WCW Starrcade 89': Future Shock

WCW Starrcade 89': Future Shock

Atlanta, GA - December 1989

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, Ric Flair is the reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion, the Steiner Brothers are the World Tag Team Champions, and Lex Luger holds the US Championship. The Television Champion is The Great Muta. 

COMMENTARY: Jim Ross, Terry Funk, and Jim Cornette


Tonight's show is a unique one - instead of a straight-up series of singles and tag matches, Starrcade 89' consists of two separate round robin tournaments (one singles and one tag) with a point system to calculate the night's winners. After we hear the national anthem and get a quick explanation of the point system, its time for our first contest - Doom (with Nancy "Woman" Sullivan and her bodyguard Nitron) taking on babyface rivals The Steiner Brothers. On commentary, JR explains that The Skyscrapers (Spivey and Sid Vicious) have been replaced by The Samoan SWAT Team (Sid was injured in their match against the Steiners at the previous month's Clash of the Champions). Scott and "Doom #1" (Ron Simmons) start things off in front of a pretty empty-looking crowd (as the show goes on, either more fans show up or someone wisely allowed fans with tickets on the non-camera side fill in). Simmons eats a big clothesline and an overhead belly-to-belly from Rick before tagging out to "Doom #2" (Butch Reed). From there, big suplexes, back body drops, and stiff blows are all on display, though this match really never takes off beyond just being "good." Steiner decking Nitron on the outside gets the biggest pop of the match, leading to a logical finish that keeps both sides credible. I like my openers a little bit more fast-paced, but this wasn't bad. (2.5/5)

In our first singles match, Sting takes on Lex Luger, both getting put over huge on commentary by Funk and Ross as the future of the sport. I think one could argue their prediction came true, at least in WCW. Anyway, Sting takes the fight right to the Total Package, hitting him with big right hands in and out of the ring. Sting dominates for the next several minutes, eventually locking in an arm bar to build up to a crowd-pleasing splash off the second rope in the corner. Sting returns to the arm bar, but Luger breaks free. Sting hits a dropkick and tries to follow it up with a splash from the top rope, but Luger catches him and hits an atomic drop (and then another atomic drop). The 15 minute time-limit is ridiculously worked, Capetta announcing "5 minutes remaining" after about 5 minutes of wrestling. Luger controls for awhile and it looks like they intended to have Stinger make his comeback after escaping a Torture Rack attempt, but Sting falls to the ring awkwardly and "hulks up" instead, no-selling Luger's strikes. I really hate the Road Warriors impression here - he's above needing to work like that - but, considering it was 89', it's not surprising that Sting and Luger probably weren't at their peak in terms of improv'ing after a botch (and if Sting's no-selling was the intended transition, shame on them). I also disliked the actual finish - not necessarily because of how sloppy it looked (that was kind of the point), but because Patrick's count itself was kinda clunky. This match started out strong, meandered a bit, and then fell apart in its rushed ending. (2/5)

Doom are back in the ring next to take on The Road Warriors. LOD's offense is less impressive than the Steiners' but they're equal to or more over with the crowd and are better at garnering sympathy. Doom, especially Simmons, are great opponents for them, tough and very similar in style, but decidedly heel. The villains dominate for a lengthy stretch until Animal comes in for the hot tag and a clean finish follows soon after. Not a great match. I'd say, on the whole, a step below the more fast-paced, more dynamic opener. (2/5)

Next up is a match I'm actually pretty excited to see - The Great Muta (with Gary Hart) vs. Ric Flair (who arrives with Arn and Ole Anderson). Unfortunately, this one is more angle than match - the two wrestlers typing up for a little, trading strikes, and then all hell breaking loose once Buzz Sawyer and The Dragonmaster (Kazuo Sakurada) show up and start duking it out with the Andersons. I really would've liked to see Muta and Flair go a full, legit 15 minutes, which made this pretty disappointing. I'm sure I'm not the only one that felt that way in December 89'. (1/5)

In a babyface tag team dream match, The Steiners face The Road Warriors next. Great work here in terms of character and straight-forward storytelling, neither team doing anything dastardly early or trying to take an unfair advantage but things getting heated relatively quickly. Both teams had well-earned reputations for working stiff and not giving a whole lot to their opponents, but there's an obvious mutual respect between the teams so everyone brings their "A Game." There's a sloppy suplex by Scott Steiner from the corner that just looks ill-conceived, but aside from that hiccup, the offense by both teams is well-executed for the most part. I expected the finish to be a schmozz of some sort, maybe involving the other two heel teams running in to damage the babyfaces, but instead, we get a relatively clean ending - though not one without controversy. More time and having the Steiners' titles on the line would've made this truly great, but instead, it's just well-above average and a match worth digging up for fans of either team. (3.5/5)

Sting wrestling longtime rival The Great Muta follows. I really like Muta and Sting's chemistry - Muta has a unique offense considering the context and his agility and speed are remarkable, while the Stinger can be counted to bring a ton of energy, strength, and sympathetic selling. Put those ingredients together and you know you're going to get, at the very least, a solid, exciting match as long as they don't try to draw things out with needless restholds. Fortunately, aside from a brief Sting headlock, they opt to keep the pace up and have Sting play defense for most of the minutes. Muta tries to go to the air one too many times, though, allowing Sting to connect with a crowd-pleasing and very impressive dropkick to Muta all the way on the top rope in the best spot of the match. This came off like a very good TV match - more time, higher stakes, more involvement out of Gary Hart, and a more complex back-and-forth lay-out would've made this PPV worthy. (3/5)

