Alright, so the second go at reviewing my favorite WCW PPV series didn’t go too well. WCW Starrcade ‘91 just did not rock at all. So, let try this again with the other show that took place on my birthday, WCW Starrcade ‘96.
You Could Probably Skip These Bouts
Starting off: the WCW Women’s Title match to crown a champion pitted Akira Hokuto against Madusa. Short but really solid match. The reason you could skip this is that the women’s division was still growing so it didn’t have depth.
That means you would’ve probably seen these two square off several times in 1996 and would see them face off a few more times in 1997. As I said, the match is far from bad.
You could skip The Outsiders defending the WCW Tag Titles against The Faces of Fear. I enjoy both teams but this wasn’t an essential match to watch at all. Same with Luger vs. The Giant.
The other bout you could skip is the main event. Of course, you’ve already reached the end of the show so you can’t really skip the final match on a card. You just quit the show.
Billed as “The Match of the Century” the main event on this one was Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper. Well, you know, the century wasn’t even out yet but never mind that. I mean…if it was the Match of the Century, wouldn’t there be stakes involved? The WCW World Title? How about authority in the company? That would be great.
Nope, we just got Hogan and Piper wrestling again. To be fair, it wasn’t a bad match, it just had some odd moments. The oddest moment was The Giant holding Piper up forever while Hogan and Randy Anderson put the boots to a fan who ran into the ring.
Ultimately, it was a middle of the road bout.
Watch These Matches
Everything else is worth watching. The opening unification match of the J-Crown and Cruiserweight Title saw Ultimo Dragon take on WCW Cruiserweight Champion Dean Malenko. Incredible match up. Liger taking on Rey Rey was exciting. Benoit taking on Jarrett was really good since Benoit is amazing and Jarrett is great.
Jarrett asks “Ain’t I great” and it’s like “Duh, dude.” He’s able to get it done in the ring easily. At this position of the card, he had a lot of great talent to work with. It’s once he got into the main event that the depth of talent started to thin out and it got annoying to watch him.
Finally, Eddie Guerrero taking on DDP for the WCW United States Title was dope. Eddie is just so skilled and well-traveled at this point while DDP is a ridiculously hard worker and absorbs everything when wrestling against someone. This period in WCW would probably be the best time for him to pick up stuff because of the depth of talent on the roster.
Their individual strengths aside, Eddie and DDP work very well together and had been feuding throughout the year.
Verdict on WCW Starrcade ’96
The best matches on WCW Starrcade ‘96 really bumped my enjoyment of the entire show and they were placed at just right spots. This isn’t like Starrcade ‘91 where mediocre matches were just stacked behind each other. The main event wasn’t something you’d run to end a show that people had to pay for.
It worked as a great set up to the feud the following year where we saw more Piper in WCW. The thing is that this match should’ve ran earlier in the year and built up to a bigger match at Starrcade ‘96. This bout didn’t smack of a Starrcade main event at all.
