Starrcade '86

Legacy Review

Starrcade '86

November 27, 1986, and like '85 it's a dual arena show- The Omni in Atlanta and the Greensboro Coliseum in the Crockett home base of Greensboro, NC

Commentary: Bob Caudle and (ugh) Johnny Weaver in Greensboro, Tony Schiavone and Rick Stewart (who?) in Atlanta

This show's tagline is alternately The Skywalkers or The Night of the Skywalkers. It's not a Star Wars reference, it's to hype the scaffold match that's on the card.

Speaking of Star Wars (kinda), we open up with a very '80s laser light show in Greensboro, cutting with shots of the scaffold setup in Atlanta. Tom Miller, the voice of the Greensboro Coliseum and the ring announcer for every Starrcade so far, welcomes us to the show.

Tim Horner and Nelson Royal def The Kernodle Brothers in 7:30 (Greensboro)- More names that barely register with me, and that's saying something. Horner was an occasional tag partner of Brad Armstrong. They would win the UWF tag titles after this. He was a jobber for WWF for a year in the late '80s, and worked WCW and Smoky Mountain in the early/mid '90s. According to Jim Cornette, he fired Horner from SMW for stealing a ring truck. Royal had been wrestling since the mid '50s, retired in the late '70s and unretired in '83. He would also go on to open a wrestling school where he would train, among others, John "People Power" Laurinaitis and Ken Shamrock. Don Kernodle was a Crockett mainstay in the early Starrcade years, but this was his last major appearance before leaving wrestling full time and moving into law enforcement. Rocky Kernodle looks spunky in this match but didn't last very long. No intros at all in the match. Anyone from the outside looking in wouldn't even know who's who. Some fairly good athleticism at the start from Rocky and Horner. Ring Gearhead fact: the lightning bolt on Horner's boots are almost identical to Strike Force's. Weaver keeps calling the Kernodles "Kernoodle", which is way more amusing to me than it should be. Royal puts a sleeper on Don, Rocky does a sunset flip off the top to break it up. Nice. After a double reverse on a rollup Horner manages to get the pin. The crowd boos that. Were they heels? Didn't act like it. This was decent tag wrestling with no heat whatsoever. **1/4 

"Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin (w/Precious) and Brad Armstrong go to a 15:00 time limit draw (Atlanta)- TONY SCHIAVONE is ring announcing in Atlanta! Garvin had been feuding with Magnum TA until that light pole no sold Magnum's car. Rough lockup to start. Lots of intensity for a thrown together match. Solid mat wrestling sequence. They're going to be down there a lot in this one. Arm wringer tradeoff. Garvin locks in a cloverleaf type hold. Armstrong counters by using a chinlock to pull Garvin off. Precious distracts the ref and Garvin pulls hair to get the advantage again. We get lots of long mat holds, but they reverse them enough to keep things moving. Garvin almost gets a pin with a tights hold but the ref catches it just in time. A the 10 minute call they finally get off the mat and start doing some higher octane stuff. Garvin throws Armstrong outside. Garvin goes for some quick pins but can't put it away. Armstrong counters a bodyslam for 2. With 1 minute left Garvin tries a sleeper but Armstrong powers out. Garvin goes up top for a splash but as soon as he launches the bell rings for the time limit. He misses anyway. They fight a little more after the bell until Garvin bails and says Armstrong is "lucky" that Precious is holding him back. This was 10 minutes of some OK but clearly stalling mat wrestling, and 5 minutes of action. It's also disappointing that Armstrong, one of the best high flyers in pre-Cruiserweight division WCW/NWA, doesn't get a chance to do any of that. **

Hector Guerrero and Baron von Raschke def Shaska Whatley and The Barbarian in 7:25 (Greensboro)- Hector is Chavo Classic and Eddie's brother. Raschke was a well known "evil foreigner" heel in the '70s and '80s, it's weird to see him as a face here. Donnybrook start. The faces win the exchange and take over. Guerrero works 90% of the match for the face team. Guerrero dodges a Barbarian charge and Barbarian flies over the top and to the floor. Guerrero then flattens him with a plancha. Keep in mind, in those days in the NWA there were no mats on the outside at all. Just the concrete floor. The heels manage to double team Guerrero outside and take control. After a face in peril sequence Guerrero spits right in Whatley's face, then dives to make the hot tag. Raschke puts the Claw on Whatley but Barbarian breaks it up. Raschke dodges a corner charge, drops an elbow and gets the 3. Afterward the heels beat Raschke up. The only good thing in this match was Guerrero's high spots and selling. *1/2

Johhny Weaver, in the locker room, somehow puts two coherent sentences together to tell us that Dusty's not taking interviews, then tries to get an interview with Dusty. Dusty tells him to pish off.

