Last week I wrote about Cody Rhodes and his wish to buy back to copyright to the War Games match and possibly bring it to AEW. That idea got me thinking of something else.
What about Starrcade?
Cody’s father Dusty Rhodes didn’t entirely invent the show back in 1983 but he had a large part in the construction of what would be the biggest event of the year for Jim Crockett’s NWA and later WCW. Originally held on Thanksgiving, it was moved to December thanks to a little thing the WWF invented in 1987 called the Survivor Series. Starrcade ran from 1983 until 2000 and went out when WCW went out of business. The WWF (now the WWE) bought the name as part of scooping up a bunch of those old WCW names with the sale, but outside a couple of house shows in the Carolinas with Ric Flair and Charlotte, they don’t really do much with the name.
It could be a step in the right direction for Cody and his friends to bring back the event as one of their biggest events of the year just like the old days. That may be the draw of the event, as AEW loves to draw in that “Anti-WWE” crowd and say a lot of things. Using the Starrcade name would bring in people with a hint of the old days. I could say first hand that a mention of the real “Grandaddy of them all” (Screw you WWE for using that for Wrestlemania!) brings back memories of Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, The Road Warriors, Sting and a whole host of names. I can’t imagine I’d be the only one that got a kick out of it if AEW bought the name and used it like Cody supposedly wants to do with the War Games name.
Cody wouldn’t have to get too creative with Starrcade either. It wouldn’t need some big concept for the show. We don’t need to bring back the “Ironman” tournaments from 1989 or some “Best of Seven” matches against the guys they have from Japan like Starrcade 1995. Starrcade itself holds a lot of good memories for many fans, no need to unearth the bad ones with them.
As for what he card would actually be, AEW at this point would probably have Cody against someone for the World Title and the Bucks in some match for the Tag Team Titles, along with their friends. That isn’t too hard to figure out, but if you use the Starrcade name, I would hope it would have the biggest match you could as the main event of that show. Starrcade is a bigger name that boasts something beyond a match with Chris Jericho and one of Cody’s friends in the main event. It would have to take some building up as I’m not sure AEW could really do something that big yet. They still have some things to work on before they can tackle that idea.
Then again Cody or AEW doesn’t own the name either. Thinking of what COULD be done and what actually gets done with the name Starrcade are two different things.
