Hindsight Edition Starrcade '97 Great Promotion, Bad Execution

 

It's been 25 Years since WCW Starrcade '97. The event that featured what was billed as the match of the century Hollywood Hogan vs Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. At that time Sting was the savior of WCW against the big bad evil empire known as the nWo, and it would be his first match wrestled in over a year.

Sting made it known over the course of the year he wanted to face one man and one man only from the nWo Hollywood Hogan. After clearly "communicating" his target, the WCW brass still didnt catch on initially. It wasn't until he "called out" Hogan by interrupting a nWo promo with a vulture on his arm and a stoic poem read by a child played over the PA system at Clash of The Champions that things were made official. By the way unless I missed it or just don't remember, we know in reality for obvious reasons why it was Sting vs Hogan, but was it ever explained within the story why Hogan was the only target?

In retrospect the segment and the poem didn't make much sense, but tying into the whole Crow vibe it worked. Which led to a contract signing months later between the two, hyping the match up even more.

Outside of the main event there was the first ever matchup between Kevin Nash and The Giant dubbed "The Battle of The Giants", the fight for Monday Night Nitro between Larry Zybyszko and Eric Bischoff. DDP's stock shot up expeditiously after he was slotted as the replacement for Ric Flair against Curt Henning for the US Heavyweight Championship. Of Course folks were clamoring for Bret Hart to make his WCW debut.

All of these components led to intense hype and excitement for Starrcade and on December 27th Washington D.C. MCI Center. For the most part every one was let down, the match between Nash and The Giant didn't happen. 

Rewatching the event, Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit vs Saturn, and DDP vs Curt Henning were all very good matches. Looking at the competitors in those respective matches, unless all of them had off nights would those matches have been terrible? Other than those three matches, the rest of the undercard was very blah and man that main event turned out to be trash. From Sting still having ring rust, to wanting to copy the Montreal screwjob and politics playing a role in the ending. It just didn't work out.

Despite how the card panned out, to this day I still believe Starrcade '97 was the most well promoted wrestling event in history.  The excitement in the air to finally see Sting save the day was unmatched, WCW even made a smart move in my opinion by having the WCW roster not competing on the show, sit in the audience throughout the show. It sold the point that the stakes were really that high. Also props to whoever decided to have the intercut between Sting and Hogan as Sting walked to the ring peering through Hogan while he stood there feigning confidence.

Starrcade really felt like the "Grandaddy of 'Em All" that night. I don't think Eric Bischoff gets enough credit for how well promoted that event was, mainly due to how disappointing the show was due to a variety of factors.  

In the end Starrcade '97 is a classic case of Great Promotion, Bad Execution!