By the end of November and early December, the reaction for D-generation X was actually getting quieter, rather than louder. That isn’t because they were getting less popular, but rather the opposite. Though they were still heels, signs for them start to appear in the audience around this time. Whether the fans were starting to ‘get’ the group, or whether their NWO-esque booking was having exactly the same effect and making them ‘cool’, is really impossible to call. I’ll leave it to you to make your own minds up.
It’s against this backdrop that the WWF has the go-home show for D-X’s own PPV. This isn’t a concept show the way NWO Souled Out was, but rather just follows on from their strategy of naming the PPV after key performers on the show (see Beware of Dog or Mind Games, for example) The show kicks off with the new tag champions bragging about their title win, but the grizzled former champs soon run them off, shouting that they’ll never make it to the PPV. Taka Michinoku gets the wrestling portion of the show under way with a win in the Light-heavyweight tournament over Aguila – a man who’ll become more familiar to a lot of you as Essa Rios. Luna and Goldust are interviewed by Lawler next. Luna does all the talking since the son of Dusty Rhodes is on a dog chain and has a ball-gag in his mouth, as Russo pushes the deviant button hard in this reimagining of the Goldust character. The Disciples of Apocalypse get a win in a bit of a meaningless stable war against Los Boricuas, the Truth Commission, and The Nation of Domination. D-X are at the top of the ramp next. Shawn mocks Neidhart, who wrestles Hunter in the main event tonight. HHH always has some choice words for Slaughter concerning his wife (and ‘the big bazooka’), before the main point of the segment is a joke at Shamrock’s expense. Michaels has been training for the ankle lock ahead of the title match, and Hunter pretends to turn Shawn’s ‘ankle’ all the way round.
Austin is hanging around for Rocky’s match with Vader, but despite this Maivia gets a countout win when the big man chases after Goldust. Kane launches another attack next, this time on Scott Taylor which allows Brian Christopher to progress in the LH title tournament via forfeit. Jeff Jarrett is scheduled to take on Ahmed Johnson next, but just as he did with Chainz Jarrett refuses to wrestle until the WWF come up with an opponent he thinks is worthy. Slaughter comes out and obliges him, booking a match with The Undertaker as the smile falls from Jarrett’s face. The tag champions against the Headbangers ends in a DQ for Roaddogg and Gunn when the LOD chase them off. Jim Cornette talks with Mero next, but his question about how Mero feels now Sable is the biggest star in the family sets him off and he starts to berate Cornette and Sable. Eventually Mero accuses her of betraying him while he was injured and orders a crying Sable from the ring which she does, reluctantly. The main event is Hunter and Anvil. Hunter gets the dirty win and there is another NWO-style beatdown of Neidhart. They introduce an element of parody though, by spraypainting ‘WCW’ on his back when they tag him. Slaughter runs down but is no match for the heels, but Shamrock’s run in levels it up, Ken and Sarge in control as the show ends.
Nitro opens with the man at the top, Eric Bischoff, backtracking and trying to escape from his match with retired wrestler Larry Zbyszko. Saying he signed no contract, the only way he’d wrestle Larry would be for control of Monday Nitro, the jewel in the WCW crown – and he notes that the living legend doesn’t have the kind of stroke to OK that. A couple of shortish matches follow, a WCW staple in the opener sees Rey Mysterio go over Juventud Guerrera before Hugh Morrus beats Wrath. Hogan is out next and he’s getting mad at all the Sting matches in the audience, even going so far as to do the classic heel trick of nearly getting into a brawl with an old woman at ringside. Prince Iaukea gets what we’d have to call a surprise win over Yuji Nagata, since the latter had been winning most of his matches since the summer. Harlem Heat then take a rather muddled win over The Faces of Fear, presumably in an effort to keep both sides strong.
Hall and Nash are out but for once the New World Order seems to lose the survey of the fans, though The Outsiders don’t acknowledge that. Scott Hall then has what is becoming his typical match – either a squash which he wins or one that he loses by a cheap roll-up – and in this case he gets the fall on Disco Inferno. Gene Okerlund talks to JJ Dillon about Bischoff’s promo at the top of the show. Dillon confirms that Larry doesn’t have that kind of power… but he does, and he is going to use it! EB runs back out and is livid, disputing whether Dillon has that kind of power, but JJ just leaves telling him how much he is going to enjoy the living legend kicking his ass at Starrcade! Ultimo Dragon beats Psychosis next, before Raven tells the world that he isn’t going to conform to their rules – and I guess that is aimed squarely at WCW, because he sends one of his minions, Kidman, in to wrestle his match. Benoit beats Kidman and actually holds off most of the flock, but the numbers are too great and eventually it is both Raven and Perry Saturn who destroy the crippler. Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell have a match that is better than most men’s critics would have you believe. Lex wins via DQ but stays strong, fending off interference from Vincent and locking in the rack on Bagwell. The main event sees Hennig defend the US title against Diamond Dallas Page. About half way through, Rick Rude appears. When the opportunity presents itself he pulls the ref out and the NWO head in. Hogan joins the beatdown but the most stunning visual has to be Kevin Nash putting a Sting mask on the prone form of Page.
