Grilling JR - Starrcade 1987 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Starrcade 1987

Starrcade 87: Chi-Town Heat happened on Thanksgiving Thursday, November 26, 1987 at the UIC Pavillion from - you guessed it - Chicago, Illinois. The event was reported as a sell out in Chicago with 8,000 in attendance - but early on, there were a lot of empty seats visible. Maybe they let fans in late. The event was produced by Jim Crockett Promotions under the National Wrestling Alliance banner and was the first NWA event to be broadcast on pay-per-view.

But that was a big controversy. The WWF had been running pay-per-view cards for some time. They didn’t like the idea of JCP coming in on their territory, so to speak, and developed the Survivor Series to run on the same night as Starrcade. But, to stick it to JCP, Titan limited the amount of pay-per-view providers who could carry Starrcade by not allowing them to carry the forthcoming Wrestlemania IV unless they carried Survivor Series exclusively. Survivor Series did a 7.0 buyrate while Starrcade 87 did a 3.3 buyrate - or about 20,000 homes - as a result.

What was the feeling within the company when everyone learned Titan would be airing Survivor Series on the very same night?

How did you first learn about them trying to force cable providers not to air Starrcade by restricting access to Wrestlemania? Any memorable reactions to that news from people we’ve heard of?

Meltzer called it The Battle of Thanksgiving. He wrote, “Although a lot of people will only talk about the Survivors Series as being the main factor in this, the Titan show only affects JCP in that their debut on national PPV has to be postponed until 1/24/88. Whatever money that would have been made on PPV for Starcade won’t be there but it was never there in past Starcade’s either, all of which were considered successful shows. While the Titan show may divide some fans’ enthusiasm between the two shows, actually only a small percentage of viewers will have an alternative. For one thing, PPV is still in its infancy. Only seven percent of the homes in this country will even have the capability of viewing the Titan show -- with heavy concentration in California (where JCP isn’t running any closed-circuit venues). So only a very small percentage of fans in the cities where Starcade is being beamed will have a choice to make. In addition, both groups draw predominantly a different audience to begin with. So whatever success, or lack thereof, that Starcade has this year, will be determined by the strength of the card and the strength of TV hype, and not by extenuating factors. Another note that has to be brought up when figuring how well Starcade will do in comparison to the past two years is the big difference in live gates. Last year, most of the nearly $1 million grossed on Starcade (roughly $650,000) came from Greensboro and Atlanta, the two live spots. This year in Chicago, with less than 10,000 seats available, you are talking about a sellout gross (and the card will almost surely sellout) in the near $200,000 range. That’s a big difference to make up. “

Do you agree that the success or failure was based on how well the company promoted it - or was that mistaken?

News and Notes

The other big card of the past week was the NWA’s debut at the Nassau Coliseum in New York on the day before Starcade and Thanksgiving, 11/25. Actually running a big card the night before was probably why most guys were “off” at Starrcade and in effect, helped ruin the Starcade show. However most all reports were the Nassau card was excellent.

What was the idea behind running such a big card the day before the debut on PPV? Was that a mistake in hindsight?

Gate was in the $150,000 range so crowd was around 11,500 as:

1. Sting & Ron Simmons went to a 10:00 draw with Terry Taylor and Konga the Barbarian. Good opener;

2. Larry Zbyszko pinned Kevin Sullivan in 4:05 when Baby Doll distracted Sullivan leading to the pin. Not good; 3. Jimmy Valiant & Bugsy McGraw & Mighty Wilbur downed Black Bart & Warlord & Ivan Koloff in 8:30 when Wilbur splashed Bart. Match wasn’t as bad as it sounds, but it was a bad match to be sure;

4. Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin downed the Jive Tones in 7:14 when Hayes pinned Whatley. Hayes & Garvin did their strutting, but as wrestling this was fair;

5. Steve Williams pinned Rick Steiner in 10:14 with the powerslam. The action was good when they had action, but too many rest wholds. Steiner carried it and Williams was disappointing in the middle;

6. Sheepherders kept the UWF tag belts beating Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner in 12:00 when Johnny Ace hit Horner with the flagpole when the ref was distracted. Butch wasn’t in the ring much so the action was pretty good from bell-to-bell;

