83 Weeks - Starrcade 1991 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Starrcade 1991 wasn’t just any old Starrcade. This was Starrcade Battlebowl - The Lethal Lottery. It took place on December 29, 1991 at the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia before a recorded attendance of about 9,000. 7,600 were paid for a live gate of $92,000.

This was the 9th Starrcade - which feels kind of weird saying for an event in 1991. But yes, this event pre-dated Wrestlemania. It just wouldn’t last as long thanks to shows like the one we’re about to talk about.

Did Starrcade have a bigger-than-normal feel to it backstage or in the build to the show, from your perspective?

The show did about 155,000 buys on PPV, which was the best since WrestleWar 91. That’s estimated to be over a $3 million gross. It’s still slightly down from the year before, which was estimated at 165,000.

This was also the first WCW Starrcade - as they had previously been under the NWA banner, from which WCW had a nasty split.

Did you ever consider trying to mend the fence with NWA or to at least use the NWA name? Or did you think it had any value?

Speaking of nasty break-ups...We’re smack dab in the middle of the Jim Herd era. We’re also right at the beginning of Eric’s beginnings in the company.

What were your early impressions of Herd during this time?

News and Notes

Inside Edition and Hulk Hogan

The Inside Edition story stemming from lengthy interviews with Superstar Billy Graham, David Shults and Jessie Shults (David's 20-year-old daughter) on the subject of anabolic steroids and Hulk Hogan was scheduled to air on Friday, January 3, which would be prior to most of you reading this.

Behind the scenes in wrestling, this story has been viewed as having the potential for significant impact and possible embarrassment to the World Wrestling Federation and to Hogan himself. As of this writing, I'm aware of the key statements made on camera by both Graham and Shults to Inside Edition reporters, which went a lot farther than what has been reported already that Graham claimed to have shot Hogan up with injectable anabolic steroids on several occasions in the past.

Titan Sports told the show that they wouldn't respond to any of the charges.

"There's not a whole lot to respond to," said WWF spokesperson Steve Planamenta. "It's kind of a dead-end issue."

Did you ever hear from Hulk about what Graham said about him? Was this before the world knew Billy Graham was crazy?

Amazing match between light heavyweights

Jushin Liger won the lightheavyweight title on 12/25 at the Omni from Brian Pillman in a match that Scott Hudson called perhaps the best live match he's ever seen that didn't involve Ric Flair. Reports are Liger and Pillman were at or around four stars every night during the week although the reaction for Liger varied. In New York he was over huge and he and Pillman were given a standing ovation after their match. In Dallas he was booed as a heel even though it was a four-plus star match. In Atlanta the crowd reacted after 2:00, much like a Japanese crowd in cheering for both men. NBC-TV's George Michael Sports Machine on Sunday night aired clips of Liger during their 1991 sports highlight rundown and called him the most outstanding wrestler in the world of 1991.

Did you see this match? Might it have been an early influence on you for your decision to bring back the cruiserweight division?

Did Eric call someone the wrong name for the whole match?

Eric Bischoff on the syndicated Main Event show aired a Liger & Oz vs. Hiro Saito & Scott Norton match where Bischoff continually referred to Saito as Hiro Tatsuki. Now granted, it really doesn't make a difference to most people viewing but I sure hope when you see college basketball games with players that you have no idea who they are that the announcers don't have so little respect for their audience as to call players by the wrong name. After all, they could figure that they could get away with it because the majority of viewers wouldn't know the difference.

What do you remember, if anything, about this?

Rick Rude is bad news for PN News

There was apparently a fight in a bar between P.N. News and Rick Rude in England. Here’s what Meltzer said.

The reason they did the television angle where P.N. News had his eye run into the ringpost by Mr. Hughes was because News had returned from England with a swollen shut eye courtesy of an altercation in a bar from Rick Rude. News couldn't beat Rude with both arms against one in arm wrestling and things got out of hand. In reality, even though there are guys who look much more powerful, with the exception of Scott Norton there probably isn't anyone in pro wrestling who could put Rude's arm down.

Did you see or hear anything about this incident? Would Scott Norton have beaten Rude in arm wrestling?