This week would see the last appearance by Jim Neidhart in a WWF ring for more than a decade. He would appear again in 2007, but his efforts to be a good company man were rewarded with only two shows. He was embarrassed one week, beaten the next, and then fired. Fortunately for Anvil, he now had contacts in WCW and he’d actually get a very fair deal from Bischoff. Speaking of Eric, he’d have been pleased because although the Nitro rating fell slightly to a 3.8, the RAW rating remained marooned following Montreal. The optimist for the WWF would point out that with a 3.0, it’s still a very solid rating compared with the earlier years of this contest, but I think you have to consider the context and look at the pattern. The truth is that following Montreal they have their first downward trend to last for more than a week since the build up to King of the Ring ’97.
The following Thursday, Davey Boy Smith finally underwent his knee surgery. Taken off the cards in the aftermath of Montreal and with an exit in sight, Davey decided to fix a problem that he’d been working with for some time. Soon afterwards he’d pay his way out of his WWF contract, costing him to the tune of $150,000, in order to make the move down to WCW. I’ve no doubt that he was finally compensated by the largesse of the Turner Empire, but it would turn out to be a very bad move for the Bulldog in more ways than one. Without looking too far ahead, I think the fact that they let Bulldog pay his way out while making much bigger efforts to keep Owen says a lot about what they thought they could do with both men at this point. Ideas for Davey were probably spent, while people were much hotter on Owen.
In Your House – Degeneration X didn’t draw as well as the WWF would have hoped. Obviously Michaels wasn’t going to lose the title to Shamrock (and I don’t know of anyone who thought that Ken had a chance), and that wasn’t going to help matters. Nor was the fact that Starrcade was right around the corner and if you had to choose… well, there wasn’t much of a choice to be made. Only a WWF die-hard was going to choose this show. That amounted to the worst buyrate for a WWF PPV in 1997 – at a 0.44 it comes in even below that done by Ground Zero in September. Other results saw Austin retain the IC title in controversial style, Taka take the Light-heavyweight crown against Christopher, and Hunter beat Sergeant Slaughter. The PPV wasn’t massively well received though, and the highlight of the night was probably the surprise return of Owen Hart, assaulting the WWF Champion after his title defence.
The following night’s RAW opened with the first appearance in weeks of Vince McMahon, who is booed out of the building. He makes no reference to Hart or Montreal, despite elements of the show still playing out on WWF programming even later in this night, and instead focuses on the situation with Austin and Rocky. He orders Austin to defend the title later in the night. Austin doesn’t like being ordered and comes out to offer a rebuttal. Vince promises consequences if he doesn’t do as ordered. The whole show, then, is build towards this decision of Austin’s at the climax, and there isn’t a lot that is too special in the rest of the show. LoD take on Godwinns in the opening match, but the bout is interrupted by Kane. The Godwinns flee and Animal is on the floor injured, which means Hawk is left alone to face the wrath of the Big Red Machine. The tag champs then come out and pick the bones of Hawk until Animal recovers enough to chase them off, but they are soon back down talking about how this post-assault attack shows that they have basically killed all the competition in the tag division. In a fit of hubris, this leads Billy to issue an open challenge which is accepted by Dude Love! Roaddogg does an excellent job as the guest commentator but his partner eventually loses to a double-arm DDT. A video recap of D-X’s destruction of the Hart Foundation leads into Jim Cornette’s interview with new champion Taka and his first opponent, El Unico. Jerry Lawler heads out first and begins berating Taka. The high point of the exchange is when he asks if Taka speaks one word of English, and Michinoku laconically replies ‘You Jackass’. El Unico soon comes down and they square off with Lawler, but he attacks Taka before removing his lucha mask to reveal Too Sexy Brian Christopher. The first hour ends with the recently renamed Kurrgan the Interrogator squashing Flash Funk, but losing when he refuses to release the claw after the bell. Sniper and Recon can’t make him break the hold, and it’s only a slap to the face from The Jackyl (and the hypnotic control that he seems to have) that saves Funk from serious injury.
