WCW Starrcade 12/17/2000
The last ever Starrcade. Pretty shitty card to go out on.
Jung Dragons vs 2 Count vs Knoble and Karagias Number One Contender Ladder Match
Chavo is on color. Makes sense to have the champion on color and a number one contender match on the PPV. On top of that, this is a 3 way tag match with the winner getting a singles title shot. They also start this match with tags. What? In a ladder match? With in the first 30 seconds of action, Kaz and Shannon botch a move that ends with Kaz basically landing right on his head.
They haven't even gotten to the ladders yet. Boring chants already. It JUST started. This is going to be a shitty crowd. 2 Count do a fake out going for the ladders, but have one hidden under the ring. It was a SWERVE! Bumps on ladders seem so terrible. Kaz AGAIN gets dropped right on his head in basically the same move he tried earlier. Jamie and Evan fight over who will win. Standard ladder spots for a while. Yang Time off a ladder that was wedged in the corner. That doesn't even make sense. That's like 2 feet closer to the mat. Big dive sequence. Jaime gets pushed off the ladder all the way to the floor. Krang makes a ladder bridge. Evan does a powerslam off of it.
Shannon uses it to do a leaping fameasser. Shane does a crazy spinning neck breaker off of it to Jamie.
Sunset bomb from Jaime, sleeper slam from Shannon, both off the ladder. Giant scaffold is built. Everyone gets thrown off. Shane and Shannon get the contract at the same time.
TO THE BACK. Duggan polishes his wood. Lance says that Duggan needs to stay with Canada to feed his family. Sanders arrives. Jeff and the Harris Brothers want their match changed to a Bunkhouse Brawl. Kronik are hanging out in a sauna. Their green lighting is always around. "Wow am I baked."
Lance Storm vs The Cat
Cat wants Lance and Madden to head back to Canada if he wins. Cat wants to dance and asks for his music to play. It plays 20 seconds later. It doesn't take long for the YAKs to get into it. They're more over than Lance vs Cat. They match goes to the floor, where Ms. Jones accidentally head kicks the ref. Gunns then drop kicks her. Duggan reluctantly costs Cat the match. Remember a few months ago when Lance had 3 titles and was on top of the company? Now he's in the second match of a PPV against the Cat and needs help to beat him. Lance and Elix attack Duggan after the match. Cat makes the save.
TO THE BACK. An ambulance arrives. It's Mike Awesome! Buff is the new interviewer. Lol wat? That's what he gets for bitching all the time. His first interview is with the Animals. Buff's interview style reminds of Alex Jones when he talks to a celebrity. Rito and Marie are walking when Sanders offers Reno a chance back in the NBT.
Crowbar vs Terry Funk WCW Hardcore Championship
Daffney says Crowbar's 70s gimmick is like a poop sandwich. Funk shows up with a fire extinguisher and this match is on. At the start of the year, Funk was the commissioner. Funk's first retirement was the same year as the first Starrcade. They fight into the back of a semi. Crowbar gets hip tossed out of it through a table. Crowbar slams Funk's head in a door. Funk does it to Crowbar, but you can see the block at the bottom of the door. Crowbar is handcuffed and Funk starts giving him unprotected chair shots to the head. It heads to the ringside area. Definitely a few concussions here. Funk tries to choke Daffney out with her own hair. Plancha through a table. Daffney does a Sabu chair throw. Texas piledriver on a car door and we have a new champion. No way Crowbar didn't have his brains scrambled. He ate probably 8 chair shots to the dome.
TO THE BACK. Gene talks with Team Canada. He's heated about how they treated Duggan. Gunns completely botches the "Don't blame Canada, blame yourself" line (the one line she always has even when it doesn't make sense to say it) and Gene tells her she can fly her Maple Leaf on another pole, if you know what I mean. Lex is getting organized for his match. He has brass knuckles.
Big Vito/Reno vs Kronik
Again. Crush was super baked earlier. Is pro wrestling a good thing to do while stoned? He fucks up his promo, so maybe he's still high. He says Marie will have to pay full price after the match. Marie was the one paying Kronik to beat up Reno and Vito? Called it. I just saw this whole match on Thunder, so I don't really give a fuck about this. I wouldn't give a fuck anyway, but less of a fuck is given. Marie doesn't seem to know what this pay off thing is all about. Maybe Crush got too high and is confused. The Thrillers come out on the ramp and watch. Reno tags in and Rolls the Dice on Vito. IT WAS A SWERVE. Somehow, Reno pins Vito, his partner in the match. So he won and lost. Reno throws a bag of cash to Kronik. Reno's been the one making the payments! SWERVE! An elaborate and nonsensical SWERVE!
TO THE BACK. Gene is with 2 Count. Chavo says they both can't face him. Then he attacks. Buff is with MIA.
Bam Bam Big Yellow vs Mike Awesome Ambulance Match
Mike has new decidedly not 70s music. Well, this sucks. Bam Bam is really in awful shape and is completely dangerous and reckless. Bam Bam punches through one of the windows on the ambulance. Bam Bam falls THROUGH the roof of the ambulance. Awesome wins.
TO THE BACK. Gene is with the Thrillers. Reno says the Thrillers are his real family. Gene wants to slap the shit out of Stasiak. Don't we all.
