10 Amazing WCW Starrcade Moments WWE Should Take Inspiration From
1. The Match Of The Century
WCW had tried, failed and occasionally succeeded in being all things to all wrestling fans during a tumultuous decade in business as they approached Starrcade 1997.
Numerous managerial and hierarchical shifts during the company's early days, a fractious shift away from the National Wrestling Alliance and a distinct lack of identity all impeded progress and ensured that a freewheeling WWF was allowed to pole position despite the industry at large beginning to tank.
It was the uncompromising and unconventional tactics of Eric Bischoff that finally helped the damaged brand turn a corner, alongside the early procurement of Hulk Hogan exactly as Vince McMahon had during his own 1980s expansion.
By December 1997, WCW was by every financial metric the biggest wrestling organisation in North America, and were fittingly about to draw the highest pay-per-view buyrate in company history to celebrate.
A lengthy Hogan title chokehold had again been the formula, but it was with Hulk as a hated 'Hollywood' heel alongside a gang of New World Order associates running roughshod over WCW. An Atlanta lifer and disenfranchised babyface, Sting was then inch-perfect saviour.
Enough has been written about the atrocity that was the actual match, and for that matter, the entire show. But never had there been a time before, nor would there be again, where WCW could honestly declare that a Starrcade truly had supplanted WrestleMania in stature and size.