- hace 3 semanas
Categoría
🥇
DeportesTranscripción
00:15¡Suscríbete al canal!
00:30...is kind of shorthand for shit wrestling in terms of what fans know of the history.
00:34So I've been trying to do my best to just see, you know, what's worked and what hasn't worked during
00:39this year.
00:40And this show, I think, has got a little bit of both, in my opinion.
00:42It's time for WCW Starrcade 1995 from December 27th.
00:47A rare Wednesday pay-per-view from the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
00:52This show was nominated by Allison McManus, Chris Thompson, Tarkin Oren, and Adam Vanderplum...
00:57...over at patreon.com slash wrestlingwithregret.
01:00The big linchpin for this year's Starrcade is the World Cup of Wrestling...
01:04...as seven wrestlers from New Japan are invading WCW, in the company's words...
01:09...to try and take over the company, basically, through this best-of-seven series.
01:14It's all part of the working agreement between the two companies.
01:16Eric Bischoff has said this is one of his ways of trying to make WCW appear to be a truly
01:21global organization.
01:22Bischoff and his longtime associate, Sonny Ono, who you might know as a manager for the company...
01:27...working together and negotiating with Masa Saito and New Japan to get the deal done.
01:31It feels like the promotion for this show is very lacking, or at least the promotion of the World Cup
01:37aspect.
01:37Because watching the Nitros building up to this show from World War III to Starrcade...
01:43...there's definitely a push by the announcers, oh, World Cup of Wrestling, New Japan wrestlers are coming to check out,
01:48you know, to invade and everything.
01:50But never once, and unless it's something that's cut out from the network version or the Peacock version of these
01:55Nitros...
01:55...there's no real showing of who we're seeing from New Japan coming to this event.
02:01You've got all these big names of the time and, like, some future legends, in fact, in Japan.
02:05And, you know, they're coming there.
02:07All we know is that they're coming, but we know nothing about them.
02:09And there's no highlight packages from them, there's no promos from the Japanese wrestlers.
02:12Again, unless this is some kind of copyright issue or something where the network had to take these bits down
02:17off the Nitros...
02:18...there's no real evidence that Japanese wrestlers are coming to WCW unless you listen to the commentary explain it on
02:24Nitro.
02:25Now, Hulk Hogan is not on this show, and if you're wondering why, it's because he was kayfabe suspended at
02:30the end of the year...
02:31...after assaulting officials for two weeks in a row.
02:34But in reality, though, the deal in his contract only says he works four pay-per-views a year.
02:38And he'd worked those already, so this is the way they wrote him out.
02:41The show drew a .36 buy rate, 83,000 buys, the second lowest buy rate in company history...
02:47...though I would assume the Wednesday date had something to do with that.
02:50Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, and Bobby Heenan on commentary.
02:54Rhodes promising clubberin' and heinie kickin' tonight.
02:56Heenan predicts that Ric Flair will win the triangle match and go on to beat Randy Savage for the world
03:01title.
03:01And look at that oh-so-fancy set.
03:03This is the standard pay-per-view set at this time in WCW.
03:06A little triangle entrance in the middle of a giant curtain is just class.
03:10Also, a fun side story here during the show on commentary is that Bobby Heenan is very much on the
03:15take from New Japan.
03:16Like, Sonny Ono has been bribing him for weeks, and now he's very much has a financial stake in New
03:21Japan winning the World Cup.
03:22So, if you watch this show for nothing else, watch it to hear Bobby Heenan's commentary and just blatant homerism
03:28for the New Japan guys and the way he reacts to every win and loss.
03:32It's pretty good.
03:33First match in the World Cup sees Chris Benoit, the newest member of the Four Horsemen, taking on Jushin Thunder
03:38Liger, who's accompanied by Sonny Ono.
03:41He's gonna be seen in literally every match on this show except for the last two, so get used to
03:45seeing him.
03:46Also, I love the fact that Ono's got a giant Japanese flag, and Liger has a little Japanese flag.
03:51In my opinion, I think Jushin Liger is like the ultimate opening match wrestler.
03:56And I mean that, and it's not out of disrespect, I'm saying because he's exciting in the ring, he looks
04:01and acts unlike almost any other wrestler you'll ever see,
04:04and in any case where he's allowed to use his New Japan theme, it's an instant get-out-of-your
04:08-seat-and-start-cheering song.
