Wrestling by the Decade: WCW Starrcade 1993

WCW Starrcade 1993

Date: December 27, 1993

Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina

Announcers: Jesse Ventura and Tony Schiavone  

The Setup

After being planned to win the WCW title, Sid Vicious was pulled from the main event after the scissors incident in England involving Arn Anderson. Having already lost to Vader at the previous Clash of the Champions, WCW had Flair step in and challenge for the title again while also putting his career on the line in his hometown of Charlotte. It was the tenth anniversary of the first Starrcade in Greensboro, so they used the same “A Flair for the Gold” tagline for this one.

The Business

Wrestlenomics has the show doing 115,000 PPV buys, the biggest number of 1993 and the highest since the inaugural Spin the Wheel Make the Deal Halloween Havoc with Jake Roberts vs. Sting in 1992. Flair’s possibly career-ending news helped spike the number of buys by 21% above their year-average. 

Prowrestlinghistory shows an attendance of 8,200 and a gate of $62,000, so heavily papered as always in 1993, but also a higher gate than usual for 1993. Flair’s career meant a lot in Charlotte.

The Results

Tag Team Match: Pretty Wonderful def. 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 11:45 **1/2

Singles Match: The Shockmaster def. King Kong in 1:34 DUD

WCW World Television Championship Match: Lord Steven Regal (C) vs. Ricky Steamboat ended in a Time Limit Draw in 15:00  **1/2 

Tag Team Match: Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne def. Shanghai Pierce and Tex Slazenger in 7:48 **

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship Match: Steve Austin def. Dustin Rhodes (C) in 14:03 **3/4 

WCW International World Heavyweight Championship Match: Rick Rude (C) def. The Boss in 9:08 *1/2

Tag Team Match: Road Warrior Hawk and Sting def. The Nasty Boys (C) by DQ in 29:11 *3/4

WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match: Ric Flair def. Vader (C) in 21:11 ****1/4 

Notable Happenings

Flair captured the title in front of his hometown crowd, and the entire presentation of the match and his win was the best thing WCW did all calendar year and one of the best in the company’s entire history. The show started with a video that showed Flair as a child and throughout his career, intercut with clips of Vader destroying men throughout 1993. Mean Gene picked Flair up in a limo, and they showed Ric hugging and kissing his family before heading off to battle with the snarling monster. Gene Okerlund did some of the best career work in his HOF career when talking to Flair about the match and his career on the way to the arena. All of this felt so authentic. 

Flair came out for a curtain call because most of the crowd didn’t leave after he walked to the back. He got a champagne bath in the back, and since Arn was laid up after the England hotel incident, the wrestlers congratulating him were Sting and Steamboat, two men who were portrayed more as rivals by 1993. Still, all of this was tremendous. Flair’s bloody mouth from Vader’s stiff shots only added to the drama of it all. 

Missy Hyatt ran in and attacked Sting as an atrocious ending to the marathon tag title match, and her breasts also popped out at the same time. There was a photo taken that was posted in the WCW offices that helped lead to a sexual harassment suit down the road, which was reportedly settled for about $175,000. 

The Rude title match win was fairly disappointing. Rude took a beating most of the match, then cheaply won with a sunset flip of all things. Ray Traylor was excellent in AJPW in 1993, so I think everyone expected more. 

A bloody Austin won the US title in a rare straight-falls outcome. The lights temporarily went out during the match as well. 

The Best, The Worst, The Underrated

The Best: The entire story of Flair winning the title. 

The Worst: Shockmaster vs. Awesome Kong was the only thing truly godawful on the show. 

The Underrated: Tony and Jesse as an announce team. Both men seemed to enjoy working together, and they had a good call on this show. Tony providing career context to Flair worked so well because of how far they went back, and Jesse was awesome, calling things more straight than heelish. It made the moment feel even more special to see Jesse doing his schtick less. 

Backstage Notes

This event was the last WCW PPV with Dusty Rhodes as booker, as he was removed shortly after. While in the position, Dusty worked for Jim Herd, Kip Frey, Bill Watts, Ole Anderson, and Jim Crockett Jr. (in an interim role before Frey came in). There are a lot of different people with different visions of pro wrestling, so even while writing the shows, Dusty’s power was limited. 

Dusty was reporting to Ole Anderson, and this was also Ole’s last show in that position. Eric Bischoff was made Senior VP in January, and Ole briefly served on the booking committee before being removed, permanently ending his on-again/off-again relationship with Turner Sports. 

Bulldog was scheduled for the Rude match, but quit the promotion after his October UK tour payoff because he negotiated a different rate with Watts for those tours, which wasn’t put in writing. There was a Saturday Night where Bulldog no-showed in storyline, and the Boss took his place. 

Shockmaster was supposed to wrestle Awesome Kong, but Jesse pointed out that it was King Kong because of the name on his gear. 

Austin wasn’t originally scheduled to win the US title on this show, as he was being set up to face Flair in a non-title singles match. Sid’s removal from the show led to two title changes. 

Rating: 6.5/10

Overall, this was a good show, carried by all the Flair content sprinkled throughout. Outside of that, most of the other matches ranked between average and pretty good. Honestly, this show could have used another match, even if it was a bad short one, just so that the tag title match didn’t have to fill a half hour. How many thirty-minute matches had Hawk been in during his career? 

The Video