Hour two begins with D-X. A much-improved interview from Hunter mocks Slaughter for his performance the previous night, before HBK really lays into the Hart’s. He refers to the entire family as a giant, stinky turd, and then says that there is always that one nugget of turd that just won’t flush. Owen, Shawn says, is that nugget that just won’t be gotten rid of. Shawn refuses to leave until Owen comes out so he can flush him once and for all. At this point, Chyna reminds Shawn about his promise to walk out naked some weeks ago, so they have the idea to play Strip Poker until Hart obliges them. They move the card table outside the ring and continue through a Los Boricuas win over the DOA, and then get back in. Bizarrely, though, when The Headbangers come down for their match they assault them instead. The beating continues until Owen comes through the crowd and takes down Shawn Michaels before making his escape the same way. Jeff Jarrett is meant to take on Vader next but another appearance from Goldust in a goofy costume leads to Vader giving chase and another countout loss, as JR notes that JJ has now beaten Undertaker and Vader in consecutive nights. Marc Mero is meant to wrestle Salvatore Sincere next, but we get a worked shoot instead. He objects to being paired with a jobber, and says that Sal Sincere isn’t his real name (revealing that it is Tom Brandi) but a bad gimmick. He then calls out ‘his property’, and Sable walks out wearing a potato sack. When he calls for her to disrobe him, though, she takes off the sack to reveal an incredibly tiny bikini. The fans pop, Mero is livid and the two leave, meaning that the Sal Sincere gimmick ends with a countout victory. Finally, it is time for Austin’s decision. He refuses to acquiesce to Vince’s demand and wants to know what the consequences are. Rock thinks Vince should fire Austin, but he isn’t quite a heel yet and tells Rocky to shut up. Instead, he says Stone Cold is forcing him to award the title to Maivia. Austin basically shits on the belt, saying that there is only one title in the WWF he has his eye on, that he doesn’t want the IC belt anymore and that he has ‘bigger fish to fry’. Rocky takes the title, but Austin hits a stunner. He then picks up a microphone and says that he’s got plans for the belt, so tune in next week to see what happens… and there is just time for him to knock McMahon off the ring apron, leaving the boss irate, before the show ends.
Nitro opens with Konnan against Ray Traylor, but the latter is stunned when the lights flicker on and off and when the darkness lifts K-Dawg is out cold. Mongo beats the Barbarian (but suffers at the hands of Meng after the bell) before some comments from Disco (on how the match with Miss Jackie was a no win situation) and Buff Bagwell (essentially goading Lex Luger and complaining about how he’d been held down before turning heel). Prince Iaukea’s big win the previous week counts for very little this time out, going down by submission to Dean Malenko. Nash has one of those ‘NWO film’ style programmes next, calling The Giant one-dimensional – take out the chokeslam and beat The Giant, essentially. Gene calls out The Giant for a short response, and he basically says he is the real Giant of wrestling and he’ll chokeslam Nash regardless. Chris Benoit gets revenge for the previous week by beating Flock member Lodi, but since Raven isn’t there the Flock appear leaderless and just retreat from the ringside area following the decision. This leads Benoit to issue a challenge to Raven, promising to show him what abuse is really about.
Ric Flair is out next, and he basically runs through the card for Starrcade and talks about how the WCW guys are all going to win. He’s got some choice words for Bret Hart, though. He says Bret made a mistake calling himself the best and now he needs to come to Charlotte, NC to prove it. He also says he joined the NWO to avoid the Nature Boy. Randy Savage is up against Hugh Morrus next, but just as with the Konnan match the lights go off and come on and again and when they come back up, the NWO member is laid out with a Sting mask on! Rude and Bischoff come out and basically say that the lights better not go off again, before Disco Inferno takes his chance to get some respect back and beats the til-now unstoppable Saturn, capturing the TV title in the process. Bagwell and Luger go at it again, but Bagwell can’t match strength with the former WCW champion and takes the countout defeat. Page then gets a DQ win over Hall in the main event, via interference. A number of the big hitters, including Hennig and Hogan, head down, but Sting rappels down and crashes through the ring… predictably, since you’ve not heard about the death of Sting live on Nitro, it’s a dummy again…. or is it?! It seems improbably, but the dummy comes alive and it seems to actually be Sting, and he unloads on the heels as Hogan and Bisch beat a speedy retreat!