No DQ Match for the NWA United States Tag Team Championship: The Russians (c) def The Kansas Jayhawks in 9:10 (Atlanta)- The Jayhawks are Dutch Mantel and Bobby Jaggers. Newer fans may know Mantel as the manager Zeb Coulter in WWE. Jaggers was a Vietnam veteran before getting into wrestling, and had worked with Dusty in Florida, as well as WWC (Puerto Rico) and Japan. Krusher Khruchev is the future Demolition Smash, and probably has as much Russian ancestry as Elizabeth Warren has Cherokee. Mantel and Koloff start. The faces work quick tags and some double teams. Khruschev gets tagged in and jaws with the crowd a bunch before settling in. The faces choke Khruschev in the corner. No DQ. He dodges a drop toe hold to get the tag to Koloff. Mantel gets pulled outside. Khruschev smashes him into the announce table and the guardrail. Mantel manages to gets a double clothesline and the hot tag. Late match donnybrook! Koloff tries to come off the top rope with the chain but Mantel grabs his whip, yes a literal leather whip, and whips his leg to drag him off the ropes. Then he whips Khruschev. That's Indiana Jones level of whipping right there. The heels fight it off. While Jaggers is running the ropes Koloff nails him in the back with his chain and Khruschev gets the 3. Decent. It didn't play into the no DQ stip as well as it could have, especially with all the toys available. **

Indian Strap Match: Wahoo McDaniel def "Ravishing" Rick Rude (w/Paul Jones) in 9:05 (Greensboro)- McDaniel is the "king of the strap match". Rude had arrived in Crockett a few months earler and was still developing. Rude's music starts out with a woman saying "Ricky, you're so ravishing. Where did you come from?" then goes into a more jazz nightclub type music than the stripper pole rag from his WWF days. No prematch shtick from Rude, we're not there yet. Tom Miller says he's going to introduce the "proponents". We're going to have a debate with both guys supporting the match type? Lots of the usual heel stalling about putting the strap on. Rude gets a very high pitched pop for the robe removal. McDaniel whips and chokes him with the strap. Rude tries to take a power, McDaniel pulls him back in. Rude gets McDaniel down in a corner, wraps the strap around his knuckles and goes to town on Wahoo's forehead. Rude wraps the strap around McDaniel's writs to tie him up then starts going for corners but only gets 2. McDaniel works on the head and busts Rude open, our first bleeder of the night after most of the wrestlers and probably half the crowd bled at the previous Starrcade. McDaniel gets to 3 corners before Rude cuts him off. Rude gets the fist drop off the top rope. He goes up top again, but McDaniel pulls him down. He drags Rude around for 3, then chops Paul Jones off the apron. Rude gets up and forearms McDaniel in the back, but that pushes him into the final corner. No bell, but commentary acts like he won. Jones and Rude attack until Raschke and Guerrero make the save. The bell finally rings and McDaniel is declared the winner. *1/2

Promo with the Russians. Ivan Koloff hypes up the coming Bunkhouse Stampede match, while Khruschev demands a title shot if Nikita Koloff wins later. Ivan says that they're going to win "thousands of American dollars". The real question is, has America corrupted them into capitalist oppressors, or will they take that money back to the motherland and give it all to the Party in the name of the collective like good Soviets?

NWA Central States Heavyweight Championship: Sam Houston (c) def "Superstar" Bill Dundee by DQ in 10:24 (Atlanta)- The Central States title was the title for the Kansas City based midwest territory. Dundee was born in Scotland but started wrestling in Australia in the '60s. He was most known in the Memphis territory, where he had a big feud with Jerry Lawler. Later on he would be Sir William, Steven (William) Regal's manager in WCW in the mid '90s. And he's still wrestling today! Calling Sam Houston 220 pounds is the most egregious example of weight inflation I think I've ever seen. He's tall but he's almost as thin as David Tennant. The guy is maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. And with the belt. Houston dodges a punch and works the arm. Dundee uses the old Aussie trick, the Bogan Hair Pull. Flying headscissors from Houston. He calls for a bulldog. Dundee suplexes his way out, but Houston does a full 360 to land on his feet, then gets 2 off a roll up. Dundee uses the tights to pull Houston outside. Houston responds by atomic dropping him over the barricade. Dundee hits a splash off the top for 2. Dundee starts stealing Dusty's moves and strut. Gimmick infringement! Take him to court when he gets back in the locker room. Double ax handle off the top for 2. Houston comes back but misses a kneedrop. Dundee wraps him up in a figure 4 like position. Houston pushes him off but Dundee both pulls Houston's boot off and runs into the ref. Dundee picks up the boot and wallops Houston with it, but the ref recovered enough to see and DQs Dundee. He then tries to beat Houston to death with his own boot before leaving. **3/4

