- Your hosts are Tony & David.

- We have apparently skipped a week, as the show kicks off with footage of Paul Ellering slapping Jim Cornette on the September 13 show, and we didn't get that one.

- The Bill & Budro Show kick things off by promising to win the US tag titles and challenge Ric Flair for the millionth time.

Baron Von Raschke v. Tom Barrett

Hopefully this means no other Paul Jones Army this week. Baron works on an armbar to start and rips at the face, then takes him down and works the leg. Tony notes that Ravishing Rick Rude has joined the Paul Jones Army, which means that the Manny Fernandez heel turn should be any week now since they're the next tag team champions. Clawhold finishes at 2:08.

- Jim Cornette says his mistake was letting Big Bubba have the week off to visit Mama Cornette last week, but the Midnight Express destroyed the Road Warriors and injured Animal anyway. And I MISSED IT? Fuck!

- Ric Flair and Baby Doll (and his Rolex) are out to complain about Dusty Rhodes winning the TV title from Arn Anderson. He's coming to all the nothing-happening towns in the Midwest, where the women are clearly starved for a real man like himself, and Dusty should be there.

The Rock N Roll Express v. Mike Simiani & Gene Ligon

Hey hey, the new NWA World tag titles debut here! I actually thought Rude & Fernandez had the old-style ones so I wasn't expecting that. The announcers don't even mention it, so they probably debuted LAST week and I missed that too. The RNR double-team Ligon into a dropkick from Ricky, and he controls with an armbar. Over to Simiani and Ricky chinlocks him off a snapmare. Robert elbows him down and Ricky drops a knee for two, and the double dropkick finishes at 2:55.

- America's Team is ready for the tag title tournament!

- Tully Blanchard isn't shaking in his $700 shoes at the thought of Dusty Rhodes and his TV title.

Arn Anderson v. Jack Jackson

Jack Jackson? Arn promises that whatever happens to this jobber is on Dusty's head. Well, he is the booker. Arn drops a knee and works on the arm, really cranking on it. Some smart-ass redneck in the front row yells out "That don't hurt! It wouldn't hurt Dusty!" Arn gets the spinebuster and gourdbuster to finish at 3:46. I bet Dusty doesn't even CARE that the poor kid jobbed for him.

- Thankfully, we get the footage of last week's show, as Cornette reels off every insult against the Road Warriors he can think of, until Paul Ellering comes out and smacks him down. The Road Warriors proceed to squashing a couple of geeks, but the Midnights jump them and Eaton drops a pair of flying knees on Animal's neck. Cornette notes that it's not a loaded racket, but rather his pure strength that put Ellering down. And then back on this week's show, Condrey actually gets to cut a promo! I've never actually heard him give one before.

- The Russians are out to run down the list of potential victims for Nikita Koloff.

The Kansas Jayhawks v. Tony Zane & Pablo Crenshaw

Dutch powers Zane down and stomps him, and the Jayhawks pinball him in the corner before Jaggers elbows him down. Over to Crenshaw and he gets beaten down on cue, and Mantell chokes him out on the ropes. Jaggers with a DDT for two. They switch off with chinlocks and a Doomsday Device finishes at 3:53.

Ron Garvin & Dick Murdoch v. The Mulkey Brothers

Garvin is now the Mid-Atlantic heavyweight champion, having beaten Black Bart between the last episode and this one, and in fact he is the final one as Crockett starts to consolidate the titles into the one promotion. Garvin controls Bill on the mat and Murdoch works on the arm. Garvin ties him up and tortures him a little, and Murdoch elbows him down before finishing with the brainbuster at 2:46.

- Wahoo isn't gonna come out here and complain about the NWA's ruling, so he'll just have to beat Nikita Koloff and unify the titles instead. And that’s it for this week, as it's a really short show.

