Rob Reviews: Starrcade ’89: Future Shock

Rob Faint

Sting.  Ric Flair. The Road Warriors. The Steiners.  Lex Luger.  The Great Muta.  Put them all together, what do you get?  Starrcade 1989 Future Shock. 

Starrcade 1989 was made up of 2 parts: an Iron Man single tournament and a tag team one.  For the singles you have Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger and the Great Muta.  They would wrestle each other with a point system: 20 points for a pinfall or submission victory, 15 for a countout victory, 10 for a disqualification victory, 5 for a time-limit draw and 0 for a loss. Terry Funk and Jim Ross on commentary.

The tag teams: The Steiners, Road Warriors, Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed in masks) and the new Wild Samoans (replacing the Skyscrapers).  Same rules apply.  Jim Cornette and Jim Ross on commentar

The first match was Doom w/Woman vs the Steiners.  It’s a good match with the advantage switching back and forth.  Rick eventually beats Simmons back to the ring and gets a countout victory for his team and 15 points.  Fun Fact 1: Nitron, Woman’s bodyguard, is also known as Tyler Mane, the man who played Sabretooth in the first 3 X-Men movies.

Next, a singles match between US champ Luger and Sting.  Sting controls the action, but Luger wins with his feet on the ropes.  20 points to Luger.  This match is a great reminder of what a great athlete Sting was.  He is coming off the career making match at the Clash of Champions and this PPV is another push to the main event. 

Match 3 is the Road Warriors vs Doom.  It’s a back-and-forth affair with the Roadies winning by pinfall.  20 points to them.  I wonder how they got Simmons and Reed to wear masks.  In all the articles I have read they never really explain why.

Flair vs the undefeated Muta next.  It’s a short match, with interference from the Horsemen and the J-Tex Corporation.  Muta goes for a moonsault but Flair raises his knees and cradles Muta.  20 points for Flair.  I’m not sure why this match was so short. 

The Steiners vs the Road Warriors are next.  The crowd is silent for the most part, they don’t know who to cheer and who to boo.  The match ends with Animal and Scott Steiner’s shoulders both on the mat.  Scott raises his at the 2 count.  A big win for the Steiners considering the Roadies rarely ever lost by pinfall. 

Muta vs the Stinger in a battle of 2 men that need a victory.  Sting pins Muta cleanly after a superplex.  After an undefeated streak Muta has lost 2 straight matches.

We finally see the Samoans in action vs Doom, who are playing spoilers at this point.  Unfortunately, they fail, the Samoans take the victory and Doom ends up with 0 points. 

Luger vs Flair is next.  It’s an evenly fought match that ends with Luger trapped in the figure-four.  The time limit expires, and the match is declared a draw.  One of the better matches of the night.

The Samoans vs the Steiners is match 9.  The Samoans bring it to the Steiners, delivering a serious amount of punishment.  The Samoans win the match when Scott is disqualified for throwing Fatu over the top rope. Fun Fact 2: The Samoan team is made up of Fatu (otherwise known as Rikishi) and Samu (who later became a Headshrinker). 

Luger vs Muta is match 10.  Muta controls the action, but Muta eventually loses by DQ when he sprays his green mist in Luger’s face.  Muta is shut out.  Within 3 months Muta would lose the TV title and go back to Japan. In the end I think that kid Muta did ok for himself. 

Our second to last match (and last tag team match) are the Samoans vs the Road Warriors.  After a decent match the Roadies win the match and the Iron Man tournament. 

The main event is Flair vs Sting.  An interesting backstory to this match is that the 2 men have been partners at that time, battling Muta and the J-Tex Corp.  Now they meet in the Finals.  Another great match between the 2 men ending with a pinfall victory for Sting and the title of Iron Man. 

Jim Ross was not a fan of this PPV, even though it was his idea!  He claims no one on the booking committee could come up with a better idea.  He also claims that no one wanted to lose which made it difficult to book. 

In the end Starrcade 1989 had mixed reviews. While Sting and the Steiners careers prospered, the Road Warriors, the Samoans and Muta all found themselves leaving WCW soon after.  And the concept has never been used again.