3 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Starrcade 2018
Supersized house show hits some marks, misses others.
Throughout the mid-80s, Thanksgiving weekend was a time for NWA fans to settle in front of the TV and tune in to watch the granddaddy of wrestling extravaganzas, Starrcade.
Predating WrestleMania by more than a year, Starrcade was the NWA and WCW’s signature event, initially taking place while fans were in a turkey-induced coma, and later moved to December. When WCW folded in 2001, the PPV disappeared from the calendar.
That changed last year, when WWE rebranded a SmackDown house show Thanksgiving weekend as Starrcade, featuring former performers Ric Flair, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express and Arn Anderson, and taking place in Greensboro, NC, the site of the first four Starrcades.
This weekend, WWE took it a step further, with Starrcade being a co-branded house show that was taped on Saturday, with four of the 10 matches being aired the following night on the WWE Network.
We saw Ric Flair test out his vocals, Nia Jax get booed out of the building, a United States Championship match, and of course, a steel cage match. The hour-long special whetted appetites and was a qualified success, but it also opened the door to some constructive criticism.
With that said, let’s find out what rode high and what tumbled low. Let’s get to it…