I had the pleasure of attending Starrcast VI on Sept 1-3 and wanted to share perspective and recap on the events and panels I witnessed. I live only 20 minutes away from the Hyatt Regancy hotel where Starrcast was held so I decided to buy myself a platinum bracelet for all the festivities. I will say, I did have a conversation with Conrad Thompson yesterday afternoon when the convention was wrapping up and he let it known to me that this is the lowest attended Starrcast which is not a complete surprise considering the All In was just the week before and not as many fans might not be willing to go to more wrestling events. But I really enjoyed the atmosphere of going to see stage events and meeting and greeting all my favorite superstars.
FRIDAY:
The first stage show I saw was the AEW Unrestricted live podcast hosted by Will Washington and Aubrey Edwards with special guest, Tony Khan. They were mainly previewing the All-Out card and the hype going into it. Khan also talked about the logistics of having two big pay-per-views on back-to-back weeks saying that wrestling companies make the mistake of not establishing traditions that should be sacred in a calendar year. Obviously, this was the day before the announcement of CM Punk’s firing and watching this, it didn’t even look like it was at least in the works. Khan looked like it was business as usual.
I then got to do some meet and greets and photo ops with Renee Paquette and Jon Moxley.
The day ended with a watchalong of AEW Rampage of that weekend with Aubrey Edwards, Saraya, Thunder Rosa, Renee Paquette, and Amanda Huber.
SATURDAY:
Started the day off by watching the 1 of a Kind panel with Rob Van Dam and Dominic DeAngelo and he talked about being trained by The Sheik, Ed Farhat and how Farhat took Van Dam under his wing to understand the ins and outs of the wrestling business. They then took questions from the audience. Rob was asked about how we would’ve done the WWE version of ECW differently and said he would’ve left it alone after the first One Night Stand in 2005. He knew it wouldn’t work in the long term, he wanted it to be different to Raw and Smackdown, but it followed the basic formula with allowing count-outs and disqualifications. Van Dam talked about his match with Jack Perry on AEW Dynamite, saying it was a one-off and really enjoyed being in the ring with Perry. Van Dam also talked about his current relationship with Paul Heyman saying that they’re still friends and called him a “creative genius.” He claims he knew Heyman had his best interests in mind.
After the show, I got the chance to walk around the collector’s room and purchased various posters and action figures from today and from decades ago which I have a huge affinity for as a collector of memorabilia myself. I bought a WrestleMania X-Seven pack with figures of Austin and Rock which held up pretty well.
I also purchased a Cody Rhodes figures manufactured by AEW.
The most memorable moment for me is getting to hold the original Big Gold Belt that Ric Flair unveiled in an episode of NWA World Championship Wrestling in February 1986. I thought I was in the Land of Oz and taking a photo with the original belt made me feel like a kid in Christmas morning.
The next panel show I got to see was My World with Jeff Jarrett hosted by Conrad Thompson. It was a very kayfabe-esque type of show, Jarrett seemed like he was having bad day overall. He was complaining that his coffee is too cold and being treated horribly by AEW fans. His wife, Karen then came out along with Satnam Singh. Jarrett was then asked some great questions from the crowd regarding the wrestling boom with AEW & WWE, his favorite venues to perform in, and how he got the gig of playing a youth pastor in Spring Breakers.
At the end of the panel, Singh choke slammed a volunteer security guard onto Conrad’s desk. Poor guy. Shoutout to the production team of Premier Streaming Network for keeping kayfabe alive.
After the show, I got to do a meet and greet with Jeff and Karen couldn’t have been more welcoming and kinder. Another reminder that even the most hated heels are the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
To end the day at Starrcast, I met up with Ricky Starks for both a photo and autograph and was very wonderful to meet as well. I left the hotel shortly after to attend Collision at the United Center.
