What was WCW's Wrestlemania?

Starrcade

Ok did it ever create the 'boom' in the public and media that wrestlemania did (at the time of them?)

JCP (Jim Crockett Promotions) aka NWA/WCW invented Starrcade in 1983. It was never really designed to be the big circus that Wrestlemania is for the simple fact that NWA wasnt the big circus that the WWF was. Starrcade and the NWA was kept simple in decent size arenas and just had good top quality matches.

Starrcade 1997 was better than a lot of WrestleManias, in my opinion. The hype for that pay-per-view was mythical.

Starrcade was a fantastic idea in my opinion, but like before noted, Starrcade didn't really get touched as being truly the greatest event of the year like Vince Jr was doing with WrestleMania. I did prefer the 1985 Starrcade with Magnum TA/Tully Blanchard, RnR Express/Koloffs and Dusty/Flair better than WrestleMania with Hogan and Mr T/Piper and Orndorff, but obviously the WWF's 'Mania caused a great boom in wrestling. Not to mention that the concept for Starrcade 1985 [half of the show was held in Greensboro, NC; the other half in Atlanta, GA] was used for WrestleMania 2 in three cities.

I guess what exposed WCW's uncaring nature for Starrcade was revealed in the 1991 edition with the BattleBowl concept, in which there would be forty random teams in a tag tournament, and the twenty winners would fight in a battle royal for a WCW World Heavyweight Championship shot NOT at Starrcade, but Superbrawl the next February. Starrcade was shown there as a mere hypefest for Superbrawl 1992.

I did love it when Ric Flair won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in his hometown at Starrcade 1993, as that match with Big Van Vader was especially something. And the 1995 edition showcased the prologue before the creation of a cruiserweight division, featuring many different Japanese stars showcased in a WCW vs NJPW series. Then at 1996, though you had a hyped match like Hogan vs Piper main event in a non-title bout, and that occured to hype a match between the two at Superbrawl 1997. Starrcade 1997 was a great event all around, despite the humor in it all that Randy Savage, a big nWo name was thrown into a filler six man tag match. Hogan and Sting's match was dissappointing, but it did peak their massive feud, though the ending to the match accidentally would cause the feud to be forced into expansion.

Starrcade 1998 sadly let us see the end of the Goldberg streak against Kevin Nash, but it was a good match in the long run. And at Starrcade 1999, we were shown Bret Hart's final decent match in his final pay-per-view appearance as he got he got kicked in the face by Goldberg. Bret did wrestle after that, but he ended up retiring a few days before the next pay-per-view after being diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome.

Starrcade 1999 in my opinion was the deepest WCW got in its decline, as the factor of backstage politics mixed with Russo and Ferrera's booking caused WCW to be stuck in a freefall. However, a year later at Starrcade 2000, I felt it was starting to peak back up again, it was a solid card despite their still being five or six gimmick matches and ten matches.

Man I would love it if WWE did a Starrcade anthology! So many classic matches that people should and need to see!

If you compare from 1985 to say 1993 (when WCW left NWA), top to bottom the actual wrestling matches for Starrcade were better then Wrestlmania most of the time.

A lot of Wrestlemania's were one or two match shows, really

I remember in the early 90's WCW tried to push away from Starrcade being their premier event and really pushed SuperBrawl, but it just never was the same.