Hunting CM Punk's first ever WWE match, and the rabbit hole I fell down

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. The video can be found Here.

I was going to start this video with a joke about CM Punk and Heat, but even I'm not that fucking hack...

On December 26th in Madison Square Garden, CM Punk had his first match in a WWE ring since the 2014 Royal Rumble. I always thought that CM Punk's WWE televised debut was the August 1st episode of ECW on Sci-fi, but it turns out he had appeared in WWE a few times the year previous. There are a few appearances of future stars that WWE likes to acknowledge, maybe the most famous being Bryan Danielson facing John Cena on an episode of Velocity in early 2003. This match was even recreated as a highlight of Bryan's career in WWE 2K19. That isn't even Bryan's first time in a WWE ring, as he was appearing in dark matches under a mask as the American Dragon as early as 2000, and later would have matches on Heat and Velocity against the likes of Jamie Noble, Paul London and his old training partner Brian Kendrick. There are some other well known ones, such as that clip of Brock Lesnar hitting a mighty impressive shooting star press. If you've only ever seen his Wrestlemania 19 one where he could've hurt himself very badly, it's insane to see the ungodly amount of height he was able to reach when hitting the move right. By the way I'm aware that he used the move in OWV and there is footage of that, but the clips of him do the move in the larger WWE setting just hits differently.

In the weeks prior to Punk being signed by WWE, he would wrestle two televised matches on Sunday Night Heat, which at the time was airing on Spike TV in the US, but would move to WWE.com later that same year. On the episode that aired on April 17th, CM Punk would team with Russell Simpson in a losing effort against Simon Dean and Maven. Simpson had worked a few enhancement matches for WWE around these years, but mainly worked indies, according to Cagematch using the names Skull Manson, Psycho the Death and Dawg Cheetum, which sounds like what I'd come up with if you asked me to write a Troy McLure joke. Due to some form of miscommunication, Todd Grisham on commentary refers to Punk as Chad Collyer, who is a different wrestler all together who was also working sporadic enhancement matches around this time. Both Todd and Jonathan Coachman seem to be under the impression that the team was called CM Punk, and Coach proceeds to bury the name. An edited version of this match is actually on WWE's YouTube channel still today, and as you can imagine, the comments are turned off.

The match itself is fairly unremarkable to watch, but is it though? On the surface it's a pretty basic enhancement match where Maven and Dean pick up the win. It turns out though that things might not have gone the way they were supposed to. Speaking recently on his YouTube channel, Maven claimed to be CM Punk's first WWE opponent, and we'll get back to that soon, but he also states that Simon Dean changed the finish of the match to protect Punk, who he saw big things in, and decided to pin Simpson instead. Maven says "Earlier on when we were discussing the match backstage he (Simon Dean) said When I come in, I'm going to knock you out, Punk you roll to the floor, that way we can get the slam on Simpson. I don't know why he wanted to protect Punk. He might have seen what the world would see in Punk years later." Maven also points out that neither he or Simon got in trouble for pinning the other guy, maybe since the right team still won. 

Punk's next WWE match a month later would be a singles match with Val Venis, one in which it'd be hard to change who gets pinned and get away with it I suppose. It also seems going in that someone briefed Todd Grisham and Jonathan Coachman on the guys name, so thats an improvement I guess. Coachman does however refer to Punk as quote "a kid from the South" though. Yes, that famously Southern state, Illinois...  There's a bit more to this match than the previous, with Punk sneak attacking Val, turning heel in the opening minutes, and spending most of the match working on Val's leg. The entire match becomes all about Val Venis's hurt knee, with Val not able to hit his signature moves like the fisherman's suplex because of a potential injury. He does however make it to the top rope to hit the Money Shot and win.

