WCW Starrcade and the MCI Center in Washington, D.C have always gone together for some reason. Anyway, the venue welcomed the 1998 edition which featured Kevin Nash getting his shot at Goldberg’s World title.
The Best of WCW Starrcade 1998
This is a single match entry as Billy Kidman defending his Cruiserweight title against Rey Mysterio Jr and Juventud Guerrera kicked Starrcade 1998 off on a high note. You know what to expect from cruiserweight matches that end up in “The Best” pile, folks: a great pace, high athleticism, and lots of excitement.
Kidman would hold on to his title and go on to defend it against Eddie Guerrero right after this bout.
The Rest
The balance of lemons and decent bouts on Starrcade 1998 is even, folks. Fortunately, the lemons are so not worth discussing, we’ll just bundle them into a failure pile and speed through it. Norman Smiley vs. Prince Iaukea had too much room to groove and wasn’t worth watching.
Saturn vs. Ernest Miller should’ve been better than it was but Miller was still green at this point. They had the right amount of room to groove but couldn’t find the rhythm. It happens.
Who asked for Brian Adams and Scott Norton vs. Fit Finlay and Jerry f**king Flynn and was it put in the middle of the damn show? This match was just bad with no actual expectations of it being decent. Either bump it to the second match or put it on Worldwide.
Pay-per-view was not the place for that match—and at a Starrcade, too! So, on the one hand, I don’t expect a Ric Flair vs. Eric Bischoff match to be good at all. However, on the other hand, WCW invested time into this feud, so it could’ve at least been decent.
There were parts where it was entertaining and it was kept mercifully short, so I can’t ream it like the mistake of a tag match before it by still.
And now for the decent stuff. Kidman doing double duty with the Cruiserweight title wasn’t bad at all. This was an unmotivated period for Eddie Guerrero but we still got something watchable. It’s not as if Eddie really came in to drag the match into the gutter.
At some point, Konnan snagged the Television title and had a solid defense against Chris Jericho. This match would’ve made for a good opener as well. I like how we’ll Jericho and K-Dawg work together and wish we would’ve seen more of it with an actual focus on them.
Diamond Dallas Page saunters into the MCI Center with his mullet and puts on a rock-solid match with The Giant in the semi-main event slot. Again, they had time to do what they needed to do and DDP can’t do wrong in 1998. He was WCW’s Mankind in that he was in the main event picture and the most consistent in the ring on pay-per-view. The Giant did his part in the match so it wasn’t a DDP carry job.
Ah, yes. Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash for the World title. At this point, Goldberg was still undefeated and the likelihood of Nash winning was slim. Sure, the stupid stun gun came into play here but the action between the two before the run-ins and interference was actually very sound.
Nash was giving Goldberg an actual fight until the tide turned. Was the match a bit slow at times? Of course, it was. However, it was like it was a slow 20-minute affair like some main events we’ve gotten out of the company before.
WCW Starrcade 1998 Verdict: Bronze Medal (2.51/5)
This was a funky show. It wasn’t bad at all but I can’t say that it was good. All in all, it was perfectly acceptable. I will give WCW credit for a two-event streak of having decent or better main events! When Hollywood Hogan was in the main event slot we saw a couple of lemons…a lot of lemons, actually. The match of the show goes to Kidman vs. Mysterio vs. Juvi for the Cruiserweight title while the runner-up goes to DDP vs. The Giant.
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