Starrcade was regarded by the NWA and WCW as their flagship event of the year, much in the same vein that its rival, the
World Wrestling Federation (WWF), regarded
WrestleMania. As a result, the buildup to each Starrcade featured the largest
feuds of the promotion. In 2001, the WWF acquired WCW, and the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002.
WWE revived the event in 2017 as a
house show with portions of the events in 2018 and 2019 airing as
WWE Network specials. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, an event was not held in 2020 and no further events were scheduled.
History
From 1983 to 1987, Starrcade was produced by the
National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA)
Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), the dominant promotion of the NWA, and aired on
Thanksgiving Day. In 1987, the
World Wrestling Federation (WWF) scheduled a
pay-per-view (PPV) of their own,
Survivor Series, on Thanksgiving night and demanded exclusivity from cable providers on carriage of the event. In order to prevent such a problem, Starrcade was moved to December the following year and the show was held around
Christmas Day, mostly in the days following, beginning in 1988. Also in 1988, JCP was sold to
Turner Broadcasting due to financial problems and became
World Championship Wrestling (WCW), though Starrcade was held under the NWA banner until 1990.[1][2]
From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was tradition for JCP to hold major professional wrestling events on Thanksgiving and Christmas, mostly at
Greensboro Coliseum. In 1983, JCP created Starrcade as their
supercard to continue the Thanksgiving tradition, and spread it across its territory on
closed-circuit television.[3] It popularized broadcasting on closed-circuit television and was financially successful. From 1987, Starrcade was broadcast on PPV, the first NWA event to do so.[4]
Starrcade was held for the final time as a WCW event in 2000: the promotion would be acquired by the WWF in 2001, and the brand would become dormant.[5] In 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (with its "WWE" abbreviation becoming an
orphaned initialism in 2011).[6][7] In 2017, WWE revived Starrcade for a
SmackDown-
branded non-televised
house show on November 25, 2017.[8] The following year, WWE's Starrcade house shows began to be held as
WWE Network specials and featured both the
Raw and SmackDown brands.[9][10] An event did not occur in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented WWE from holding shows outside of its normal weekly television programming and PPVs.[11] WWE resumed live touring in July 2021, but a Starrcade event was not scheduled for that year.[12]
Events
WCW/nWo co-branded event
SmackDown-branded event
#
Event
Date
City
Venue
Main Event
Ref.
National Wrestling Alliance: Jim Crockett Promotions
^Molinaro, John (December 17, 1999).
"Starrcade, the original "super card"". SLAM! Sports. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved November 26, 2017.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link)