Hair vs Hair Match: Jimmy Valiant (w/Big Mama) def Paul Jones in 4:00 (Greensboro)- Well folks, it's been a long and bumpy road, but here we finally are. Jimmy Valiant's last Starrcade match. His three matches so far have been a quarter, dud, and a quarter. And for the second time in three years, he's going against manager Paul Jones. Incidentally it's Big Mama that's putting her hair on the line, not Valiant. Manny Fernandez, who had recently turned heel, is out with Jones but per the stips he has to be suspended over the ring in a cage. The usual arguments over this ensue before some face wrestlers run out and force him in the cage. Jones screams all the way across the ring on a whip and buckle bump. The usual slow, over the top punching from Valiant. This guy makes the Rock's punches look subtle. Jones gets some knucks out of his tights and waffles Valiant with them, busting him open. Valiant dodges a kneedrop before getting more knucks shots. He finally gets a comeback with more punches and hooks in his sleeper. Jones loses the knucks. Valiant picks them up, nails Jones, and we're done. Valiant buzzes Jones' hair off. Fernandez and Rude then attack and give Valiant a double DDT onto a chair. 1/4*

Intermission time in the arena means promo time on TV. But not wrestler promos. Instead, we get hype videos for both the second annual Crockett Cup tag team tournament, and the Bunkhouse Stampede. The Stampede is a battle royal, but with weapons. Basically, it breaks down to the fact that Dusty liked to book matches that he could get away with wearing blue jeans to wrestle in.

Street Fight: Big Bubba Rogers (w/Jim Cornette) def Ronnie Garvin in 11:50 (Atlanta)- The rules are win by pinfall or a 10 count. Rogers is the future Big Boss Man, and is greener than green at this point. He's so babyfaced (a literal baby face, not kayfabe babyface) he looks like he just walked off the offensive line for the high school football team. He was being pushed as a monster heel to cover up his lack of experience. Garvin is in jeans, Rogers in a suit. Garvin dodges and punches. Rogers powders. He throws Garvin out, but Garvin grabs CM Punk's diet soda off the announce table and throws it in Rogers' face. Rogers gets a roll of coins from Cornette and punches Garvin with them and the coins go everywhere. Oh, for Monsoon and Heenan. "What a shot! There's nickels laying all over the ringside area." "They better get extra security out here, Monsoon! When all these hick humanoids see those nickels there's going to be a riot in this building!" "Will you stop!" "There's probably enough money to buy a used car at Jim Bob's Quality Vehicles laying on the floor out here." Garvin's busted open. Big splash for 2. Garvin gets a rope out of his boot and chokes Rogers with it. Another punch sends Garvin over the top and out. Rogers goes up top but Garvin catches him and gives him the Flair throw. Rogers kicks out at 1, Garvin lands on top of the ref. Garvin hits a piledriver. Cornette jumps in and gives him a racket shot. Both guys are down. Tommy Young gets to 10, but says there must be a winner. The first guy to his feet will win. Young pushes Cornette out! Rogers pulls Young down so he can't see Garvin on his feet. Cornette gives Garvin another racket shot in the knee. Rogers gets up, and wins. *3/4