04:10It's like the riff and just knowing who it is always gets the crowd popping, and I've always, I've seen
04:15this, I've witnessed this in person.
04:17A few years ago when I went to England for the Wrestling Media Con, a lot of shows I went
04:22to that week had Liger on the card,
04:24and almost in all those instances, he was the opening match to get the crowd up on their feet from
04:29the get-go, and also it's Liger, so yay for that.
04:32And so yeah, and we've seen this happen before, Liger just showing up in opening matches across different companies across
04:38so many years, and it works.
04:54Liger starts off hot with many arm drags and a dropkick and a rolling senton, Benoit taking over and slowing
05:00things down,
05:01lighting up Liger with some chops, a big German, and a kick-out.
05:04Liger bending Benoit backwards and transitioning to a camel clutch, Benoit drops him from his shoulders.
05:10Tombstone attempts are countered, they go up top, Benoit with a big superplex.
05:14Of all the superplexes on this night, and there are a few of them, this one gets the biggest pop.
05:18More Germans, Benoit hits the flying head, but as the Taskmaster, Kevin Sullivan shows up on the apron and talks
05:24mess to Benoit.
05:25This is all stemming from an altercation between Sullivan and horseman Brian Pillman on Nitro.
05:30Basically now, Benoit is suffering for Pillman's loose cannon actions against the DoD, the Dungeon of Doom.
05:36So what happens is Liger, capitalizing with a roll-up, pins and wins the first battle.
05:40The first shot is fired in the World Cup.
05:43This was a great technical match.
05:45These two have great chemistry.
05:46They worked a lot in Japan before this, so they knew each other very well, and it showed in the
05:50ring.
05:51This match was good, but the finisher was really stupid and took some score off this one for me.
05:56But be that as it may, a nice appetizer to warm the crowd up for the rest of the night.
06:00Gene Okerlund backstage with Eddie Guerrero, who's upset about what happened out there.
06:04Does not set well with you.
06:05No, it doesn't set well at all.
06:07Kevin had no, no, no reason to be there.
06:10He had no business.
06:11No, no, he didn't.
06:12Yeah, in case you can't tell, 1995 Eddie Guerrero is nowhere nearly as good at promos as, say, 2003 Eddie
06:19Guerrero, or even 1998 Eddie Guerrero.
06:21It's crazy to see just how much and how well he advanced and how short of a time from coming
06:26to WCW.
06:27But at this point, still a fresh-faced baby face.
06:30He's still fresh off ECW.
06:31Hasn't really found his defining character yet.
06:34Next match in the series, Alex Wright taking on Koji Kanemoto, who at this time is the IWGP Junior Heavyweight
06:40Champion.
06:41Kanemoto working Wright's leg early on, but Das Wunderkin comes back, spills to the outside, Wright with a dive.
06:46Kanemoto comes back with an elbow, hits some big ol' kicks.
06:49Some struggling over the top rope has Wright running on the outside.
06:53Koji with a dive of his own.
06:54A tiger suplex and a rope break.
06:56The moonsault in Koji does not go for the cover.
06:59Wright's coming back, goes for a missile dropkick.
07:01Koji goes to intercept, and neither man really hits each other, and it's a double down.
07:05More diving attacks from both men.
07:06Each man kicks out.
07:07They try the double dropkick spot again.
07:09It works slightly better.
07:11Wright hits his own missile dropkick just for good measure from the top.
07:14Koji with the roll-up wins the match, and now New Japan is up 2-0.
07:18I give it 3 stars out of 5.
07:20I can appreciate the athleticism in this match and the pace they worked and the story they told,
07:24but I think there was a couple times too many in this match where they try to go for something,
07:28and it does not end up working out.
07:30It kind of works against it.
07:31So, you know, this match for me, kind of in the middle of the road.
07:35Mean Gene backstage, plugging the hotline, then interviewing Sonny Ono,
07:38who Gene describes as being so happy he's, quote, coming out of his shoes.
07:42Ono plans on sweeping WCW, purchasing WCW, then buying the state of Iowa.