Paul Neu is PN NEWS NAME

Crap Contracts for Wrestlers

Some disenchantment over clauses in the new contracts regarding injuries. Old contracts had the wrestlers paid while injured. The new contracts being offered only pay the wrestlers for the first two months of their injury. Considering the hard-hitting style this groups professes to want, injuries are inevitable, both minor ones and serious ones. At the same time, I'm sure management wasn't exactly thrilled over Sid Justice taking time off from wrestling while still playing softball and recovering from his punctured lung.

How bad did and do the wrestlers need some type of hazard insurance or health care?

Specialized Show

Missy Hyatt and Eric Bischoff are now hosting a specific version of WCW Pro just for the Los Angeles market.

Do you remember why that was being done?

Lex Luger Gives Notice

In the weeks that followed this show, some pretty big developments happened including one of the top stars deciding to leave.

Lex Luger officially gave notice to WCW that he'd be finishing up on the 2/29 PPV show. Luger's three-year contract with WCW expires in March of 1993, but he's expected to be given a limited release which would allow him to wrestle during the final year of his contract in Japan (which he may not even choose to do), but not in the United States, which would legally put a block on his going to the WWF until the spring of '93. Luger isn't scheduled to work any house shows or television tapings for the remainder of this month. I don't have details on February scheduling although it was expected Luger wouldn't work any house shows except Milwaukee, but would work some television tapings for shows that would air prior to the pay-per-view. This leads to the rumor (which was emphatically denied by Vince McMahon) that Luger was quitting his contract estimated at $600,000 per year in base salary and $25,000 per pay-per-view event to join the World Bodybuilding Federation for one year, and then have a wrestling angle shot and segue into the WWF. The most reliable story seems to be that Luger, who apparently has saved his money and certainly has made his money, is simply taking a year off to open up a new gym (one equipment company has confirmed to us that Luger is purchasing new equipment for a new gym), attempt to market and merchandise himself and tend to his family. If Luger, who is said not to enjoy either the lifestyle (because it makes it difficult to pursue his main hobby, bodybuilding because of the problem following a strict diet on the road, traveling interfering with training time and bumps keeping him from training at 100 percent efficiency) or wrestling itself and was said to be only doing it because he was making good money from the start, does want to return, he may be able to strike himself an excellent deal in 1993.

Clearly, the WWF needs a top babyface to carry the load and Hogan's days seem to be numbered working even the partial schedule he does now. Neither Randy Savage or Roddy Piper will be the replacements both because of age and size. While The Undertaker is young enough and his long-term future, strange as it sounds, is as a face, he's not the type to be the promotional flagship. Putting Bret Hart in the role would require a major change in promotional conception that just isn't coming, and he's been in the middle so long that it would be an exceedingly hard sell building the company around him. Sid the Second Coming has enough strikes against him that even though he's the front-runner, there have to be major qualms. A turned Ric Flair isn't a long-term answer, and probably not short-term either. Actually of the names on the current roster, Curt Hennig comes the closest to fitting the bill for talent, look, charisma and he's young enough (he's now 33) for a long run. But the ring name Mr. Perfect as a babyface world champion in a merchandise company doesn't fit, and he's also had a history of both knee and back problems. By March 1993, Luger, who wouldn't be stale because he'd be off television for one year, would look awfully good.

Some of those rumors ended up being awfully accurate. What did you think when the news broke that Luger was leaving and did you think he was WWF bound? Also, what did you think about the WBF?

Lead In

Let’s give you a quick summary of the top storyline going into the show. Before Starrcade, Sting was in a feud with both Rick Rude and Lex Luger. On July 14, Lex Luger won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and vacated the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship because of this. Sting won a tournament to become the new WCW United States Heavyweight Champion on August 25, and this put Sting in contention for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Luger saw Sting as a threat, and had Abdullah the Butcher and Cactus Jack attempt to injure Sting. On October 27, Rude made his return, and he made Sting his first target. Finally, at Clash of the Champions XVII, Luger ambushed Sting, and injured his knee. This allowed Rude to win the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship from Sting later that night.

Do you like having the US Champion immediately in contention for another belt? Does that make it hard to build the US championship as something of its own or does that actually elevate it?

