From The Musty Yellowed Pages--WCW Wrestling Wrap-Up: Sting Wins The Title

My annual "WWE product funk" has finally hit. Usually it settles in just after WrestleMania, as it seems that WWE can't make as an exciting of a post-Mania product as they do with the build to the big one. With many recent deaths and negativity emanating from the world of wrestling in recent months, I must admit that my fandom has been in the back of my mind. If someone can "go through the motions" of being a wrestling fan, that has been me in a nutshell. Nevertheless, there is one item of note that WWE does have me interested in, the first ever WWE Championship shot for Sting at Night of Champions 2015.

It's been twenty-five years since The Stinger won his first World Championship. That was at the 1990 Great American Bash where he bested Ric Flair for the "big gold belt" while clad in the colors of his country. It was a great moment that isn't as well-remembered as other title victories, but has every right to be. Will he make history again a quarter of a century later? That remains to be seen.

When I first met Sting years ago, I knew what the number one item that I wanted signed would be. It's an issue of WCW Wrestling Wrap-Up, Vol 2, No 8 of 1990 to be exact. The cover features Sting just after his big title win at the Bash. The champion is proudly holding the title belt that is a favorite of many, including myself, with his red, white, and blue face paint mostly lost to the rigors of the match. It's the biggest moment for the Sting that many of us grew up on. This was the Sting that was, for the most part, WCW's answer to Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior.

Looking inside, we see that Wrestling Wrap-Up is very much like the WCW Magazine that would take its place in 1991. Wrap-Up was not available on newsstands, however, just at events or on a subscription basis. The pages were all-color, all-slick, and featured some very nice photography. The first big feature goes over the results of Bash 1990, including the WCW debut of a man who would be very instrumental in the next few years of the company, Big Van Vader. I don't think that there was ever a more impressive "big man" wrestler as far as in-ring talent, and he is one example of WCW using a wrestler much better than the WWF.

Next up is an interview with Sting, along with photos of his then-recent milestone victory. Sting's red, white, and blue motif can be seen here as well, with a good shot of his matching pre-ring outfit. This look was captured a few years ago in Jakks Legends of the Ring figure line. Mattel looks as if it will be producing their own version of this figure as well, although it's unclear as to which series it will be released in. Again, "surfer" Sting is the version that captivated many a young wrestling fan. While he was able to very successfully change with the times by using the "Crow" look later on, it's that early Sting that still produces the most nostalgia.

In the center of the magazine, an El  Gigante poster and WCW Merchandise Catalog are featured. A lot of now-very rare apparel is featured, and even a "Norman" teddy bear was offered. The shirt page is directly copied from the WWF Merchandise Catalogs of the time, although there isn't much different that you could actually do. If you want to sell the shirt, have the talent himself wearing it. In the case of The Great Muta, he'll just be holding the shirt.

Next up are one-page capsule articles on young talent such as Mean Mark managed by Paul E. Dangerously (long before they could ever fathom the headlines that they would make twenty-four years later), The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys, and, again, Norman. There is also a letters page. Occasionally, letters pages in wrestling magazines will yield the name of someone who later made some sort of impact on the business. In this case, I'm not seeing anyone that I recognize. If Radhica Ramharak of Hillsboro Beach, FL did go on to wrestling glory, I will very humbly stand corrected.

We wrap up the Wrestling Wrap-Up with a monthly calendar of events, NWA Top Ten, current champions, and Quotes of the Month. We also get photos of Jim Cornette on four pages in a row, two with the Midnight Express and two in ads for the magazine, respectively. I've acquired some of these Wrestling Wrap-Up issues from "The Louisville Lip" himself, and I do believe that he had a hand in production as he did with other behind-the-scenes aspects of WCW at the time until his departure later in the year.

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Starrcade Was Turning Japanese

When you think of "The Granddaddy Of Em All," Starrcade, you think of huge NWA supercards held in November or December.  Japan, The Tokyo Dome, or the month of March usually aren't in the equation, unless you're thinking back to 1991.  Ric Flair was still holding "Big Gold," WCW had just broken away from the NWA, and stars such as Sting, Lex Luger, and The Steiner Brothers were at the top of the card. An alliance between WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling was born, thus creating the first Starrcade '91, or WCW Japan SuperShow as it was known here in the United States.