07:48Okay, there's a funny interaction here at the end.
07:49Was somebody paid off?
07:51No, no.
07:51Wait a minute now.
07:52Was somebody paid off?
07:53You just say, Ono?
07:54No.
07:54Sonny?
07:55Oh, no.
07:55My name.
07:55Oni.
07:56Hey, don't work with me.
07:57We go back to the announce team, and Bobby Heenan on commentary says,
08:00Well, Japan owns everything else in this country.
08:02Why not WCW?
08:03Next match in the series sees Lex Luger taking on Masahiro Chono, the former NWA world champion.
08:09Luger, by the way, turned heel a couple of months ago at Halloween Havoc, joining the Dungeon of Doom.
08:14Here he gets one of the biggest babyface pops of the night.
08:16And that is actually a recurring theme with this show, is that whether a WCW wrestler is face or heel
08:22doesn't really matter on this show,
08:23because they're all considered babyfaces against the evil foreign menace of New Japan.
08:28Luger showing off the strength early on, press slamming Chono.
08:31Chono fights back with some big elbows, working him over in the corner.
08:34Chono's got Luger in the sleeper, and he drops him, gets the STF locked in, but Luger grabs the ropes.
08:39Chono with an inverted atomic drop.
08:41Luger's selling forever as Chono figures out where he's got to go.
08:44He hits the boot, goes for a flying nothing, and Luger hits an elbow.
08:48The torture rack, Luger wins, and WCW is finally on the board.
08:52The match had some okay moments. There were some good little nuggets in there.
08:54I like both guys showing off their power and the striking ability of Chono,
08:58but this match was not nearly at the level of the previous two matches we saw.
09:01And for its faults that Wright and Kanemoto had, I still think it was a level above,
09:06just in terms of overall execution for this one.
09:09Mean Gene is now backstage with the Stinger.
09:11Gene bringing up Sting's history with Kensuke Sasaki and the U.S. title a couple of months ago.
09:16Sting saying the title is not on the line here, but pride is.
09:19And no way is Sonny Ono going to buy WCW.
09:21Then Sting is asked, what's the deal with Lex Luger?
09:24It's the question he's been asked repeatedly every single week.
09:26There's, oh, Sting, you're friends with Lex Luger. What's the deal with him?
09:29We are months into this angle now.
09:31From the very first Nitro in September when Luger debuts,
09:33there's this constant weekly, whose side is he on?
09:37Who can trust who between Sting and Luger and Macho Man?
09:40But all four of these guys are just involved in this big weekly, like,
09:43oh my God, the mystery of allegiances and friendships.
09:47Like, it's been going since September.
09:48We're at the end of 95 now.
09:50Please God, make it stop.
09:51In our next World Cup match, the TV champion, Johnny B. Bad,
09:54who's with Kimberly the Diamond Doll, taking on Masa Saito.
09:58What an absolute mismatch.
09:59This looks on paper, just in the eyeball test alone.
10:01Looks like Bad and Kimberly walked into the wrong soundstage.
10:04Sonny Ono on the mic with some good old-fashioned sexism,
10:07saying Kimberly belongs in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning.
10:10Kimberly calls Sonny, hop, sing.
10:12There's a Bonanza reference.
10:13Then she asks Sonny what he's doing here,
10:15since he says wrestling is a man's sport.
10:17Oh, shit, she burned him, son.
10:19The match gets underway.
10:20Saito with some quick takedowns, on the offensive quickly,
10:23exchanging some big chops in the two of them.
10:25Saito laying into Bad, choking him on the rope.
10:28Then Ono chokes Johnny with the flag,
10:30more cheating from Ono to help Saito out like he needs it.
10:33Bad comes back with some punches.
10:34Big hang time on the axe handle from the top rope.
10:37A sunset flip off the top and a two count.
10:39More punches.
10:40Saito goes down for a moment.
10:42Ono on the apron and Bad grabs him.
10:44Saito dumps Johnny over the top rope and the referee disqualifies him.
10:47The series now tied at two apiece.
10:50Saito staring down Kimberly, but Bad makes the save.
10:52Dives at him, but kind of overshoots it.
10:54I give it one and a half stars.
10:55Extra half star, just for the beautiful hang time on Johnny's top rope axe handle here.
