Opinion

WWE Starrcade Belongs In Cincinnati

Published

7 years ago

September 21, 2018

You guys might find this hard to believe. I haven’t been to a WWE event in person since the 2012 Royal Rumble. Sure, WWE has come through my area of the country plenty of times since I traveled to St. Louis in order to go to the Rumble with some of my friends from offtheteam.com. It’s been a combination of things. Either I’m working a baseball game next door to US Bank Arena while the show’s going on, or I’m working the next morning so I don’t want to go out, or I’m just flat not interested in going. That pretty much covers it.

There’s a pretty good chance I’ll be breaking my WWE-less streak here on November 24. WWE will return to US Bank Arena, and they’ll be presenting an event near & dear to any old wrestling fan’s heart: Starrcade. WWE Starrcade was a house show that was unavailable on WWE Network last year, and one expects it’ll be the same way this year. Check out this card they’ve announced.

The Shield vs. Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler, and Drew McIntyre in a Cincinnati Street Fight.
AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe in a cage match for the WWE Championship.
Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair in a cage match for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev for the U.S. Championship.
New Day vs. Sheamus and Cesaro for the Smackdown Tag Titles.
Elias concert with Ric Flair.

That’s a pretty solid piece of business there. Lots of rematches, sure, but the cage will bring a new element to Styles/Joe & Lynch/Flair. Nakamura/Rusev should be fun, the Bar challenging for the tag straps sounds good, and we got a street fight with the Shield! Oh, and the Naitch will be there too, because how the hell do you hold a Starrcade without him? You don’t.

The Royal Rumble was a bucket list event for me. Despite what Eric Bischoff will tell you, Starrcade was the one WCW event that most of the promotion’s fans would consider a bucket list event. It was the Granddaddy of them all. Jim Crockett Promotions’ first major event that was shown on closed-circuit television. It paved the way for WrestleMania and every other supercard that followed. It might just be a house show in 2018, but it has a certain level of importance to fans like me. A lot of people were mad last year when it wasn’t carried on WWE Network, and this year’s event is already drawing some criticism. Namely, the location.

Last year’s Starrcade, the first since 2000 was held in Greensboro, North Carolina. Greensboro’s importance in Jim Crockett Promotions’ history is well-known. It served as a host city for the first four Starrcade events, splitting the event with Atlanta for the last two. 1987 saw Starrcade move to Chicago, and many people saw that as a change that hurt the event. Starrcade wasn’t the same outside of JCP’s home territory.

It’s true that Cincinnati wasn’t part of JCP’s territory. You have to look outside of that portion of WCW’s history to understand Cincinnati’s role, and to see why holding Starrcade there makes sense.

A brief history lesson

When TBS became a Superstation and started airing on cable systems across the country, Georgia Championship Wrestling became available to wrestling fans from coast to coast. This greatly upset other NWA promoters around at the time, but owner Jim Barnett claimed that nobody should have been worried because he was still only running in Georgia. This of course didn’t make anybody feel better, but there wasn’t much that could be done.

GCW stayed in Georgia for a few years, but in 1982 they started running what would become known as the Northern Tours. They had been looking into running other areas of the country based on feedback they would receive, and it turned out that fans in Ohio & Michigan were really buying into what GCW was selling. TBS’s expansion came about at the same time that The Sheik’s Big Time Wrestling territory was fading into the sunset. Sheik’s act in the main event had gotten old, his roster had either really old or really young guys on it, and the show had basically become unwatchable by the time the promotion went out of business. With Sheik out of the way, nobody was running wrestling shows in his territory. GCW decided to fill that void & successfully ran a number of cities in the area, including Cincinnati.