The Event Itself

STARRCADE '91: THE LETHAL LOTTERY

Thumbs up 73 (20.7 percent)

Thumbs down 238 (67.6 percent)

In the middle 41 (11.6 percent)

1. Jimmy Garvin & Marcus Alexander Bagwell defeated Michael Hayes & Tracy Smothers in 12:42 when Bagwell pinned Smothers with the fisherman suplex. Our cable went out during this match so we missed most of it. Actually, the blank television screen was looking like it was going to be the best match on the card after the first four matches were over. Bagwell seems to have a good deal of potential.

So much for that last sentence but anyway. Did your TV screen stay on long enough to form an opinion of this match?

2. Rick Rude & Steve Austin beat Van Hammer & Big Josh in 12:55 when Rude pinned Hammer with the Rude Awakening. That finish certainly tells you that the megapush for Hammer is over. There was no heat at all when Hammer was in. That's surprising considering Hammer's alleged charisma (I use the word alleged because I wouldn't want to be sued for libel). Rude didn't sell some of Josh's blows to the stomach because he's got the ripped abs. They then worked on Josh for several minutes to get heat, but that didn't work either. Paul E. held Josh and Austin went to jump on him but Josh moved and Austin jumped on Paul. Josh made the hot tag to Hammer who was cleaning house for a few seconds until Austin made a blind tag to Rude who finished Hammer off. 3/4*

So was the Van Hammer experiment pretty much dead at this point?

3. Dustin Rhodes & Richard Morton defeated El Gigante & Larry Zbyszko in 6:11. There was no wrestling to speak of here but it was intriguing and had a good finish. Zbyszko and Gigante argued, Zbyszko slapped Gigante who put on the claw, then threw Zbyszko into a double dropkick by Rhodes & Morton for the pin. 3/4*

These are such weird tag teams to think about. Do you think the added unknown of a tag partner someone wasn’t used to made it hard to have a good match?

4. Jushin Liger & Bill Kazmaier defeated Diamond Dallas Page & Mike Graham in 13:08 when Liger pinned Page. What a waste of Liger. Liger did a few nice moves, some of which Graham didn't sell right since he's probably never taken those moves in his entire career. He did do the Liger-dive to the floor, but the cameras missed it. Kazmaier was horrible. 3/4*

How can you book Jushin Liger in a match with Kazmaier, Mike Graham, and no offense but DDP? None of those three guys can sell his offense! Surely the Lethal Lottery wasn’t a shoot, was it?

5. Lex Luger & Arn Anderson beat Terrence "The World's Most Unappreciated Great Wrestler" Taylor & Tom Zenk in 10:25. Taylor worked as a face and was the best wrestler on the show thus far. As he got one pinning move on after another on Luger, he was finally stopped as he set up the five-arm with a blind knee to the back from Anderson. Luger pinned Taylor with the piledriver. From a wrestling standpoint, this blew away everything else on the card. ***¼

The previous paragraph can mean only one thing: Terry Taylor was calling Meltzer around this time. Right?

Why do you think this match ended up working when so many others of these experiments just didn’t?

6. Ricky Steamboat & Todd "One-Half of the World's Most Uncoordinated Tag team" Champion beat Cactus Jack & Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker in 7:48. Parker got up from his chair before they even announced him as Jack's partner. Abdullah the Butcher in the heel dressing room then destroyed Parker while all the other heels stood by nonchalantly and didn't even seem to watch. The gimmick was that Abby was mad because he wasn't Cactus' partner, but I think he was just doing the dirty work because Parker violated kayfabe by getting up from his chair before his name was called. Abby gave Parker tremendous head shots with the kendo stick. Parker got out of the dressing room onto the stage and Abby attacked him again and tried to go to the ring to be Jack's partner but the refs wouldn't let him. Steamboat and Cactus did a hot open while Parker crawled from the stage to the ring. It was every bit as good with Steamboat working with Cactus as it was bad when Champion was in the ring. Finally Parker got to the ring, was immediately tagged in, and quickly pinned by Steamboat's flying body press. *1/2

Can we talk about Todd Champion for a minute?

What did you think of the match?

