3 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Starrcade 2018

3. Most Matches Were Unaired

To watch Starrcade on the WWE Network, you would have thought that either it was a very brief house show, or else there was a lot left unseen.

The latter was the case, as the event consisted of 10 matches, but only four aired. Two of the dark matches were title bouts (Intercontinental and SmackDown Tag Team), another pitted Finn Balor against Drew McIntyre, and another had Charlotte Flair facing Asuka. Throw in the return of Bray Wyatt and you’d have a pretty damn interesting card.

But all of those matches never aired, as Starrcade 2018 was a one-hour special. It’s an odd choice. It’s understandable to not want to air the Seth Rollins/Dean Ambrose steel cage match because their storyline first match is supposed to happen at the TLC PPV, but Charlotte/Asuka, Balor/McIntyre, and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship matches all could have aired.

Instead of feeling like a special event paying homage to the granddaddy of PPVs, it felt like a sneak preview of a supersized house show.

It’s not like WWE had a TV station demanding that they squeeze it down to 60 minutes – the company owns the Network. Just schedule it out to 90 minutes or two hours and bump whatever program came on next.