11:00But yeah, the match had potential, but it wasn't great.
11:03And then the very disappointing finish, the disqualification over the top rope thing.
11:06Gene's backstage with Jiminy Hart and Lex Luger.
11:09What's going on with Kevin Sullivan, Jimmy?
11:11Hart's got kind of a non-answer where he just says Kevin's got a short fuse and the Dungeon of
11:15Doom's gonna get it.
11:16Luger with a pretty darn good promo here.
11:17I would actually say it's one of my favorite promos of his I've listened to in a very long time.
11:21Haven't gone out of my way to hear too many Lex Luger promos,
11:24but this one does sound like really good and really convincing.
11:27He says he is the uncrowned WCW champion.
11:30The moment of truth has arrived.
11:31He owns Macho Man and is coming for him and his title.
11:34He tells Jimmy he's gonna go it alone tonight, but Jimmy tells him to bring home some gold.
11:38And we'll see how fast this whole thing is upended.
11:40Eddie Guerrero taking on Shinjiro Otani,
11:42spelled here with two O's for some reason in this next match in the World Cup.
11:46Otani here in Young Lions mode based on his gear.
11:49Guerrero, like I said, fresh from his time in ECW relatively.
11:52And so he's still kind of the plucky young babyface here.
11:54Just compared to like how he was a heel in Mexico to this,
11:57it's kind of a stark contrast.
11:59Like he's almost kind of a fish out of water.
12:01And once he gets a little more ingrained in WCW and lets the heel stuff come through,
12:05it will become a big revelation.
12:07And you'll wonder why they didn't do that from the beginning.
12:09But yeah, here babyface Eddie Guerrero still takes a lot of getting used to.
12:13Beginning with some grabs,
12:14Eddie with a super quick drop kick and the slingshot senton he takes over.
12:18A big power bomb and a brain buster, but Otani gets out of it.
12:20Otani with a big springboard dive to Eddie on the outside.
12:24Very physical stuff from these two.
12:25The action crescendos with a great hurricanrana by Eddie.
12:28Otani with a leg submission.
12:30Guerrero grabs the ropes.
12:31Heenan saying the ref should give him a 30 count in the ropes out of kindness.
12:34Eddie with a big ass springboard cross body to the outside.
12:37Holy crap.
12:38Otani with a great looking springboard drop kick to the back of the head.
12:41A big old counterfest with the roll ups ends with Otani picking up the win.
12:45I give it four stars out of five.
12:47This is my favorite match of the evening.
12:49It barely edges out the Benoit Liger match.
12:51And that's only by virtue of this match not having a terrible finish like the opening match did.
12:55This was very fun and very much ahead of its time.
12:58This is great technical stuff.
12:59Got the high flying.
13:00This is just something, a match you could kind of like put anywhere today and it would still work.
13:04It's just very exciting.
13:06Very fun.
13:06And if you don't watch this show just for heat and its commentary, watch it just for this match.
13:11Okerlund's backstage with the WCW champion Randy Savage, the hardest working champion in WCW at the moment, wrestling every week
13:18despite mounting injuries.
13:19Gene says he just got off the phone with Hulk Hogan.
13:22Of course he did because Hogan wants to know what frame of mind Savage is in.
13:25He goes, I'm in the zone, yeah.
13:27And now it's time for the world champion to take part in the World Cup of Wrestling as he takes
13:31on Hiroshi Tenzan spelled with an S.
13:33Yes, Tenzan has since gone on to become a multiple-time IWGP heavyweight and tag team champion, but here he's
13:39still very much a young guy in his mid-20s here.
13:41Like I mentioned, Savage does have a lot of mounting injuries here.
13:44He's got an arm injury and he's got a back injury, and he won the championship last month at World
13:49War III with all these lingering injuries.
13:52Tenzan hits hard, puts a clubber in on Savage in the early going.
13:55Randy tries to come back, but Tenzan is just too strong, just stomping him out.
13:58Savage just gets his shit wrecked for a long time here.
14:01Tenzan goes for the moonsault, but Savage dodges it and decks him, tries to suplex him over the ropes, but
14:06it does not go well, hits the elbow drop, and wins.
14:09Uh, what? Okay!