For the third week running, the RAW rating stayed exactly where it was. Essentially, that’s almost like it fell given that we are used to seeing a rise in the rating the night after a PPV. A 3.0 was decent enough but looked small up against the far more impressive 4.3 that Nitro pulled in this week. It had been rare for shows to do a 4.0 or higher so far, so you can get a sense of how pleased EB would have been to put down that kind of marker so close to Starrcade.
The Sunday before the next RAW was broadcast, Shawn Michaels and Hunter really put the cat amongst the pigeons. At a house show in Memphis, TN, they were pelted with garbage by fans who were probably used to treating the NWO like that and now treated the WWF’s carbon copy group in exactly the same way. Unlike their more professional friends, though, these two don’t take it, and refuse to wrestle Jerry Lawler and Jeff Jarrett in the main event. Refusing to wrestle Jarrett and Lawler in Memphis isn’t the smartest move, and while it isn’t the most documented incident in wrestling history all the sources I’ve seen refer to the fans reaction with one adjective : riot.
The next Nitro was a special, three hour edition live from Charlotte. The show opens with the NWO bragging in the ring, though the do check to see if Sting is under it so their confidence is a bit of a front. Ray Traylor continued his crusade against his former allies with a win over Vincent and Disco Inferno beat Yuji Nagata to kick us off, before Eddie Guerrero helped Fit Finlay to beat Dean Malenko. A cruiserweight tag match saw a win for Juve/Rey over Psychosis/La Parka before Flair and Arn Anderson head to the ring with some dignitaries to honour the local police force. Then there is a major plot point in the Bischoff and Zbyszko feud, with EB trying to weasel out of the match. To get him to agree, he allows Bischoff’s martial arts background to play a part by including strikes with the head and feet (though the latter rule was generally forgotten about by this point anyway). As part of the deal though, he insists that submissions also play a part to accommodate Larry’s wrestling background. Scott Hall squashes Chris Jericho next, and for once he acknowledges that the NWO actually lost his pre-match survey of the fans. Mongo is meant to take on Meng next, but Goldberg takes him out backstage. Dillon subs Goldberg into the match, but a recovered Mongo attacks him half way down the aisle and the two end up brawling instead. The Steiners retain the tag titles by DQ over Norton and Konnan of the New World Order before Randy Savage gets a big win over Booker T with the help of a steel chair. Chris Benoit is meant to take on Raven again, but this time Scotty Riggs takes the fall for his leader. Benoit taunts the Flock after the bell and ends up jumping into them, which stirs them into action. The numbers game is too much and he ends up in the Rings of Saturn. Then there’s a major event.
It starts innocuously enough, with JJ Dillon in the ring complaining that Bischoff was again trying to get out of his Starrcade match. Bischoff comes down and wants to know who’ll be the ref. The first suggestion is Randy Anderson. Citing his height as an advantage, EB offers up Kevin Nash. Scott Dickinson is next, but Bischoff dismisses him as a slow fat guy and asks for the quicker Syxx. Eventually Dillon offers Bischoff the chance to agree to the NWO member of Dillon’s choice, and Bisch practically bites his hand off. It’s at this point that, to the strain of some generic country-rock guitar, Bret Hart strides out for the first time on WCW tv. Bret actually gets a huge pop, which is a surprise – not just because he’s so painted with WWF colours on enemy turf, but also because this is Charlotte and Flair had helpfully reminded fans the previous week about some digs he’d taken at Natch in the past. Bret agrees to be referee and Eric is delighted, until the Hitman says that he’ll need to win by himself. Hart knows better than anyone what it is like to be screwed by a referee and so Eric is on his own. As Eric leaves, the announcers reiterate their doubts about whether Bret is actually with the group. Bret gets a great reaction but all in all it’s a weirdly booked and underwhelming debut.
The rest of the show passes without too much incident. Buff Bagwell talks himself into an impromptu match with Lex Luger but there’s another unclear finish with a top-rope DQ. Finally Ric Flair is to main event against Hennig, but Hall jumps Flair almost as soon as we start. The NWO pile into Flair but soon other WCW wrestlers, like DDP and the Steiners, make the save. The show finishes with Hogan calling out Sting. The lights go on and off and Sting appears in different places, and the last time the lights come back up Stinger is heading for the ring, and Hogan, as the show ends.