And it is finally time for The Wild Samoans to compete, taking on last-in-the-standings Doom with Woman. Norman the Lunatic, dressed as Santa, makes a brief appearance here, the commentators explaining that he has a crush on Woman. The match is the opposite of a technical display as the four men just hit eachother with nothing but big elbows, big headbutts, clotheslines, and thrust kicks. The teams do a nice job of making each other seem like uncontrollable, ultra-violent brutes, but the crowd is fairly and unsurprisingly indifferent watching two unlikeable pairs trade mostly unremarkable slams and strikes. Not a bad match, but definitely more filler on a show that has already had plenty of filler. (2/5)

Lex Luger and Ric Flair had some highly regarded matches a few years prior, so I was excited to see what they could do with 15 minutes here and their typical face/heel roles reversed. Luger locks in a headlock to start things, bringing Naitch to the mat. Flair escapes and Luger heads to the ropes for safety, drawing good heat from the pro-Flair crowd. Flair goes on a chopping spree in and out of the ring and punctuates it with a back body drop, controlling the match for the next several minutes. Flair locks in an arm bar and though its well-worked and would've made perfect sense in a standard title match, it makes much less sense in the context of a 15-minute time limit bout in a points-based tournament setting. Things pick up when Luger breaks out and Flair starts scrambling with multiple pin attempts in rapid succession, but then Flair slows things down again. Luger breaks out of it by dropping Flair neck-first onto the top rope, a devastating counter he follows with a big clothesline and forearms on the mat. Luger sends Flair to the ropes and hits a press slam, but can't capitalize when Flair rolls to the outside. As the minutes click down, the action picks up considerably as Flair and Luger resort to some old habits and sequences - there's nothing in the last 5 minutes that would tell you that Flair's the face and Lex is the heel. It'll pick up your heart rate because it is fast-moving and exciting, but I'd have preferred some character work thrown in - more desperation of the heel and more vulnerability out of Flair. The best singles match of the night thus far. (3/5)

The Steiners vs. The Samoans is next. An otherwise forgettable, somewhat unimportant match is saved a bit by how amped Jim Cornette is to be on play-by-play with JR, his excitement helping to revitalize the presentation a bit with this being the Steiners' third appearance and the Samoans second. There are plenty of stiff Steinerlines on display, but Scott throws in some respectable amateur wrestling work too. A miscue leads to the Samoans nearly coming to blows, Rick tring to get them to attack each other but ultimately failing as the crowd boos and the cousins hug it out. The match falls into a bit of same ol'-same ol' territory from here, Scotty working as the face-in-peril, which is always kind of specious considering how ripped and athletic he is. The Samoans cut corners to keep control, but Scott eventually hits his Frankensteiner to pop the crowd and give his team a chance to win. Samu won't stay down, though, keeping Scott from making a tag with a minute remaining. Rick breaks in (it is unclear if he's been tagged in or not) and connects with clotheslines to both men, but its Scott Steiner who costs his team the match, back body dropping Fatu over the top rope (a disqualifiable offense in 1989 WCW) when the referee isn't looking. I thought this one started out pretty entertaining, but as it wore on, kept my interest less and less until it hit its brick wall ending. Scott Steiner's performance was solid, though. (1.5/5)

Selling a damaged knee from his bout with Ric Flair, Lex Luger makes his way down the aisle to square off against The Great Muta. Luger is great in this match - his selling from beginning to end is everything that Rollins' wasn't at WrestleMania this year. Muta isn't quite as good, but I'm a bit of a mark for him so I'm likely to dig him in even his most uneventful matches. This was on its way to being one of, if not my very favorite matches of the night, but the end just crushed it a bit for me - Muta dominates for so long that him essentially throwing the match the minute it looks like a visibly injured Luger finally has some momentum (with less than a minute left in the match) is not the ending this match deserved or was building up to. (3/5)

The "finals" of the tag team tournament is next - The Samoans squaring off against The Road Warriors. Not much to say about this one aside from its your standard Warriors (no-selling everything, same moves they always bust out) against a Samoans team that just seems off. I'm not sure if its fatigue or not laying out the match beforehand, but things are just sloppy all around. Not good, but at least the crowd is happy with the ending. (1/5)

Main event time - Sting vs. Ric Flair in the last match of the Iron Man round robin. This match has a few things going for it worth mentioning - first, on commentary, Jim Ross doesn't ignore history (the way it so often is in today's WWE) and talks up the way Sting was essentially "made" at the first Clash of the Champions but could not defeat Flair in 45 minutes (this time, he'll have to do it in 15), giving this match some context beyond the Iron Man prize itself. Second, Flair working some subtle heel moments into the match that foreshadow his eventual feud with Sting in 1990. The finish, which has been criticized for its logic, worked for me if you consider the story here is that Flair, during the course of this match, was falling back into old, poor habits and that his overconfidence caught up to him when he should've been more focused and less motivated by showing up his opponent with his fancy finish. Yeah, I'm kinda stretching there. Anyway, not a classic bout but a decent enough match to close the show. Extra half-point for the post-match scene which not only popped the crowd but gave this entire show some much needed storyline development. (3/5)


Despite a somewhat decent Kwang Score of 2.29-out-of-5, there is simply no way to recommend this show in its entirety or even in a condensed version. The most notable thing that happens is that Sting gets congratulated by the Horsemen around minute 168 of a show that runs 170 minutes. The Steiners/Road Warriors match was my favorite match with Luger/Muta a close second, but everything else was pretty forgettable even if it wasn't outright bad. It took me weeks to get through this show just due to the monotony of it. During the main event, Jim Ross describes the match as the final round of the first "annual" Iron Man Tournament but it had to be pretty obvious to the producers by this point based on crowd reactions that this was not an experiment worth trying again. Give me a Battle Bowl over this any day of the week.

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville