Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 30, 2022 2:00:53 GMT -5
Meltzer maintains that Bischoff's claims of dropping support for Sting for being high/out of shape at Starrcade is revisionism on his part, that Bischoff laid out to him personally a lot of what ended up coming to pass about 30 days before it'd happen, therefore completely contradicting Bischoff's version of events. That'd sound far fetched to many, I'm sure, but given some of the other things Eric blatantly lies about or misremembers, and how many people in power in wrestling have had connections to Meltzer for many reasons, I am more inclined to believe him, that Eric already was going to try to please two masters by watering down Sting's win with the idea of, "we'll pay it off later", something we saw a ton of in wrestling in the '90s, but especially from WCW. Yeah, once Bischoff got in his head that Sting wasn't right for the job whether it be the excuse of drugs, out of shape or "not tanned enough" it was all downhill from there as you knew Hogan was right there to hear every idea and knowing he can make a play without backlash was going to be his move. Bischoff liked to drag things out but he was def on a high of thinking he can do no wrong. Sting can win but he really doesn't win and Hogan doesn't lose definitively. Add in the new Bret addition and while he had no plans for Bret, he just knew he had a new shiny toy at his disposal Yep. WCW could continue borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, narratively, so Eric didn't need to sweat putting things off, and he'd try to keep both Hogan and Sting happy, but especially Hogan, and Eric would rationalize to himself and others to not just come out and say, "I thought I could stretch it out and it didn't quite work." Goldberg provided another opportunity, and for a time, he kept on juggling, enough balls in the air to where he could keep the fans hopeful, and then when the same thing happened to Goldberg, the wheels really began falling off.
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Post by madness50 on Dec 30, 2022 2:01:14 GMT -5
It amazes me that mister Brother Brother Dude Jack got away with bullshit like that finish. The fact that Bischoff gave Hogan that much creative control was so dumb on his part. There was no damn excuse why that main event shouldn’t have ended with Sting winning clean after Hogan had lost maybe one time clean since 1984. The poor baby didn’t need another win.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 30, 2022 2:06:25 GMT -5
Just watched it back. It still makes me angry that WCW screwed that up so badly. Sting should have beaten the shit out of Hogan, no screw job attempt, and then the NWO falls apart in the aftermath. I'd have accepted some beating down from Hogan if he had done something first like powder to the eyes, and then you get a fast count after Sting had fought back to a degree, then by the time you have Hart restart the match, Sting beats him fair and square, if they're really married to the idea of involving Bret. Then, you at least get the payoff, and if they really want to stretch the nWo a little longer, Hart could then beat Hogan when he tries to get "payback", and have Nash and Hall lay Hogan out and either dissolve the group or declare Hogan unfit to rule, if you want to refresh the angle. Like, it'd probably be better to end the group, but what I'm throwing out there would have kept it going without shitting on Sting, turning Bret heel for no goddamn reason, and would then make Nash a bigger deal as a singles act, all while (sorta) protecting Hogan enough to placate the guy since he'd have Nash as an opponent to come back to at some point, and keep selling nWo shirts. So, they didn't even need to do things as poorly as they did to get what they wanted.
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Dec 30, 2022 2:32:25 GMT -5
The concept of Bret restarting the match due to shenanigans made some sense given what he went through at Survivor Series. The problem was there was no shenanigans. Hogan won clean and Bret looked like an idiot for wanting to restart the match. No doubt Hogan’s fingerprints were all over that finish because it made everyone except Hogan look terrible. The thing is though is that Bret did exactly that in the match right before. He saw Eric cheating in the Zybzscko match, laid him out, put scott hall in the sharpshooter and then declared Larry the winner. (and it was single the biggest pop of the entire night) Him coming out for Hogan/Sting, even had the shenanigans gone off perfectly, would still have been redundant and let the air out of the crowd. Watching the show as a whole, there's so many run-ins and by the third run-in in the Luger-Bagwell match it just deflates them dead. So like, while I agree Bret have a bone to pick with bad officiating does have logic to it that could have been properly capitalized on, that cow had just been successfully milked dry from the match right before. Either not having Bret involved in the Eric-Larry match (which I wouldn't have put him in, or made the match that long - but that's another post) and then having him come out for the shenanigans at the end or...you know I'm going to go ahead and say that everything short of Hogan getting the clean pin and walking away is better than what we got.