RAW, meanwhile, opens with the news that The Undertaker will challenge Shawn Michaels in a casket match at the Royal Rumble and The Deadman has some words for the champ. Soon, though, the lights go out and Bearer and Kane head to the ring to confront The Undertaker. After Bearer recaps the murder angle, he challenges ‘Taker to stand up and be a man. Kane strikes Undertaker, but when he goes to hit him a second time his brother blocks – but just before things are going to get physical, The Deadman leaves. The first match sees Taka looking for revenge on Jerry Lawler but has to settle for a DQ win when Brian Christopher interferes. Next, Rocky heads down with the Nation. Faarooq is about to talk but Rocky cuts him off, saying that the champ is talking. Maivia orders Austin to return his belt. Stone Cold comes out and talks some smack, basically no-selling the Nation’s threats. Dude Love and Roaddogg is the next match, and unusually Billy does the verbal ‘New Age Outlaws’ entrance that we normally associate with the ‘Dogg. Foley gets the win but ends up on the losing end as the Outlaws – whose new name is coined by Jim Ross during this bout – throw Foley from the stage, injuring him in the process. The first hour ends with the return of Mark Henry, who’d taken time off to heal and improve following his debut a year earlier, picking up a squash win over Brooklyn Brawler.
Vince McMahon is out at the top of the hour - Owen has been coming through the fans and that makes it his business since it isn’t safe, so he calls him out. Owen duly obliges, and so begins a worked shoot that has Vince Russo’s trademarks running through it. He’s staying in the WWF because no one can run him off when he’s spent 9 years making a name for himself, and when McMahon brings up WWF title ambitions Owen calls the belt worthless and says that this is ‘real life’. Eventually McMahon orders security to escort Owen away, Hart grabs Vince by the lapels and the fans are definitely in his corner now that he’s picked up a new attitude. The rebranded and now babyfaceTom Brandi then beats The Sultan but Marc Mero attacks him after the bell. Not long after Austin’s time is up and the Nation make there way back out. With time elapsed, Rocky is now coming for the belt, but Austin appears on the screen. He’s out on a bridge and he begins throwing a load of diving equipment into the river, followed swiftly by the intercontinental title belt, to a huge pop! McMahon is taking to camera next, and is bigging up the new creative direction of the WWF. This is basically the point where he announces to fans that they’re consciously doing something different and that parents might have to show a bit more discretion when it comes to watching RAW. There’s some comments about entertainment being more important than presenting a sporting environment (and an insinuation that presenting wrestling as sport insults your intelligence, which if you think about it is indirectly calling wrestling fans stupid), suggesting that the WWF borrows from a number of television commercials, and a thinly veiled shot at Hogan when he says that the era of superheroes telling you to say your prayers is passé. This leads into Blackman squashing Miguel Perez, and then HBK and HHH decide who’ll deal with Owen via rock-paper-scissors, with the younger man stepping up. In the shorter term, though, they face the LOD in the main event. The New Age Outlaws get involved and all four destroy the babyfaces, and the show finishes with the visual of Billy Gunn shaving Hawk’s Mohawk, and all four men putting Animal through the announcer’s table.
The downward trend for the WWF continued as the rating for the show came in at 2.7, back to pre-Montreal numbers and lower than a number of those that they’d pulled in November. This might have had something to do with the overall audience though, as Nitro’s rating fell by a similar amount although this left them with a much healthier looking 4.1. To put that into perspective, that’s the best the WWF had ever done on a week when they were opposite Nitro, and still represents very decent business heading into Starrcade.
The go-home show itself is a rather difficult show to describe. Regular readers will now that a lot of WCW matches are pretty standalone and not always obviously connected to larger angles. The first hour is full of this, with Eddie Guerrero beating Fit Finlay, Mongo requiring two chairs to put Meng down, and a lucha rules six man tag which, as always, was won by Mysterio and the babyfaces. Benoit is again meant to challenge Raven in the final match, but this time Hammer takes the bout, though it ends in chaos when Benoit attacks the flock and Saturn locks him into the Rings again. Aside from this, there are a couple of promos building towards the PPV in the first hour, from Bischoff targeting Zbyszko and DDP targeting US Champ Curt Hennig.
After the commercials following the Benoit/Hammer match, it’s the top of the hour but we don’t come back to the usual sight. The NWO are all around the announcers table, Schiavone and co. have all been run off. What follows is basically ten minutes of dead-air (from a commentary perspective, at least) as the New World Order dismantle the Nitro set, building their own in it’s place, and force the cameramen and other production staff into declaring their loyalty to the NWO. This done, Bischoff heads out and introduces Hogan and the rest of the group. They pay tribute to Hogan, basically giving him Christmas presents including two motorcycles, and a Limo ‘complete with Jacuzzi and your very own Nitro girls’. Finally Hogan and Scott Hall want to go to three hours, so Bischoff says that’s what they are going to do. Good job too, because this whole segment has taken the best part of 25 minutes to get through.
