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Just as an aside, throughout the show we were treated to vignettes in between the matches that were apparently taped at the “Pro Wrestling Illustrated Year End Awards Ceremonyâ€, during which Bill “Dave Scherer Wouldn’t Job To Me†Apter doled out year end award trophies to several WCW wrestlers, including Wrestler Of The Year Hulk Hogan, Manager Of The Year Jimmy Hart, Most Popular Wrestler Of The Year Sting, and Tag Team Of The Year the Nasty Boys. The Nasty Boys winning Tag Team Of The Year would seem to indicate that there were no other living tag teams in 1994, but maybe that’s just my own personal bias talking. Sting mentioned that he loves all his little Stingers of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and I’m picturing like a 12 foot tall, green, trapezoid shaped fan with bleached, spiked hair and a painted face.
The Undercard
Case in point when talking about how the old guard had been pushed aside in favor of the new, here we have Vader, one year after battling Ric Flair in one of the best, most emotional main events in Starrcade history, is jerking the curtain against Hogan henchman Hacksaw Jim Duggan for the US Title. Vader had won a triangle match series against Sting and the Guardian Angel at Fall Brawl to become the #1 contender to the WCW World Title and was looking to add the US Title to his collection to help build his case for a World Title shot. These two brawled in the aisle before the match, during the midst of which Duggan beat up Harley Race, who could have killed him in his days as NWA World Champion. This was way better than I remembered it being at the time, these two pounded the snot out of each other and strangely, it was Duggan who did most of the pounding. At one point Duggan hit a crossbody (!) for two, then slammed Vader (!!) after holding him up for a good seven or eight seconds (!!!). Duggan powerslammed Vader off the second rope but the ref couldn’t make the count because he was distracted by Race. The match continued and Vader whipped Duggan into Race, who hit him with Duggan’s own 2x4, allowing Vader to hit the inverted powerbomb for the win and the US Title.
The second match was Alex Wright taking on an impressive youngster named Jean Paul Levesque, who later went on to a mild amount of fame and success as Hunter Hearst Helmsley, aka Triple H. It’s so funny to watch Levesque here and a)remark at how skinny he was in comparison to the Triple H of today, and b)think how even though everybody saw big things for him, nobody expected him to become as huge a player as he eventually became. In their infinite wisdom, WCW seemed much higher on Alex Wright at this time than they were on Levesque, which seems ludicrous in retrospect. They did get something out of Wright later on when they turned him heel and had him start doing the stupid Speed Stick Shuffle dance thing he did for heel heat. Levesque, however, had the honor of wrestling Ricky Steamboat in what I believe was his final televised match before he retired a few months prior to this, though I think that was taped before he won the US Title from Steve Austin. Yep, buncha nobodies cluttering up that WCW undercard in 1994. The announcers mention that Levesque and Lord Steven Regal would soon be teaming, but Levesque left WCW for the WWF before that could really get off the ground, so they ended up doing a Regal/Bobby Eaton team with the blue blood gimmick instead. Pretty basic match, though Levesque pulled out some moves we haven’t gotten used to seeing out of him later in his career, such as a leg lariat and a baseball slide dropkick, and a top rope elbowdrop. LUCHA HUNTER! I wonder if he makes Stephanie wear his old Jean Paul Levesque thigh high boots when they…well, never mind. Anyhoo, Wright leapfrogged over Levesque in the corner and caught him in an inverted sunset flip for the win. So for those of you who say Hunter never jobs to anyone, here’s videotaped proof that he’ll job to ANYBODY.
Up next was the match for the World TV Title as Johnny B Badd was supposed to defend against the Honky Tonk Man (with whom he had been feuding), but instead wound up wrestling Arn Anderson. I’ve heard rumors that Honky got upset about payoffs or something and walked out of Starrcade the day of the show, but I don’t know that for sure. Whatever the case, Honky was gone and never to return and Badd was wrestling Arn at Starrcade. Badd was just starting to hit his stride as a worker at this point. As usual, Arn cheated his ass off and went for a pin on Badd with his feet on the ropes, but the ref caught him and stopped counting. Arn, being the sly dog he is, thinks he got away with his bit of chicanery, but as the referee informed him that no, the match was in fact going to continue, Badd slipped in and rolled Arn up from behind to pick up the win.