As you can probably guess, Val Venis has also talked about this match on YouTube. As you can also likely guess, Val takes maybe a bit too much credit for getting Punk hired by WWE. Clearly he had a part in it with this being Punk's final match for them as an unsigned talent and I'm not doubting that, but let me clarify what I mean. In his video from Wrestling Shoot Interviews, Val essentially claims in short that he heard that Punk was a guy who does moves that mean nothing, and so he structured a match around the two of them walking in as babyfaces, Punk turning early on and a knee injury. He repeatedly says that the fans didn't know who CM Punk is, but this match took place in Pennsylvania, where Ring of Honor is based. I'm not saying he would have been a local hero or anything, but there absolutely will have been people in that crowd who knew CM Punk. At first I gave Val the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was referring to the wider TV audience, but he repeatedly calls it a dark match, so he has to be talking about the fans in the live crowd. Val's essential point is that he made Punk tell a story, which if you know Punk's work feels like a grandiose claim.

Several weeks after the Val Venis match, Punk signed his WWE contract, and for maximum effect, he signed it inside an ROH ring at Sign of Dishonor on July 8th 2005. Not only that, but he signed it on the ROH World championship belt that he had recently won from Austin Aries, kicking off what is known as the 'Summer of Punk'. He had been a fan favourite going in, but post match turned to the dark side with an epic promo, maybe one of the best of his entire career. By September he would begin wrestling for OVW, WWE's then developmental territory. While I'm talking about Punk and WWE developmental, another thing I learned while writing this video is that in 2011 CM Punk would make a non televised appearance for WWE's later developmental promotion pre-NXT, FCW. On October 21st 2011 Punk would be called out by, and would even wrestle a very young looking Dean Ambrose. In an around twenty minute match that exists on YouTube as fan footage, CM Punk would win hitting the GTS. Speaking of people Punk doesn't get on with any more, guess who his tag team partner was in his last OVW match...

Remember how I said we'd get back to Maven's claim that he was in Punk's first WWE opponent? As far as being a WWE talent maybe, but remember that wording for later. While these two matches are interesting to note given they took place right before he signed with WWE, the first evidence I could find of him in a WWE ring was neither of these. On May 12th 2003, Punk would wrestle a dark match against a wrestler called Khalsa Singh. 

Despite my best efforts I couldn't find the actual match, but I did find a clip from his entrance, and being fully honest, my desire to learn more about this clip was the entire inspiration for me falling down the rabbit hole and making this video. His entrance was interesting for two reasons. Firstly, Punk was announced to the ring by the legendary voice of WWE entrances, Howard Finkle. When Punk won the WWE championship at Survivor Series 2011, he was announced to the ring by the Fink, who received a heart warming reception by the fans in Madison Square Garden. Finkle was introduced by WWE's more regular announcer at the time Justin RRRRRRRoberts, as CM Punks personal ring announcer. Partly this was a dig at his opponent that night Alberto Del Rio, who around this time had his personal ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez as a huge part of his act. In an interview with WWE.com, Howard called this moment one of his quote "top three Garden moments", and given his history in that building that says a lot. It wouldn't surprise me if Punk requested Howard also to add to him winning the WWE title at MSG. It also wouldn't surprise me if Punk wanted Finkel as his ring announcer that night as a reference to that 2003 match where Howard first introduced him.

Having said all that, the other reason this introduction is notable is far less elaborate. In the clip Howard introduces CM Punk from Philadelphia Pennsylvania, which given how tied to Chicago he is, feels really jarring to hear, like if you heard that Superman was actually from Gotham. I can't play it here in case it loses by pinfall to the dreaded YouTube Copyright system, but a link to the clip will be in the description. The explanation I've seen for this is that Punk lived in Philly at the time, and given his connection to the indies around that area, mostly Ring of Honor and his role as a trainer at ROH's wrestling school at the time, that's likely true. When recent reports came out about Punk turning up at the performance centre I wasn't all that shocked. He once described his time as a trainer at ROH's wrestling school as quote, being like "a pig in shit", which sounds a bit worse than that expression actually means. In the same interview with Loud Wire Punk also confirms that he was living in Philadelphia, so likely given that he was an unsigned talent, they didn't care too much about where they announced him from. Incidentally, the match took place in Philly, so it could also have just been to get him a pop from the crowd.