When we return JJ Dillon is telling DiBiase and Rick Steiner that the hostile takeover changes things and he doesn’t have to fulfil his match, but Rick wants to so he heads out for a bout with Norton. Predictably, on NWO Nitro, this ends in a dq when Konnan saves Norton. Disco Inferno tries to become a double-champion by taking the US title from Hennig, but fails miserably and is basically pounded on while the announcing team of Bischoff, Rude and Nash big up Hennig. Gradually the usual announcers start to make their way back out – first Heenan weasels his way into Nash’s chair, before Bischoff forces Tenay to take over for him when he goes back to running his ‘empire’. Harlem Heat beat Lodi and Riggs of the Flock, Buff Bagwell picked up a win over Chris Jericho to keep him strong for Lex Luger at Starrcade, before Hogan and Bischoff make their way back out again. Hogan is getting more Christmas presents from the New World Order. Savage then beats Luger in the main event, given a little help from Buff Bagwell, before the egomaniacs Hogan and Bisch are back out again to close the show. Hogan is taunting Sting when a final gift arrives. Hollywood tells Eric that he shouldn’t have, while EB tries to tell Hogan that he didn’t. Bret Hart arrives in the NWO limo and Hogan expresses his gratitude to the newest member of the NWO, but when he opens the box Hogan stares at a replica of his own head! Freaked out, Hogan looks terrified while Rude (the one NWO man still on commentary) screams something about Bret making a mistake if he’s trying to challenge Hogan and his group. Finally, the show – and the build-up for Starrcade – finishes with the striking visual of Bret in the aisle, with Sting appearing atop of the NWO sign behind him.
Raw opened with a recap of the Outlaws and D-X destroying LOD, but also a twist – that they’d fallen out over each group taking the credit for the attack. D-X head to the ring early, and accuse the Outlaws of stealing their kill. The fans chant for Owen when Hunter turns his attention to the Blackhart, before D-X give the fans a Christmas present – stripping down to posing pouches. Sargeant Slaughter heads to the ring and since HBK hasn’t defended the European title in 60 days or more, he’ll have to defend it tonight against HHH or be stripped of the title. Hunter accuses him of trying to ruin Shawn’s Christmas by having him lose just before the big day. Shawn takes offence at the idea he’d lose… and there is a little dissent in the group. The opening match between Hank Godwinn and Thrasher ends in a DQ when Phineas jumps in, before the seasonal, feel-good moment. Santa is in the ring and is disappointed when Sable isn’t coming out and they bring up a little boy to sit on his knee. He gets angry when the boy accuses him of not being the real Santa. Austin then comes out, talks about wanting and not getting something when he was six, and stuns Santa, and the crowd go nuts. Mankind is also stalking around the bowels of the building, here for revenge because ‘when you break Dude Love’s ribs, my ribs hurt too!’ Rocky and Undertaker are up next, and The Deadman is doing a good job of fighting off the entire Nation when Kane and Paul Bearer head out. Bearer pushes his luck and Undertaker goes for him, which leads Kane to hit him, but Undertaker grabs him by the neck! This instinct passes, though, and Kane ends up putting the boots to his elder brother. HHH is on his way out for the European title match when he is assaulted by Owen, but Slaughter insists the match will still happen tonight. Mero brings out Sable in a reindeer costume, just to disrobe him, and then sends her to the back again before he beats Scott Taylor. Kurrgan squashes 8-ball of the DOA, and then the New Age Outlaws are searching for Mankind in the bowels of the arena with a flashlight. Shamrock beats D’lo, and Rocky insults him in a post-match promo that basically announces Shamrock will wrestle for the IC title at the Rumble. When the Outlaws finally find Mankind, he destroys them but the 2 men are eventually able to gain the upper hand and lock him in a fridge, looking mightily relieved. Luna and Goldust are telling an ‘attitude’ version of the night before Christmas when Santa interrupts. They are both unhappy with jolly old St. Nick, so he mows Goldie down and reveals that he is, in fact, Vader. At the sight of The Mastadon, the two heels head for higher ground. Finally, it’s time for the main event. HHH and HBK get into the ring and stare down each other. After a collar-and-elbow tie-up, Shawn drops to the mat. Hunter runs the ropes for a few seconds then falls on top of him for the win. They both overact to a crescendo of boos, and Sargeant Slaughter appears at the top of the ramp and says that Hunter will defend against Owen next week.