First Blood Match for the NWA World Television Championship: Tully Blanchard (w/JJ Dillon) def "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes (c) in 7:30 (Greensboro)- The first Four Horsemen match of the night. Dusty gets the full locker room/backstage walk entrance. He's wearing a Magnum TA shirt to show some support for the injured star. He's also got "TULLY" written out on both sides of his head just above the ears. Blanchard puts on amateur wrestling headgear to protect his head. Dusty demands it come off. After a minute, so does Earl Hebner. Dillon and Blanchard go to plan B- Vaseline on the forehead. Hebner grabs a towel and wipes it off. Dusty says enough of this and gives Dillon a Bionic Elbow. Dillon's bleeding all over the place. The match finally starts, with a ton of stalling. Dusty does some strutting and relaxes in the corner. Blanchard tries to charge him, but Dusty puts his elbow up and Blanchard stops. Dusty's trying to grab Blanchard's forehead to cut him open. Headbutt from Dusty. Blanchard covers up in the corner. Blanchard rakes Dusty's face. While they're in the corner Dillon grabs Dusty's foot and pulls him down, taking Hebner out in the process. Dillon gives Blanchard his shoe. Blanchard tries to use it but Dusty blocks it. Who uses a shoe, honestly? Dusty suplexes Blanchard, and as Blanchard goes down right on top of Hebner! Dusty grabs the shoe and teases using it but throws it away. Ground and pound, and Blanchard is busted open, but Hebner's taking a nap and doesn't see it. Dillon wipes Blanchard's blood off and hands him a roll of coins. He nails Dusty with it, and again coins are everywhere. Dusty's busted open, Hebner sees it (and for some reason has to wipe some of it off to confirm that it is, in fact, blood) and calls for the bell. Blanchard wins the title. It was a stall fest for a long while, but it played into the stip well and once it got going got pretty good. ***

Scaffold Match: The Road Warriors (w/Paul Ellering) def The Midnight Express (w/Jim Cornette and Big Bubba Rogers) in 7:00 (Atlanta)- The only way to win is by dropping both your opponents off the scaffold and into the ring. Zero hesitation from the Road Warriors in climbing up. As usual, major stalling by the heels. While they stall Animal does some minor railing repair. You know, OSHA regulations and all that. Cornette grabs Eaton's leg begging him not to go up. He goes to the commentary table and says this is "ludicrous, insane and stupid". Is he talking about the scaffold or the last Ospreay match he hate watched? Cranky old man. When the heels finally get up Animal shakes the scaffold. The Warriors control for a bit before the heels pull out the great equalizer: powder in the face. Hawk teases falling through the support railing all the way to the floor. Eaton goes under the scaffold to try to pull Animal down but almost falls himself and uses Animal's leg to swing back onto the railing. Both heels get busted open. Condry tries to escape down the railing but Hawk follows. Eaton and Animal move down too. Now all four guys are hanging under the scaffold like monkey bars. After a bit of swinging, both heels fall and the Road Warriors win. Paul Ellering chases Cornette up the scaffold after the match. Cornette is trapped with Animal on one side and Ellering on the other, so he goes the only way he can- down. He gets under the scaffold then falls himself, legitimately blowing his knee out when he lands. He manages to walk back with Rogers' help. We make fun of Cornette now for being the cranky old guy that hates almost everything in modern wrestling, but all credit to him for being willing to take that for his craft. This was more a spectacle than a match. Shame, these teams could have torn it up in a regular match. *3/4

We have another intermission while the cage is being set up (couldn't they have done it while the last match was happening?). They show highlights of the '86 Great American Bash tour. Back then it was a two week stadium tour, not a single PPV. The main two shows from that tour are now on the Network, the ones where Dusty and Flair traded the world title, so reviews will be forthcoming.

Steel Cage Match for the NWA World Tag Team Championship: The Rock 'N' Roll Express (c) def The Andersons in 20:20 (Greensboro)- No Dillon with the Andersons after the beating he took from Dusty. The Express get absolutely mobbed on their way to the ring. They were probably the most over guys in the company at this point. Ole and Gibson start. The Andersons get a double team in while Hebner gets Morton out of the ring. Quick tags on both sides. Morton and Arn slow it down a notch after the fast start. Arn dodges a corner charge and Gibson goes into the cage knee first. That's a giant flashing neon bullseye to the Andersons and they go to work on it. The Andersons physically hold Gibson back from getting a tag, but finally he manages to roll over and get it. Morton's momentum is short lived as Ole murders him with a couple of cage shots, busting Morton open. Arn gives Morton the ol' cage face rake. Sadly JR isn't here yet to tell us it's like a cheese grater. Ole starts in with some joint manipulation and cranks on the armbar. Arn gets a hammerlock slam. Morton manages to punch Arn as Arn comes off the top rope, but Ole stops him from getting a tag. Morton is a crimson mask and has one crippled arm, but he's on his knees trading punches with Ole. No one in possibly the entire history of wrestling could sell a beating like Ricky Morton could. The World's Greatest Spinebuster! Gibson saves the pin. Morton has been face in peril for 10 solid minutes now. Desperation small package! Only gets 2. It breaks down again, with Gibson fighting with Arn in the corner. Ole picks up Morton for a bodyslam, but Gibson dropkicks Morton's back, pushing him down on top of Ole and he gets the 3! Tremendous stuff. The Andersons were masters of brutalizing opponents. The RNR Express worked the classic face in peril/hot finish formula better than anyone. Hell, they practically invented it. A perfect combination. This was about as good as you could ask for. ****3/4

