Would You Go To This Show? Volume Fourteen

The fourteenth installment of Would You Go To This Show brings us to Little Rock, Arkansas for a World Championship Wrestling live event. The event took place on January 3rd, and has a rather interesting main event.

A little bit of a background before looking at the card. The New World Order is full steam ahead with Hogan, Nash and Hall dominating the company. Sting hasn’t competed in a match since September and was routinely up in the rafters. As you’ll see for the show, there was a lot of changes shortly after the show, which I’ll touch upon.

Opening Contest: Big Bubba vs. Jim Duggan:
A battle between two former Mid-South talents to kick off the program. However, at this point it’s a far cry from 1986 and both men had developed a routine that didn’t require much effort. That was more so Duggan. I don’t know why, but Duggan has managed to remain entertaining and in 1997 he still came across motivated. I have a feeling he’d be able to get crowd involvement going very well and while the match would probably suck, Duggan would make it fun, I’d imagine.

Second Contest: Syxx vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Right at the beginning of the rise of DDP in WCW, but not nearly at the level in which he would reach by the spring and summer of ’97 with his feud against Randy Savage, which made him a main event act in the company. Syxx, previously known as The Kid in WWF, is a solid worker and the match intrigues me to see. I’d imagine the offense by Page would look even better due to Syxx’s ability to sell. I’d sit through this to see how it went.

Third Contest: Lex Luger vs. Arn Anderson
It’s one of the last few appearances for Anderson in WCW after suffering a neck injury in ’96. I’ve never been a huge fan of Luger, so he wouldn’t make me want to see this match all that much. It would be cool to see Anderson live, though and Luger being a top name doesn’t hurt.

Fourth Contest: WCW United States Champion Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit
Did these two ever have a bad match? It’s likely that it would be the match of the night and easily the match to this point on the card. This would be one of the matches I’d be most looking forward to seeing and hopefully they’d get 15-20 minutes to put on a hell of a match that they are more than capable of providing for an audience. You can’t ever go wrong with these two in the squared circle.

Fifth Contest: Jeff Jarrett vs. Psychosis
This is a rather interesting matchup that has me intrigued because it could be a really fun match. Psychosis had always been rather underrated due to guys like Rey, Juventud and Kidman being the top three Cruiserweights at one point or another. Jarrett, while some people love and other hate him, is a solid performer and is capable of good match with a smaller opponent. I’d actually be interested in this to see how they worked together.

Sixth Contest: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko:
Similar to the Benoit/Guerrero match, have these guys ever had a bad match? I’d imagine that this would be different with a more fast pace and high flying kind of match while Benoit/Guerrero would be more wrestling base with various variations of a suplex and whatnot. Malenko and Mysterio had several fun matches in ’96 and this is a match I wouldn’t want to miss in ’97, I’d say.

Seventh Contest: WCW World Tag Team Champion The Outsiders vs. The Nasty Boys vs. Faces Of Fear:
By the end of ’96 the Nasty Boys had become an out of date act and weren’t entertaining like they had been from ’93 through most of ’96. I’d be more interested in just an Outsiders/Faces of Fear match because Meng and Barbarian are believable bad asses and seeing them get some stiff shots in on the champs would be entertaining even if they were to lose the match. New World Order is on fire and seeing Hall and Nash live would be another benefit to the show. This match kind of shows how weak the tag division was going into ’97 with credible challengers outside of Harlem Heat and Steiner Brothers.

Main Event: The Giant vs. Sting:
For the longest time I was under the impression that Sting hadn’t competed in a match since Fall Brawl in September ’96. He didn’t wrestle until he met Hogan at Starrcade in December ’97. However, that wasn’t the case instead he wrestled Giant at a random house show event with zero build and it ended in a no contest. Sting’s popularity wouldn’t explode until a few months later, but he was one of my personal favorites for the longest time in WCW. So, knowing he hadn’t competed for several months and likely not competing again for eleven months after this, how would I not want to see this match?

Well, this looks to be a show I’d attend and probably actually try to get good seats for. Rey/Dean, Benoit/Guerrero, DDP/Syxx, Jarrett/Psychosis and The Outsiders make for an attractive show to attend. There really isn’t anything overly crappy on the show. This is a show that is a perfect example of how good WCW could be.

Now the real question is… would you go to this show?

Thanks for reading.