It was a star-studded card headlined by Flair defending the championship against Tatsumi Fujinami.  It was this match that led to the main event of the first WCW SuperBrawl event a few months later.  At the time, WCW seemed to be trying to position SuperBrawl against WrestleMania and replace Starrcade as its biggest yearly event.  I've always felt that, despite respect from a wrestling standpoint, the Flair-Fujinami rematch wasn't the main event to use to build a new supershow, but that's another argument for another time.

Although WCW was gone from the practice of event-specific programs, NJPW produced an amazing looking publication that was sold at the Tokyo Dome.  It is an oversized glossy program in the style that the WWF would not adopt for a few years.  Perhaps as a reflection in the advancement in photography by the Japanese, wrestling publications from their country almost always have a modern look and feel that holds up today.

Kicking off the program is a proclamation from James (Jim) Herd.  It is presented in both Japanese and broken English.  For those of you that have heard Jim Cornette rant about the former WCW Vice President, you can only imagine what the "Louisville Lip" would make of this. This is the WCW side of the program, and traditionally the "American" side.  Publications in Japan are generally read in what Americans would consider a "backwards" format, due to how their language is printed.  The other side of this program has a NJPW logo cover and contains opening statements from their officials at the time as well as their own rundown of the card.

To say that the card was star-studded is almost an understatement.  The top WCW and NJPW talent of the day is featured as well as men like Big Van Vader and Bam Bam Bigelow who competed regularly on both continents.  Sting battled his longtime rival The Great Muta in a match that would make any classics list, while El Gigante took on "Big Cat" Hughes probably to appease Japanese wrestling fans longtime fascination with "big man" wrestlers. 

WCW merchandise from the era is shown several times throughout, including the Wrestling Wrap-Up magazine and many now-collectible shirts.  One page displays merchandise made exclusively for this Starrcade In Japan event.  A pair of what appear to be pre-paid phone cards are particularly interesting looking.  T-shirts and even a beach towel were offered, but the crown jewel has to be the shiny silver Starrcade In Japan jacket.  With Ribera Steakhouse jackets becoming more and more common among Japanese wrestling lore, I would imagine that this jacket would be considerably rarer.  There's a treasure for puroresu collectors to hunt!

Interestingly, the ads are not limited to wrestling related goods.  Full page ads appear several times throughout the program for liquor, food, and other items.  Japanese ads often appeared quirky to Americans back in those days, as was often lampooned by shows like The Simpsons.  If you haven't sought out commercials featuring Hulk Hogan singing or Abdullah the Butcher frolicking on a beach with a young Japanese girl, you truly need to.  Nonetheless, in this program we see a rather creepy ad featuring a robot holding a baby in a wooded area, and girls dressed as Geisha advertising what is probably a ramen-style soup.

Although three of these SuperShows (all labeled Starrcade in Japan) were produced altogether and eventually sold in the United States on pay-per-view, this 1991 event is the only one to be released on VHS.  It was released as "Rumble In The Rising Sun" and appeared in many rental stores at the time.  All three would definitely be great additions to WWE Network, especially since "all" pay-per-views are supposed to be included.  So while these events aren't included in the regular Starrcade chronology, all are interesting footnotes in the history of both WCW and NJPW.

Starrcade--"The Granddaddy Of Em All" Turns 30

I was a few weeks shy of a year old for its debut, but in the thirty years since I'm not the only wrestling fan who has come to celebrate and cherish what Starrcade stood for.  It was the event, and concept, that combined southern territorial wrestling with the advent of going beyond the walls of the host arena via closed circuit television.  With no one denying the boundaries broken by WrestleMania less than two years later, the door was opened by Starrcade.

Growing up as a "WWF kid," to me Thanksgiving wrestling tradition meant the Survivor Series.  As my fandom grew, I learned that Starrcade has an equally large space at the wrestling holiday table.  These two events were actually a then new-era equivalent to traditions that had been going on for decades.  For many years, after wrestling fans enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinner or opened their presents on Christmas, a night out at the matches was in order.  While it probably wasn't the ideal night to be working for the wrestlers themselves, I would imagine that some of the hottest crowds of the year packed armories and arenas for these special shows.  With the advent of Starrcade, the talent no longer had to be split up among towns.  Finally, one huge holiday supercard could be seen in multiple towns on the same night.