7. Nikita Koloff pinned Eddie Gilbert in 7:00 with the sickle. Great match;

8: Road Warriors beat Ric Flair & Lex Luger in 15:00 of an all-action match when Flair hit Hawk with JJ Dillons shoe for the DQ. Flair was at his best here and this was an excellent match;

9. The War Games went 23:00 ending when Dusty made Bobby Eaton submit to the Figure Four leglock. Some were disappointed with the finish but the match was excellent by most accounts. Arn, Windham, Morton, Eaton and Dusty all juiced. Eaton missed the rocket launcher on Dusty before the finish.

What can you tell us about the JCP Nassau show in New York?

Around this time, a question came up in the Observer about why the NWA wasn’t running shows at the Boston Gardens after a successful show in April. Meltzer reported the NWA can’t come back to Boston because the Gardens would only rent them one date in April as an experiment. Even though they drew a huge crowd and a $142,000 gate, the Gardens wasn’t willing to rent to the NWA for a return visit. On the surface, that might seem confusing but Meltzer said if they did, Titan would cancel at least half of its dates in the Garden and run bi-monthly, and probably threaten to pull out totally so economically the folks at the Garden must feel not renting it to the NWA is in their best interest.

Any memories about negotiations with the Boston Gardens and them refusing to rent to the NWA after the first experiment - which by all accounts, was a success?

Some more TV ratings notes. In the third quarter of 1987 (July through September), five pro wrestling shows cracked the top 20 shows in basic cable television. The second-most watched cable show is the Saturday WTBS 6:05 pm eastern time show produced by JCP with an average weekly rating of 3.2 and watched in more than 1.3 million homes during an average week. In the no. 3 slot is Tita’s Prime Time Wrestling on Thursday nights at 9 PM eastern with a 3.4 rating in just under 1.3 million homes (Titan’s show has a higher rating but is ranked behind JCP because more homes have WTBS than USA Network). Titan’s All American Wrestling is ranked no. 4 with a 3.2 rating and 1.2 million homes in its Sunday noon est slot.

In the No. 10 slot is JCP’s Sunday 5:35 PM slot on WTBS with a 2.4 rating in 1 million homes and at No. 20 is the AWA show on ESPN with a 1.9 rating in 810,000 homes. No doubt the rating of the AWA show is hurt badly by the fact it has no regular time slot. In fact, it’s pretty hard to understand ESPN for not giving it a regular slot, since it is ESPN’ second-highest rated show behind only the Friday night boxing which gets a 2.0. Certainly if wrestling had a steady slot on ESPN, it’s ratings would increase way past a 2.0 mark so ESPN’s lack of respect for wrestling makes as little sense looking at TV ratings as it does to wrestling fans. These top 20 ratings don’t include anything on MTV or its subsidiaries like Nickelodeon because those companies don’t subscribe to the ratings believing the margin for error in cable ratings is enormous. Most of this info was taken from a recent article in Electronic Media.

Meltzer wrote, “From my own research, the TBS ratings for the most part continue on a downward trend. The Saturday PM show has stayed consistent over most of the past year, although the first quarter of last year saw its ratings jump to a 4.0 and its audiences dropped over 20-percent over the next six months. The Sunday show’s audience has dropped 37-percent over the past nine months in a consistent downward trend. Most alarming is the ratings drop of the Saturday am show which had its time slot bettered from 8:05 am to 11:05 am yet has its audience drop 35-percent in the last nine months.

Since the “peak” of cable wrestling in 1985, the Titan numbers have fallen as well, but the slide hasn’t been nearly as pronounced. Titan’s shows have dropped 25-to-30 percent in audience over a two-year period. “

What was causing these drops in ratings? What could have been done to prevent it, if anything?

The 11/16 issue of Electronic Media reported that the WWF package is the only wrestling syndicated package left in the top 15 ratings. Titan’s package remains No. 4 (Oprah Winfrey and Star Trek have flip-flopped the No. 5 and No. 3 slots) with a 9.3 rating. The “All Star Wrestling Network” (POWW, AWA< and Pro Wrestling this Week) actually fell out of the top 15 two weeks back while JCP fell out of the top 15 two weeks back, popped up again at No. 13 last week, and fell from the ratings again this week.

