WWE Starrcade 2019 Results: Winners, Grades, Reaction and Highlights

Like the previous two years, WWE Starrcade 2019 was not a typical pay-per-view. In fact, it was shorter than most episodes of WWE television.

Specials like this are just portions of house shows that air on WWE Network as bonus content.

For this year's show, only two matches and a promo segment were advertised to fill the 60 minutes, but there was certainly potential. The women's tag titles were on the line in a Fatal 4-Way, Ric Flair would appear on "The Kevin Owens Show" and Rusev was set to get his hands on Bobby Lashley in a Last Man Standing match.

What happened on the show and who was victorious in those matches? Let's break down WWE Starrcade 2019!

On top of the segments that aired during the WWE Network broadcast, several other matches took place for the live crowd. Here are the results of what else happened at Starrcade 2019 that you might have missed:

• Seth Rollins defeated Erick Rowan by pinfall.
• Shinsuke Nakamura defeated The Miz to retain the Intercontinental Championship.
• Randy Orton defeated AJ Styles.
• Aleister Black defeated Andrade.
• Ricochet defeated Andrade.
• Roman Reigns defeated King Corbin.
• Steel Cage Match: Bray Wyatt retained the Universal Championship over Braun Strowman.

The event started with an edition of "The Kevin Owens Show," featuring Ric Flair. Once some microphone issues cleared up, it was a brief trip down memory lane.

Flair put over the locker room as a family and talked about his past with Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes and Sting making Starrcade over the years.

The O.C.'s Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows interrupted to talk about how Starrcade should just be highlights of their careers as "the best mother-lovin' tag team in the world." After The Street Profits came out, an impromptu match took place.

      

Result: The Street Profits defeated The O.C. by pinfall.

      

Grade: D

            

Analysis

Owens and Flair have enough history as amazing talkers to be able to say this was far from their standard.

Between the crowd chanting "we can't hear you" at the start, the promo being a weak plug for the show we're watching and the awkward transition to a match that would be skippable even on Raw, this fell flat.

Everyone involved is better than what this segment turned out to be. Instead of a fun 20 minutes, this was the bare minimum of house-show filler and not something that would entice anyone to watch future WWE Network specials like this in the future.

The Kabuki Warriors have new theme music, which was an early indication of how the match would end. After all, why would WWE invest in giving them a new entrance song just to take the titles off them?

Still, all four teams were game for a fight, even if the end was inevitable.

Surprisingly, there was a lot of taunting in the match. Nearly every Superstar had multiple moments specifically dedicated to giving her opponents a slap in the face or mocking them in some fashion.

Asuka, Kairi Sane, Sasha Banks and Bayley were very clearly the heels here, as even Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross worked well with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. With the number of tags between those two teams, it almost felt like an eight-woman tag team match instead of a Fatal 4-Way.

Ultimately, Cross succumbed to the Asuka Lock and the champions kept their belts.

      

Result: The Kabuki Warriors retained the titles by submission.

      

Grade: B

            

Analysis

Given the amount of talent in the ring, all these Superstars had to do was go wrestle a match and they were going to succeed. It was far from some Match of the Year candidate, but for a bonus show, this was rock-solid.

It's good to see Bliss back in action and more credibility given to The Kabuki Warriors. The fans were into this, and overall, even with the heels winning, this seemed to be a crowd-pleaser.

Lana cut a promo about how grateful she is this holiday season for her boyfriend, Bobby Lashley. Since she filed the restraining order against Rusev, the planned Last Man Standing match actually didn't take place.

Instead, Lashley won by forfeit, which should further drag out this storyline so they can fight at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs in two weeks.

But Owens came out to save the day, saying nobody cares about their relationship and that's not how the show will end. He also made fun of Lana dropping her Russian accent.

Once Lashley volunteered Owens to get the beating that was meant for Rusev, a new match was on.

But instead of a Last Man Standing match, it was just a regular one-on-one affair.

A few minutes into it, Rusev went against the restraining order again and attacked Lashley, leading to a disqualification.

      

Result: Lashley defeated Rusev by forfeit. Then, Lashley defeated Owens by disqualification.

      

Grade: C-

            

Analysis

Advertising a gimmick fight just to take it away and replace it with a standard singles match is a weak move. WWE isn't in the best position with fans right now to be playing games and not delivering on what it promotes.

The general rule of thumb should be that each time the card changes, unless it's due to an injury or something that can't be avoided, an attempt should be made to upgrade it, not downgrade it.

Of course, if WWE thinks having Rusev attack Lashley just to stretch this out even longer was worth it, that's an entirely different flaw of not realizing how repetitive these storylines can be.

This accomplished nothing. Fundamentally, it was a copy of what happened on Raw, but with an extra 20 minutes of wasted time by repeating it.

As bad as this storyline is, at least if the match had happened as planned, it could have possibly ended the feud and put everyone out of their misery. Instead, this was the equivalent of watching clips of Raw, which will be replayed on Monday's episode anyway.

At least the Owens vs. Lashley match was slightly better than The Street Profits vs. The O.C., but that isn't saying much.

All in all, Starrcade proved that every one of these house-show specials this year was uneventful at best and terrible at worst. It's hard to imagine this type of content would entice people to pay for a higher tier on WWE Network if that's the game plan.

If WWE wants these specials to be worth anything, they have to be decent shows made with more than the bare minimum of effort.

     

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.