Given the nature of WWE dark matches, especially in the days where less wrestling fans were terminally online, it's possible that this was CM Punk's first WWE match, but sadly not provable definitively, unless Punk himself answers the question. But I still left a thread hanging earlier, what about Maven's claim that he is Punks first WWE opponent? It turns out I found one more match that might dispute that claim depending on how you define a WWE opponent. On the same date as the CM Punk vs Khalsa Singh match, that nights episode of Raw featured a one off appearance by the Legion of Doom, who lost a very short match to the then Raw tag team champions Rob Van Dam and Kane. This would end up being the final time the legendary Road Warriors slash Legion of Doom would appear together on WWE television, as Hawk would pass away in October 2003. What you might now know however, is that this wasn't the LOD's last WWE match, as at the following night's Smackdown taping, Hawk and Animal would wrestle in a non-televised match against a South Carolina based wrestler called Doug Delicious, and you guessed it, CM Punk. In trying to get some concrete proof that this match happened, I discovered that CM Punk in 2018 actually replied to a tweet about this match, cryptically saying "The story behind this one is great". I guess that is fairly solid evidence that the match did happen. So to finally put Maven's claim to bed, if you only count active WWE roster members then yes he is right, but he did face some genuine WWE legends beforehand, who were looking to make a comeback at the time. Some further digging for information about the LOD match led me to of all places, a July 2018 episode of Something Else to Wrestle With, the short lived WWE Network version of Bruce Prichard's podcast, which has a whole episode about CM Punk's arrival in WWE.

Bruce despite my fears going into watching this actually offers a great deal of insight. He states that Punk was perceived by WWE brass as an indie wrestler everyone was raving about, but to them didn't look like a wrestler. To quote him referring to Punks 2003 matches, "nobody saw a whole lot in him."  In 2003 Punk was wearing the long shorts similar to the ones he would wear in his Revolution 2022 match with MJF, but by 2005 he had adopted wrestling the trunks he would wear for most of his career. He also notes that other Ring of Honor talents were on their radar at the time, specifically mentioning Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe, neither of which would be signed by WWE until 2009 and 2015 respectively. Interestingly he calls Ring Honor a great place for young wrestlers to hone their craft at the time, but also says that WWE generally viewed them as "just another independent wrestling promotion. "They didn't do a lot of shows and what we did see was few and far between... There was some talent there that we knew about and kept our eye on, but it was just another place to find talent." The reason I found this interesting is simple. Take a look at the giant list of talent that was closely linked to Ring of Honor, and look at how many of them are massive stars in WWE today. You could make this point about TNA and PWG as well as they used similar talent, but the idea that ROH wasn't seen as anything special yet many of their current stars came through there is interesting to note.

Getting back to CM Punk, Conrad Thompson directly asks about his 2003 tryout matches, and we even get to see footage from both Punks's entrance that I referred to earlier, but also the match itself, showing Punk winning with a Hammerlock DDT. It's also interesting to note that John Laurinitis, who was head of talent relations at the time and later had an on screen feud with Punk, according to Bruce was advocating for Punk to be signed. Later in his career Punk would notably rage against general manager Johnny Ace, even going as far as to parody his former gimmick as one half of the Dynamic Dudes in WCW on the 2011 Slammy's episode of Raw. Finally, they briefly show a clip of the LOD match, proving that it did actually happen, though we still don't exactly know what Punk meant by "The story behind this one is great". The final thing worth drawing from this WWE Network show is that Bruce notes that his 2003 tryout matches were quote "unremarkable", and Conrad Thompson noted that he is glad they didn't sign him then, as the much respected trilogy of matches with Samoa Joe would never have happened, with the first of three ROH World title matches happening in June 2004.

I haven't been able to find any other instances of Punk working dark matches for WWE, so I guess this must be our answer. With Punk now back wrestling in a WWE ring again, I thought it might be interesting to hunt for his first time in a WWE ring. So far a match with Seth Rollins seems to be coming, with many speculating that it might grant both Punk and Rollins the Wrestlemania main event they both wanted. Sorry, to quote CM Punk, the "night four of a buy one get one free extravaganza." Here's a Fair warning you're going to see that quote flying around for the next few months, and thats nothing compared to his comments about Crown Jewell...

