Spring Stampede (1997)

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Spring Stampede (1997)
Promotional poster featuring The Four Horsemen
Promotion	World Championship Wrestling
Date	April 6, 1997[1][2]
City	Tupelo, Mississippi[1][2]
Venue	Tupelo Coliseum[1][2]
Attendance	8,356[1][2]
Buy rate	0.58[2]
Tagline(s)	These Men Do Solemnly Swear... to Kick, Fight, Punch, Stomp, and Flatten anybody who gets in their way!
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous Uncensored Next → Slamboree
Spring Stampede chronology
← Previous 1994 Next → 1998

The 1997 Spring Stampede was the second Spring Stampede pay-per-view (PPV) event scripted and produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The event took place on April 6, 1997 from the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi.^[3]

The main event was a no disqualification match between Randy Savage and Diamond Dallas Page, which Page won. Other featured matches on the undercard were a Four Corners match between Lex Luger, The Giant, Booker T and Stevie Ray. What was originally scheduled to be a tag team match between The Outsiders and The Steiner Brothers for the WCW World Tag Team Championship, became a singles match between Kevin Nash and Rick Steiner as a result of Scott Hall no-showing the event. WCW presented a storyline that showed Scott Steiner being maced and arrested earlier in the evening to explain why the scheduled match was changed.

The event is known for the infamous Harlem Heat's botched promo, in which Booker T accidentally calls Hulk Hogan "nigga".^[4] It was removed in both the VHS release as well as the version found on Peacock (streaming service).

The first Spring Stampede event was held in April 1994, the first time World Championship Wrestling (WCW) held a pay-per-view (PPV) in April as they expanded their PPV schedule.^[5] The event did not return in 1995 or 1996 but was brought back in 1997 on April 6.^[1] The "Spring Stampede" name would be used three more times, 1998, 1999 and 2000, before WCW closed in March 2001.^[6] All WCW intellectual property was sold to WWE at that time, and with the launch of the WWE Network in 2014 all five Spring Stampede events became available to subscribers.^[7]

All of the Spring Stampede events had a cowboy or Wild West theme, reflected both in the opening montage, posters and entrance set decorations. The 1997 event was held at the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi.^[1] WCW had previously held both the 1995 Uncensored, and 1996 Uncensored PPVs at the Tupelo Coliseum, but did not use it for any subsequent PPVs.^[8] The promotional poster for the event featured The Four Horsemen (Arn Anderson, Steve McMichael, Ric Flair and Chris Benoit, with the tagline "'These Men Do Solemnly Swear... to Kick, Fight, Punch, Stomp, and Flatten anybody who gets in their way!'". Neither Ric Flair, nor Arn Anderson competed in any matches at the event.^[1][2]

The event featured wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.^[9]

Lex Luger received his title shot against Hollywood Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the hundredth episode of Monday Nitro on August 4, where he defeated Hogan to win the title which bring a massive celebration with WCW wrestlers in the ring. However, Luger lost the title back to Hogan at Road Wild.