(Starrcade ‘83: A Flair For The Gold)
(Ed. Note: I found this letter from Justin…it showed up about a week too late for Mania, but I would be remis if I didn’t publish it. He’s found himself traveling between times it seems and while that boggles my mind in ways that I have never even conceived, he’s our own wrestling Dr. Who as it were)
Weirdness continues to stalk me through the veil of time.
As I was preparing to see some of the opening shots of The Monday Night War and parse through how Mongo McMichaels was going to turn being cucked by Ric Flair into employment opportunities, I was thrown even further back in time. Not-Areostar was there to meet me however, picking me up off the pavement as another time vortex/temporal whirlpool hot tub ripped through my Motel 6 suite, depositing me in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1983.
To the very first STARRCADE!
As my friends in the prime timeline prepare for The Slovenly StepUncle of Them All, WrestleMania, I got a chance to see how “the other half’s” bigger show started! And it’s…really fucking weird!
Kicking off WCW’s (then NWA, but not THAT NWA, ya see) “iconic” run of Starrcades, Starrcade ‘83 found the promotion in a sort of transitory period. As the WWF is starting to gain traction on cable TV (and gleefully drinking the lifeblood of the Territories),Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA are still very much caught in the problematic tangle and story conventions of “old-school” wrestling, telecasting their productions to a diehard (but dwindling) fanbase on closed circuit television.
Anchored by the mainstays of the JCP, like Harley “Your Dad’s Scariest Friend” Race, Greg “The Hammer Man” Valentine, and tag champs The Briscoes, stars and feuds from various other still-standing promotions (most notably the World Wrestling Council) are added to the show, padding out the card itself and adding a strange scope to the show overall.
Obviously, this is a very far cry from the more methodically packaged and over-produced feuds of the current era, but it gives the show an oddly compelling mix of high and low storytelling.
The highs are extremely high. The main event of ‘83 is an emotionally charged Steel Cage showdown between Race and Flair ( who is acting as the BABYFACE of the feud which is just absolutely nuts to see as an adult). Informed by vicious attacks in the weeks leading up to the show from Race henchmen Bob “Sorry About Randy” Orton, Jr and Dick “Later” Slater, Flair comes into the match on the backfoot. Nowhere near the cocksure “master manipulator” we know and love in the prime timeline.
Instead this is a scrappy, almost hungry Flair. Despite him winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship (this “ten pounds of gold” STILL in rotation today…erm…tomorrow. Tenses are weird in time.) not two years prior from Dusty Rhodes in KC (that’s Southerner for Kansas City), Flair had a rough go of being accepted as champion by the rowdy and more than a little racist fans of this time. This led to him dropping it once more to Race, kicking off his own seventh reign as champion leading into the Flare For The Gold. Which he then tries to keep secured by putting a gawddamn BOUNTY on Flair’s head, collected by Slater and Orton, and allowing him a more powerful position going into the first Starrcade.
This same hunger also extends into the tag team division of NWA. As Ricky “The Dragon GOAT” Steamboat and the immensely underrated Jay Youngblood take on The Briscos for the NWA World Tag Team belts. You see, while Flair is defending his life in the lead up to this supershow, Ricky and Jay are some of the only people to come to his aid, filling out various house shows with a myriad of six man tag matches (enough to make Teddy Long’s fucking head explode)and dust ups coming to Flair’s aid.
The only real trouble is, The Briscoes are the ones with the tag belt and thus the narrative prestige needed for Jay and Ricky to become the true big fucking deals we know (or knew?) they were. It all culminates it some spectacular matches for all parties involved, with Flair, Ricky, and Jay all going way the hell over on the night and securing their straps. Moreover, even watching it, it feels like a real “passing of the torch” moment for them all, setting them up within the stratas of their respective divisions and allowing the audiences to fully accept them going into the next cycle of storytelling.
However, those lows I talked about are still here too. Despite being a pretty open example of the gory and sometimes skin-crawling work of the Territory Era, I failed to see what this brought to matches involved, even several buckets deep into 1983 beer. Carlos Colon, somewhat slumming it here, has another slow-and-bloody-as-hell hell match with Abdullah “Yes, I’m Still Alive” The Butcher, a carryover from their long-standing feud throughout various promotions. Which is…fine, I guess.
Charlie Brown From Outta Town, Who Is Absolutely NOT Disgusting Pervert Jimmy Valiant defends his mask against NWA TV Champ The Great Kabuki and ends up winning the title, only to scream a coke-fueled promo where he thanks HIMSELF to Tony Schivone moments later. Again, fine, but I’ve never really seen the point or value in Not Jimmy Valiant so I sort of milled around the arena at this point, trying not step on any chewing tobacco covered butterflies as I wandered.
Some very interesting curios here however in a quick but clean squash match in which Kevin “Booked His Own Divorce” Sullivan and Mark “who?” Lewin put the boots to some Local Talent, which was fun enough. Also interesting was seeing how Roddy “Not Quite Rowdy Yet” Piper lost 75% of his hearing at the deadly hammered hands of Greg Valentine in a Dog Collar match. Cody eat your fucking heart out. This was always something of a legend to me back in the prime timeline so seeing just how brutalist it was alongside the clear technical skill of Piper and Valentine (both somewhat hitting their peaks here in ‘83) was an unexpected treat for me.
All told, an odd show, but one with genuine spark and heavy narrative implications if you were willing to put in the time for it. A STARK AS HELL contrast to the current product of the prime timeline, but a strong root of what both WCW (and AEW) would become as well as what they strive once more to recreate for you poor, time locked souls having to experience entropy with a linear perspective.
You poor bastards.
I am not sure where or when I will be next, but I am sure we will get there together. And to my colleagues in the prime timeline I say, please do not worry for my mind and soul. Just keep reaching for that Brass Ring and one day soon we will all pound our happy fists on the apron together once more. Hopefully admiring the god-like form of Cesaro or being screamed at by Maki Itoh.
From ‘83 and Me,
J.P.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
