Starrcade (2019)


Starrcade was a professional wrestling live event and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw and SmackDown brands. It took place on December 1, 2019 at the Infinite Energy Arena in Duluth, Georgia.
Eleven matches were contested on the card, four of which were shown for the WWE Network special. In the main event of the televised portion of the show, Bobby Lashley defeated Kevin Owens by disqualification.
Part-way through the broadcast, WWE began to stream the remainder of the special on YouTube; it was reported that WWE Network had been experiencing a major service outage predominantly in the eastern United States.

Production

Background

Starrcade, a live closed-circuit event, was conceived in 1983 by Dusty Rhodes. The event was originally produced under the National Wrestling Alliance banner by NWA member Jim Crockett Promotions. The NWA and JCP regarded Starrcade as their flagship event of the year, much in the same vein that its rival, the World Wrestling Federation, would begin to regard WrestleMania two years later. In 1988, JCP was sold to Turner Broadcasting and became World Championship Wrestling, with Starrcade being held by WCW until 2000.
After a 17-year hiatus, WWE revived Starrcade as a SmackDown-branded live event on November 25, 2017. On November 24, 2018, WWE filmed a second, co-branded Starrcade event that aired as a one-hour WWE Network special on November 25, 2018. On September 17, 2019, WWE announced that its third Starrcade event would air live on the WWE Network on December 1, 2019.

Storylines

Starrcade consisted of professional wrestling matches that involved various different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches, with results predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands. Storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

Results