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Dec 30, 2022 2:50:01 GMT -5
Potential hot take:
Is Starrcade '98 better than Starrcade '97?
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Dec 30, 2022 7:52:25 GMT -5
Potential hot take: Is Starrcade '98 better than Starrcade '97? Yes and it's not even close. A few "why are we doing this?" matches but the good far outweighed the bad. The triple threat opener was tremendous. Kidman/Eddie was really good. Page/Giant was good, Flair/Bischoff was shockingly good for what it was and Nash/Goldberg was solid and worked from a historical standpoint.
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Milkman Norm
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Post by Milkman Norm on Dec 30, 2022 11:34:00 GMT -5
The question I always ask is assuming Sting wins clean and Hogan takes a vacation shortly after until the summer, then what? Like I get the irl dislike of Hogan. But it's pretty ridiculous if we're talking about this from an intellectual perspective to just write off a character the promotion had been built around. As for Sting who does he work with? If we go with the NWO breaking up angle how does Sting as champ not end up being an after thought? What about Luger, who'd been the defacto #1 wrestling babyface or DDP who was rapidly reaching that level? The match was awful, the finish was sabotaged by Hogan and then the reset in January severely limited my interest in WCW at the time. Even if those thing's hadn't happened they had set themselves up for failure. They had done nothing to build up any challengers for Sting and I don't think Sting had figured out exactly what made Crow Sting different in the ring then Surfer Sting. I just can't see a lengthy Sting run in 98 working out.
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Post by Jindrak Mark on Dec 30, 2022 12:07:14 GMT -5
Potential hot take: Is Starrcade '98 better than Starrcade '97? I think so, despite having that rough 3 match run with Prince Iaukeau v Norman Smiley, Ernest Miller v Perry Saturn and Jerry Flynn & Fit Finlay v Brian Adams which is kind of unforgivable to take up 45 minutes of the biggest show of the year with Thunder level matches. The cruiserweight stuff with Rey/Eddie/Kidman/Juvi was great though. DDP gives Giant maybe the best match of his career at the time like he did with Goldberg 2 months earlier. And as a kid I was a huge mark for both Nash and Goldberg and loved that match. I still think it holds up today as one of both guy's better matches too. Sting/Hogan had over a year of build and Nash/Goldberg barely had a month but if you listen I think the crowd is arguably even hotter for the latter. Everyone knows how popular Goldberg was in 98 but Nash's popularity at that time isn't talked about as much. He was super over and probably had the crowd 70/30 on his side during that match. Which makes it even more baffling that they decided to turn him heel.
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Post by thegame415 on Dec 30, 2022 16:29:52 GMT -5
Which makes it even more baffling that they decided to turn him heel. This could be said of half of the guys who won the world title over the next year.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 30, 2022 16:52:03 GMT -5
Good point on Bret's involvement in the main event being problematic since there'd already been too many run-ins; if the show had been structured around Bret being the guy to bring justice in the Larry/Bischoff match and then in the main event to play off the screw job and to set up a Sting/Hogan rematch down the line, fine, but clearly that's not what happened.
And yeah, I do wonder what might've happened if they hadn't botched "nWo Nitro" so badly. Watching the OSW Review of it, the key problem really was that they absolutely stopped the show dead to do the whole sign change stuff; no wonder Raw's ratings spiked during that, it was a 15+ minute segment of nothing happening leading into a 15 minute promo! Maybe they overreacted to the negative feedback to how poorly it was executed, but at the same time it's hard to fault them for hearing how badly that went and just pulling the plug.