7. Sting & Abdullah the Butcher defeated Bobby Eaton & Brian Pillman in 5:37 when Sting pinned Eaton with a flying body press. This was pretty exciting from start-to-finish. Abdullah attacked Sting before the match and Pillman made the save. It broke down to Abby vs. Pillman and Sting vs. Eaton for a while. Actually Sting and Eaton were in the entire match although Pillman did do a big splash on Abby. Sting did a great dive on Eaton. Abby kept attacking Sting throughout the match. Cactus came out and hit Abdullah with the kendo stick when Sting ducked, then Sting flew onto Eaton while Pillman kept Abdullah from breaking up the pin that would cause Pillman's team to lose. After the match Abdullah and Cactus brawled to the dressing room, which under normal circumstances would make me believe that one of them is about to turn. But since we're not talking about a normal promotion that does things to lead to something else and instead one that just runs angles to fill time and forgets about them 15 seconds later, who really knows. ***¼

Is this another case of Bobby Eaton helping to elevate a match that didn’t deserve to be this good?

What do you think of Abdullah the Butcher’s work?

8. Big Van Vader & Mr. Hughes beat Rick Steiner & Night Stalker (Bryan Clark) in 5:06 when Vader splashed Stalker. It's been a long time since I've seen someone blow a big splash spot, but Stalker nearly did. Rick Steiner was great doing power moves on both big guys, and particularly worked well with Vader with stiff shots back-and-forth. Stalker tagged in and was lost and was pinned at the same time Steiner hit a bulldog off the top rope on Hughes. *¾

What did people like Rick Steiner think of being taken out of their normal tag team and put into one of these weird mash ups?

9. Scott Steiner & Chip the Firebreaker beat Arachnaman & Johnny B. Badd in 11:16 when Scott pinned Brad with an over-the-head belly-to-belly suplex. This match went too long for being this late in the show. Some spots were good but it really dragged. *¼

Chip the Firebreaker or Arachnaman - which is worse?

10. Ron Simmons & Thomas Rich beat Steve Armstrong & P.N. News in 11:44 when Simmons pinned Armstrong with a spinebuster slam. Armstrong really tried to make it a good match but there was nothing to interest anyone with at this point and again they went too long for a match this late in the show. 3/4*

Where do you think PN News got his tights spray painted on?

11. Lex Luger and Sting won ring one and two respectively in the two-ring Battle Royal. Battle Royals suck on pay-per-view. A Royal Rumble is usually good because not so many are in the ring at once so they can work spots and you can follow the action. But traditional Battle Royals don't make good television, particularly when action is going on in two rings simultaneously. Clearly there was a substantial amount of good action (most of it outside the ring when two workers like, say Steamboat and Anderson, decided to get out of the ring and do something without everyone else getting in the way) but it was pretty bad overall. Luger ended up being the last one left in the first ring. In the second ring, the final four were Rude, Austin, Sting and Steamboat. Austin went out, then Rude and Steamboat went out simultaneously. Rude threw Steamboat over, Steamboat pulled himself up, then grabbed a head-scissors on Rude and flipped him over while hanging on. As Steamboat tried to flip himself back in the ring, Rude, from the floor, pulled him out in 17:37. An interesting trivia note is that the final two men left in Ring One were Luger and Vader, both heels, and both holding the respective world titles of WCW in the United States and the IWGP world title of Japan. Vader captured the IWGP belt from Tatsumi Fujinami one week earlier in Bremen, Germany. 1/2* (The final spot was good enough to elevate it from a DUD)

It always seems weird looking back at how close Austin was to the top of the card but never seemed to be able to break through to in WCW. Why do you think that was?

12. Sting threw Luger out in 6:29 to win the Battle Royal. Luger dominated early since Rude gave Sting a Rude Awakening before the match started. Sting made his comeback and Harley Race took two perfect-form bumps, before Sting tossed Luger over to win. While some may complain about the obvious predictability of the finish, it pretty well had to be this way since Luger has most of the next two months off and they had to do something ending the show to set up the Luger-Sting match at the next PPV. **¾

What did you think of the match?