That first Starrcade in 1983 was subtitled "A Flare for the Gold."  Inside the brutal confines of a steel cage, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair was looking to regain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from the man who wanted him out of the business altogether, Harley Race.  Gene Kiniski, a former NWA Champion himself, officiated the match which saw Flair capture his second NWA title in a blood-soaked celebration that has been replayed many times since.

Championship grandeur aside, others look to another match that night as the most memorable portion of the event.  Rowdy Roddy Piper and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, two men who would go on to participate in the first WrestleMania as well, battled in an absolutely vicious dog collar match.  If certain ECW matches made fans of the '90s think that the participants were truly brutalizing each other, then this match did the same for the audience of a decade earlier.  Dog collars were wrapped around each man's neck which were connected by a heavy chain.  The chain ultimately became one of the stars of the event, helping each man to wreak havoc on the other.  Although Piper emerged victorious, he has since claimed that the effects of the chain hitting his ear caused hearing loss.

In 1984 and 1985 the event grew with subtitles of "The Million Dollar Challenge" and "The Gathering," respectively, but it was in 1986 that the event became "The Night of the Skywalkers."  It was on this night that one of the most awkward match concepts in wrestling history suddenly became one of the most memorable.  Jim Cornette's Midnight Express battled Paul Ellering's Road Warriors in the notorious scaffold match.  The only way to win?  Toss your opponents off of the scaffold.  While Hawk and Animal were successful in tossing "Beautiful" Bobby and "Loverboy" Dennis from the elevated war zone, it was a third fall that became the most memorable.  The fans rabidly wanted to see the much-hated Cornette get his just desserts that Thanksgiving.  Cornette's bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers was supposed to catch the loud-mouthed manager as he fell, but was legitimately just a few seconds too late.  Cornette blew his knee out thanks to the fall and says that he still feels the effects to this day.  Thanks to the moment being played on a commercial for the videotape that aired for weeks on end, it became one of the most seen wrestling "bumps" in history.

Due to the Survivor Series and the WWF's tactics of promotional war, Starrcade was later moved to late in December.  When Jim Crockett Promotions became WCW, the event continued and many fans point to the tenth anniversary of the event as its last great moment.  Once again Ric Flair, the man who arguably could add "Mr. Starrcade" to his list of nicknames, was on another quest for the gold.  This time, Flair would be up against the monstrous Big Van Vader.  A dramatic build insinuating that Flair was too old to defeat the behemoth from the Rocky Mountains only helped to bring the true Starrcade "feel" to the event.  Flair was victorious, in his hometown of Charlotte, NC to boot.  A few months later, Hulk Hogan would enter the company much to the chagrin of some fans who had been with the event and the NWA/WCW brand of wrestling for many years.

Although I was never able to attend Starrcade, my own "live" memories of the event were first created four years after the last one was held.  In 2004, my very first wrestling convention was the Thanksgiving weekend Mid-Atlantic Legends Fanfest in Charlotte.  The event was a tribute to Starrcade and included many of the stars that made the events what they were.  Fittingly, the first autograph that I obtained that weekend was from the original voice of the event, Bob Caudle.  Many of the Fanfests since have had Starrcade themed moments such as Flair and Race reuniting as well as Piper and Valentine posing for photos with the original dog collars, still owned by Piper today.

At press time, we're at just about the time of the year that would be the halfway point between Starrcade's two "homes," Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We're just a few weeks removed from the 30th anniversary of the event's premiere and just days away from the 13th anniversary of its end.  What would Starrcade be today?  I always held out hope that, like the Great American Bash, WWE would someday resurrect the name.  It's most likely not to be, but recent reports indicating that WCW-themed home video releases outsold most of the other WWE titles this year could be good news.  Will more DVD and Blu-Ray releases join the 2008 Starrcade collection?  Time will tell.  In the meantime, memories and memorabilia from the event like those just displayed here will continue to ensure that "The Grandaddy of Em All" is remembered for another thirty years...and beyond.