Starrcade 88 Hindsight

Scott,


Been watching the World Championship Wrestlings in the network leading to Starrcade 88. In retrospect, since Flair wouldn’t put Luger over would it have made more sense long term, especially to not make Lex look a choker, to program the Road Warriors with Sting & Luger as the main event. Seems like a dream match that would have allowed them to print money at the time. Could have went with Flair vs Bigelow and Windham vs. Dusty for the US Title.

In fact, it all seemed to be headed in this direction with Windham avoiding rematches with Dusty and Flair calling Bam Bam fat every week, until the Road Warriors spiked Dusty. Was what we got always the plan or did Dusty insert himself into the tag feud because it was so hot?

​The plan changed a couple of times, actually. And yeah, Dusty basically inserted himself into the Sting v. Warriors issue to make himself look important, because he was getting (rightly) paranoid about being fired as booker and wanted to make sure he was in a big position that they couldn’t just replace. The original idea was in fact Dusty & Bigelow v. Warriors and who knows what Sting was supposed to be doing, then Dusty decided to book himself against Barry Windham for the US title, with Sting & Luger v. The Warriors and the infamous Flair v. Rick Steiner squash main event on top (this was around November, when Jim Herd was starting as VP). Then when Flair flipped out and demanded the Luger main event instead, it finally shifted to the final version with Dusty & Sting v. Road Warriors, although Dusty reportedly considered Sting to be the "messenger boy" because he was the real star. ​

​So in fact your card was CLOSE to being the real one at one point. Flair v. Bigelow would certainly have been a better main event than Flair v. Rick Steiner, that’s for sure. ​