

The "Goldberg Era" was discussed and Arn said Bill was as hot as Hogan or Flair in their prime. Goldberg vs. Nash in 1998 had differing opinions: Anderson said Nash beating Goldberg and giving Bill his first loss was overdue and Ross said it wasn't a strategically wise move to have him lose; he compared it to Hogan losing at WrestleMania, which he did rarely.

The documentary portion ended with Starrcade being said to still be historically significant and those interviewed talked about the show's legacy and said it was "the" event for NWA/WCW. Overall yes, the documentary did skip over a great portion of the ‘90s, but the Black Scorpion stuff, Hogan vs. The Butcher and other main events weren't really necessary to add to the story. Sting vs. Hogan probably should've been touched upon, but Sting was downplayed in the whole documentary for obvious reasons. If your documentaries MUST be completist, you probably will frown upon this one, but overall, I think they focused on the earlier ones with good reason.

Greg Parks writes "Another Voice" every week for PWTorch Newsletter's PDF and Roundtable Reviews at PWTorch.com.

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