I consider myself more of a Southern wrestling fan than anything else. Memphis is probably the territory I’ve watched the most from over the years, and Jerry Jarrett ran shows as far north as Louisville & Lexington, Kentucky. He never made it up to the Cincinnati market, though. It was Sheik country. When older gentlemen would hear that I was a wrestling fan, the names they would mention were Wild Bill Curry & Bobo Brazil, not Jackie Fargo, Tojo Yamamoto & other stars that would be recognized by older fans a hundred or so miles south. Jarrett tried to come into Cincinnati after Sheik’s territory closed, and the TV station that previously aired Big Time Wrestling turned him down. Sheik’s show had gotten so bad at the end that they wanted nothing to do with wrestling. Fans in the area had to tune into TBS to see any type of wrestling, and that’s how they ended up getting into Tommy Rich, Buzz Sawyer, Ole Anderson & other GCW stars of the time.

Of course, we all know what ended up happening to the Georgia territory. Most of the ownership sold out to Vince McMahon & the WWF took their coveted Saturday night at 6:05 timeslot. Jim Crockett ended up with that slot & the Georgia territory once the dust finally cleared, and the NWA/WCW & WWF both would run Cincinnati until WCW closed in 2001. One company would run US Bank Arena/Firstar Center/The Crown/Riverfront Coliseum down on the river while the other would run the Cincinnati Gardens up in Norwood. They traded venues a couple of times.

Under the radar

Cincinnati tends to fly under the radar in general. It’s not one of your more densely-populated cities. Their baseball team is a small-market franchise that hasn’t been great since the 1970s. The football team…well, the less said the better on that. It flies under the radar in wrestling history too. There wasn’t a territory based out of the city, it was one of the Sheik’s furthest-away outposts. The indy scene, while stable, doesn’t rate among the best in the country & has never really marketed itself as such. Its two greatest contributions to wrestling are Brian Pillman & Dean Ambrose.

In a lot of ways, the city is comparable to Greensboro. Cincinnati is the 65th most populous city in the United States, & ranks 3rd in Ohio. Greensboro is the 68th most populous city in the United States, & ranks 3rd in North Carolina. Cincinnati shares the “Queen City” moniker with Charlotte & is one of the better college basketball markets in the nation. If you didn’t know better, you’d think Cincinnati was already in North Carolina! I bet I could find a few Cincinnati politicians to support that bathroom bill too.

I’m aware that I’ve probably put more thought into all of this than WWE’s live event planners did. But when you think about it, Cincinnati hosting Starrcade isn’t some great insult against WCW, Dusty Rhodes or Jim Crockett Promotions. For heaven’s sake, the last four WCW versions of the event were held in Washington, D.C.. What’s a bigger insult to a Southerner than holding Starrcade in the capital of the Northern aggressors?

Now they just need to put the darn thing on the Network. I’m a completist & want to be able to watch all the Starrcades back to back one of these days.

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Opinion

Chairshot Staff Picks: Money In The Bank

Extra, extra read all about it… Chairshot Staff picks are in!!!

Published

2 weeks ago

June 6, 2025

PC Tunney

Sing it with me… money money money money moneeeeeeeeeyeeeeee… everybody’s got a price! MONEY IN THE BANK is here!!! How money will our staff picks be?!?

AJ – Roxanne Perez
Andrew – Stephanie Vaquer – *Bubba Sparxxx Impression* I don’t tell stories, I let them tell theyself.
Dave – Guilia – A stacked field but I just like her here.
DJ – Naomi
DPP – Roxanne Perez
Jason – Alexa Bliss
Patrick – Roxanne Perez
Rey – Naomi – If Naomi loses, we riot!
Rob – Naomi
Greg – Alexa Bliss – Bliss has had huge reactions since returning and is moving a ton of merch. While I can see them wanting to build Roxanne Perez, Giulia, or Stephanie Vaquer, I think Alexa Bliss.

Tunney’s Take: Rhea Ripley – I’ll make my case short and sweet… Mami in the Bank! You can’t leave that money on the table.

Chairshot Pick – Tie – Naomi 3 & Roxanne Perez 3 (Alexa Bliss 2, Giulia 1, Rhea Ripley 1, Stephanie Vaquer 1)

AJ – LA Knight
Andrew – El Grande Americano – Feels correct given his push and the fact he’s over.
Dave – Seth Rollins – Got to push that new faction.
DJ – LA Knight
DPP – El Grande Americano
Jason – LA Knight
Patrick – Solo Sikoa
Rey – LA Knight – Looks like another push, and he does have history with Cena.
Rob – Solo Sikoa
Greg – Seth Rollins – This company is extremely high in the El Grande Americano gimmick, but this match comes down to Seth Rollins or LA Knight. Given the Rollins storyline, it’s his briefcase to win.