14:10I give this one a half star out of five.
14:12Like, I can get the drama that's built in of Savage now tying up the series three apiece, but ugh,
14:17this is a very lopsided affair and, like, completely in an inverse direction of where he thought it was going
14:22to go.
14:22Because Tenzan did maybe 95% of the work in this match.
14:26I mean, let's go up a bit and say 96% of the work in this matchup here.
14:29Savage, whether or not his arm and back injuries played a role in him saving himself and maybe how that
14:35suplex was executed, hard to say.
14:37But, you know, he did maybe three moves in this match, messing one of them up, and that was the
14:41one that Tenzan had to sell before the elbow dropped.
14:44Neither man looked good at the end of this thing.
14:46Meanwhile, in commentary, Bobby Heenan's having quite a time with all this tension of a tie.
14:50His slapstick is absolutely gold here.
14:52Back to Gene, he says,
14:53Call Mark Madden, and here's Ric Flair.
14:55He tells Sting and Luger that to be the man, they have to beat the man.
14:58Then he does this thing in the promo where he's like,
15:00Nashville, woo!
15:01Dolly Parton on my left!
15:03Some other pretty lady on my right!
15:05Like, he can't come up with more than one woman of Nashville country?
15:08Dolly Parton to my left!
15:11Ha ha!
15:12Some other lovely lady to my right!
15:14This one's for all the marbles here, match seven of the World Cup of Wrestling,
15:18as Sting takes on the U.S. champion, Kensuke Sasaki,
15:22who beat Sting back in Japan to win the belt the previous month.
15:25Sting throwing some hands, hits the Stinger's splash, goes for it again, but Sasaki stops him cold.
15:30Sting comes back and clotheslines Sasaki out of the ring.
15:32Back inside, a big power slam and a fisherman's brain buster by Sasaki.
15:37Tenzan with the scorpion death lock on Sting himself, but the Stinger powers out.
15:41On Sasaki's shoulders, he slips out and comes back in a big way, gets the scorpion death lock in himself.
15:46After much fighting, Sasaki submits and Sting is the winner, WCW winning the World Cup.
15:52Then it's time for a very awkward trophy presentation.
15:55They really should have rehearsed this a bit more.
15:56All the wrestlers from Team WCW, minus Randy Savage, are out there in the ring,
16:01and it's very much a big, you know, yay USA thing against the Japan guys.
16:05Even though the first W in WCW is for world,
16:09and even though, like, two of your wrestlers in this team are not from America.
16:12Yeah, that noted American, Alex Wright, and that famous American, Chris Benoit.
16:17Like, Benoit is, like, off to the side wearing a horseman shirt.
16:19He's not even wearing a team shirt with this one, so he's on the right frame of mind with this
16:22one.
16:23And so with that, I give the match itself two and a half stars out of five.
16:27I liked the power on display by Sasaki here.
16:30He and Sting work pretty well together.
16:32I wish this match were longer.
16:33I think these two had something good here, and if it were a bit longer, three to four minutes,
16:37it would have been that much more interesting.
16:39And also the storyline of just Sting, you know, being the one to save the, you know,
16:43save WCW and save the World Cup, I think that built-in drama there helped add to it a bit
16:47more.
16:48But fans in Nashville would get to see more of Sasaki on this show,
16:51because after the show goes off the air,
16:53we actually get a dart match for the U.S. championship between he and the one-man gang.
16:57And this is all the result of some crazy just, like, politics between the U.S. and Japanese companies here,
17:03as far as Sasaki not wanting to drop the belt outside of Japan and all this stuff.
17:08So this compromise is reached to get the belt off Sasaki back in WCW,
17:12where it can be defended more regularly.
17:14So you've got this match where the one-man gang initially wins the match,
17:17but there's controversy.
17:18The matches were started, and Sasaki wins that second part,
17:22walks away with the championship.
17:23But according to the lineage, one-man gang beat Sasaki for the U.S. title, and that was that.
17:29So it's very confusing.
17:30I mean, each company gets to get what they want here, and they can say their own story.
17:34But, yeah, it's just very weird to see, like, how that's how they treated the belts back then.
17:39Oh, it's kind of fascinating in a way.
