Mike Re-Books WCW Starrcade 1998

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We haven’t done this feature in a while, but seeing as I finally finished the Top 50 Favourite Wrestlers journey I’ve been on, I felt I’d dig this one out of the mothballs because I always find it fun to do and sometimes it generates some fun discussion.

For those new to this feature, I look at a wrestling show from the past and have a bash at tweaking the card somewhat to see what I come up with. In some cases certain matches will stay the same if I personally like them and don’t see a reason to change them.

This week we’ve got Starrcade 1998, a shown known for being one of the many “beginning of the end(s)” for WCW, as it didn’t really feel like the biggest show of the year and they ended it with a big middle finger to the fans, with Bill Goldberg’s long unbeaten streak getting ended in the Main Event by Kevin Nash, someone who didn’t need it or really benefit from it as he laid down for Hogan 8 days later on Nitro.

I’m going to have a tinker with it and I’ll also play with the continuity prior to the event as well. Once we’re done we’ll look at where possibly WCW could go once my version of the show and you fine guys, gals and non-binary Champs can decide whether you think the show is better or not (You might even think I’ve made it worse, which is certainly a possibility).

The original card can be found by following the link below

WCW Starrcade 1998 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

First off I need to address the Titles. Bret Hart had won the US Title from Diamond Dallas Page on the 30th of November, but he was struggling with a groin injury and couldn’t wrestle that much, and he didn’t wrestle on this show at all, essentially taking the belt out of play for months. In this universe, we’ll keep the belt on DDP by having him retain in that match on the 30^th of November, as it’s not like Bret needed the belt anyway. Bret can go away and rest up and we’ll bring him back in when he’s healthy again, possibly even to finish the DDP feud off once and for all.

The Tag Champions at the time were Rick Steiner and Judy Bagwell, with Kenny Kaos defending the belts on Bagwell’s behalf. In this reality, we’ll just say that Steiner picked Kaos as his partner and not bother with all the Judy Bagwell nonsense. She can still show up now and then to yell at her son Marcus and cheer on the babyfaces, but Kaos is the official belt holder and we’ll go with the idea that Steiner has seen something in him that he likes and he’s going to act as a mentor for him. Kaos wasn’t exactly a great wrestler or anything at this time, but he was young and had athletic ability, so let’s see if he can gain something from an association with Steiner.

Aside from that all the other Champions are as they were at the time, so Goldberg is World Champ, Konnan is TV Champ and Kidman is Cruiserweight Champ.

Opening Match
WCW Tag Team Titles
Champs: Rick Steiner and Kenny Kaos Vs Meng and The Babarian
8-10 Minutes

Ideally you’d have Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell as the opponents here so that you could finish off that feud, but Bagwell wasn’t wrestling again until March and there’s no real point giving Scott a different partner here, so we’ll go with a hard-hitting mean guy team who according to CageMatch.net were still a unit at the time in the form of Meng and Barbarian. This can be all four dudes throwing each other around and hopefully you could get 8-10 minutes or so of entertainment out of that. Have Kaos as the face in peril, have Steiner get the hot tag, and just have it break down into blokes flinging other blokes from one side of the ring to the other. The Champs retain, likely with Steiner getting the bulldog on someone.

Match Two
Kanyon Vs Wrath
6-8 Minutes

You’ve got the backstory here of Kanyon and Wrath previously being a team when Kanyon was known as Mortis, but really the point of this one is to give Wrath a win in order to keep his momentum going. Have Kanyon be an insufferable jerk in the build-up so that fans are salivating to see Wrath crush him. In this universe, Kevin Nash hasn’t defeated Wrath on Nitro, so he’s still on his winning streak here and Kanyon is talented enough that he’d be able to craft a good showcase for Wrath whilst also getting a bit of his own stuff in there so it doesn’t just become a squash. Wrath is over clean but Kanyon gets to show something on the way to defeat.

Match Three
WCW Cruiserweight Title
Champ: Kidman Vs Juventud Guerrera Vs Rey Mysterio Jr
15 Minutes

No need to change this as it was a good match. Just put it on a bit later in the card so it seems a bit more important. Kidman wins, much to Eddy Guerrero and the lWo’s annoyance

Eddy Guerrero challenges Kidman post-match to set up;

Match Four
WCW Cruiserweight Title
Champ: Kidman Vs Eddy Guerrero
10 Minutes

Again, keep this one the same as it was in real life as it was a good match. Kidman gets yet another win to keep his momentum building as Champion

Match Five
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Konnan Vs Chris Jericho
7 Minutes

Another match that we keep the same, as it was entertaining mid-card action and the fans like Konnan. Konnan wins to end the feud and then you move both men onto new stories. With Jericho you possibly move him into the US Title picture in an effort to get him to stay in WCW and not jump to the WWF

Match Six
WCW United States Title
Champ: Diamond Dallas Page Vs The Giant
12 Minutes

This is the final match we keep the same, as it was a decent fight-from-behind win for DDP and Giant is on his way out anyway, so putting DDP over clean makes sense. DDP can either hang onto the belt until Bret Hart can come back or you have Jericho win it from him in order to jumpstart Jericho and move DDP into a new feud. You could even have Bret involved in costing DDP the belt against Jericho and then build to a final blow off between Hart and DDP. Heel Bret Hart as an evil coach of Chris Jericho could potentially be fun and you could always have Hart and Jericho feud down the line, which should have produced some good matches.

