Starrcade (1984) Starrcade (1985) Date 22 November 1984 | Starrcade (1984) Starrcade (1985) Attendance 16 | |
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Tagline(s) The Million Dollar Challenge City Greensboro, North Carolina Location Greensboro Coliseum Complex, Morehead Township, Guilford County, North Carolina, North Carolina, United States Venue Greensboro Coliseum Complex Promotions National Wrestling Alliance, Jim Crockett Promotions | ||
Starrcade '84: The Million Dollar Challenge was a major professional wrestling show broadcast live on closed-circuit television that took place on November 22, 1984. The show was promoted by Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) under the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) banner and took place at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The main event of the show was billed as "the Million Dollar Challenge" as the storyline was that the winner of the match would not only win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship but also win a $1,000,000 purse, part of the illusion that professional wrestling was a legitimate sporting competition. The main event saw champion "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair defend the championship against long time rival "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, with boxer Joe Frazier acting as the special guest referee for the match. The show also saw the championship matches for the NWA United States Championship, NWA World Television Championship, NWA Florida Heavyweight Championship, NWA Brass Knuckles Championship and NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship.
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Background
From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was tradition for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) member Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) to hold major professional wrestling events at Thanksgiving and Christmas, often at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina in the center of JCP's Virginia, North and South Carolina territory. In 1983, JCP created Starrcade as their supercard to continue the Thanksgiving tradition, bringing in wrestlers from other NWA affiliates and broadcasting the show its territory on closed-circuit television. Starrcade soon became the flagship event of the year for JCP (later World Championship Wrestling, WCW), their Super Bowl event featuring their most important storyline feuds and championship matches. The 1984 event was the second show to use the Starrcade name.
Storylines
The Starrcade show featured a number of professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing, scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (those that portray the "bad guys") or faces (the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