And we wrap this bad boy up with the top five in the fan-voted countdown of best Starrcade matches ever, leading up to the DVD. Before we begin, let's recap the previous 20 choices…

#25: Hulk Hogan v. Rowdy Roddy Piper (1996)

#24: Sting v. The Great Muta (1989)

#23: WCW World tag titles: Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas v. Barry Windham & Brian Pillman (1992)

#22: WCW World title: Goldberg v. Kevin Nash (1998)

#21: Battlebowl Battle Royale (1991)

#20: US title: Dustin Rhodes v. Steve Austin (1993)

#19: NWA World tag team titles: Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson v. The Road Warriors (1987)

#18: Jushin Liger v. Rey Mysterio (1996)

#17: Skywalkers match: The Rock N Roll Express v. The Midnight Express (1986)

#16: NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Lex Luger (1988)

#15: Eddie Guerrero v. Shinjiro Ohtani (1995)

#14: NWA World Tag team title: The Road Warriors v. Dusty Rhodes & Sting (1988)

#13: King of Cable final: Sting v. Big Van Vader (1992)

#12: NWA World Tag title: The Brisco Brothers v. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (1983)

#11: NWA World title: Ric Flair v. Dusty Rhodes (1985)

#10: WCW Cruiserweight title: Eddie Guerrero v. Dean Malenko (1997)

#9: The Steiner Brothers v. The Road Warriors (1989)

#8: Ladder match: 3 Count v. Knoble & Karagias v. The Jung Dragons (2000)

#7: Sting v. Ric Flair (1989)

#6: Roddy Piper v. Greg Valentine (1983)

- Hosted by Jim Ross.

#5: Skywalker match: The Road Warriors v. The Midnight Express

From Starrcade '86. This is more about drama and storyline than match quality. Hawk was actually working this match with a broken leg, so wow. No wonder he was on painkillers. Props to everyone for bravery because if I had to climb that rickety-ass scaffolding and walk around I'd be crapping myself. The Warriors beat the Express down to start, but Bobby tosses powder around to gain the advantage, but the Warriors punch and kick them down again and Bobby even manages to blade up there. The Express tries to climb down to the bottom to escape, but the Warriors follow them down and boot them off for the win at 7:13. It's just not a very good match. * The more historic part occurs when the Warriors chase Cornette up the scaffolding and knock him off, as Cornette has calculated that hanging from the bottom and then dropping to the mat would only be a six foot fall, but it ended up blowing out both knees and messing him up for the rest of his life. The whole story he tells in shoot interviews about how he wanted Bubba to carry him to the back and couldn't get the message across is hilarious stuff.

#4: WCW World title: Hulk Hogan v. Sting

From Starrcade '97. Y'all know the deal here, I'm sure. If you want to see the exact moment when Sting reached his peak as a star, it's the moment just before he steps into the ring for the first time in 18 months. It's all downhill from there, sadly, because once he started wrestling again everyone remembered that oh yeah, it's just Sting. They do the power matchup and Hogan pounds him down to start, then slugs away in the corner and follows with the corner clothesline. He gets a slam, but misses a series of elbows and Sting dropkicks him to the floor, which gives Hulk the chance to stall. Back in, Hulk tries a headlock, but Sting fires back with another dropkick to send him out. They've just totally managed to kill the hottest crowd possible in the span of 5 minutes and it's astonishing that people this incompetent somehow managed to make money for so long. Back in and Sting works on a headlock, but Hulk fires back with a clothesline and gets a suplex. Sting no-sells that (ooh, a suplex, what a superhero) and fires back in the corner, but Hogan rakes the eyes to kill the momentum yet again. They brawl on the floor and Hogan clubs him down and sends him into the post, basically making him look like a total chump. Sting charges and splashes the railing as a result, and Hogan brings him back in for an atomic drop. Big boot and legdrop finishes clean at 11:18 (although of course the count was supposed to be "fast"), and Sting looks like the biggest jobber who ever jobbed. And to make it worse, Bret Hart stops the bell from ringing for no reason, tosses Hogan back in, and restarts the match, allowing Sting to get the Stinger splash and fight off the nWo before finishing with the Scorpion deathlock at 12:56. So Sting looks terrible, Bret Hart looks like a whiner, and Hogan would go on to win the title a bunch more times. Just so awful on so many levels, but you certainly can't deny the historic aspect of it. 1/2* Once again, this should have been five minutes long and featured Sting beating the hell out of Hogan like Luger did to him in August.

#3: NWA World title: Harley Race v. Ric Flair.