But what'll always be impossible for me to understand is Hogan's whole weirdness surrounding this. Like, credit where it's due: in this time, Hogan was still very much a draw. Featuring him a lot made plenty of sense, building money matches around him made sense, all of that can be backed up by ratings, ticket sales, etc.
But for a draw to continue drawing, said draw needs someone to do business with, and Hogan's whole thing had really become just taking his opponents and making them look like schmucks, with Starrcade '97 really being the coup de grace. Like, what does anyone gain from the fast count not happening? Hogan's the heel: if the fast count happens, Bret restarts the match, and Sting wins, heel Hogan can still complain to heel Bischoff and maneuver to get a rematch against babyface champion Sting that WCW could then spend the first half of '98 building toward, or however long they wanted to do it, while also setting up a huge money rivalry that people had spent the last 5 years dreaming of with Bret Hart. By doing this, Hogan made Sting and Hart look like morons, which benefits Hogan...not at all, ultimately, and it's insane to think he wasn't aware of that. I mean, sure, short term yeah, it keeps him on top and hurts Hart's and Sting's drawing power, but again, you need other people to draw with, and Goldberg and Page weren't established yet...except who knows, maybe doing so many "Hogan just walks down to the ring and talks about nothing for 15 minutes" segments had completely gone to his head and he was convinced he didn't need anyone to oppose him, just "put Hogan on TV" as a cure-all.
Oddly enough, I wasn't watching wrestling during the build to this; I only got into the Monday Night War era shortly afterward, right around late winter/early spring '98 for both companies. Ergo, I didn't end up being as tired of the nWo as many others were and didn't know what had gone down at Starrcade, at least not in the kind of detail I'd later learn about. Always made me wonder what my perception would've been had I started watching a year earlier.
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Milkman Norm
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Post by Milkman Norm on Dec 30, 2022 17:28:13 GMT -5
I think Bischoff expected a lot more heat in the building for the NWO Nitro hour. But most fans in the building seemed somewhere between confused & content and fans at home just turned it off.
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Post by Toilet Paper Roll on Dec 30, 2022 20:44:39 GMT -5
Still the most disastrous match in WCW history. They blew over a years worth of build on a dumb finish because hogan thought sting wa stop out of shape?
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Post by XaviersSS2015hair on Dec 31, 2022 3:35:56 GMT -5
Swerve bro! I watched World War 3 '97 yesterday instead lol. I've watched Starrcade 97 a couple times over the years. Enough to know that I don't ever want to see that awful show again. I hadn't watched WW3 97 since it aired so thought I'd go back and rewatch the PPV that set up Starrcade.
Nobody ever mentions the finish of WW3 97, but it's almost as nonsensical as the Starrcade finish. Hogan runs in at the end of the 60 man battle royal COMPLETELY UNADVERTISED to compete... for a shot at HIS OWN CHAMPIONSHIP! Yes, Bischoff had to pay Hogan his $600,000 PPV bonus which resulted in not one single PPV buy because, did I mention Hogan was never advertised to be on the show?! Hogan worked for about 3 minutes and walked out $600,000 richer. Now you tell me who was actually running WCW at that time. BROTHER!!!
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Post by XaviersSS2015hair on Dec 31, 2022 3:53:14 GMT -5
Is that an unpopular take? It was clear Hogan's shitty ego is why things ended how they did. Sort of bouncing off that, I'm still shocked Hogan agreed to dropping the title to Goldberg in the fashion he did. Incredibly curious why Hogan fell to Goldberg clean while utterly shitting the bed with the Sting match. Like, there's reasonable guesses, like maybe he was capitulating to the heat the Starrcade ending got him amongst other theories, but, yeah, would love an honest account from literally anyone as to why he went down for Goldberg but messed up the Sting match. There's a theory that Hogan agreed to the match on a few days notice because he knew it'd be in front of a huge, white hot crowd in a huge venue. People were already hot for Goldberg and it was in his hometown. And most importantly, (BROTHER!!!) since it was in Atlanta all the Turner big-wigs were going to be there. Hogan could take claim for the huge, hot crowd and look like the golden goose in front of everyone that mattered in the organization. Say what you will about Hogan, and believe me I do. But when it comes to wrestling politics, few if any have ever played the game better. He knows the oldest rule in wrestling is, it ain't who goes over, it's who gets over. And Hogan got and stayed over that night in front of the guys that cut the checks.