Tunney’s Take: El Grande Americano – Picture this: Chad Gable wins the AAA Mega Championship and El Grande Americano wins MITB! WHAT A SATURDAY in LA!!!

Chairshot Pick – LA Knight 4 (El Grande Americano 3, Seth Rollins 2, Solo Sikoa 2)

AJ – Becky Lynch – Sadly
Andrew – Becky Lynch – I still don’t care about Lyra.
Dave – Lyra Valkyria – Starting to warm up to her and Becky has a lot to do with that.
DJ – Lyra Valkyria
DPP – Becky Lynch
Jason – Becky Lynch
Patrick – Lyra Valkyria
Rey – Becky Lynch – Put some fire on the Irish Beef.
Rob – Becky Lynch
Greg – Becky Lynch – I don’t think you do a rematch here just to have Becky lose again. Unless Bayley shows up to help Lyra.

Tunney’s Take: Becky Lynch – A big part of me feels that winning this title checks off a major box for Becks in her HOF career.

Chairshot Pick – Becky Lynch 8-3

AJ – Cena & Paul
Andrew – Rhodes & Uso – Easy way for Cena to lose without eating the pinfall.
Dave – Rhodes & Uso – Get the QB back on the winning track.
DJ – Rhodes & Uso
DPP – Rhodes & Uso
Jason – Cena & Paul
Patrick – Cena & Paul
Rey – Rhodes & Uso – Heels usually lose these kinds of matches. Logan takes the pin.
Rob – Cena & Paul
Greg – Rhodes & Uso – I hope Jey isn’t an afterthought here like Cody was last fall when he was paired up with Roman. I think Cody pins Cena to set up Cody-Cena 2 at SummerSlam.

Tunney’s Take: Cena & Paul – I don’t think Cena is involved in another loss until he loses the WWE Championship. I also think Logan Paul is NOT done trying to capture Jey Uso’s World Heavyweight Championship. …Travis Scott in the house?

Chairshot Pick – 6-5 Rhodes & Uso

In closing I want to thank everyone on the panel for participating with their picks! You can follow each prognosticator/podcaster on X @ the handles below. We all enjoy Pro Wrestling so remember three things… be respectful of others, comparison is the thief of joy and HAVE FUN!

AJ – @PhenomenalAJB
Andrew – @IWCWarChief
Dave – @AttitudeAgg
DJ – @TheMindlessPod
DPP – @itsmeDPP
Jason – @JediFett
Patrick – @WrestlngRealist
Rey – @itsreycash
Rob – @rbonne1
Greg – @gregdemarco44
PC – @PCTunney
TheChairshot.com – @ChairshotMedia

prowrestlingtees.com/TheChairshot – a PLETHORA of GREAT designs…MAKES A GREAT GIFT!

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CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS

Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE’s PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS…IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

Patrick O’Dowd’s 5X5

Classic POD is WAR

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About Chairshot Radio Network

MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)

TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)

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CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS

Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5

Classic POD is WAR

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All Shows On Demand

Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!

Opinion

Chairshot Staff Picks: Backlash St. Louis

Chairshot Staff picks!!!

Published

1 month ago

May 9, 2025

PC Tunney

May is upon us and with that, so is Backlash from St. Louis! What does the first PLE after WrestleMania have in store for the WWE Universe? Let’s see if the Chairshot Staff can properly interpret the crystal ball of rasslin’ future.

AJ – Pat MacAfee – Gunther has to start losing control and who better than an announcer.
Andrew – Pat MacAfee – Goldberg getting involved does seem correct here.
Dave – Gunther – He’s not losing to a broadcaster.
DJ – Gunther – Pat is sent to the shadow realm until football season is over.
DPP – Gunther – Post match beat down leads to Pat time off.
Jason – Gunther – One massive spot and or bump from Pat.
Patrick – Gunther
Rey – Gunther – RIP MacAfee, t’was a good life.
Rob – Gunther
Greg – Pat MacAfee – Why? Goooooldbeeerrrrrgggggg!