This is a cage match, and the main event of the first ever Starrcade in 1983. Gene Kiniski is the special referee. Lockup and Flair takes him down with a headlock, which gets him nowhere. Flair starts him with a chop and goes back to the headlock, but Race breaks on the ropes and gives him a knee. Flair returns the favor on the other side and chinlocks him, which turns into another headlock, but Race gets the high knee. He misses the falling headbutt, and Flair chops him down for one. Back to the headlock for Flair, but Race rolls him over a few times, and Flair rolls over into a facelock instead. He holds on and tries a suplex out of it, but Race reverses for his own, and gets two. Elbowdrop misses and Flair goes for a slam, but Race falls on top for two. Race drops a knee (all this use of the knee remind you of anyone?) and some more in the corner for the choke, but Kiniski pulls him off. Race keeps pounding Flair down and drops another knee, setting up a piledriver and an elbowdrop for two. Race sees the bad neck and drops an elbow on it, and a neckbreaker gets two. He drops more knees on the neck, drawing a count from Kiniski. Race lets him up and then tosses him into the cage, which (surprisingly) doesn’t draw blood. Shoulderbreaker gets two. Flair comes back and slugs away at the gut of Race, but a headbutt puts Flair down again and Race drops a headbutt. Back to the cage goes Flair, but he fights back, so Race puts him into the cage again, and now there’s blood. Race goes to work on the cut in the corner, but Kiniski pulls him off and Flair comes back with chops. Race sneaks in with a headbutt, however, and tries to whip Flair into the corner, but it’s reversed and both are out. Race goes into the cage and now he’s bleeding, so Flair goes to work with a kneedrop and starts going to work on the cut. Piledriver gets two. Now Flair goes for the neck, which is almost an anomaly considering his usual MO, and gets a butterfly suplex for two. Back to the cage a couple of times, drawing the ire of Gene Kiniski, but Race goes low with a headbutt to turn the tide again. Flair eats some cage in dramatic fashion, but keeps fighting back. Race keeps slugging him down, but Flair chops him down for two. Elbowdrop and he peppers Race with fists and does some strutting (and bleeding), and a backdrop suplex sets up the figure-four. Race powers him over, however, and they’re in the ropes. Race headbutts him down again, but a suplex attempt is reversed by Flair for two. Race headbutts him down again and goes up with a diving headbutt, which gets two. Vertical suplex gets two. Race keeps working on the cut, which has now turned Flair’s hair red and sends him back into the cage again, but now Kiniski drags Race away by the hair to break it up. Race goes for another suplex, which Flair reverses to a delayed vertical suplex, but he misses an elbowdrop. Race grabs another headlock, but accidentally headbutts Kiniski. They slug it out in the corner and Flair staggers Race, and goes up with a flying bodypress, as they trip over Kiniski and Flair gets the pin and the title at 24:01. This was a slower pace than most fans today would probably be accustomed to, but it all top-shelf stuff, with perfect execution throughout. The only flaw would probably be Kiniski’s refereeing job, but you can’t really hold that against the wrestlers. *****

#2: US title, I Quit Match: Tully Blanchard v. Magnum TA

I know they probably wanted a Flair match on top of the countdown, but I'm sorry, there's no way this isn't the greatest match in the history of Starrcade and a contender for one of the greatest matches of all-time, period. I know people really like my original rant on the match, but I love this one so we'll do it one more time. This match is pure hatred and rage and seeing all the buildup on 24/7 from week to week on World Championship Wrestling just makes it all the greater. The dynamic is like Ric Flair v. Dusty Rhodes, but good. Sadly, this would prove to be the high point of Magnum's seemingly unlimited potential, as the car accident ended his career before he could claim his destiny at Starrcade '86. Magnum immediately wins a slugfest and sends Tully reeling, and they tussle on the mat as a result. Tully gets a cheapshot and fires away with forearms, but Magnum fires back with REDNECK RAGE and Tully runs to the apron, getting nowhere. Magnum pounds him on the ropes, but Tully runs him into the seam of the cage and cuts him open right away. Magnum powers out of a chinlock in a famous iconic image, and then presses Tully onto the top rope, but Tully fires back with a knee to the gut. TA unloads on him again, but Tully leverages him into the cage and grabs the mic for the first time, but Magnum fights him off and then runs him into the cage via a hammerlock. Then it gets nasty, as Tully's arm is cut and Magnum rips at the gash and shoves the mic in his face. Tully answers by headbutting him in the nuts. Magnum bites on the bloodied arm, but Tully goes to the eyes and hits him low again, as it's just a visceral street fight. Then the most memorable part of the match, as the ugliness comes out with Tully yelling at him to submit and then hitting him with the microphone, giving us the great "Say it! NOOOO! *THUNK*" sequence that defines the match. Tully goes up and hits him with an elbow, then continues punishing him with the mic (THUNK!), as you can just feel the desperation and hatred from both guys. Magnum fires back again and Tully won't quit either, so Magnum jams the microphone into his forehead and the match is getting so ugly and hateful that it must have been pretty uncomfortable to watch live. They slug it out from their knees and Tully puts him down with the microphone again ("Noooo!" THUNK!), and just tosses the ref aside because he's so pissed off and frustrated. Baby Doll tosses a wooden chair in and Tully breaks off a piece of leg, trying to spike Magnum in the eye with it in a spot that has the crowd freaking out like nothing I'd ever heard before then. And then Magnum fights him off and RAMS THE SPIKE INTO HIS EYE, drawing the submission and US title at 14:39. Tully, bloodied and cowering and on the verge of tears while TA stands triumphant but disgusted with himself for letting it go that far, is wrestling's version of Shakespeare. Yeah, some of the specific spots became almost cliché in the years after, but this one did it first in a major match setting (instead of a freakshow like The Sheik or Mark Lewin) and used the gory spots to pay off drama instead of popping a crowd by mere bloodlust. One of my favorite matches EVER. *****