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Post by XaviersSS2015hair on Dec 31, 2022 4:01:20 GMT -5
Any of you order/spend money on this PPV? I would have been upset. I watched it at my friend's house along with his 2 younger brothers and their parent's. Everyone seemed happy with the PPV, with the exception of Nash's no-show. That's one of the joy's of watching wrestling with a non smark crowd. They tend to enjoy whatever's happening unless it gets to the point of being insulting.
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Dec 31, 2022 20:14:45 GMT -5
Sort of bouncing off that, I'm still shocked Hogan agreed to dropping the title to Goldberg in the fashion he did. Incredibly curious why Hogan fell to Goldberg clean while utterly shitting the bed with the Sting match. Like, there's reasonable guesses, like maybe he was capitulating to the heat the Starrcade ending got him amongst other theories, but, yeah, would love an honest account from literally anyone as to why he went down for Goldberg but messed up the Sting match. There's a theory that Hogan agreed to the match on a few days notice because he knew it'd be in front of a huge, white hot crowd in a huge venue. People were already hot for Goldberg and it was in his hometown. And most importantly, (BROTHER!!!) since it was in Atlanta all the Turner big-wigs were going to be there. Hogan could take claim for the huge, hot crowd and look like the golden goose in front of everyone that mattered in the organization. Say what you will about Hogan, and believe me I do. But when it comes to wrestling politics, few if any have ever played the game better. He knows the oldest rule in wrestling is, it ain't who goes over, it's who gets over. And Hogan got and stayed over that night in front of the guys that cut the checks. Plus, the narrative that persisted the most is that Hogan agreed under the condition he would eventually end the streak, and while Nash eventually got the nod (just to hand it back to Hogan via fingerpoke), there's no way Hogan didn't use the title loss as a political chess piece during that time.
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Post by Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster on Jan 1, 2023 1:31:38 GMT -5
The whole Sting was out of shape and on drugs line is a load of bullshit because Bischoff doesn't want to admit that he was Hogan's bitch and allowed him to get away with almost anything.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Jan 1, 2023 1:48:31 GMT -5
Bischoff could never book, push, or develop anything that couldnt be tied to what was good for Hulk Hogan. From the time Hogan signed in WCW to the time they walked out Bash at the Beach, there was one thing Bischoff worried about and that was his north star, and that was Hogan. Bischoff couldn't say no to Hogan, because that implies they are two different entities with two different goals, and neither is true.
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Post by Ryushinku on Jan 2, 2023 15:47:44 GMT -5
As a Sting mark for decades now, and this angle being specifically what got me watching pro wrestling again in the latter half of 97, you can probably guess what I think of Starrcade '97. Particularly that main event.
I've used this line a few times about it - I don't care if Sting turns up to the show weighing 400 pounds and missing an arm, you put the title on him that night and you put it there clean. There was way way too much invested to fudge it the way they did in the end.
Hogan most definitely takes blame, but Bischoff takes equal blame for acquiescing to the political moves.
I don't think a successful Starrcade '97 would've been a killing blow to the WWF, but its failure was the first of about three particularly bad blows that ultimately killed WCW.
One odd wrinkle is, the stink of that main event means that the SuperBrawl VIII match the following February gets a lot less attention just because Sting wins the (vacant) title there. When that match opens with about six uncontested minutes of Hogan beating Sting from pillar to post and only finally losing due to a Savage run in. Hogan covered his ass almost as much there.
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