Finally, the RAW rating moved out of the slide, and was so often the case back then it appears that they may have had Nitro to thank for that. The ratings showed a 3.1 for RAW, the first rise since the night after Montreal, and a dramatic fall to a 3.5 for Nitro. However, while I don’t have confirmed or exact numbers there is anecdotal evidence which suggests that Nitro started out with a strong rating over 4.0 in the first hour, but lost viewers at an alarming rate once they kicked into the hostile takeover portion of the show. It may have been the ten minutes of the show coming to a screeching halt that did it, but if this is correct then viewers turned over in their droves.
Everyone knows all about the problems with Starrcade, because they’ve entered wrestling folklore now. Sting turned up not in the best shape of his life, and the failure of the referee to count quickly meant that when Bret restarted the match for a fast count everyone was rather confused. Frankly, it didn’t look like Hogan screwed Sting, but more like he’d been beaten in underwhelming circumstances, and that put a huge dent in how people thought about the feud. In other matches, Eddie Guerrero retained against Dean Malenko, DDP took the US title from Hennig, Saturn beat Benoit in a ‘Raven’s Rules’ match, and Bill Goldberg continued his winning record against Mongo. Forget for a minute what you know about the show - in commercial terms, it was a massive success. With a 1.9 buyrate, it was probably the most bought WCW PPV since the eighties wrestling boom and compared reasonably well with a lot of the numbers they’d done back then. The WWF didn’t collapse as quickly following those peaks, but this still bettered pretty much every WWF buyrate right the way back to Wrestlemania IX. In short, 8 men had defended the WWF title since they’d done a buyrate like this, while it was the best in a generation for WCW. But the amazing success of the show creates its own problems, given the relative failure to deliver on the night.
Starrcade was a bit of a watershed moment for WCW angles and characters, and that theme continued on the next night. The show opens with a lengthy celebration, both of Larry keeping control of Nitro away from Bischoff and also for Sting’s capturing the WCW title. Then, a man with an impressive w/l record is fed to another one, as Glacier goes down hard to Bill Goldberg. Bret Hart is out next and he slams the NWO, and also talks about how he wants to test himself against the likes of Luger, Giant, and Sting. Next out to talk with Okerlund is Flair, who objects to Bret leaving his name off that list and he reads a comment from Dave Meltzer, who he calls Bret’s guy, that says Natch is the best the sport has ever seen. After these two promos the ‘new broom’ approach continues. Eddie Guerrero dominates his match against Ultimo Dragon but is caught with the Dragon Sleeper, and when he taps Dragon is the new WCW Cruiserweight title in something approaching record time. The NWO are out next, complaining about Bret’s intervention in the title match and insisting that Hollywood Hogan is still the WCW Champion. The new US champ then retains against Mortis with a Diamond Cutter out of nowhere.
At the beginning of hour two, JJ Dillon insists that the decision will stand, but says Sting will put the title up in the main event against Hogan so it is a put up or shut up situation. The watershed then continues as Booker T captures the Television title from the Disco Inferno, before celebrating with his brother in the ring. Curt Hennig gets a win for the NWO against Chris Jericho, but the young man uncharacteristically starts slamming a chair into the ringpost after the bell. Heenan says he is having a tantrum after the loss, and he looks close to tears as he screams that he has had enough. Scott Hall has the role of being the defiant NWO man next, and after his survey of the Baltimore crowd he lets them know that the NWO is here to stay regardless of results at Starrcade. Lex Luger gets some revenge on Buff Bagwell in the penultimate match, beating him with the rack, before Hogan takes on Sting. This one is in progress when the show ends, and Sting has just hit his second Stinger splash but accidentally taken out the referee at the same time. Unless you had an internet connection you had to wait until 1998 to find out who was the World Champion.
