WCW Starrcade 1997 is an iconic show in the history of WCW. With the nWo rampaging through the company, many of the home army faces have fallen to the invaders while others jumped ship to the black and white and attack. Sting has been making surprise attacks on the new World order throughout 1997 and now has his title shot for the World title against nemesis Hollywood Hogan!
The Best of WCW Starrcade 1997
Things kick off spicily as Eddie Guerrero successfully defends his Cruiserweight title against Dean Malenko. There’s nothing to say here as these two have a ton of chemistry at this point and were dope match factories. It was one of these decent matches in their library of matches but stood out as being by being on this card.
Benoit and Saturn facing off in a Raven’s Rules match really worked for me. This was a good, entertaining match that didn’t disappoint and was placed in the right spot on the card. I’d say it was one of those necessary matches that kept a show from dragging early on.
DDP challenging for Curt Hennig’s U.S title should’ve gotten just a little more time. That aside, I enjoyed this match. The action was good, Hennig did the damn thing as did DDP and we’ve got stakes! While it wasn’t the best of the night, it was still a strong contest and a solid, failed defense for Hennig. I think this should’ve swapped times with Luger vs. Bagwell, honestly.
The Rest
The six-man tag team bout was above decent. Savage wasn’t all there in-ring for this one and actually, it was odd as to why a concrete main event star was bumming around in the lower but there he was, folks. Goldberg taking on Steve McMichael was the clash WCW power rookies that was going to happen. It was Goldberg’s lack of in-ring experience versus Mongo’s lack of in-ring skill which is…interesting.
The match itself was short which is very good because while this was a meh, boring match neither guy really had their weaknesses exposed. Instead, you just got a match that is only memorable because the worst was expected, really.
Lex Luger vs. Buff Bagwell could’ve been a decent match but it ran too long considering this is late 90s Bagwell. While otherwise entertaining, he’s not entertaining enough to be given a 16-minute singles match. In short, this was a pretty boring bout.
I actually enjoyed the ongoing storyline between Larry Zbyszko and Eric Bischoff but this match just wasn’t it. Having Bret Hart as a referee was interesting but that shouldn’t have been his debut in WCW. There’s just something about this match that didn’t work as Bischoff as a sh***y heel was really good and he was getting in his kicks. It wasn’t a bad match, it was just…meh overall—including the finish.
Oof…the main event. Hollywood Hogan defended his World title against Sting who was finally making his in-ring return after months of lurking in the rafters and stalking the new World order. The match was very messy in the sense that there was too much going on for what should’ve been the most iconic WCW match of the late 90s.
This was the embodiment of WCW vs. The nWo and it just wasn’t a good match. Then Sting breaks his silence following a big celebration right after the match! It’s as if Surfer Sting returned after Hollywood Hogan was vanquished—then we got angsty Crow Sting when he had to relinquish the title on Nitro.
Perfect.
Verdict: Bronze Medal (2.21/5)
I’d say that this was better than D-Generation X: In Your House but not by much. It was a more decisive show as there wasn’t a ton of disqualifications. There were three matches that stood out but the match of the PPV goes to Eddie vs. Dean for the Cruiserweight title. The runner-up was DDP vs. Hennig for the U.S championship.
Starrcade 1997 ending with that blah Hollywood Hogan-Sting match brought things down as this was a lengthy feud that featured a sh***y major match at the biggest event of the year.
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