The Real Starrcade!These days and this time of the year -especially- the word "STARRCADE" comes back to mind. A weird word, if there ever was one; it comes from the attempt at amalgamating "cavalcade" and "stars" (as in "stars of wrestling" or the ones you'd be naturally drawn to at the video arcade, back in those days, hmm? Wrestling was a burgeoning mass-entertainment business, after all - they were trying...!) Less "rasslin" more "pay-per-view extravaganza" that comes only once a year, "STARRCADE" positioned itself as the Christmas time happening in the industry. And then it was gone. It was brought back, mind you - by its competition, and not as the major pay-per-view event it once was but as some local thing, reeking of the good old "regional" promotions days recorded by history... Hell, by doing it this way, the damnable "WWE" is truly mocking that great history and heritage, rather than honoring it! But so it is in this world: the victor writes and re-writes the history books' accounts... to his liking and as he sees fit - for business. Back when it was the premiere, prestigious annual culmination event in the NWA and, subsequently, in the WCW owned by Ted Turner, "Starrcade" (two "Rs" yes - don't ask why!) was bigger - much bigger than Wrestlemania! Just by its sheer historical importance and the quality of the in-ring performers that it gathered, yes - it was. And it used to be around this date - the 27th: one day removed from the Boxing Day frenzy that was, at the time, limited to just one day, in that pre-Black Friday blessed era - that we'd be treated to the biggest card of the year; the one that'd see all the feuds we'd kept up with throughout the year come to a close, to a climax, to a satisfying resolution... usually inside a fifteen-foot high steel cage! Wrestling at its very best, whether it was coming from the National Wrestling Alliance or World Championship Wrestling, with the kayfabe factor at its most effective and the crowds all riled up in advance...!
Man... long-time wrestling fans miss it so much!
The STARRCADE 1985 "I Quit" match
opposing Horseman Tully Blanchard to
rising star Magnum T.A.
was a classic - second only to
the previous year's "Million Dollar Challenge"
"American Dream" Dusty Rhodes
posed to World Heavyweight Champion
"Nature Boy" Ric Flair.
The Road Warriors - BEFORE they passed by the "WWF" -
were something else; the only wrestlers universally feared
while retaining a REALISTIC aura of fearsomeness -
nothing like the ridiculous theatrics of an Undertaker!
To the thinking fan, however, the only tough gang
around, anywhere, was The Four Horsemen!
In the early 90s, in the absence of Horsemen,
the one faction to ever capture that same allure
(sort of) was The Dangerous Alliance.
It included a Horseman; one half of the Midnight Express
tag-team; a femme fatale in Madusa Miceli;
and three other guys who'd be, at different times,
world champions... Plus a certain PAUL.
Alas, once that awful disease called "Hulkamania" contaminated the premises,
WCW was doomed to fold...
That so-called "New World Order of Wrestling" there...
...never measured up, really, to The Tradition that it aimed to replace.
The turning point, for some such as me:
when Das Wunderkind Alex Wright
defeated Jean-Paul Levesque
in a bogus "loser leaves town" gimmick match...
The decision had been made to keep Wright,
and let Levesque fly the coup -
and he went on to the competition
to become Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
we will never know
what turn history could have taken
if just a few things had turned out
... differently.
... now this one comes straight out of
the land of What If...
Or an alternate reality this side of
the Multiverse: Elseworlds, perhaps?
Too many twists and turns, though
came at a bad time
or simply too late.
And now we are stuck with the tidbits
and turning points that they select for you -
from their point of view...
... thankfully, we will always have
the uncut, uncensored (!) raw (!!) original material
available on DVD... via other digital sources too...
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Born in the Age of Aquarius, destined to seek out truths in many an art form, trained as a historian and a journalist but truly a prose-lover... Luciano is out to dispel any clichés and reinvent them all both to the tune of a little something called the truth as also to his own image - and being old-fashioned, he does not mind that distinction one infinitesimal tiny bit at all...! "There are two ways to spread the light; be the candle... or the mirror that reflects It." I have chosen to be the latter... okay? ~*~
"To be not only a seeker of light... but a dream weaver of light" ~*~ For as surely as the moon reflects the light from the sun, you and I can reflect the Light from Above - and be, indeed, the light of this world! ~*~*~*~ NOTE: THERE ARE COOKIES ~ from at least three parties~ ON ALL OF MY BLOGS! ~*~ accept it!