NOTES: I've always thought the blind draw tag match gimmick is a great one for a special television show or a Clash because it's an easy way to set up new angles between partners or rivals drawn blindly. I was against it on PPV from the start because of a lack of specific match-ups to sell the event. Even though the buy rate may not be as bad as the last PPV because right after Christmas seems to be the perfect time to run a PPV. We'll see in a few days, because my gut feeling is the buy rate won't have been very good. However, none of the teased "dream" match-ups such as Steiner vs. Steiner, Sting & Rude as a team, etc. took place. The closest thing was Freebird vs. Freebird which nobody was exactly clamoring for or dreaming about. No real new angles were started that I could tell, other than Taylor working as a face and promptly doing a clean job, and maybe Cactus vs. Abdullah but it was never referred to again so who even knows. There is a lot of very good talent in this company but with the exception of the Luger & Anderson vs. Zenk & Taylor tag team match, none of the good workers was put in a match that allowed them to showcase their ability. Abdullah showcased his unique ability to be sure, but Pillman was wasted in a match where he never tagged in and where it would have been perfect since the guy would never get in to "hide" a Hammer, Champion, News, Kazmaier, Bagwell or whomever in that spot and they'd have been just as effective and would have had just as good a match and Pillman could have been put in opposite Liger and they could have had a four-star tag team match. Looking back at the Observer of two weeks ago, in a legit blind draw the matches put together had more potential that the line-up that they worked on putting together to give the best possible action. Even though this card lasted the same 2 hours, 47 minutes that every WCW PPV show does, it seemed too long (a good card of that length often seems too short, so it isn't the time as much as the card--I can recall being at Starrcade '86 in Greensboro which lasted 4 1/2 hours and wasn't one minute too long because almost every match was great and they needed that much time so as not to shortchange any of the good matches). Ten matches was too many because the last two just seemed like you wanted to get them over with and get to the Battle Royal, which within two minutes you also wanted to get over with.

What did you think about the Battlebowl concept?

Meltzer had this to say about the show:

In the tradition of the famed Bunkhouse Stampede, now there's Battle Bowl. If there's one thing that can sum up Starrcade '91, it's that WCW produced a pay-per-view show that wasn't even as good as most of its recent free Saturday night television shows. It was one of those shows where you sat there and waited for what would happen next, figuring they were saving something special, but that something special never came. Before going on, what needs to be mentioned before anything else was the camera work (or maybe the work of the director calling the shots) as they managed to miss far too many spectacular spots. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone were frequently making references to moves and incidents, not just in the Battle Royal but in many of the tag matches that the viewer couldn't see because the cameras were pointed somewhere else. It's considered the cardinal sin for an announcer to talk about something the viewer can't see because it makes the poor camera work obvious. But geez, if they didn't, we'd never know that there actually was some good stuff taking place in the building.

On the Bischoff scale of one to ten, how would you rate Starrcade 1991?

BEST MATCH POLL

Luger & Anderson vs. Zenk & Taylor 96

Sting & Butcher vs. Pillman & Eaton 45

Liger & Kazmaier vs. Page & Graham 20

Luger vs. Sting 14

WORST MATCH POLL

Vader & Hughes vs. R.Steiner & Stalker 33

Simmons & Rich vs. Armstrong & News 31

Liger & Kazmaier vs. Page & Graham 30

Battle Royal 28

Garvin & Bagwell vs. Hayes & Smothers 20

Rhodes & Morton vs. Zbyszko & Gigante 18

Rude & Austin vs. Josh & Hammer 14

Questions

Brian asked...WCW played around with different gimmicks at Starrcade throughout the years. Do either of you have a favorite?

JBL CENA FAN says...We were there !why not have a Luger title match ? Why not say the winner of the Battlebowl gets a title shot at Superbrawl ? Stakes …

Macheww asked….Was there any remorse for jumping to wcw, we know if it wasn't for the financial situation with awa you probably never would have jumped

Mikey Messier said...I was in the audience for that show and it really didn't pick up until Luger squared off against Sting at the end of the night. For Eric & others backstage, when did it become apparent this format was a misstep? And, then, why repeat BB several more times over the years?

Frank asked...I loved this event as a kid. My question is did Ricky Morton get caught up in his old baby face ways at the end of the match teaming with Dustin or was that planned to show he still had a little of the old Ricky left in him?

Ryan asked...Do you think you'd put something on the line if you were booking this? Feels like an answer to Survivor Series. An all inclusive show that didn't seem to have any stake except to win.

Ray asked...A Starrcade without a world title match. Kinda surreal don't you think?

Robert asked...How was the boys perception of Jim Herd at this point?

Todd asked...What did Eric think of the Lethal Lottery concept? What preparation went into setting the lethal lottery up backstage?

Francis asked...Who was ribbing to have Van Hammer and Big Josh Tag Teaming Together?

Francis asked...Who would Help decide the Colour Choice for Sting FacePaint?