Sources:

CM Punk Cagematch records: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=80&page=20

Daneil Bryan vs Jamie Noble, WWE Velocity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPqasrC5MEw

Lesnar Shooting Star Press: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f__vaaneWNY

April 17th 2005 Punk & Russell Simpson vs Simon Dean & Maven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VClA_zjeUhY

Maven: I was CM Punk's first WWE opponent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5cYOXQ8aWc

May 15th 2005 Punk vs Val Venis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHiajPlPXNg

Val Venis on Punk match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSpuUC97fvY

October 21st 2011 Punk vs Ambrose FCW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMwr6FsWiLo

2003 clip on X from Richard Last @maskedwrestlers: https://twitter.com/maskedwrestlers/status/1738595021455298794

Finkel on Survivor Series appearance: https://www.wrestlezone.com/news/245533-howard-finkel-speaks-on-his-survivor-series-appearance

CM Punk Loudwire quote: https://www.ringsidenews.com/2019/10/24/cm-punk-says-he-was-a-pig-in-sht-as-a-pro-wrestling-trainer/

A pig in mud definition: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/happy+as+a+pig+in+mud

Something else to wrestle with: Enter CM Punk: https://network.wwe.com/video/74278

The year plus story of Bryan Danielson's scariest injury sources

Bryan Danielson vs Takeshi Morishima video Sources:

First Morishima match: youtube.com/watch?v=dHy6swAxsYA

Kenny King match (2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6J7z9tRghU

Eye Injury covered in F4W Newsletter (Subscription required): https://members.f4wonline.com/figure-four-weekly/f4w636-couture-shames-many-september-3-2007-89641

Gabe Sapolsky statement: https://www.pwinsider.com/ViewArticle.php?id=26242&p=1

Matches between Bryan and Morishima: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=111&nr=1694&page=2

Interview post Morishima match : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcVL3DJ6GVs&t

Wrestler quotes of genius #1: A stupid Idea from Bad Creative...

Welcome to Wrestler quotes of Genius. Where we take a look at things wrestlers said and determine what went wrong, While parodying an over 20 year old ad campaign.

"It was a stupid idea from bad creative..."

This statement came from the early days of All Elite Wrestling, and was made by Chris Jericho, but what was it in reference to? Jericho said this on episode 2 of Dynamite on October 9th 2019, making an attempt to stop the crowd from chanting "We the people", the WWE gimmick of Jake Hager. Jericho actually breaks his train of thought to shut the fans down. He's done this at other times too, famously hating being called his old Y2J nickname.

To be fair to Chris Jericho, the reason he said this was likely because he was trying to create a divide between Hager's time in WWE and his new identity in AEW, and probably to also stop fans chanting a phrase WWE maybe even still had a trademark for. When you put it like that what, Jericho said was actually clever as he shut down the chant then and there, but it's the latter part of the statement that inspired me to make this video. In the early days AEW tried harder to separate themselves from the market leader. Whether they do that enough these days is is a debate for another time, but back then they were at least making an effort to be an alternative brand. They haven't yet sunk to TNA levels of pettiness like when Road Dogg and Daddy A- nah Billy Gunn spent weeks challenging Triple H and Shawn Michaels to a fight at the Alamo, only for both to go back to WWE and even have a tag title run a few years later, but we're maybe not far off.

I'm not a fan of Jack Swagger/ Jake Hager really at all, and I haven't ever been really, but even I can admit that he achieved a fair amount of success in his WWE run, even having a World title reign to his name, well, his old name. The most I was ever invested in him as a fan would have been his time with Zeb Colter, more commonly known as Dutch Mantel, which is where the "We the People" phrase emanates. To be more specific I really liked his team with Cesaro. The man now known as Claudio Castagnoli and Hager actually had a pretty good match back in July 2022 on a Fyter Fest edition of Dynamite, that I totally forgot had happened until I was writing this video. That is a perfect reflection on Hager's AEW career, in which he has had 60 matches since February 2020, and not many that are memorable.

