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HHHEEEYYY! Ian Hunter here, walking out to a shower of gold sparkles and a corny tune about how special I am. It's a shame our current WWE Champion got the more extravagant entrance for Goldust, buy I guess it's the best they've got for the #1 heel champion right now. I would have done some trivia for Armageddon, but to be honest every year it feels like a throwaway PPV. I mean, really, when was the last time there was a company changing event at the December event? So we're going to do some trivia on a different PPV that's sadly long gone. Starrcade! That's right, the NWA event that preceded Wrestlemania by two years! But first, we need to answer last week's questions.
1: E. Gorilla Monsoon was due to take the play-by-play chair along side Vince McMahon and at the time Bobby Heenan. But when "Prime Time Wrestling" went off the air, Monsoon decided it was time for him to step down as a commentator for the WWF, and only came back on few occasions to do PPV events. Because of this, McMahon had to make some last minute changes, grabbing Randy Savage and (for who knows what reason) Rob Bartlett. Heenan was reduced to playing an ignored manager trying to sneak into the show outside.
2: B. "Your challenge has been accepted! ECW is in the house!" Many people guessed C, but no, that was said on the second ECW "invasion" in 2001.
3: A. Austin was supposed to head out and have about the same kind of squash match The Rock had, but decided at the last minute it wasn't right. People like Road Dogg, The Godfather and The Rock took the mic and filled some of the time that Austin would have had. Instead, Austin came out, toasted a beer to a picture of Owen, and left it in the ring.
4: D. Ric didn't get the bashing treatment from Vince. My favorite lines from the whole night... "Double J looks out of tune." and "The Lex Express is out of gas."
5: C. Yep, Bischoff was credited for bringing back the World's title after Lesnar went to Smackdown, The Raw Roulette Wheel when they were in Vegas, the Elimination Chamber that was even said to be his design, and the recreation of the Raw set which featured the commentary table by the stage (ala Nitro). Storyline wise he tried to get Austin back and failed. The credit to Steve's return went to Jim Ross.
Another week went by and we still had no winners folks. What can I say, we'll just keep going along until we find some. If the questions are too hard, let me know too! Answer the questions and email your answers to TorchTrivia@gmail.com. We’ll post the names of those who got ALL FIVE correct. Good luck to you all.
1. The very first Starrcade took place on November 24th, 1983. Live via closed circuit from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The event featured the best the NWA had to offer, including the bloody Dog Collar match between Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine, and Abdullah the Butcher against Carols Colon. The main event of the night was a classic, Ric Flair vs. Harley Race for the NWA Championship in a steel cage. But it was deemed that they needed a special referee to make sure neither man cheated their way to a victory. Who was the referee?
A; Jack Brisco
B: Ricky Steamboat
C: Jay Youngblood
D: Gene Kiniski
E: Wahoo MacDaniel
2. Let's flash forward a little to 1990. One of the first Starrcade's not to officially bill Ric Flair in the main event. That's because Flair was hiding under the mask of the over-gimmicked Black Scorpion who challenged Sting for the title. For months magician Franz Harary did magic tricks under the mask until wrestling time came around. Then Sting usually interacted with a random wrestler under the mask, four of which appeared at Starrcade as Black Scorpion to confuse Sting as "messengers". Which of these people did NOT imitate the Black Scorpion at Starrcade?
A: Wild Bill Irwin
B: Arn Anderson
C: Ole Anderson
D: Al Perez
E: David Sheldon
3. Skipping ahead to 1995, one of my personal favorite Starrcades, "World Cup of Wrestling." Wrestlers from New Japan headed to Nashville to compete against WCW's roster for what would sadly be the first and only contest for the World Cup. To hell with that botched World Title match with Savage and Flair. Some of the greatest matches in 1995 happened in one night, including Christ Benoit vs. Jushin Liger and Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Eddie Guerrero. The contest was a best of 7 matches to which WCW eventually won. Who was the man who won the final match for WCW to win the cup?
A: Sting
B: Lex Luger
C: Alex Wright
D: Johnny B. Badd
E: Randy Savage
4. In 1998 Goldberg was undefeated and holding the WCW Championship. He made his way into Starrcade to face off against Kevin Nash. The only thing that really made this match special was that it was hyped for weeks that Goldberg was going to start delivering the deathnail to the nWo, starting with Nash (despite being a part of the Wolfpack). And for the mostpart it was your usual Goldberg match. He huffed and puffed and snorted and spit his way to the ring for five minutes, walked in and took his hits for ten minutes, and got attacked by a number of people until he was about to finish off Nash. But at the last minute Scott Hall jumped up dressed as event security and took down Goldberg, allowing Nash to win the title and end the streak. What weapon did Hall use on Goldberg?
A: Nightstick
B: Brass Knuckles
C: Cowbell
D: The Ring Bell
E: Stun Gun
5. The final Starrcade before the WWF purchase took place December 17th, 2000. Ten matches on the card, but not a single one of them really that memorable. The only noteworthy stuff is Terry Funk winning the Hardcore title, DDP and Nash formed a horrible tag team called "The Insiders" to win the tag belts, and Scott Steiner beat Sid Vicious who passed out in the recliner. The only other hyped match on the card was Goldberg against Lex Luger, but the match had little buildup and failed to meet expectations of the fans as you could almost hear the sound of crickets during the match. What was the stipulation in this match?
A: Goldberg would get a title shot if he won.
B: Goldberg's career was on the line.
C: Luger would get a title shot if he won.
D: Luger's career was on the line.
E: Winner would join the Four Horsemen.
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