Starrcade (1997)

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Starrcade 1997 was the ninth Starrcade event produced by World Championship Wrestling which took place on 21st December 1997

## Background

The main match heading into the show is Hollywood Hogan defending his WCW Heaviweight Championship against Sting. This match has been 1 year and a half in the making and is the culmination of the whole New World Order storyline. At Nitro 100 the most shocking WCW moment ever happened as WWF's MITB holder Razor Ramon and Intercontinental Champion Diesel debuted and attacked Sting and Lex Luger, Ramon cashed in his WWF MITB contract as he defeated Sting to become WCW Heaviweight champion. Hall and Nash renamed themselves and announced they were invading WCW and taking it over, at Uncensored Hulk Hogan betrayed WCW as he announced himself as the third man in the New World Order, all 3 men ended up injuring Sting and taking him out of action. Multiple WCW talent tried to step up to defeat NWO but they kept being ambushed and destroyed, Scott Hall started teasing that Sting hasn't stepped up to them because Sting IS New World Order, his partners Ric Flair and Arn Anderson started believing it but Lex Luger refused to accept it until Sting attacked him with a scorpion death drop. Luger was furious and challenged Sting for having also betrayed WCW at Hog Wild 1996 but it was revealed that NWO had planted a fake Sting as the real Sting showed up and attacked the fake version of him, Luger wanted to shake hands with him but Sting was pissed that he believed them, on the same show NWO defeated Team WCW to take ownership of WCW. On the Nitro afterwards Sting explained that he was never and will never be NWO but the fact that his closest friends would be skeptical of him makes him side with no one and when the time is right, he would rise from the ashes and destroy NWO. He showed up a lot during NWO beatdown segments coming down from the rafters and beating up New World Order. Arn Anderson introduced The Resistance group as a way to take down NWO and kept hyping up their leader, Hogan called out Arn's bluff saying that if The Resistance's leader ever showed up he'd put NWO's ownership on the line. After The Resistance was completely battered by NWO, Arn finally revealed its leader at World War 3 as Sting showed up and won the WW3 match to become NO1 contender to the title, everything is on the line tonight as WCW's future will be settled with Sting vs Hogan

Goldberg defeated The Mob's leader Konnan to become United States champion. After Billy Kidman completed all his challenges to join The Mob, Konnan rewarded him with a US title match against the undefeated Goldberg, Scott Steiner has held the NWO TV Championship since october 1996 and NWO decided that a dominant champion needs a dominant challenger and added him to this match making it a triple threat which will unify both the US and TV belts

Curt Hennig debuted on WCW as he immediatly challenged WCW Heaviweight champion Ric Flair, at Uncensored Hennig defeated Flair to win the title after he joined New World Order and ganged up on Flair. A few months later after NWO's loss to The Resistance in war games, NWO turned on Hennig and immediatly made a heaviweight title match as Hogan defeated Hennig. No one believed that Hennig wanted to destroy NWO as they felt like this was just a coup by part of NWO, make Hennig trustworthy to the WCW roster just so he could betray them again so Hennig was left with no one, Ric Flair was particularly harsh on him because him and Hogan injured David Flair, Hennig just wanted to prove that he wanted to destroy NWO like everyone else but Flair isn't buying it wanting to prove that Hennig is still a piece of shit. At Hog Wild, Flair pushed Hennig's buttons to the point where Hennig started hitting him with a chair ending the match in a DQ, the feud continued with Hennig just wanting to prove himself to the WCW roster, he had another match against Ric Flair in an episode of Nitro which ended with Ric and David Flair lowblowing Hennig to give them the win. Hennig did a great promo saying he has tried to redeem himself since june but there's 1 main factor that's not allowing him to get the respect of the people backstage and it's Ric, he says Ric's time in WCW is up and he can't stand to see younger talent take his place, he can't stand to see his old friends retire and bear the thought that he should retire soon too, Hennig challenges Flair to a career threatening match and he accepts, he wanted an additional stipulation to the match and Hennig won a beat the clock challenge to decide that it would be a steel cage match