Crazy to think about pro-wrestling competing with Oprah and Star Trek The Next Generation...but it really was that hot, right?

While on the subject of ratings, WWF’s Saturday Night’s Main Event on 10/3 featuring Randy Savage and the Honkey Tonk Man on NBC pulled a huge 9.7 rating and a 30 share.

What’s the reaction like in the JCP office when numbers like that come in for the competition?

Crowds continue to be weak with the 11/15 show in Oklahoma City drawing around 500, the Tulsa show that night with a national TV taping drawing 3,000, and the 11/16 in Los Angeles drawing 1,500

There were other reports of weak crowds around this time. What do you attribute that to? You guys had a huge national show. Why couldn’t you get fans into arenas?

Another note about Starrcade 87 is that it was the first mega show from JCP to feature UWF stars since the purchase of the company. Bill Watts sold the Universal Wrestling Federation to Crockett on April 9, 1987, and many of the UWF's top acts were either retained by Jim Crockett Promotions, or immediately jumped to the WWF or WCCW.

Not all of the UWF wrestlers were well received by the JCP fanbase, though. Dr. Death Steve Williams, Rick Steiner, the Freebirds, and Sting all did well coming over. Do you remember some of the UWF stars that had a particularly hard time transitioning into JCP?

What were the big differences for the wrestlers (and announcers!) coming from one promotion to the other?

Starrcade Closed Circuit Event Report:

I don’t have a report from Greensboro but the New Orleans portion of Starcade drew 1,610 at the Lakefront Arena to see these matches: 1. Bugsy McGraw & Jimmy Valiant beat The Jive Tones in 7:32. Match had a lot of blood. Valiant pinned Conway; 2. Ron Simmons pinned Johnny Ace with a flying shoulder block off the ropes in 4:00; 3. Sean Royal pinned Killer Khalifa in 4:11 with a knee drop off the top ropes; 4. The main event was scheduled to have the Sheepherders defend the UWF tag belts against the New Breed in a cage match, however both Chris Champion and the cage were no-shows. Instead, it was a regular match against Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner and the fans who were there were pissed off. They were even madder since the bout went 5:30 before Horner got the flagpole (Ace had been using it) and used it and the ref DQ’ed him for it. They were supposed to have one hour of live matches before Starcade but these matches were so short, they had a 27 minute intermission before Starcade even started.

That’s not a bad line-up. Do you recall who was in charge of that show?

Some closed circuit reports I’ve got at press time were a crowd of 6,600 in Philadelphia; 1,500 in Detroit and around 350 in Denver.

The Event Itself

(Match descrips/ratings from Observer)

The show opens with Mustache Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross seated at a really awesome looking desk with a star design. JR tells us we’re at the Premiere Wrestling Event of the Year.

1. Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin & Sting went to a 15:00 draw against Rick Steiner & Larry Zybyszko & Eddie Gilbert. Tremendous action and heat in the early moments but the bout slowed from there. It seemed ref Mike Figueroa was getting in the way of the wrestlers. While the wrestlers individually looked fine (and Steiner looked really good) for some reason the match had no flow and looked disjointed. Really, as an opening match it was good. ** ¾

The finish seemed slightly mistimed. What did you think about the match and the opening of the show?

Notes:

• The opening with the Freebirds and Sting coming out into the arena through the entrance to BadStreet USA is a goosebump moment.
• Rick Steiner’s physique is in peak condition here, akin to Bobby Lashley’s in 2020. It’s insane. He looks like he could take off flying.
• If you were assigning statistics to a wrestler, Michael Hayes would receive the maximum points possible for charisma. He’s just over the top and very engaging to the crowd throughout.