SUNDAY:
The day of AEW All Out, this would be my favorite day of the convention because I got to see my heroes in person. The first panel of the day was Creating Dynamite, a behind the scenes look of how AEW Dynamite is produced every week and its development in 2019. It featured Bryce Remsburg, Christopher Daniels, Jerry Lynn, Mike Mansury, and Chris Harrington. One thing they talked about the process of building up sets and how they switched from the original tunnels to full on flat screens for their stage setup. Harrington talked about how it saved enough space that they get rid of an entire truck. It saved up hundred of thousands of dollars in logistics. I asked Christopher Daniels a question about his role as leader of Talent Relations and I brought up Jim Ross being a famous person that used to have this type of role. I asked if JR gave Daniels any significant advice on this role and the advice he gave him was just to put himself in the shoes of the talent he’s speaking too. He tries to consider what the person he is speaking to has gone through if there are any problems outright personally or professionally. It’s easy for him to look at problems that wrestlers might have and try to find solutions and work with that person to help him out. Being compassionate is important in talent relations.
The next panel was my favorite of all I went to, and it was the conversation between Toshiaki Kawada and Eddie Kingston, translated by Sonny Oono. Kawada making his first appearance in the United States in over thirty years. Kingston was pretty good at asking questions about Kawada’s career. Kawada talked about coming up in the wrestling business as a teenager. Him and Mitsuharu Misawa came up in high school together and trained with one another. Misawa got recruited by the All Japan Pro Wrestling dojo and Kawada wanted to follow him along. He tried to go through the New Japan dojo first but didn’t pass so then he went through the All Japan dojo. He was the youngest person there training at that time. Kawada talked about his excursions in the United States and Canada being trained under Gary Hart in Dallas and Stu Hart in Calgary. Mentioned he had some great tag matches against the Rock N Roll Express in house shows. Kawada went back to All Japan in the mid-80s and had some experiences wrestling with Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy. He had a ton of respect for Hansen as he was so versatile in the ring and always had great matches. Kingston asked Kawada about the first time he won the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship for the first time from Steve Williams on October 22, 1994. He said it was the most memorable moment of his career winning the title from what he believed was a tremendous performer in Steve Williams. Sonny Oono talked about the price the Japanese wrestlers paid for the fans, saying that a lot of their bodies have become so crippled. Kawada then talked about the legendary matches he had with Misawa as a tag team and how much pain he went through. But one of most memorable matches was against Misawa in June of 1994 where he earned a lot of respect from his fellow comrades in All Japan. When Giant Baba passed away, it affected Kawada whom he considered Baba a mentor and a father figure. He had so much loyalty of Baba and his wife, Motoko that he couldn’t put it in his heart to leave All Japan and join NOAH in 2000. It wasn’t until 2005 when Keiji Muto took over as president that Kawada decided to leave and become a freelance. He admitted that he was upset with the lack of payoffs he’s been getting under Muto’s presidency of All Japan. He then talked about the death of Mitsuharu Misawa in 2009 and how that affected him personally. He confessed that he began to lose his passion in professional wrestling and decided to begin walking away from it shortly thereafter. On August 15, he participated in the last card of New Japan’s G1 Climax tournament for the year, teaming with mentor Tenryu and Tiger Mask to defeat Riki Choshu, Junji Hirata and Akira Nogami. This turned out to be the last match Kawada has wrestled to date, although he never had a formal retirement ceremony. Kawada enjoyed his time with Kingston that he would like to one day team up with him if the opportunity ever comes. He ended by saying he is truly grateful that fans still remember who he is and go out of their way to watch his matched with Kobashi and Misawa on YouTube as he was shocked it was that easily accessible. That’s a huge testament to Kingston when his hero says that about him. This was a tremendous panel to attend and if anybody did not see this yet, go on Premier Streaming Network and watch the replay. It was that great.
Meeting and getting autographs from both guys was a tremendous experience as well.
Overall thoughts:
Starrcast VI was a magnificent experience as a wrestling fan overall. Even though this was not the most attended of all time, there was still so much to do and see. They had two panels running at the same time all day, which was pretty awesome to have a choice of what event you wanted to go to. I will give them credit for improving the experiences from the past years and enforcing the rule that only platinum and gold bracelet holders have first dibs on panels and meet & greets. Thank to Conrad Thompson and the Starrcast team for a memorable experience once again.