The Inner Circle days were, to be fair alright. His first match in the promotion occurred at Revolution 2020, at which Hager defeated Dustin Rhodes in a match most notable for two things. Firstly the build which started with Hager in storyline breaking Dustin's arm in a car door, in which the plank of wood that was there to protect Dustin's arm was visible in shot thus killing the drama of the segment, and during the match itself Jake's wife who hadn't previously been involved was for some reason creating a distraction from ringside, and never seen again in AEW after this night. Jake would during the Daily's place era of shows have a World title match with Jon Moxley, but his highlight in AEW might well have been the Stadium Stampede match at Double or Nothing 2021. Thats the second one where the Inner Circle faced the Pinnacle. The match started as a pre-tape like the first had a year earlier, and ended live in the ring surrounded by one of the first full crowds AEW was able to have. The Inner Circle ended the night by taking a bow in what was a feel good moment, now that live crowds were starting to come back to wrestling as a whole.

Ever since the Inner Circle ended Jake has been without much direction, recently relying on a purple bucket hat being a key aspect of his character. Let me put that a different way and I really want you to think about this. They took a legit tough guy, a former WWE World champion, and a legit MMA fighter and gave him an inanimate prop. He 's essentially the modern day Perry Saturn. When they finally killed that gimmick, Danhausen spoiled that by returning with the hat,  Post Inner circle, Hager has been a bit of an afterthought, yes he was part of the Jericho Appreciation Society, but he hasn't really felt like an important part of the roster for a fair while.

If I were to guess why Jake Hagers AEW booking has been so perplexing, I'd say it's because his AEW tenure has been so tied to Chris Jericho. According to Jericho himself, he requested that Hager be hired by AEW largely due to an incident that occurred in Abu Dhabi where Hager saved Jericho after he had an altercation in a night club. Again, according to Jericho who has told this story a few times on various podcasts, the person he had an issue with put a seven million dollar bounty on his life, and Hager through this time protected him. If there is truth to this story, which I'm not saying there is or isn't, I completely understand Jericho backing a man who apparently saved his life, but when you listen to Jericho tell the story it feel very reminiscent of some tall tale Hulk Hogan might tell. Like how he was nearly in Metallica or was offered the George Foreman Grill but turned it down, both of which have been debunked by the way.

The downside of Jericho's link with Hager is that when Jericho doesn't need him to be part of what he is doing, Hager seems to float along without any direction. In 2023, Jake Hager hasn't won a single match on television, with his four wins occurring on AEW Dark and Elevation which aren't even a thing anymore. His last win came in April of this year in a six man tag on Elevation. In 2022 he won three out of twelve matches, admittedly one of those was on TV and one was Anarchy in the Arena on Pay Per View. When he isn't wrestling he is usually seen standing behind Angelo Parker and Daddy Magic.

When you look at that quote, "a stupid idea from bad creative", was the purple hat any better than We the People? Was the Jericho Appreciation Society any better? Sometimes words come back to bite you like a snake eating it's own tail, which ironically was part of the Inner Circle's logo.

Sources:

Jericho/Hager Abu Dhabi story: https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2021/05/chris-jericho-recalls-bounty-being-put-on-him-during-wwe-tour/

Best of WWE: Starrcade Spectacular review

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the full video Here.

Every time I visit the WWE Network, yes, we still have it over here, their Best of WWE compilations catch my eye. To date, they've produced over a hundred of these, and they come out about monthly based on events or anniversaries that are coming up, or even wider cultural events. I once heard a man named John Carlan, who worked for WWE for 23 years in various roles from acquiring video libraries to being an instrumental part of the early WWE Network, give a fascinating interview on the Wrestlenomics podcast (link in the description), where among other things he explained that these started life during the pandemic as a way to sell older content to sports broadcasters who were struggling for programming while no live sports were running. Since then I've also seen these specials as DVD releases in shops, so they still must be making some money off them. In this video, I'm not going to be addressing too much of the stories around the matches as some of these are rabbit holes in their own right. I'm going to go through all the matches with the mindset of does each one belong on a "best of" compilation? Did they miss any glaring matches out, and are these worth your time? I'm also going to try and not spoil too much in case you want to watch any of these matches for yourself.