Next up was a tag match between Harlem Heat and the Nasty Boys, and I found it strange that this match was taking place, not just because the Nasty Boys sucked, but also because Stars & Stripes were the World Tag Team Champions and they weren’t even on the show. I have to admit to being a bit of a Stevie Ray mark, partially because of his time in Harlem Heat, but mostly because of the Adventures Of The NWO B-Team and his commentary on Thunder. Bobby Heenan made a joke about Sherri being the toughest person in this match, and I wouldn’t doubt if it were true. Standard tag match that ended in a DQ when Sags hit his sloppy elbow off the top rope, but Sherri broke up the pin by coming off the top rope to break the fall, but Sags moved and Sherri landed on Booker T. This wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the Nastys’ Starrcade 93 match, and I have to give credit where it’s due, they seemed to be working a lot harder and were more on their game this year.
From there we move on to a match with no Hogan influence whatsoever, as Kevin Sullivan took on Mr T. The story here was that T had spent a lot of time hanging out with Hogan and refereeing his matches and stuff like that, but Sullivan knocked him out with Jimmy Hart’s megaphone after a six man match on a Clash Of The Champions. T appeared to have forgotten everything he learned about wrestling in the 80s when working for the WWF and didn’t look to be in the best cardiovascular shape either. Word is that Mr T had some respect issues when he first got into wrestling and Roddy Piper had to have a little word with him to straighten him out, and I would have loved it if Mr T got out of line here and Kevin Sullivan ended up having to beat some respect into him. Also, nobody cared about Mr T anymore by the time 1994 rolled around. Mr T punched Sullivan a bunch to start, but Sullivan wound up taking over on T until Dave Sullivan (Kevin’s storyline “special†brother, remind me to talk about HIM sometime) came down to ringside dressed as Santa and hit Kevin with his sack (OF PRESENTS, you pervs, and it was loaded with Jimmy Hart’s megaphone) and knocked him out, allowing Mr T to cover for the win. After the match Kevin beat up Dave and, in a moment which surely scarred children everywhere, piledrove Santa right in the middle of the ring. What a scrooge that Kevin Sullivan was.
Speaking of Sullivan, next up we get a match between Sullivan’s crony Avalanche and Sting. You might remember Avalance as Earthquake from the WWF, he came in and basically did the same gimmick but inexplicably, the WWF didn’t threaten legal action over this one like they did with the Boss. I guess a guy jumping up and down and claiming to be a natural disaster isn’t quite as actionable as a guy playing a crooked prison guard. Avalanche was a member of the Three Faces Of Fear with Sullivan and Butcher, who joined forces to put Hulk Hogan out of wrestling. As Hogan’s loyal flunky, Sting got to face Avalanche here at Starrcade. Sting of course had tons of experience working big men after his long running feud with Vader, but this match with Avalanche was different because instead of tearing straight ahead into Sting like Vader did, Avalanche had a slower, more methodical style where he would use his size to his advantage more than Vader in that he would do more stuff like powerslams and elbowdrops that would have all his weight coming down on Sting. Sting, meanwhile, spent the early part of the match going after Avalanche’s knees and tried unsuccessfully several times to slam Avalanche to no avail before finally getting it after a ref bump and then locked in the Scorpion Deathlock. With the referee out, Kevin Sullivan ran in to interfere and the two of them worked Sting over and Avalanche hit the big vertical splash. Finally Hulk Hogan ran in with a chair to chase Avalanche and Sullivan off, at which point the referee called for the DQ and awarded the match to Sting.
The Main Event
So now we move on to the main event of the evening, as Hulk Hogan defended the WCW World Title against his former best friend, The Butcher, aka Brutus Beefcake. You know, Starrcade has historically had some pretty bad undercards, but the show was usually saved by a good to great main event, matches along the lines of Flair vs Vader, Flair vs Dusty, and even Battlebowl was pretty fun, but Hogan vs Butcher? This match main eventing this show was kind of a slap in the face to all the longtime NWA/WCW fans who had grown up on quality wrestling instead of the cartoonish presentation of the WWF, but with the coming of Hulk Hogan that was gone forever, and if there was any doubt of that change before this, Hogan vs Butcher main eventing Starrcade eliminated any doubt.