General Rection vs Shane Douglas WCW US Championship
Brawl to start, slows down, but then gets back out to the floor and on the table. Shane does multiple blatant low blows that are no sold and no DQ is called. It's kind of hard to root too much against Shane since he's doing this for Torrie and he's made it clear that she was more than just a manager to him and he cares deeply about her. Hugh does a bear hug, which gets Bruno references from Madden. Apparently Bruno and Madden had some kind of dust up. A long bear hug spot is kind of weird for the face to be doing to the heel. Hugh goes for the moonsault, but takes a nasty fall when his legs are hit. A piledriver and neckbreaker only get two. Shane gets SHOOT busted open on the ring post. He got dazed for sure. Missed moonsault. Chavo comes out and distracts the ref so Shane can use the chain, but then stooges him off, so Hugh retains via DQ. Shane decks Chavo and leaves Hugh laying after the match. Lash and Wall hit the ring.
TO THE BACK. Gene talks with Steiner. He yells a lot about beating Steiner and then his freaks are going to beat him.
GLACIER HYPE VIDEO. He was like Sin Cara where he got tons of hype, his own lighting, and sucked.
TO THE BACK. Buff is with the Insiders.
Jeff Jarrett/Harris Brothers vs Filthy Animals Bunkhouse Brawl Filthy Animal Street Fight
I don't know what the difference between a Bunkhouse Brawl and a Filthy Animal Street Fight is, nor do I know how they can be combined. There is a bar and bar stools in the ring. Fuck this shit. Jeff pins Kidman with the Stroke. This was 12 minutes long and seriously felt like it was a half hour. Just would not fucking end.
TO THE BACK. Buff is with Sarge. Sarge is in his wrestling gear for some reason. Lex attacks him. Ring crews desperately try to clean up the ringside area.
Perfect Event vs The Insiders WCW Tag Team Championships
This was originally booked as Insiders vs Jindrak/O'Haire, but that was dropped and never mentioned again. Then the plan was to have PE, Jindrak/O'Haire, Insiders, and Kronik in the match. But they had that on TV and took Kronik out of it at the last minute. Flair says if Sanders even looks like he's going to interfere, the Insiders will get the belts. DDP is again really loud and obvious with his spot calling. This is decent enough, just not very interesting. It's exactly what you'd expect. DDP in the ring 90% of the match, Nash tagging in for the finish. Sanders hit a low blow on DDP on the floor, so I guess that's okay. Nash gets hit with a title. DDP hits a Kanyon Cutter on the floor, but the camera completely misses it. Jindrak and O'Haire show up. Mark eats a Diamond Cutter. Nash pins Chuck with the jackknife. New champions.
Goldberg vs Lex Luger No Holds Barred No DQ
Lex is back to his Total Package music. What happened to his face music that was used on Thunder? This will be terrible. Their match at Mayhem was one of the worst non-squash matches Goldberg ever had. It goes to the announcers pretty much right away. Goldberg dominates most of the match, but not in the awesome way you'd hope from Goldberg. Sarge comes out. Buff tries to talk him out of it. This is a no DQ match, so it makes total sense to have the ref distracted so Lex can use the brass knuckles and then hide them. Buff accidentally hits the blockbuster on Goldberg. On the floor, Buff decks Sarge. Spear to Lex. Jackhammer. Goldberg wins. End this shit. Buff drills Goldberg with a chair after the match. SWERVE. Hey, remember when Lex came back in October and turned on Buff for no reason? No one in WCW, including Buff, did. Goldberg walks out with Sarge and a one armed Make a Wish kid.
Sid vs Scott Steiner WCW Championship
Sid is wearing long tights. Scott wins a test of strength. Steiner very loudly and clearly screams FUCK YOU to a fan in the front row. Spinning belly to belly. Sid has had very little offense. Recliner, but Sid was close enough to the ropes to get out. Scott pulls him to the center of the ring and puts it back on, but gets out when Midajah accidentally hit a cross body on Steiner. Chokeslam. Cobra Clutch from Sid. Steiner just punches the ref in the face while in the move. Steiner hits Sid with the pipe a few times. A new ref comes in to make the pin, but Sid kicked out. Jeff comes out and accidentally hits Steiner with the guitar. He managed to pull the ref out of the ring, but Robinson ducked a punch and slid back in the ring to make a pin, but Steiner kicked out. Steiner hits a few blatant low blows, a t-bone, and locks in the Recliner to retain his championship. This was...underwhelming. It wasn't nearly as good as Goldberg/Steiner or Goldberg/Sid.
This was a pretty average PPV. As far as biggest show of the year goes, it wasn't very good. It was just a normal PPV. If this was something that went on at WM, it'd be one of the worst WMs in memory. According to the Observer (thanks to Sunflower), this was had one of the lowest buy rates in WCW PPV history. It drew a 0.11 buy rate. That's the second lowest buy rate in WCW history. There were a number of 0.10s as the lowest. WWF Armageddon that month had a 1.15 rating, which is something like 465,000 buys. I'm not a math guy, so I don't know how many people bought Starrcade, but it was comically few. That's like TNA levels. Even better is the past few years. They went from a 1.90 in 1997 to .11 in 2000. It looks like Halloween Havoc was by far their biggest show of the year with a .52 buy rate. There wasn't a single PPV that had more buys in 2000 than 1999. The biggest drop off was Superbrawl, which went from a 1.10 in 1999 to a .10 in 2000. This was the 4th year at the MCI Center. They drew under 7,000 and it was heavily papered. They drew 17,500 in 1997 at the same building.
Also something of note: WCW told Dustin Rhodes to be at the show. When he got there, they had nothing planned for him, so he left.