The most recent Best Of that WWE released was on November 17th called Starrcade Spectacular. Starrcade in it's Jim Crockett Promotions years was a thanksgiving tradition, but the '88 event and every one after it occurred in December, largely due to WWE introducing Survivor Series the year prior as their Thanksgiving competitor. WWE going out of their way to spite other companies? No... In recent years WWE brought the name back, holding house shows around Thanksgiving  in 2017,18 and 19 in North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia. Even on the first one allowing Goldust to break character, and wrestle as The Natural, Dustin Rhodes. More on him later.

Starrcade through it's years had some truly great moments, and more than a few dodgy ones as well, so I was really interested to see what would be chosen for the list. Going in there was one match I absolutely hoped would be here, and if we get to it I'll let you know what it is. Also I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matches coming up, so let me know what you think in the comments.

1) Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Greg Valentine - Dog Collar match 1983

We begin on a high note with a legit classic match. The Dog Collar match itself is one of the rarer stipulations you ever see, probably because no matter how you do it wearing that collar while wrestling must really be a gruelling experience. It's the kind of match you have to be super tough or mentally committed to take part in, and Piper vs Valentine for years has been thought of as the quintessential version. I'd argue that the two AEW ones and FTR versus the Briscoes were also great, but have we had any other truly great ones in between? Let me know if I'm forgetting any.

From the start the announcers Gordon Solie and Bob Caudle go to great lengths to put the collars and the chain between them over as much as possible, which is so important in a match like this. The more we see a weapon used, the easier it is for it to lose it's sting, so perhaps it helps that a chain connecting the necks of two wrestlers is seen seldom. More importantly though, Piper and Valentine do an excellent job of making this match look brutal, largely because it was.

On an event subtitled a Flare for the Gold featuring Ric Flair defeating Harley Race for the NWA world title. His second World title win, but also the one considered to be his coronation, this being the match they chose speaks volumes as to how good it is. It undoubtedly deserves to be on this list.

2) Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard - I Quit match  US title 1985

Admittedly having been aware of this match for maybe twenty years mainly because of it's finish, I'd never seen it until making this video, which for me feels like admitting that I've never seen Star Wars.

The most famous I Quit matches since this one have relied on all manner of gimmicks to push wrestlers to their extremes, such as Mankind crashing into what Michael Cole called an "electrical circuit board" with suspicious pyro inside it at the 99 Royal Rumble, or Batista quitting while on John Cena's shoulders as John threatened to adjust his attitude off a car. Incidentally and a bit off topic, while researching this I realised John Cena had four I Quit matches and won them all, defeating Miz and Randy Orton with his STFU, and Batista and JBL with the threat of violence.

Back to Magnum and Tully, their I quit match was focused on two men who hate each other, and the emphasis being put on how degrading it would feel for one man to surrender to the other. The match is, fitting of the story going in, an ugly brawl in a confined space, with the microphone not working as they expected it to. I loved this match. It was dramatic and tense without the need for any histrionics. I won't spoil the finish, but it is perfect for this match, and to my mind this match absolutely needs to be seen by all.

3) Ric Flair vs Lex Luger - NWA World title 1988

We move on to a World title match from the 88' Starrcade. There are certain things you expect to see on a WCW compilation, and Ric Flair in a World title match is one of them.  Looking at the list of opponents he had World title matches with in the history of the event, including Dusty Rhodes twice, Harley Race, Nikita Koloff, Sting, Ronnie Garvin, the Black Scorpion, Vader and Randy Savage, Lex Luger is an interesting choice. This is also Flair's longest Starrcade match at thirty-one minutes.

This match was the peak of a story that had been building through 1988, with Luger joining the Horsemen only to be turned on, now coming for Flair's gold. I always find a babyface Lex Luger slightly jarring to watch, he's just one of those wrestlers that I feel did better as a bad guy. The first half of the match see's Lex in almost in complete control, with Flair routinely cowering away, much as he would later on in his famous matches with Sting. It gets more interesting though when Flair finds that he can gain the upper hand by being more aggressive outside the ring, however this comes at the risk of being disqualified, and per a stipulation of this match if Flair gets DQ'ed he loses the World title to Luger. From here the match gets much more engaging, and not knowing the result going in, it felt like either man might win.