Fun fact: around the time of the last week of the year, Paul Roma actually worked a WWF house show with a view to trying to move back into the company, but nothing came of it and he retired a year later. Anyway, Goldust opens the show in a diaper and throws his hat into the ring for the Royal Rumble. He wants to play ‘dress up’ with Austin, who refuses to wrestle Goldust but instead has a portable toilet lowered into the ring and beats on him with the help of his, uh, ‘convenience’. DOA beat Los Boricuas in another meaningless tag match next, before HHH hobbles out and says that through injury he won’t be able to face Owen tonight. Shawn apparently isn’t here so ‘Taker will have to wait until the Rumble to rest in pieces. Then the lights go down and a casket is wheeled out. Hunter proclaims that he is injured and shouldn’t be picked on, but then says ‘break it down’ and HBK pops out of the casket. He spends a lot of time talking about, and to, Chyna’s breast enlargements, before Slaughter heads out and decides that if Owen can’t wrestle Helmsley tonight, he’ll have to wrestle Michaels. The announcers draw our attention to a mystery crate on top of the stage, before Ken Shamrock beats Kama Mustafa in the build up to Rocky Maivia at the Rumble. Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler team up to take on Taka and a mystery partner, who turns out to be WWF legend George ‘the Animal’ Steele. His act hasn’t really changed, and he ends up chasing off the ref so we have a no-contest.
The New Age Outlaws are out at the top of the hour, bragging about what they’d done to Dude Love and Mankind. Dude Love appears on the ‘tron, and he’s going to get someone else to do his fighting for him. It initially appears that it is going to be Mankind, but he soon transitions into Cactus Jack! He’s got a friend here to help him… Chainsaw Charlie! Cactus heads to the ring alone, though, and it is only when all three men make their way back up the ramp, towards the mystery box, that Terry Funk cuts his way through the crate with a chainsaw. The fans know who he is, because you can clearly hear them shouting ‘Terry’. With such a weapon in the vicinity the Outlaws run, and the decision isn’t really clear. Sable is out next to give us a ‘preview’ of her swimsuit edition of RAW magazine, which is out tomorrow, but Mero comes down and says she is embarrassing him. As he berates her, Tom Brandi tries to play the knight in shining armour but goes down to a TKO and Marvellous Marc says he’ll knock out any fan with the magazine. There’s a coalition of Kane’s victims in the ring next, and together they want to ‘put out the fire’. Kane answers the challenge but before anything can happen, Undertaker joins him and the Brothers clear the ring. There’s some footage of Cactus and Funk still chasing the Outlaws backstage before another Cornette commentary. He’s been asked to talk about the state of wrestling in 1998, but he’s not in a good mood and says that WCW and the NWO stink, ECW is embarrassing, and that the WWF stinks. He slams the booking of Goldust and Sable, as well as the general actions of D-X and the ‘phony match’ from the previous match. He slams both companies as being run by people who don’t really know anything about wrestling and says that he wants to see old-fashioned, real wrestling. Finally, he says that he’s always been associated with that kind of wrestling, so if no one else is going to do it then maybe it’s up to him and that’ll be his resolution for 1998.
A quick note on this – unlike the other commentaries which were just to have an engaging talker will some air-time and give people a frisson from the fact that it was a shoot, this was a little bit worked. Obviously it’s still based around James E’s real feelings, but there are a lot of jabs at New Yorker’s in there, and the show is in Long Island. The idea behind this was to establish Cornette as a crotchety old heel who was out of step with the new direction of the WWF. The problem was, when they cut back to the arena after this address, the fans are visibly applauding his sentiments, so this one didn’t go quite as McMahon and Russo thought it would. Then there is a monumental moment, as Jim Ross announces that Mike Tyson – known as ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’ – will be at Wrestlemania! Next up is the main event of Owen challenging for Shawn’s title. He actually manages to get the champion in the Sharpshooter, but he’s near the ropes and that allows Hunter to hit him with the crutch, and the beatdown of Hart is in progress as the year ends.
There’s a huge boost to the overall wrestling audience. The WWF post a 3.6, presumably off the back of a huge rating for the second hour and the idea of a Hart wrestling Shawn Michaels post-Montreal. The rating certainly seems to have shot up in the second hour, which thinking about the chronology was probably when this two hour Nitro had finished. Anyway, a 3.6 represents their best opposed rating since May of 1996, so there are some pieces of good news to take from the end of the month, if not the beginning. The bad news for this week, though, is that the WCW rating also went through the roof following Starrcade. Nitro tied it’s best ever opposed rating with a 4.6, meaning that despite the huge WWF surge WCW were still ahead by an entire Nielson point.
Around the end of the year, Jim Cornette was taken off WWF creative. His influence had always been relatively minor, as most people on the creative team in those days were limited to whatever Vince McMahon allowed them to do. Now, his differences with Russo were getting in the way of the creative process. McMahon had to make a choice, and he went with Russo. The loudest and most vociferous dissenting voice was taken out of the room. That decision wouldn’t just affect 1998, but everything that has happened in the WWF ever since.