WCW Starrcade was always my favorite wrestling PPV. Even though it never had the big buzz around it like WrestleMania, the granddaddy of all wrestling PPVs had a presentation style that just did it for me. See, even during WWE’s worst periods, Vince managed to get good TV and set production for WrestleMania.
A show like WWF Breakdown: In Your House from 1998 might look busted and disgusted with wrestlers entering through an aisle, crowd-side entrance with just a sign saying “Breakdown” over the entrance but WrestleMania was about to be up here looking dusty to pay-per-view.
WCW Starrcade ‘92
At any rate, the Starrcade that has always stood out to me was the 1992 edition. Packing roughly 8,000 into the Omni just a day before my eighth birthday, this Starrcade featured the second Battle Bowl match! At this time, I wasn’t a wrestling fan but I watched it with my grandmother. When the event happened WCW and WWE did the still shots of all the action. In the case of Starrcade ‘92, a few of these were shown on Saturday Night and I wanted to see this show in full.
I’d get the chance almost a decade later thanks to tape trading. When I finally got my hands on a copy of Starrcade ‘92 in the spring of 2002, I made sure I had nothing else planned for the weekend. Teachers loved assigning homework over the weekend but that just wasn’t happenin’ captain. This was going to be a WCW weekend.
The Lethal Lottery
Battle Bowl takes place in two parts. There is first half where random wrestlers are paired up as teams in a series matches or the Lethal Lottery. The winning teams go on to fight in this battle royal or the Battle Bowl as singles competitors for—who knows. I mean, going into WCW Starrcade ‘92, Masahiro Chono held the NWA World title while the Great Muta held the IWGP Heavyweight title. Ron Simmons was WCW World champ and really had nothing to worry about from the Lethal Lottery entrants.
WCW never explicitly states that the winner gets a title shot at whatever belts they want. WCW is rocking two and a half major titles. Yes, that half a belt is the IWGP so New Japan is rocking half of the WCW World Title. It would honestly be easier to just establish a battle royal but during this period, WCW was throwing whatever at the wall and seeing what stuck.
The Lethal Lottery is one of those things that should’ve stuck. It had that excitement factor caused by the random pairing of wrestlers. Two rivals, two friends, two enemies, or a whole tag team could end up in the Lethal Lottery tournament and go on to face off in the Battle Bowl. Any of those combinations would spice up the under card and heat up the main event.
The Iron Men
As for the 1992 edition of Starrcade, the Lethal Lottery portion was fast and fun. None of the matches went over ten minutes so there was a pacing WCW was trying to maintain before getting into the title bouts. Also of note is the number of people who had to wrestle two or three times.
Most notable was “Dr. Death” Steve Williams. He had a Lethal Lottery bout where he and Sting defeated Jushin Liger and Erik Watts. I scrunched my face so hard at that but the match itself wasn’t terrible. It’s just a reaction to Erik Watts and his STF finisher. That match was the last of the Lethal Lottery and the longest one. Then he would face Ron Simmons for the WCW World title.
Normally, you would think “Why is he even in this? He has a title shot!” But Simmons was supposed to defend against Rick Rude who got injured. Regardless, this was a really good title defense for Simmons.
You also had Sting who was paired with Dr. Death and defeated Vader—who was paired with Dustin Rhodes—in a King of Cable of finals match. That was some tournament to celebrate blah-blah years of wrestling on TBS. Both of them would go on to Battle Bowl. Finally, the Great Muta and Barry Windham had a match before they entered the Battle Bowl.
Muta had a losing effort to Masahiro Chono for the NWA World title while Barry Windham and Brian Pillman—beaten by Windham and Muta in LL—lost their match for the WCW and NWA World tag belts.
This tournament looked like a mess on paper and it had to be taxing on everyone who had to do three matches. Like, this smacks of not being thoroughly planned out but would make sense for some guys to get eliminated very early.
Battle Bowl
Here we are, the main event of the evening. The winner goes on to get…nothing of note. Again, no title opportunity is mentioned. So, it’s like “Why are we even here?” Sting, Dr. Death, Barry Windham, Great Muta, Dustin Rhodes, Vader, Dan Spivey, and Van Hammer make it to this battle royal.
I love these kinds of matches because sometimes you notice some minor things in them. As for Starrcade ‘92’s Battle Bowl, there was really none of that. You had Van Hammer who was unimpressive as soon as the ink on his name dried on a WCW contract. Honestly, the only thing of note that made me scrunch my face in this match.
Everyone else in this match was rock solid at a minimum. I mean, Dustin’s a natural. It’s right there in his nickname and he’s the youngest guy in the ring. Everyone else wrestled for six to eleven years at this point with Barry Windham being the most experienced. Van Hammer is the only oddball. He has a little over a year of experience at this point and someone in WCW was high on him because he honestly shouldn’t have been in the mix of the main event of the promotion’s biggest show. Whatever.
Verdict on Starrcade ’92
Overall, the Battle Bowl was good, the title matches before the main event were really good. Early 90s WCW titles were on a whole different level. Even a TV title match with a 10-minute time limit could be lit. Half of the Lethal Lottery matches were good.
Off the first match, Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd should’ve advanced. While Marc Mero had just a little more experience than Van Hammer he had the athleticism and charisma that you’d overlook him still being a bit green. Plus, I just enjoyed the Johnny B. Badd character. Mero put a lot of effort into it. More effort than when he was the “Wildman” Marc Mero in WWE.
I say check out this show. It’s not essential but it’s not one 100-percent skippable. While there was less emphasis on storylines when it came to this Starrcade—you still had the Sting vs. Vader feud on here at least—the action was very good and the card had a nice flow to it—meaning, the show didn’t meander.
I will say, this obviously isn’t the best Starrcade or even the best Starrcade of the 1990s but it’s still a really fun show.
Rating: 7/10