Match Seven
Eight Man Tag – If the nWo wins then Flair has to leave WCW, but if The Horsemen win then Bischoff has to wrestle Flair for 5 minutes in a cage
Team nWo – Curt Hennig, Brian Adams, Scott Norton and Scott Steiner
Vs
The Horsemen – Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Mongo McMichael
12 Minutes

You keep Steiner looking strong here and maybe have him spill out of the ring with Mongo in the finish so that he doesn’t get pinned and can’t be blamed for the defeat. Meanwhile, you have Flair finally get some revenge on Hennig for Fall Brawl 97 by having Flair submit him clean in the middle with the Figure Four. Bischoff can try and run away but he ends up in the cage with Flair (possibly thanks to the likes of Booker T, The Wolfpac, Rick Steiner, DDP, Wrath etc all dragging him back because they’re all sick of him and it’s time for him to finally get his comeuppance) and Flair destroys him to pop the crowd. You then do a storyline that Bischoff was so badly beaten up that he can’t come back for a long time, at which point there’s a power vaccum at the top of WCW, leading to potentially interesting television where the factions within it try to gain control. In reality getting Bischoff off screen should hopefully let him focus a bit more on actually running the company and his act was getting pretty tired at this point anyway after nearly two years of being the evil boss.

Semi-Main
Guest Referee: Scott Hall
Hollywood Hogan Vs Kevin Nash
12-15 Minutes

This was a big marquee match that WCW didn’t deliver until it was way too late, so rather than having Hogan go off to run for President we keep him around and we build to the final blow off between the two nWo factions. However, there is the added twist of Scott Hall being the referee. Hall had been feuding with Nash but he had also recently been kicked out of nWo Hollywood, meaning he didn’t really have a dog in this fight. The match itself probably won’t be all that good, but it should have good heat if nothing else. Hall actually calls the match fairly and attacks some nWo Hollywood lackeys when they try and interfere, as well as preventing Wolfpac member Lex Luger from getting involved. Eventually we go with Nash over following botched interference from Giant in order to placate Hogan that it wasn’t thoroughly clean. Hall counts the fair pin and then leaves without reconciling with Nash yet, meaning we can tease that one for a bit longer. This can be the true beginning of the end for the nWo Hollywood faction, as it’s served its purpose now and it’s time to break them up. The Wolfpac can stick around for a bit longer as they were over and still had some life in them, with Nash’s arc now being about him finally reconciling with Hall.

Main Event
WCW World Title
Champ: Goldberg Vs Bam Bam Bigelow
5-8 Minutes

Bigelow got monster reactions when he first came in to WCW, so you keep that going by having him win the World War 3 Rumble and then challenging Goldberg for Starrcade. Keep the two apart from one another in the build-up, with them coming close once or twice to finally fighting but enough referees, agents and wrestlers are always there to prevent it. Finally they clash here at Starrcade and you make it Brock/Goldberg styled sprint where they just throw BOMBS at one another until Goldberg picks up the clean win to continue his streak. However, when the bout ends we see that Nash is standing in the aisle to make it clear that he wants a shot down the line, and we close on that image.

Conclusion

Following on from this we’d eventually have Goldberg defeat Nash at SuperBrawl IX and continue Wrath’s run on the under card, leading to a big Wrath Vs Goldberg match sometime either in the spring or summer. I really think WCW dropped the ball on Wrath as he was getting big reactions and they could have gotten at least one big pay per view payday with him challenging Goldberg if they’d promoted it correctly.

I think the New World Order had really lived out its usefulness by the end of 1998 so having Nash beat Hogan would be a good way to getting Hogan’s group disbanded and then you could eventually have the Wolfpac part ways as well when it’s time, either voluntarily or you build up a new Heel threat and have them be the guys to do it.

Flair could still potentially become the babyface authority figure, but in this instance he wouldn’t be booked to look like an idiot so it might have worked better. I think making him go drunk with power might have been an interesting twist but by that stage Heel authority figures were already played out so I would tease any eventual Heel turn for a long time before finally pulling the trigger on it. Heel Faction and their corrupt authority figure takes over WCW had been a storyline that had been done so many times that I don’t know if fans would have much appetite to see it once again, but the Flair, Benoit, Malenko, Mongo and Anderson version of The Horsemen would at least be entertaining in the role and deliver in the ring.

Depending on how Steiner and Kaos do as a team, you could keep them together or eventually have them drop the belts to Benoit and Malenko, which would kind of make more sense as it would put more steam on The Horsemen. Getting the hot tag from a younger protégé was probably as good a use as you were getting out of Rick Steiner in 1999, so the run could have depended on how well it was going and whether they were getting over or not. A lot would depend on how Kaos developed as well. If he grew into the role then you could potentially have a decent powerhouse tag team, but there’s always a chance that the team would just be compared to The Steiner’s, and that’s a comparison that Kaos would find to be a milestone round his neck I think.

I think a problem with the real version of Starrcade 98 is that you had thrown together matches like Norman Smiley Vs Prince Iaukea and Finlay/Flynn Vs Norton and Adams, which just meant the crowd ended bored through large parts of the under card. Here every match either has a backstory of some kind coming in or it is for a Title, which will elevate a standard match to being more important just because there’s a chance someone could win a belt.

I cut the Saturn Vs Cat feud entirely from this continuity, as it just destroyed any overness Saturn had and the matches were pretty awful as well. We’ll try them with different opponents and keep Saturn strong in the mid-card in an attempt to shoot him up the card in 1999, possibly as another Horsemen if Mongo flames out like he did in real life.

Let me know what you think about my rebooking in the comments. Do you think this show would be better, similar in quality or even worse than what we got in reality? Perhaps share with us where you would have gone story wise following this show, and even let us know what card you might have put together. It’s always fun to see what people would tweak or outright change.

I’ll do one more of these next week for a big WWF show from the 80’s and then we’ll move onto something else, just so I don’t burn the feature out.