3 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Starrcade 2018

2. A Trial Run For Televised House Shows?

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WWE.com

One of the rumors that has circulated for some time now about the WWE Network is a proposal to offer tiered subscriptions, where higher levels would offer additional content. One of the areas mentioned at times is televised house shows.

Sunday night’s Starrcade special could be a step in that direction. It clearly was a supersized, co-branded house show, with random pairings (Rey Mysterio and Rusev versus Miz and Shinsuke Nakamura, the eight-woman tag match) and simple, basic matches.

And to be honest, as much kvetching as was done in the “downs” section, this was a breeze to watch and something completely different than Raw, SmackDown or whatever PPV is on. There weren’t weeks of storylines to keep straight, five-minute video packages, or a giant LED stage.

Perhaps we could see a Great American Bash house show in June, or a Halloween Havoc house show in October. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and if they work out the kinks a little bit, it could be an easy way to add new content to the Network.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.