Date: 11/22/1984 (Thanksgiving Night)

Location: Greensboro, NC

Announcers: Gordon Solie & Bob Caudle

The Setup

This was before Flair’s heel turn, so the first Dusty vs. Flair megamatch was when they were both babyfaces. Of course, the match was being officiated by former world champion boxer Joe Frazier, who could hardly string three coherent words together all night, in a startling example of what we now know about CTE.

Underneath, Tully vs. Steamboat had some legs, but this wasn’t Starrcade ‘83 with great matches blowing off the hot feuds that were the last three matches. This was also Dusty’s first Starrcade as booker, and it was quite the contrast on paper with the 1983 event.

The Business

Like the first Starrcade, JCP sold out the Coliseum again with 15,821 in the building. They did an additional 26,000 on closed-circuit TV, but that was almost a twenty-percent drop from Flair vs. Race the year before. This confirms the narrative that Dusty Rhodes, in his first year as JCP booker in 1984, took a while to get things going. Dory Funk’s 1983 show did better as a standalone.

The Results

NWA World Jr. Heavyweight Title March: Denny Brown def. Mike Davis (c) in 5:47. The work was solid and mostly mat-based, but they didn’t do a whole lot to get the crowd going. Davis hit a back suplex, leading to both men having their shoulders down, but Denny got his up before the three count. Solie and Caudle thought Davis won, despite Brown being awarded the title. Whoops. *1/2

Brian Adias def. Mr. Ito in 3:10. Again – solid work here, but nothing special. Adias won with an airplane spin. *1/4

Florida Heavyweight Title Match: Jesse Barr (C) def. Mike Graham in 11:45. These two worked a good old-school match with a lot of mat wrestling. You can argue it dragged a little in spots, but the crowd was into Graham as a babyface. He worked Barr’s knee over quite a bit, leading to an Indian deathlock and figure-four. There was a ref bump that led to nearfalls, but no actual finish, and Barr won the match with his feet on the ropes to get some heat. **3/4

Elimination Match: The Assassin & Buzz Tyler def. Zambuie Express in 4:46. Why are we doing an elimination match in under five minutes? Why did this need to be an elimination match? Who the fuck knows? Buzz Tyler and Elijah Akeem were both counted out quickly, leading to Assassin pinning Kareem Muhammad when they both collided, and Tyler pushed his partner on top for the win. 1/2*

Brass Knuckles Title Match: Manny Fernandez def. Black Bart (c) in 7:35. Manny is kind of a legit psycho, so his best character work is as a heel, but in the ring, he probably works best as a babyface. All of this worked. Brass Knucks rules basically mean “come as you are street fight,” so we got a lot of brawling and blood. Bart went for his bullrope, allowing Manny to get the rollup for the win. **3/4

Loser Leaves Town Tuxedo Streetfight: Paul Jones def. Jimmy Valiant in 5:21. This was your typical Jimmy Valiant JCP match, where the crowd is going nuts but the action isn’t much. The crowd loved seeing Jones stripped down to his blue briefs. Jones gigged himself, not only in plain ass view of the camera, but in such a long and dramatic way, the dude in the cheapest of seats could probably tell. Valiant had the win with the sleeper, but started fighting with the Zambuie Express, allowing JJ Dillon to run in and blast Valiant with his shoe, leading to the Paul Jones victory. *1/2

Mid-Atlantic Title March: Ron Bass (c) def. Dick Slater by DQ in 9:06. This was well worked with believable blows and good selling on both parts between two veteran brawlers. Kind of out of nowhere, Slater started making his comeback and just launched the referee out of the way when he stepped in to stop him for a very lame DQ. Jesus, this is a fuck finish show. **1/2

Ivan & Nikita Koloff def. Ole Anderson & Keith Larson in 15:22. An injured Don Kernodle was in the corner of the Americans on crutches. The babyfaces did a good job of working Ivan’s arm and moving persistently to keep the action fluid. Nikita was green as gooseshit at this point in his career, so he worked a very safe bearhug on Ole that drew a ton of heat. The finish came when the foreign cyborg, Nikita, went after an injured Kernodle on the floor, causing Ole to be distracted. This allowed Ivan to hit a sickle on Larson for the win. This was basic, but solid. **1/2

TV Title March: Tully Blanchard (c) def. Ricky Steamboat in 13:14. Finally, we got some greatness. This was almost exactly what you would expect from these two and will probably make you long for more footage of matches with these guys. The crowd was hot, the action was fast, and both men played their respective roles to a tee. Two of the best at playing the believable babyface and chickenshit heel. Steamboat shed his goodie-goodie image, drawing blood from Tully and SPITTING on him at one point. Tully used brass knuckles TWICE. The first got a great, believable nearfall, and because Ricky kicked out, no one was expecting it again when Tully pulled them out of his trunks a second time while Stramboat was trying to suplex Tully into the ring. Steamboat would be on the first WrestleMania in about four months, which is a shame because he would have fit beautifully into the JCP expansion. ****

US Title Match: Wahoo McDaniel def. Billy Graham in 4:12. I love Wahoo McDaniel, but Billy Graham was the drizzling shits here, even more than usual. Almost everything he did looked bad, including the bump on the “Tommyhawk” chop finish. Wahoo legit looked like he couldn’t wait to get to the back after it was over, like he was highly irritated by the shit show that just occurred. For some reason, it took Graham a while to figure out that no one wanted to see him in some pharmaceutical-induced ninja gimmick. What a criminal waste of Wahoo on this show. 1/4*

World Title Match: Ric Flair def. Dusty Rhodes in 12:10. They had a strong match with Dusty getting most of the upper-hand to build to a rematch, including applying the figure-four. They ended up on the floor, and Flair posted Dusty, drawing blood. Flair started punching the wound, and it wasn’t long before we got the BLOOD STOPPAGE finish because Joe Frazier – who was from the boxing world – freaked out in storyline and stopped it. I know some people hated this, but I liked the angle itself, which built to more matches on the road. When Frazier was questioned backstage, Dusty (with his blood eye wrapped like a mummy) went after him, as if he wouldn’t have had his entire ass beat. **1/2

Recommendation

Thumbs in the middle. While some aspects of the first show were the same – like the locker room interviews between matches – there were also some stark contrasts. Dory Funk Jr. booked the first show as the big show, with babyfaces winning blow-offs to feuds in the big matches, but Dusty gave us a preview of things to come and advanced programs for future house shows instead of concluding them. Not only was there the infamous Joe Frazier stoppage in the main event, but most of the heels won the big matches. There were also eleven matches, rather than eight. The overall work wasn’t as good as the 1983 version either. You can pass this over unless you’re a completist.