Main Event Feud Recap- The main event for this show was originally going to be Flair vs Magnum TA with Magnum winning and becoming, the NWA hoped, their megastar babyface that could compete with Hulk Hogan. But, as mentioned, he was injured in a car crash in October of '86 and the initial diagnosis was that he might never walk again, much less wrestle. Fortunately he would eventually recover enough to lead a normal life again, but as of now there was a hole at the top of the Starrcade card and only a little over a month to fill it. Things moved slower back then, a month then would roughly be like having a week to adjust now. Magnum and Nikita Koloff has just completed a long feud over the US title that Koloff had won, so it was decided to do a quickie face turn and put him in with Flair but not win. Word is the current Soviet political situation with Gorbachev influenced Dusty's decision in spirit of glasnost. The on screen reasoning given was that Koloff had come to respect Magnum during their feud and was going against the Horsemen to honor him. The turn actually happened about two week after the crash when Koloff was a mystery tag partner for Dusty against the Horsemen. The crowd mostly bought into it.

NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Ric Flair (c) and NWA United States Heavyweight Champion Nikita Koloff go to a double DQ in 20:00 (Atlanta)- Unusually the champion, Flair, comes out first. After his entrance there's a long, somewhat cheesy tribute video to Magnum TA. Koloff gets a decent pop but there's also audible boos. This is the Starrcade debut of the legendary Big Gold Belt, a belt that was more or less designed personally for Flair. Ring Gearhead fact: Flair is wearing his wedding ring. I don't recall ever seeing that before in a match. Koloff pushes Flair across the ring off the lockup and Flair goes out to have a think. Koloff no sells chops and knocks Flair down again. Flair goes over the guardrail and into the crowd to have another think. When he gets in he goes down again and yells to Koloff "Now you get your butt kicked!". He tries to hiptoss Koloff out of the corner, but Koloff blocks and reverses it. Flair is very much working an early version of the type of match he would go on to regularly have with Sting. Koloff throwing Flair around is getting him more crowd support, which I'm sure was the intention. It's the Russian Bear Hug! The people in the upper deck can probably hear Flair's screams. Flair dodges a charge and gets a suplex in. Koloff no sells it and pops right back up. Yup, future Sting formula. Flair regroups again. When he gets back in the chops do a bit of damage, but not enough. Koloff chokes Flair. He goes for the Russian Sickle but Flair dodges and Koloff flies over the top and out. Flair goes out and posts his knee, then gets a chop block. We're going to school, kids. Figure four! Flair plays cat and mouse with Tommy Young trying to get rope leverage, but Koloff eventually reverses it. More chops and more no sells. Flair throws Koloff out and follows to give him a shot into the scaffold railing. Koloff does an obvious delayed blade lying on the floor. Some punches set Koloff off again. Flair Flip! Now Flair takes a railing shot and he's bleeding too. Flair Flop! A flying tackle knocks Young out of the ring. Russian Sickle! But there's no ref. A substitute ref runs in. Flair dodges another Sickle but the sub ref gets it! They start brawling in the corner. Young is back in and tries to stop it but Koloff pushes him off twice. The second time, Young calls for the bell. The locker room empties and they try to hold Koloff and Flair back. Due to the show scheduling all the rest of the Horsemen were in Greensboro while Flair was in Atlanta so they couldn't help. Young says to commentary it's a double DQ. I didn't see Flair do anything to deserve a DQ, but OK. That's not a good finish for the main event of your biggest show of the year, but considering the circumstances I guess they saw it as a way to keep the feud going while they figured out a more long term plan to replace Magnum. Unfortunately he wasn't on the roster yet (Sting). Up until then it was about 15 minutes of Flair pretty much wrestling himself, which considering who was in there with him is not a bad thing. ***1/2

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- It's better than the slog that was '84, but not nearly as good as '83 or '85. We're falling into a pattern where the odd numbered years are good Starrcades, the even ones aren't. I will give them the technical side of running two arenas for one show flows smoother than '85 did. All the Horsemen matches are good (surprise), and the scaffold match is a spectacle that you should probably check out at least once. In a lot of ways this would be the last Starrcade with the old territory feel. As Crockett soaked up more NWA territories, by the time the next one rolled around the transition was underway to try to take the company truly national to compete with WWF.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C+