Approaching this match I wasn't sure if it would be Best Of worthy when watched in a vaccum without seeing the nearly year of story before hand, but it definitely is. This might not be one of Flairs best matches, but it could well be one of Lugers, and it helped that the crowd were with him all the way.

4) Big Van Vader vs Sting - King of Cable tournament finals 1992

The next match on the compilation is the semi main of the '92 event. To end the night The Great Muta won the BattleBowl tournament, where wrestlers qualify for a battle royal by winning a tag match with a randomly chosen partner earlier in the night. Sting vs Vader was a more of a conventional tournament final, ending the 8 man King of Cable tournament which had been taking place on television. Earlier in 92 Vader had defeated Sting at the Great American Bash for the WCW World title, and so this would be the return pay per view bout.

This was also the second of three matches for both men on this show, as they had also qualified for the Battlebowl final earlier in the night, which would take place right after this match. Just when I thought this match was going to be too similar to the Flair vs Luger match I just watched, in which Luger is clearly the more powerful and uses that to his advantage frequently, Sting shocked me by hitting a German suplex on Vader. It seemed to shock Vader too as somehow his mask came off. In the end what could have really hurt this match, both men being clearly tired from wrestling earlier actually helps the story being told, as Sting does his best to try and outlast Vader, even drawing him in and taking some brutal looking punches in an effort to wear the bigger man out. This one also belongs on the Best Of, but I nearly decided it didn't until the tense last few minutes and great finish.

5) Dustin Rhodes vs Stunning Steve Austin - US championship 1993

I'll admit I probably watched this with a bit of bias, as Dustin Rhodes is one of those wrestlers that was never a top star, but I've always been a fan of. Also, it's frigging Steve Austin on the other side of the ring. Not just Steve Austin, but Hollywood Blond (yet very much Texan) Steve Austin. I also once saw another match between these two that liked a lot, a 15 minute draw from Halloween Havoc 1991.

This one is a two out of three falls match for the WCW US title, and is one of the longer matches on this compilation at twenty-three minutes. If you only knew Stone Cold in his latter years, you could be forgiven for not knowing that earlier in his career, he was a very good wrestler too. It also amuses me when Tony Schiovone claims on commentary that these two will dominate WCW into the next decade, well, not quite Tony...

In case you couldn't tell I gave this match a green tick as well. I promise theres some crosses coming soon, but not yet, as the next match is also from the 1993 Starrcade, and it's that match I referenced at the start, that I hoped would be on this show.

6) Vader vs Ric Flair - WCW World title 1993

I don't quite know why, as this match isn't a technical classic by any means, but it's one I absolutely love and go back to maybe once a year. It's a match where not just Vader's WCW World title was on the line, but also Ric Flair's career. Given some of the events of recent years I wonder if Ric wishes that he'd lost on this night? Given that Vader had already defended the title against Flair on a Clash of the Champions the month previous, Flair had to put his career at risk before Vader would accept his challenge.

The legacy around this match, in brief, is Flair not being willing to take Vader's stiff style like others did. Unlike Shawn Michaels who dealt with Vader in his own way, Flair fought back and in turn, the match felt more dramatic for it. Flair's version of events from his podcast is that he and Vader planned nothing going in, but when Vader was punching too hard Flair quote "lit him up" and "blackened both of his eyes. He specifically mentions an exchange on the outside of the ring where he really goes after Vader.

Ric Flair is not a man well associated with shooting in matches, quite the opposite in fact. Flair claimed in the 30 for 30 documentary about his life that he would as a younger man practice his worked punches by hanging up a piece of string, and attempting to convincingly punch it without the string moving. When people talk about the best punchers in wrestling names like Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk come up a lot, but I've got to give Flair some credit for that too. This one also gets a tick from me.

7) Jushin Liger vs Rey Mysterio 1996

It wouldn't be a WCW list without some good cruiserweight action. In 2018, Rey Mysterio went to New Japan, debuting on the same night as the famous Omega vs Okada rematch, so it's fair to see why Rey being there might have been forgotten by many fans. He wrestled one more match for them later in the year, even challenging Jushin Thunder Liger to a match that would never take place, as Rey re-signed with WWE. Thankfully though, we still have their match in WCW, which took place at the 96 Starrcade.

