By Richard Zahovic
The U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio hosted WWE Starrcade 2018 on Saturday night. Tonight, the WWE Network presented a one-hour special using footage from that event as their annual tribute to the former NWA/WCW end-of-year tradition.
The broadcast opened with Elias already in the ring as Tom Phillips introduced us to Starrcade. Elias introduced Ric Flair to a big ovation. On commentary, Byron Saxton plugged Flair’s Starrcade matches with Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes. They used the usual WWE house show setup with the smaller video screens and house lights down.
Flair cut a brief promo putting over Elias and Starrcade. Nia Jax, Tamina, Mickie James, and Alicia Fox then came down to the ring and interrupted him. Elias played a song while the heels danced along, but Elias and the crowd didn’t enjoy Jax singing over Elias.
Elias introduced Sasha Banks, Bayley, Ember Moon, and Dana Brooke to quiet the heel team down.
Sasha Banks, Bayley, Ember Moon & Dana Brooke defeated Nia Jax, Tamina, Mickie James & Alicia Fox
Tamina and Jax cut off Bayley for the heat. The commentators plugged Raw and Jax injuring Becky Lynch heavily. Bayley made the hot tag to Banks, and the match broke down with everyone hitting their finishers before Banks countered a roll-up attempt by Fox into the Banks Statement for the submission victory. This was a short, standard eight-person house show match.
Next, we got a backstage promo with Samoa Joe. Joe talked about how many times he and AJ Styles have faced each other and promised Styles that he won’t walk out of their steel cage match tonight.
Back in the ring, we had The Miz putting over some of the great Starrcade matches from the 80s. He talked about Lex Luger and Dusty Rhodes fighting for the United States title at Starrcade before introducing Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rey Mysterio as tonight’s US title match.
Mysterio came to the ring in a neck brace, selling Randy Orton’s attack from SmackDown last week. Nakamura came out as the commentators talked more about the history of the US title and how Mysterio has never held that title. Mysterio cut a promo talking about wanting to perform tonight despite his injury. He said Starrcade is important to him because he watched Flair, Rhodes, Sting, and Eddie Guerrero perform at this event.
Nakamura talked about not caring about Starrcade or Mysterio. Mysterio got into an argument with Miz — and Nakamura took the opportunity to jump Mysterio from behind.
Rey Mysterio defeated United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura by DQ
Mysterio accidentally took out Miz with a dive as he had Nakamura in position for the 619. Miz tripped Mysterio, leading to the DQ inside a couple of minutes.
Miz and Nakamura attack Mysterio until Rusev came down to make the save. Lana challenged Nakamura & Miz to face Mysterio & Rusev in a tag match.
Rey Mysterio & Rusev defeated United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura & The Miz
Mysterio had Miz in position for the 619, but Nakamura cut him off with a clothesline. The heels isolated Mysterio for the heat before he eventually made the hot tag to Rusev.
Miz hit the Skull Crushing Finale on Rusev after a distraction by Nakamura, but Mysterio was in quickly, hitting the 619 on Miz. Rusev followed with the Machka Kick for the win.
AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe in a steel cage match
Tom Phillips talked about the tradition of cage matches in the early years of Starrcade and how Styles and Joe are now part of that history. Joe dominated the early stages as the commentary team talked a lot about Daniel Bryan’s heel turn. Styles made a comeback after a spinning backfist. He teased trying to escape the cage but instead tried a forearm off the top rope — which Joe countered into an overhead belly-to-belly suplex.
Joe got a two count off a senton and teased the Muscle Buster, but Styles started to go after the knee that Joe hurt in their match in Australia. As Joe struggled with his knee, Styles caught him in the Calf Crusher and Joe submitted.
This was a solid match, though it was worked very much like a house show main event.
Final Thoughts —
The show presentation was along the lines of previous similar Network specials, although there was a keener attempt to tie the matches in with current storylines and promote TLC and the upcoming editions of Raw and SmackDown. Going forward it looks like these shows will be more like the old Saturday Night Main Event events that fall in with current programming rather than standalone specials like some of the prior house show specials have been.
Starrcade’s history was put over strongly throughout, but it was exclusively the 1980s NWA Starrcade that was referenced. WWE clearly wasn’t wanting the brand to have any association with WCW and the Monday Night Wars era.
This was an entertaining, fast-paced show — but there was nothing to go out of your way to see. The matches were very much what you would expect from a WWE house show.
