Starrcade (1992)
Starrcade (1992): BattleBowl/The Lethal Lottery II was a major annual professional wrestling show, broadcast on pay-per-view (PPV) that took place on December 28, 1992 from The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. The show was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and was the 10th overall show under that banner since its inception in 1983. The focus of the show was the second ever "Lethal Lottery" / "Battle Bowl" tournament where randomly paired tag teams competed for a spot in the Battle Bowl battle royal at the end of the night. The show also saw Ron Simmons defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, the team of Shane Douglas and Ricky Steamboat putting the WCW World Tag Team Championship on the line against the team of Brian Pillman and Barry Windham and Masahiro Chono defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against The Great Muta. In addition Sting faced off against Vader in the finals of the "King of Cable" tournament.
It was also the last WCW Pay Per View for legendary announcer Jim Ross who would leave for WWE shortly there after.
WCW closed in 2001 and all rights to their television and PPV shows was bought by WWE, including the Starrcade series.
In 2015, All WCW pay-per-views were made available on the WWE Network.
Production
Background
From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was tradition for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) member Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) to hold major professional wrestling events atThanksgiving and Christmas, often at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina in the center of JCP's Virginia, North and South Carolina territory. In 1983, JCP created Starrcade as their supercard to continue the Thanksgiving tradition, bringing in wrestlers from other NWA affiliates and broadcasting the show its territory on closed-circuit television.[1] Starrcade soon became the flagship event of the year for JCP (later World Championship Wrestling, WCW), their Super Bowl event featuring their most important storyline feuds and championship matches. In 1987 the show became available by nationwide pay-per-view (PPV) as were all subsequent Starrcade shows. In 1988 JCP was sold to Ted Turner and by 1990 it was renamed World Championship Wrestling, continuing the Starrcade tradition. The 1992 event was the tenth show to use the Starrcade name and the fourth Starrcade to take place at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia
Storylines
The Starrcade show featured a number of professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing, scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (those that portray the "bad guys") or faces (the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. The first match of the "Lethal Lottery" was drawn at random as part of the Clash of the Champions XXI show on November 18, 1992 which paired Johnny B. Badd and up Cactus Jack to face the team of Van Hammer and Danny Spivey defeated as part of the Starrcade show.[2] Sting won the first BattleBowl at the 1991 Starrcade and thus was guaranteed to be one of the 16 wrestlers in the tournament.
Event
Ron Simmons was originally scheduled to defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Rick Rude, but Rude was injured in the weeks prior to the show and had to be replaced by "Dr. Death" Steve Williams instead. The "King of Cable" tournament was an eight-man tournament conducted to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of wrestling airing on TBS Superstation.
Results
See also
References
