5. Starrcade 1995
WCW's version of Wrestlemania was Starrcade and the biggest show of the year didn't always live up to the hype. However, 1995's version was a concept show and the results were extremely different and entertaining. As part of the storyline, evil Japanese manager Sonny Onoo brought in a group of heel Japanese wrestlers to invade WCW from New Japan Pro Wrestling. Starrcade ended up being the culmination of this storyline and the show was booked as the "World Cup of Wrestling" with a best-of-7 matches card booked. The first three matches of the card were forgettable and relatively boring but the second half of the card were fantastic and totally cutting edge stuff for the time. Shinjiro Ohtani took on Eddie Guerrero in a fantastic match that blew away anything the WWF was doing in 1995 and had the crowd rocking. Ohtani was so good as a heel that he actually managed to draw heat even though 96% of the crowd had absolutely no idea who he was. As a setup for the main event, Lex Luger challenged Sting and Ric Flair in a three-way match to determine who would face Randy Savage in the final match. Ric Flair had turned on Sting for the 38,282nd time at Halloween Havoc, so Sting was ready to deliver an ass kicking of the highest order. Flair used his various heel shenanigans to capture the title shot and went on to have another good match with Savage to close the show. I give WCW credit for trying something totally different with the New Japan invasion angle. While it certainly wasn't as good as the New World Order, it was a high concept that kind of went over the heads of the 1995. However, watching back many years later shows how great of an idea it actually was.