Tunney’s Take: Gunther – Seems like the right pick here. Pat may be getting some time off and Gunther needs more heat.

Chairshot Pick – GUNTHER 8-3

AJ – Lyra Valkyria – Becky’s hopefully putting her over, still mad about Dakota.
Andrew – Becky Lynch – I have no real interest in Lyra currently.
Dave – Becky Lynch – Lyra is boring AF!
DJ – Lyra Valkyria – Bayley interferes.
DPP – Becky Lynch – Becky cheats and steals the title.
Jason – Lyra Valkyria – Bayley costs Becks.
Patrick – Becky Lynch
Rey – Becky Lynch – Story needs to jump up a bit, Becky Charlotte’s Lyra.
Rob – Lyra Valkyria
Greg – Becky Lynch – It’s been fun, Lyra. (It kinda hasn’t)

Tunney’s Take: Lyra Valkyria – Bayley’s interference should set up some type of program with Becky as we head towards Summer(Slam).

Chairshot Pick – BECKY LYNCH 6-5

AJ – Jacob Fatu – Great way to put him over w/ two former WHCs and LA Knight.
Andrew – Jacob Fatu – He’s Jacob Fatu!
Dave – Jacob Fatu – Too soon to pull the belt off him.
DJ – Jacob Fatu – Priest and LA can’t decide who’s is bigger.
DPP – Jacob Fatu – Your hardcore match, tables and chairs involved.
Jason – Jacob Fatu – The Champ retains due to or in spite of Solo.
Patrick – Jacob Fatu
Rey – Jacob Fatu – All gas. No brakes. Ain’t losing.
Rob – Jacob Fatu
Greg – Jacob Fatu – Someone from The Samoan Dynasty ain’t winning a title just to drop it.

Tunney’s Take: Jacob Fatu – Uncle Mo is on Fatu’s side and other than Knight, I don’t see Drew or Priest holding the US title in the current circumstances of this title’s landscape.

Chairshot Pick – JACOB FATU 11-0

AJ – Dominic Mysterio – Judgement Day shenanigans just leading up to Finn turning on Dom later.
Andrew – Penta – Dom’s fine having a short reign, could also work for pushing AAA.
Dave – Dominic Mysterio – He’s probably more over than Penta.
DJ – Dominic Mysterio – Dirty Dom takes home the gold and the girl.
DPP – Dominic Mysterio – Big Head helps Dom pull out the win.
Jason – Dominic Mysterio – By hook and crook.
Patrick – Dominic Mysterio
Rey – Dominic Mysterio – Latino Heat keeps burning. Finn gets closer to the edge.
Rob – Dominic Mysterio
Greg – Dominic Mysterio – Someone from The Guerrero Dynasty ain’t winning a title just to drop it.

Tunney’s Take: Dominic Mysterio – That belt looks good with the king of chicken tendys. I can see Penta and Rey reforming as a tag team sooner than later.

Chairshot Pick – DOMINIC MYSTERIO 10-1

AJ – John Cena – Why? Cena wins, lol.
Andrew – John Cena – Shenanigans ensue so it’s not a clean win.
Dave – John Cena – The last time is now.
DJ – John Cena – Randy hears voices telling him he needs an Attitude Adjustment.
DPP – John Cena – Cena tries to cheat but the ref doesn’t call for a DQ.
Jason – John Cena – Nefarious means, Randy not ready for Evil John Cena.
Patrick – John Cena
Rey – John Cena – Cena just counting down the dates. Should be fun though.
Rob – John Cena
Greg – John Cena – You know they want Cody to be the hero in the end.

Tunney’s Take: Randy Orton – Once upon a time Randy got himself intentionally disqualified and it cost John. Saturday, history repeats itself with a 180-degree twist. Cena retains via Orton DQ victory. This time, Travis Scott’s appearance takes care of that task.

Chairshot Pick – JOHN CENA 10-1