17:42So now the World Cup is over with, and we can go back to strictly talking WCW business.
17:46And in our semi-man event, it's a triangle match to see who will face Randy Savage
17:50for the championship right afterward, as Sting takes on Lex Luger and Ric Flair.
17:55Like I mentioned, the big story in this matchup is the relationship between Sting and Lex Luger.
17:59They are best friends, but Lex Luger is definitely leaning more heel these days.
18:02Can he be trusted? Yada, yada.
18:04So how will these two interact with each other?
18:06How will these best friends collide in this match where so much is on the line?
18:10Each man has said to the other they will do what they have to do to win this match
18:14and become the new champion.
18:15Luger has an interesting thread right now.
18:16He considers himself the uncrowned world champion
18:19because he has beaten Savage and made him tap out of the torture rack
18:22many times in the months leading up to this.
18:24Then, of course, there is Ric Flair, the 11-time world champion.
18:27He's recently reformed the Four Horsemen at Halloween Havoc
18:31after blatantly betraying Sting, looking to claim his 12th gold tonight.
18:35It's Luger's second match on the night, and Sting's second match in a row
18:38comes right back out for this one.
18:39Sting and Flair begin the match.
18:40Not the usual triple threat here.
18:42Only two men are legal at a time, and one guy's on the outside.
18:45Still one fall to a finish, I believe.
18:47Sting stings up and overpowers Flair, some familiar spots between the two of them.
18:52Flair dodging a dropkick and begins to take over.
18:54Works over Sting for a while until Sting decides to just Sting up again.
18:57Another press slam, a big superplex.
19:00Sting going for the cover, then gets up when he sees Luger coming in.
19:03Luger tags himself in and flexes so much he scares Flair out of the ring.
19:07Heenan's microphone has clearly died for a while.
19:09They're working through that as Luger powers up against the Nature Boy.
19:12Flair begins to attack the leg, even softly whacking Luger with a chair
19:15when the referee is distracted.
19:17The figure four is locked in and Flair using the ropes to his advantage.
19:20Luger does a flex and reverses it.
19:22Flair thrown off the top rope, his strikes have no effect.
19:25Luger flexing again, the crowd popping less each time.
19:28Flair finally tags himself out, and we finally get Sting versus Luger.
19:32The friends going at it.
19:33Flair getting his first breather in the entire match.
19:36Some sportsmanship getting booed by the crowd here.
19:38The two are sort of hesitant early on, but Luger is the one who strikes first.
19:42Sting firing back on him.
19:43Luger back on top with a clothesline out of the corner.
19:46Sting coming back, goes for a Vader bomb, but Luger puts up the knees.
19:49I'm becoming very distracted by the squeaking sound of the ring at this point.
19:54Don't know if it was there the whole time, but I'm definitely hearing it here.
19:57Uh-uh.
19:59Mid-section.
20:01Taking Luger now to the post.
20:03Luger breaking out of the Scorpion, death lock in the ropes.
20:05Hits a blatant low blow on Sting.
20:07Sting recovers, hits the Stinger's splash, but missing the second.
20:10The torture rack is applied, but the ref's taken out with Sting's boot.
20:13Flair gets in the ring and attacks Luger's leg, throwing Sting out of the ring.
20:17Both guys are outside now.
20:19Flair reviving the ref, and now the ref starts to count out.
20:21Sting almost gets back in, but Luger pulls him back out, and Flair wins.
20:25I'm going to give it two stars out of five.
20:27There were some good bursts in this matchup here.
20:30I thought the finish was pretty clever, but I think this match went on a bit too long for its
20:35own good.
20:35And don't call me too new school, but I do not like this format of a three-man.
20:39I think that having Flair spend most of the match just on the outside,
20:43and before it was like Sting or Luger, just the one guy sitting out there and the whole thing happened,
20:46that to me seems pretty passive, and I think it's much more interesting if all three guys are legal at
20:51the same time.
20:52Just Flair standing on the apron for most of this match, not a recipe for excitement in my opinion.
20:57Then Jimmy Hart, who has just been managing Lex Luger this entire time and has been feuding with the four
21:01horsemen,
21:02fabes Luger and celebrates with Flair and manages him for this next match.
