[1997-12-28-WCW-Starrcade '97] Eric Bischoff vs Larry Zbyszko

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

What is Bischoff doing getting this much offense? I thought he was a great cowardly heel but he's positioned as a somewhat credible threat to Zbyszko. Bischoff kicks Zbyszko with a steel plate on his foot and Bret sees it fly across the ring. So Bret punches Bischoff, then Hall comes in the ring and Bret beats him up too! Hall ends up in the sharpshooter while Larry chokes out Bischoff and we have our finish. Nitro remains! I'm guessing Larry won by DQ? Kind of flat as a feel good moment and I could feel Bret just judging this stuff the whole time it was happening. Me and Austin were getting beaten by this?

[Kevin Ridge]

Bischoff is the next Rings superstar! Larry really should have beat the crap out of him in a couple minutes. Eric is treated as way too much of a credible challenger to Larry even with Zbyszko not being an active wrestler. Hall loads up Bischoff's foot with a weapon which at least gives him a shot. But then Bret just knocks out Eric! Hart is WCW! But Larry didn't need all this help to beat Eric. I still don't like how they debuted Hart.

[soup23]

This shouldn't be that hard to book. Have Larry dominate for a while, give Bischoff some offense based off of Hall's interference and then give Larry the big comeback with Hart calling it right down the middle and socking Hall and Bischoff in the process. Why they gave Eric so much offense at the onset and then did that much of a convoluted ending to essentially protect Eric was atrocious in the ring but the execution and booking was even more atrocious and the biggest factor of this night that something was amiss and maybe this isn't exactly the victory lap for WCW it was supposed to be. Crowd was also pretty dead.

[El-P]

Bret Hart being in this ruins the moment, it distracts from the match and the ending is awful and stupid, as there's not even a cut clear decision rendered. And it ruins Bret Hart also, all the momentum he had coming from Montreal is just dead at this point. Too bad, as Bischoff falling down the ring from the apron and later punching himself out of it were two funny moments. Both this match and the debut of Bret hart should have been the easiest stuff ever to book, and they missed the point twice in one occurence. The foreign object flying off while a bemused Bret Hart looks on is pretty hilarious though.

[PeteF3]

You talk about how the WWF took a few months to turn Ken Shamrock into Just Another Guy...WCW has topped that by doing it with Bret in six days! Bischoff is game for taking punishment but as mentioned, gets way too much offense on his own. You definitely want a moment or two where it looks like Bischoff is going to fuck everyone over and steal a win, but he needed more help than just Bret distracting Larry Z. Finish is blown as the object flies out of Bischoff's boot even before it connects--I don't know what the specific plan was originally, a Dusty Finish or what, but the match just peters out even though Bret punching out Eric and Sharpshooting Hall get a big pop.