HHH was getting pissed at his position in WCW as he was screwed out of the US title by The Mob and then New World Order started negotiating with The Mob and became their allies when HHH wanted his revenge, there was a NO1 contenders to the WCW tag team championships friendly match between The Outsiders vs HHH and Syxx, The Outsiders won and Hall wanted to shake hands with HHH who simply left due to his pent up frustration, Hall also started getting mad at his WCW position feeling like he had no say on the New World Order anymore, he walked out on Hogan but HHH immediatly argued with him to get him back in the ring. Hall and HHH kept arguing as HHH says Hall has become a shadow of himself, their arguing kept getting more agressive as HHH tried to pedigree him but NWO split them apart, HHH cost Hall an heaviweight title match against Hollywood Hogan which was Hall's breaking point. Kevin Nash decided to have a FRIENDLY match between the 2 to settle things so they can get back on track

Dean Malenko started a slow face turn as he started teaming up with Rey Misterio Jr to get back his role as king of the cruiserweights, Malenko ended up defeating Rey in a friendly match to become NO1 contender to the Cruiserweight Championship but failed to defeat Ultimo Dragon for it. Recently turned heels Jushin Liger and The Great Muta wanted to get rid of all the waste in the CW division and had a match against Malenko and Rey at World War 3 where the winners would face Dragon tonight in a triple threat but the match ended by DQ with Muta and Liger beating them up with chairs, it was decided that Dragon would have to face all 4 men in a ladder match for the title

The Mob introduced Lex Luger to their group but he immediatly started disappointing them with constant losses, Luger and Riggs were attacked by a mystery man and asked Konnan if he could figure out who did it which pissed off Konnan even more. Konnan showed footage that it was The Mob's own Billy Kidman that attacked Luger and Riggs but Konnan announced he ordered the hit on them to test them, to see what they would do, and what they did was be pussies and act like Konnan is their babysitter, Konnan will give one last chance for Riggs and Luger to prove themselves tonight against him and Juventud Guerrera

Frankie KBW and Meng were a tag team in mid 1996 whose sole purpose was to stop Meng from getting over but with Meng's suspension and his 1 year run as ECW Heaviweight champion, Meng returned to WCW at World War 3 more over than ever, they put him in a tag match with Frankie but Frankie left midway through, Meng wasn't having it as he beat him up. Frankie was mad Meng had left him to die as a jobber here but all Meng wants to do now is kick Frankie's ass

Diamond Dallas Page called out Randy Savage's decision of joining New World Order constantly throught the weeks, during the World War 3 match, after getting eliminated Savage went to another ring just to eliminate DDP. The feud continued with DDP diamond cuttering him and wanting a match against NWO's Randy Savage but Hollywood Hogan said he'd have to earn it which DDP did by defeating The Giant

## Details

* HHH goes for the pedigree but Hall rolls him up to win, Hall wants to shake hands with HHH but he spits on Hall's boots, Nash also looks disappointed that Hall had to resort to a rollup
* Meng destroys Frankie in a minute
* Meng superkicks Piper backstage to win the WCW Hardcore Championship
* Hennig and Flair shake hands after the match as Flair is crying and people chant "thank you flair"
* While Konnan and Saturn are beating up Luger and Riggs, Konnan gets a mic saying that they really don't belong to the family because if they did, they would've realized Konnan made up his mind about them 2 being gone a month ago. He introduces the new Mob members and Starrcade Countdown of this year, out comes Bam Bam Bigelow from ECW and The Resistance's Jeff Jarrett as all of The Mob gang up on Luger and Riggs
* The main event is hype with both Hogan and Sting getting huge entrances. The match begins, Hogan taunts at Sting, goes for the clothsline but Sting reverses it into a scorpion death drop, Hogan goes to the corner, scorpion death splash, big boot and LEG DROP, he waits for Hogan to get up and hits another scorpion death drop. He then locks in the scorpion death lock and Hogan taps after 30 seconds, Hogan has been squashed by Sting in 1 minute and 43 seconds, NWO's run at the top is officially over. The whole WCW roster comes out to celebrate with Sting