2. Steve Williams pinned Barry Windham in 7:00 to retain the UWF championship. Williams pressed Windham over his head three times and the first minute was really hot. The fans started the boring chant almost immediately after they slowed down. Williams went for a leapfrog and got head-butted in the groin. Windham didn’t move in, as the story is to go, giving Doc ample time to recover. Almost as soon as they went back at it, Doc did a duck down and a great bump onto the table and guard railing. Barry got back in the ring and Williams pinned him with an Oklahoma side roll. The way the story goes, Doc didn’t give Barry ample time to recover, thus beginning his turn to heel. I will say this much, the crowd booed the finish, but I think it was more because they felt cheated by this non match with two great wrestlers. Almost nobody I talked with even got the hint that this was the beginning of the heel turn. The booking of this match was atrocious. DUD

What can you say about the match and the booking of the match? Do you agree with Meltzer?

3. The Rock & Roll Express downed the Midnight Express in a scaffold match which lasted 9:35. As they were climbing up the scaffold, Bubba Rogers attacked Ricky Morton from behind and gave him the Bubba-slam. However Morton made too quick of a recovery and the two-on-one only lasted about a minute. Morton got the tennis racket from Jim Cornette and started clobbering Bubba, then climbed up the scaffold. The scaffold seemed to me to be around 14 feet high--lower than some of the others we’ve seen but I guess still high enough for thrillseekers. Robert Gibson juiced early. Bobby Eaton then threw powder in both guys’ eyes and then Bobby juiced. Gibson clobbered Eaton a few times with the racket and it went flying off the scaffold. Then the most amazing part of the match, Cornette tossed the racket to Bobby who caught it on the fly and considering Bobby was on a scaffold and Cornette was never a baseball pitcher with pinpoint control, it was impressive. Anyway, they used the racket some more, then the Rock and Rollers got it back. Finally Ricky knocked Stan off the scaffold at 8:00 and Bobby took the bump 90 seconds later. Robert then climbed down and Ricky started to climb down while Bubba climbed up. Bubba and Ricky had a face-off and Ricky kicked Bubba low, then climbed down to run away. I don’t like the idea of faces running away from heels. As far as the wrestlers go, they had about as good a match as you can have up there but I hate scaffold matches. Also, this was basically the same gimmicks as last year’s scaffold match and judging from the reaction, meant very little to the card ***

What did you think of the match?

It seems to be a universal opinion of most in the business that Scaffold Matches don’t work. But...what if a company brought it back and used a crash pad like we’ve seen done in modern times?

4. Nikita Koloff pinned Terry Taylor in 18:20 to win the unification of the NWA and UWF television titles. The first 10:30 of this were so bad, it was quickly becoming THE favorite for worst match of the year. Taylor looked nervous walking to the ring and it appeared that this was a match where neither would cooperate with the other. Nikita sold nothing and made Taylor look hopeless. I guess both realized how bad it was because they started to cooperate and the last eight minutes were actually good. There was one false finish that looked for sure like the real thing when Nikita cradled Taylor. Actual finish came when Gilbert held Nikita, who moved as Taylor ran to give him the knee. Taylor kneed Gilbert and when he turned around, Nikita sickled him. At one point, Gilbert clipped Nikita behind the knee with a chair which allowed Taylor to use the figure four. Normally when a match starts slow and ends good there’s nothing wrong but the beginning of this match was so bad, it ruined the ending because nobody believed Taylor had a chance. Considering the build-up, most people probably thought that going in. Everything leading up to the match was an example of how not to run a promotion including the choice of winner for many reasons. Actually at this point, the right guy won because they’ve been burying Taylor so much on television that it would have been ridiculous now to let him go over. *

Why was Nikita no-selling Terry Taylor? Is this one of those examples of a UWF star not fitting in?

Did you like the finish? Did the right person go over?

5. Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson beat the Road Warriors via DQ in 14:00. The reason the Roadies didn’t enter to “Iron Man” (and their entrance got a worse reaction then it would have with the right music) is because this was going on a video and you can’t use other artists music on a video which is for sale, but you can on free television if the artist doesn’t complain. Best match on the card. When Hawk pressed Blanchard overhead, Arn clipped him behind the leg and they worked on the leg. Blanchard gave Hawk’s leg a tremendous smash with the chair. Basically a very good solid match. The finish saw Tommy Young take his referee bump, Animal throw Arn over the top ropes, ref Earl Hebner came to the ring and counted the fall on Arn as they did the clothesline off the top rope on him. Is there anyone in the world who wants to take that finish? They should have retired it a long time ago, let alone brought it out for their biggest card of the year. I realize the problems inherent in letting the Roadies have the belts, however this was the time to do it. *** ½

6. Dusty Rhodes pinned Lex Luger (his robe now spells his last name “Luger” and I figure if anyone knows how to spell it, it’s him) in 16:00 to win the U.S. title in the cage match. The stip was if Rhodes lost, he’d have to quit wrestling for 90 days. Rhodes got a 50-50 mix of cheers and boos although Lex was mainly booed. Rhodes was trying too hard to get the reaction from the fans and while they responded, it certainly couldn’t have met his expectations. After a few early sleepers, they went to armlocks that they held forever. Dusty bladed at 8:00. He did a dropkick at 10:00 (he does one per year). Luger tried to get him up for the backbreaker and it didn’t work out. Even though they pretend Dusty weighs 270 and lex 277, it looked like an ant trying to carry a watermelon. Rhodes was juicing heavy at this point but it was still all restholds. The first 14:00 were a disaster for anyone expecting action. Rhodes started the comeback and got the sleeper on. J.J. Dillon then hit Johnny Weaver with a chair and at about the same time we had a ref bump. Dillon threw the chair over the top of the cage but Rhodes gave Luger a DDT on the chair and got the pin. The finish was tremendous particularly since the antics led everyone to believe the heel was going over and in fact, all hints were that this would be the case. But the match was awful. * (the star is because I loved the finish, those who watched it with me although the match deserved negative stars).

What are your thoughts on the match? How about the reaction to Dusty here?

Meltzer reported later in December…”After Starrcade, Dusty Rhodes announced he’s “thinking” about retiring. Now I’d heard going back a long time that Dusty had told people he was going to retire after Starrcade ‘88 so this may be legit. At the same time, Dusty knows full well just how “over” Terry Funk got in Japan when he announced his retirement and Dusty never misses a trick to get himself over.”

Do you think Dusty was playing the retirement idea to get himself over after being booed so much?

7. Ric Flair regained the NWA title pinning Ronnie Garvin in 17:25 in the second cage match. Garvin was booed badly and from what I was told, Flair was cheered by about 70-percent of the fans live. The fans were even chanting “Garvin sucks.” You could tell Ronnie wasn’t too happy about all this but it just shows how badly Crockett and Dusty have their fingers on the pulse of the public. Garvin did lots of scratching and they did all the hard chops but this was a disappointing match. In fact, I’d even say it was the worst Flair match i’ve seen in 16 months. The match was almost exactly the same (but worse) than their Detroit title match which everyone saw. I can’t understand why at the biggest show of the year these guys can’t vary their repertoire a bit. The last three minutes were spectacular with all the near falls. They had a ref bump but the ref recovered quickly but saved Flair from getting pinned with the KO punch. Finish saw Garvin go for the Thesz press, Flair dropped him backwards so Garvin’s head hit the pole on the cage and Flair pinned him. Give them credit for doing a clean pin. **½

Did you like the match or did you think it was off?

How tough was this night for Ron Garvin?

Overall, give us your thoughts about the show...

Meltzer felt like the better show of the night was Survivor Series, writing that Survivors was a better show than I expected, with most of the Titan wrestlers obviously fired up for the show and their performances in many cases were far better than you would expect. Of the five Starrcades, this year’s was by far the worst. In fact, from virtually every account the show was a major disappointment and it came at a time when Crockett needed to hit a home run and instead grounded into a double play.

The lighting and picture framing wasn’t good and the live camera missed several key shots during the card (Sting’s dive through the ropes, JJ attacking Weaver and stealing the key, the ref bump during the Dusty match).

Did the production issues come up in a post-event meeting? Were asses chewed?