21:06Okay, let's just roll with it.
21:07WCW title in your main event as Randy Savage defense against Ric Flair.
21:11Of course, these two have a big history, not just their stuff in the World Wrestling Federation,
21:15but 1995 itself could be defined by the Flair-Savage rivalry.
21:19We talked about it before on this channel with the Great American Bash and Bash at the Beach,
21:24all stemming from the fact that Flair and Arne Anderson beat up Angelo Poffo, Savage's dad.
21:29The match is underway.
21:30Mott starts off with lots of punches.
21:31It's clear he was saving himself with 10s on, because even though he still doesn't do a ton here,
21:35it's still a lot more than in his last match.
21:37Paul Orndorff shows up in a neck brace, but he's a scorer to the back.
21:40The reason he's there is he was beaten up by the horseman, Brian Pillman.
21:44Again, stirring shit up for the horseman here.
21:46He piledrove Orndorff onto the concrete floor a couple weeks ago,
21:49and Nitro laid him out as Paul's in-ring career is actually coming to an end in real life.
21:54Savage goes for bombs away, but Flair takes him out midair,
21:57attacking the arm with the ring post, working it back in the ring.
22:00Savage begins to come back, hits the backdrop and some clotheslines.
22:04We get a two count.
22:05Jimmy Hart tries to give Flair the megaphone, but the attack backfires.
22:08Savage lightly dinking Flair in the head, but that's enough to cause quite the gusher.
22:12Flair looks pretty gross here, bleeding profusely.
22:14In come Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit, the horseman, to show up, but Savage fights them off.
22:19Arne Anderson decking the macho man with the referee distracted.
22:22Flair covers and wins to regain the title for a record 12th time.
22:26Pillman takes the belt and just beats Savage with it.
22:28Still no clue what the hell Jimmy Hart's doing there with them.
22:31And we get one more recap of the show as we fade to black.
22:33I give this match one star out of five.
22:35This is not the best encounter between Savage and Flair, because Savage, like I mentioned,
22:39is already working hurt.
22:40These guys have now wrestled one match already going into this thing.
22:43Flair's blade job was unnecessary and excessive, even by Ric Flair standards.
22:48It was a bit much.
22:49And yeah, screwy finish overall.
22:51This match was not the best way to end this show, I think.
22:53My grade for WCW Starrcade 95 is a D+.
22:57And one thing I'll say is, something I've said and alluded to frequently covering this
23:02time period in WCW, guys like Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero doing the heavy lifting and
23:06helping save this show from becoming total bunk.
23:09There are some interesting things on this show.
23:12There's some decent matches, and there's two great ones.
23:14The ones I mentioned, Benoit and Liger, Otani, and Guerrero.
23:17But there's also a lot of not great stuff in this show.
23:19And a lot of that, unfortunately, circles around the main event picture and the fact
23:22that Savage is working hurt and has still wrestled two matches on this night.
23:27And the triangle match, I don't think it was that great.
23:30The main event was worse, sadly.
23:31And the World Cup was just not executed all that well.
23:34And Bischoff has said in interviews how he wanted the World Cup to become an annual tradition.
23:39Obviously, it didn't work out.
23:40I think you can do World Cup stuff.
23:42I don't think it's impossible.
23:43I think that there's a great way you could tell that story of having, like, international
23:47wrestlers from different companies come down and, like, have these big battles and stuff.
23:51TNA has done great World Cups in the past, or similar things to that.
23:56So it can be done.
23:57But this one, WCW, didn't work out.
23:59It had interesting legs, but I don't think it was promoted well on TV from what I saw.
24:04And it wasn't executed well on the pay-per-view.
24:06If you want to play a role in determining which shows I look at, be they good, bad, or somewhere
24:11in between, go to patreon.com slash wrestlingwithregret.
24:14Become a $10 backer or above, and you'll have the chance to nominate classic shows for me
24:18to review.
24:19Next time, we're going to the year 2001, the beginning of a very pivotal time in wrestling
24:24history.
24:25Somewhere out of the ashes of WCW rises a new WCW for a new age.
24:31I'm talking about King of the Ring 2001.
24:33I'm Brian Zane, and I'll see you next time.
24:36I'm Brian Zane.
Comentarios