WCW Starrcade 1989: Future Shock

When Vince McMahon took WWE national in the mid to late 1980s his big strategy was to remould the company from what he considered to be ‘pro wrestling’ into a vision of ‘sports entertainment’. McMahon saw the way wrestling had been run for decades, which was looked down on by modern media executives, as being a hindrance to its growth in a world that was going to become ever more obsessed with mass media platforms as time went on. It was, he felt, a necessity that WWE position itself as something other than ‘pro wrestling’ and instead frame the company’s output as more of a variety performance. To accomplish this, WWE’s content and production slowly changed from 1983 to 1989. It went from a largely wrestling heavy, match to match presentation, with lead babyface Bob Backlund (a straight laced, all American good guy) and minimal allowances for flashy lighting, entrance themes and skits to a glitzy, star-studded pageant contest of cartoonish superheroes and villains. In the middle of all this, the wrestling, while still the main focus and selling point of the promotion, was understated- over the top promos, fancy video packages, cartoonish skits and elaborate entrances started to infringe on the time allotted to the matches- even at pay-per-views.

WWE In Your House: Badd Blood

WWE In Your House: Badd Blood is a fascinating snapshot of WWE at a time when everything was about to change in ways that couldn’t have been imagined at the time, mainly due to the fact that things already seemed to be changing in ways nobody could have imagined just a few months before. Going on air a matter of hours after the death of Brian Pillman and with details of what had happened to him still filtering through, there is an atmosphere of shell-shock that grips this show through the disjointed commentary, unconvincing undercard action and underwhelming crowd noise that pervades most of the matches. While it would be churlish to suggest that Pillman’s death was not a massively significant moment (to his peers, his family and to the wrestling world at the time- it was devastating), there is a sense that history remembers the night more for the events that would take place in the ring near the end of the broadcast, than the untimely death of a trailblazer worthy of celebration.