The commentary at Starrcade wasn’t bad but it was disappointing. Tony Schiavone was off his usual form and Jim Ross did a good job of following the action, but they both tried too hard to emphasize how great all the matches were, when in fact, the matches weren’t great. The interviews were a waste of time, mainly to kill time while putting up the cage and taking down the scaffold and the NWA’s best interviews (Flair and Cornette) never talked and Michael Hayes just stood there while Jimmy Garvin obviously was killing time. I’m still not sure what purpose all the Crockett announcers had for being there (at least Missy looked good in her black dress, but why did they have three others to conduct interviews?). The matches at Starrcade were rushed, particularly the Flair match, to fit into the two hour 30 minute satellite time and they should have had a post-match celebration for Flair’s win and Dusty’s win as well.

Any reaction to Meltzer’s criticisms here? Do you agree?

Also... Meltzer gave out “turkey” awards for the best and worst of the Survivor Series and Starcade.

Best Performer went to Bret Hart on the Survivor Series show..

Worst Performer - Dusty Rhodes (Andre is not a performer, he said)

Best booking job - Dusty for the finish of Dusty vs Luger

Best moment - The near pin by Ron Garvin on Ric Flair after the flying press off the top ropes where Flair kicked out at 2 9/10

Worst booking job - Dusty for almost everything else at Starrcade, but if I had to pick one finish, Steve Williams vs. Barry Windham

Dumbest booking move - The finish of the Road Warriors vs Tully and Arn match. Unfortunately, the NWA brass doesn’t spend as much time talking with its audience as I do and they don’t realize just how much trouble they’re in. They are losing fans at a rapid pace (your tv numbers dropping 40-percent in eight weeks tells the tale) and it's very important not to piss fans off with a screwed finish in the Warriors match since they are the ones “most over’ with the fans. So what do they do?

Best tag team -- The Islanders

Best match -- The match with all the tag teams at Survivor Series

Worst match - Rhodes vs. Luger

Worst part of a match - first 10 minutes of Nikita Koloff vs. Terry Taylor

Best move - Sting’s dive through the ropes Tiger Mask style onto Rick Steiner (at least that’s what I was told, the camera missed the entire move)

Best front office decision - Keeping David Crockett from teaming with Tony Schiavone on the play-by-play for Starcade

Most unpopular - Honky Tonk Man (honorable mention for Ron Garvin and “Flabulous” Moolah)

Questions

JBL Cena Fan asks...Bubba left over his payoff for this show . Did you ever think Cornette and Bossman vs Hogan would have been an even bigger deal ?

Jonny asks...Any particular wrestlers u loved or hated to call their matches and why?

Tom had a question...t’s probably been answered a million times but why Garvin and not Barry Windham that took the belt from Flair? Was the win to “pad” Flairs championship win total?

Mr Perfect Fan Canada asks...was there any consideration to keep Dr Death and the UWF title strong with him chasing Flair all the way to the 88 Starrcade? This could have delayed Luger's face turn to make him a new opponent for Ric in 89. P.S. Windham should have had the Garvin title run!!!

Instagram: AWrestlingHistorian asks...Is it true Ricky Morton or Magnum TA were originally going to wrestle Ric Flair for the NWA Championship at this event?

BarGeddesFAL asks...Which format of steel cage match did you prefer WWF have to eacape to win or WCW regular rules (apart from the DQ) just inside the cage?

OG Brainz asks..Was it a mistake to take Starrcade out of Greensboro and did it ultimately change business in NC for the worst?

Nik asks...I love this old gritty style cage, looks more menacing. What’s JR’s favourite in terms of that - Wargames style, WWF blue cage, the “cell” look etc?

Michael asks...Does JR think it was a mistake to not have the Road Warriors win the tag titles since they were in Chicago?

Jeremy Priest asks...Who is on your Mt. Rushmore of delivering chops?

Michael asks...How disappointed was JR with Jim Crockett’s treatment of the UWF being incorporated into JCP? #AskJR

Michael also asks...What was the original planned finish of the Dr. Death/Barry Windham match? Seemed like it was cut short.

Warren asks...What was JR's opinion as Ronnie Garvin as world champion? Should he have gotten a longer run before dropping the belt back to Flair? Did Crockett make the wrong decision in making sure that Garvin did not defend the belt in the weeks leading up to Starrcade?