A very svelte looking Mysterio was just six months into his WCW career, but had spent half of those six months as Cruiserweight champion, beating Dean Malenko in only his fifth televised match in July, and losing it back to Dean in October. Liger however, while not a WCW regular, had been appearing for the company since 1991, so you could consider him established. His first WCW pay per view being the '91 Starrcade, taking part in the BattleBowl tournament that I referenced earlier

Back to their 96 match, rather annoyingly the crowd greets the hispanic and Japanese wrestlers with a 'USA' chant at the opening bell. It's really cool by the way to hear recent Impact Hall of Famer Mike Tenay on commentary, as the professor has been long renowned for his knowlege of international wrestling. In the early going this match might not be what you would expect, as Liger keeps the pace slow, and uses his size to power over Rey, however when Rey gets control, the match speeds up. The match isn't really helped by the four commentators, Schiovone, Heenan, Tenay and Dusty Rhodes bickering from time to time, with Dusty halting everyone in their tracks by being amused at Tenay calling a Dragon Screw leg whip. Is this one of the greatest Starrcade matches? Likely not, but it's certainly not a bad one, and it is still cool to see these two in a singles match.

While it's easy to see why the match between these two legends was picked, there is another match from the same show that possibly should have been picked over it. In the opener of the night Dean Malenko defended the Cruiserweight title against Ultimo Dragon in arguably the better match of the two. 

8) Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper 1996

Oh boy. Well at least this wasn't their naff cage match which happened at the 97 Halloween Havoc. The match Jim Cornette in a rant he did on Raw called 'Age in a Cage', around the same time as the creation of Hell in a Cell. Like Ric Flair, there is another thing that is a given on a WCW compilation, NWO interference.

If you can't tell, I fully expected this match to be the driz- to be not very good. One thing it is, is profoundly strange to be seeing a heel Hogan, still fairly new heel Hogan by the way, against a babyface Roddy Piper, as when you think of these two you tend to think of their 80's WWF days where the roles were reversed.

Admittedly I didn't find this as bad as I expected, but there was a whole lot of Hogan stalling around ringside, as well as a fan run in at a suspiciously timed moment when the referee was right about to see outside interference. It might well have been real but the timing made it look sus. Add to that a confusing finish that I won't reveal here, but it involves the belt Hogan carried to the ring. Should this be on here, maybe not when you could have included Hogan vs Sting from '97, which had an even more dodgy finish, but is a way more famous match also, though it's also worth noting that they've made a load of these specials and so are maybe looking for less famous matches to include by now.

9) Eddie Guerrero vs Dean Malenko - Cruiserweight title 1997

It's very interesting to me that they didn't include anything from the last three WCW Starrcades, so this is technically your main event. It's also from a fairly critically panned pay per view, with this match, the opener by the way, oft considered the best of the night.

By December '97 Dean and Eddie knew each other very well, having wrestled many times in WCW and before that in ECW. As a result this match includes some very cool counters, such as Eddie going for his arm drag from the top rope, only for Dean to catch him in a stiff looking powerbomb. While I would never call this a bad match, I wouldn't call it one of the best of Starrcade. One match I'd include over this is the triangle ladder match from Starrcade 2000 between 3 Count, the Jung Dragons and the team of Jamie Noble and Evan Karagias. Or if you want bigger stars but still want the cruiserweight theme, the triple threat match from 1998 between Billy Kidman, Juventud Guerrera and Rey Mysterio.

So whats my final verdict? If you like me aren't the most expert WCW fan, the early half of this compilation might be for you, but the latter might have you looking for alternatives. It's also interesting that every match they chose was a singles match, surely there could have been a tag team match thrown in somewhere to provide something different. Nine singles matches in a row took me a while to get though Overall, I'd recommend this Best Of, and I look forward to finding out what WWE Network has in store for December's best of WWE.

Sources:

series list https://thetvdb.com/series/the-best-of-wwe/allseasons/official

Wrestlenomics John Carlan interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tcdxlraLug