And of course…

#1: WCW World title: Vader v. Ric Flair

So much going on here at Starrcade '93, as Sid Vicious was supposed to get this shot and then went and stabbed Arn Anderson with a pair of scissors, thus ending his own career for a good three years, and leaving WCW with no main event. So Flair stepped in yet again and put his career on the line in his hometown and saved the day again. For me, I never bought into it because the finish was so obvious and predictable and I could hardly even bear to watch WCW anyway. Plus they pissed away any goodwill this earned when they turned Flair heel yet again six months later so he could be Hogan's job guy. Vader overpowers Flair to start and then easily wins a test of strength, cranking on the arm as a result and clotheslining him down. He beats Flair down and press-slams him, then chases him to the floor and presses him onto the railing this time. Flair fights back, but Race hits him with a cheapshot and Flair is back on defense again. Vader suplexes him back in and pounds away on the apron, as Flair is clearly overwhelmed and without a gameplan, and Vader suplexes him back in again and pounds away in the corner. We get a Flair Flip and he hits the floor off that, and back in Vader just unloads with a scary stiff shot and a super-hard clothesline. I like how the announcers are communicating the story, which is that Flair is normally a cerebral wrestler and he's just not able to collect his thoughts here because Vader simply won't let up.

Vader powerslams him for two and goes up, coming down with another stiff clothesline. He goes up to finish with a big splash, but Flair finally moves and regroups, going up with a flying elbow and firing away with chops. Another trip to the top and another elbow puts Vader down, and he follows with the kneedrop, but Vader clotheslines him down again. They head up and Vader brings him down with a superplex, then follows with an elbow. He misses a splash, but Flair tries an ill-advised charge and Vader wallops him again. Vader casually dumps him and allows Race to get another shot in. Back in, Vader misses the corner splash and Flair fights back again, but Vader keeps coming and gets his splash. Flair has had enough, however, and just beats the hell out of Vader until he goes down, then wraps the leg around the post and rams a chair into it, finally getting back to his own gameplan again. Race keeps protesting to the ref and Flair keeps cheating, putting Vader down with the chair to finally buy himself some time to breathe.

Back in, Flair unloads with everything and works on the leg, but can't get the figure-four because Vader is just too powerful. Vader stomps him down and follows with the pump splash, but it misses and this time Flair gets the figure-four. Vader makes the ropes and Race distracts Flair long enough to miss a blind charge, allowing Vader to drop another elbow and take over again. He fires away on the mat and goes up to finish with the moonsault, but it misses and Flair gets two. Race comes in with a diving headbutt and hits Vader by mistake, and Flair gets a fluke rollup for the pin and the title at 21:13. That finish was majorly messed up and really hurt the match, I think, because there was no real payoff for the buildup. Still, fabulous stuff, a great fight, and I daresay that the character played by Vader here is the one that Brock Lesnar is channeling today as UFC champion. ****1/4 Flair's title reign ended up meaning nothing, unfortunately.

So there you go. I definitely disagree with about 10 of the choices here because they were clearly voted in on name value alone, but when the DVD comes out it's pretty much a must buy given the caliber of matches you're getting here and the rarity of them to boot.

Now hopefully the Essential Wrestlemania is next.