Long time wrestling fans tend to remember fairly distinct eras for WCW programming. There were the final, beleaguered stages, marred by Vince Russo-informed crash booking and nonsensical swerves, and there was the heyday of the nWo before that. There were the years when Hulk Hogan had first arrived and WCW seemed desperate to emulate what WWE had done a few years before. And then there was the era before. For more casual fans, these years tend to be forgotten, but the pre-Hogan years of WCW were actually the longest stretch of time for the company and arguably offered WCW's best wrestling action from a purist’s perspective. One of the last major shows of this era was Spring Stampede 1994—a forgotten gem of a PPV.
WCW Was In Transition
Both on air and behind the scenes, early 1994 marked a time of transition for WCW. After the most dominant version of Big Van Vader ran roughshod over the main event picture in 1993, WCW returned to its roots with Ric Flair—still newly returned from his stint in WWE—as the world champion.
Change was in the air as Rick Rude’s time toward the top approached its end, Ray Traylor had recently arrived as The Boss, and it felt like the time was nigh to pull the trigger on rising mid-card talents like Steve Austin and Dustin Rhodes. Ric Flair took over booking backstage, in addition to reigning as champ, steered the company’s creative direction.
An Instant Classic Match Between Ric Flair And Ricky Steamboat
One of Ric Flair’s most memorable choices in leading WCW’s booking was to position Ricky Steamboat as the number one contender to the WCW Championship. Steamboat had mostly worked in the tag team and mid-card ranks leading up to this stage. Some criticized Flair for it being nonsensical to suddenly portray The Dragon as a main eventer, or for returning to a former world champion rather than pushing young talent. Others, however, recognized brilliance in The Nature Boy’s choice, because Steamboat was an under-utilized all-time great who had phenomenal chemistry in the ring with Flair.
True to form, Steamboat and Flair picked up where they had left off five years earlier with their legendary trilogy of matches. The two put on an instant classic main event at Spring Stampede—a rare title match for which even a double-pin, non-finish sent fans home happy because the action had been that great leading up to it.
The Mick Foley Street Fight Was Ahead Of Its Time
The undercard of Spring Stampede 1994 included Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne teaming up for a Chicago Street Fight against The Nasty Boys. With nearly three decades of hindsight, the match was a good, stiff brawl. However, it’s important to keep in mind the perspective of mainstream wrestling in 1994. By those standards, this match was mind-blowing.
The influence of ECW was seeping in when Mick Foley led the charge for a falls count anywhere melee, spanning the arena, and inviting all manner of plunder into the mix. The month before, WWE had experimented with its own match in this style, between Randy Savage and Crush at WrestleMania 10, but this tag team bout pushed the envelope of violence and innovation quite a bit further. Indeed, while the Cactus Jack vs. Big Van Vader Texas Death Match from the preceding fall may be the best-remembered match from this stretch of Foley’s career, the Spring Stampede Street Fight was a worthy addition to the catalog, which foreshadowed the hardcore matches WCW and WWE alike would embrace in the years to follow.
The Arrival Of Hulk Hogan Changed WCW’s Direction
A part of why Spring Stampede 1994 tends to be a forgotten show is that WCW essentially rebooted upon Hulk Hogan’s debut at Bash at the Beach two months later. Hogan beat Ric Flair for the WCW Championship and dominated the title scene for his first series feuds with the company.
The question of whether WCW was better or worse off following the inflection point of signing Hulk Hogan largely comes down to aesthetics. For purists, and fans who were invested in WCW’s homegrown talent, the shift was frustrating and felt backwards. However, there’s also little denying Hogan and an influx of talent established in WWE drew more eyes to the WCW product, besides laying the groundwork for an explosion when the nWo got rolling, and WCW actually overtook WWE's popularity for a period of time.
In retrospect, one of the ways to interpret Spring Stampede 1994 is as a capstone or celebration of everything WCW had been in its earlier years. The PPV featured a Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat classic, one of the better iterations of Sting vs. Rick Rude, a well-executed bout between William Regal and Brian Pillman, a strong performance by young Steve Austin against The Great Muta, and an entertaining big man match between Big Van Vader and The Boss. That’s all in addition to a wild brawl pitting Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne against The Nasty Boys, and a match that seemed to glimpse the future between Johnny B. Badd (who never did realize all his potential) and Diamond Dallas Page (who exceeded every expectation). Times were changing and WCW would certainly grow in a number of ways over the months and years to follow. Nonetheless, Spring Stampede 1994 remains a special show.