Another factor in this match was Macho Man Randy Savage, who had recently left the WWF (under some circumstances which apparently led to some hard feelings which persist to this day) and jumped to the competition, where he appeared on an episode of WCW Saturday Night and announced that he would confront Hulk Hogan at Starrcade and either shake his hand or slap him in the face. With one friend having turned on him already and another coming in as a big question mark, things were beginning to look a little bleak for ol’ Hulk.
Anyway, the background: Hulk Hogan had come to WCW in July of 1994 and immediately defeated Ric Flair for the WCW World Title. The night of the Hogan-Flair rematch on a Clash Of The Champions event, a masked man attacked Hulk Hogan and hit him in the knee with a tire iron, injuring him. The masked man would continue to sneak attack Hogan for months afterward until after Hogan defeated Flair in a cage match. The masked man snuck into the ring and tried to attack Hogan again, but Hogan knocked him out and removed the mask, only to reveal Hogan’s oldest, most trusted friend Brutus Beefcake. Beefcake, along with Avalanche and Kevin Sullivan, proceeded to beat down Hogan and form a group called the Three Faces Of Fear. Ed Leslie could not use the Beefcake name since it was owned by the WWF, so instead he went by the name of The Butcher, with the idea being that he had butchered his friendship with Hogan. So here, against all odds, Brutus Beefcake main evented WCW’s biggest show of the year and nobody took him the slightest bit seriously as any kind of threat to Hogan or the WCW World Title, but he was the one guy who had never turned on Hogan over the years, so I guess it was bound to happen sometime.
The match wasn’t that great, but it was probably in large part due to Butcher being a little rusty since he, understandably, hadn’t wrestled much since his accident in 1990. Thankfully for him he was in there with a guy he trusted in his good friend Hulk, who went REALLY easy on the face. I sometimes wonder where Beefcake’s career would have gone if he hadn’t had that accident, but sadly I don’t know that he would have been all that successful in the post-Hogan era WWF anyway or even been around at all. Anyway, the other Faces Of Fear came out to try and run interference, but Super Hogan fought them all off and put Butcher away with the usual. After the match Hogan is surrounded by the Three Faces Of Fear and has nowhere to run when Randy Savage runs out. He initially makes like he’s going to side with the Faces Of Fear, but then nails them and he and Hogan run them off, shake hands, have a big Hogan-style post match celebration, and head to the back for the party.
Backstage, Hogan is giving an interview where he was talking about how he was hoping when it came down to it that Butcher would change his mind and go back to following Hulkamania, but then who should come crashing the party but Vader and Harley Race. Vader accused Hogan of being afraid to face him and politicking his way out of having to face Vader. Vader gets right in Hogan’s face and tells him point blank that for the first time in Hogan’s life he’s afraid, but Vader has no fear and feels no pain, then goes on to say “I am the #1 contender, I am the US Champion, what else is there left for me to do, Hogan?†Hogan responds by going “You know what, Vader? Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s Vader Time right now!†and shoves Vader, leading to a short scuffle in the locker room where a bunch of babyfaces drag Vader off of Hogan and out of the room, but just when they thought he was gone, Vader comes tearing back in and goes after Hogan again and has to get dragged out again. Mean Gene Okerlund catches up with WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel and asks him what he’s going to do about this situation, and Bockwinkel basically says “Well, what Vader did here was out of line, but he has a very valid point, he deserves a title shot.â€
Final Analysis
As much as they tried to make it about Hogan, the star of this show was Vader. He had a match which, as I’ve said, was way better than I remembered it being and way better than it probably had any right to be, and then crashed Hogan’s postmatch interview and challenged him in pretty stunning fashion. Other than that, there really wasn’t much on this show you’d want to go out of your way to see unless you’re interested in seeing a very young Triple H before he ever went to the WWF in the first place. Mild Recommendation To Avoid.
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