Starrcade '86: The Skywalkers
VHS cover featuring various wrestlers
Promotion(s)	National Wrestling Alliance Jim Crockett Promotions
Date	November 27, 1986
City	Greensboro, North Carolina, United States Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Venue	Greensboro Coliseum Complex Omni Coliseum
Attendance	30,000 (combined)
Tagline	The Skywalkers
Starrcade chronology
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Starrcade '86: The Skywalkers, also referred to as Starrcade '86: Night of The Skywalkers, was the fourth annual Starrcade professional wrestling closed-circuit television event, produced by Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) under the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) banner. It took place on November 27, 1986, from the Greensboro Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, North Carolina in the United States and from the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.

The main event saw NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair defend the championship against the NWA United States Champion Nikita Koloff in a title versus title match. The dual location saw six matches take place in each location, with the Greensboro Coliseum main event being a steel cage match between defending NWA World Tag Team Champions the Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and challengers the Andersons (Arn Anderson and Ole Anderson). The "Skywalkers" tag line came from one of the featured matches of the show where the Road Warriors wrestled The Midnight Express in a scaffold match in which the teams fought atop a 20 foot tall scaffold erected across the top of the ring.

Highlights of the show were shown on JCP's weekly television shows and an edited version of the show was later available for purchase or rental on VHS tape. With the launch of the WWE Network in 2014, all closed-circuit television Starrcades (1983 through 1986) alongside the subsequent Starrcade shows appear in the pay-per-view section. The WWE Network versions of the shows were not edited for content, but some entrance music was replaced due to copyright issues. At four hours, this edition of Starrcade is the longest in the event's history.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was tradition for JCP to hold major professional wrestling events at Thanksgiving and Christmas, often at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina in the center of JCP's Carolinas/Virginia territory. In 1983, JCP created Starrcade as their supercard to continue the Thanksgiving tradition, bringing in wrestlers from other NWA affiliates and broadcasting the show throughout its territory on closed-circuit television.^[1] Starrcade soon became the flagship event of the year for JCP featuring their most important feuds and marquee matches. The 1986 event was the fourth show to use the Starrcade name, and the last event to take place in two different locations.

The Starrcade show featured a number of professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing, scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (villainous characters) or faces (heroic characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.

Magnum T. A. was originally scheduled to face Ric Flair at the 1986 Starrcade, but was left temporarily paralyzed and had to end his wrestling career as a result of a car accident on October 14, 1986. JCP decided to have Nikita Koloff, who was engaged in a feud with Ronnie Garvin at the time, turn face as a result and take Magnum T. A.'s place in the main event of the show.

The 1986 Starrcade show took place in two separate locations, the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina and The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. The shows were broadcast live on closed-circuit TV to the other arena. The show alternated between matches, starting with Tim Horner andNelson Royal defeating Rocky and Don Kernodle in a tag team match at the Greensboro Coliseum, then switching over to the first match at The Omni, alternating until Ric Flair and Nikita Koloff faced off in the main event at The Omni. Switching between shows allowed the Atlanta crowd to watch The Road Warriors wrestle the Midnight Express while the steel cage was set up for the Greensboro Coliseum main event match between the Rock 'n' Roll Express and the Andersons.^[2][3]

The Road Warriors won the "Night of the Skywalkers" scaffold match by knocking both members of the Midnight Express, Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey, off the scaffold, dropping into the ring below. After the match, the Road Warriors' manager Paul Ellering chased Jim Cornette up the scaffold; this led to Cornette suffering a legitimate severe knee injury when he fell from the underside of the scaffold onto Big Bubba Rogers. Rogers was supposed to catch Cornette, but failed to do so. Cornette did not land properly and had to be carried out of the ring.^[2] Road Warrior Hawk wrestled the match with a broken leg, an injury he had suffered during a match during a Japanese tour the Road Warriors did a month earlier.^[2]

Jimmy Valiant's years-long feud with Paul Jones finally came to an end, Jones would go on to manage Rick Rude and Manny Fernandez to the NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version), then lost them back to the Rock 'n' Roll Express (in a phantom title switch) after Rude jumped to the WWF in 1987. Ole Anderson was kicked out of the Four Horsemen in February 1987, replaced by Lex Luger, with his performance in this match as well as being absent for his son Bryant's amateur wrestling matches being the pretext of kicking him out. Arn, having thus split from Ole, formed a tag team in the Horsemen with Tully Blanchard, winning two NWA World Tag Team Championships as Horsemen and one WWF World tag team championship as the Brain Busters. Also forming a new regular tag team were the newly babyface Nikita Koloff and his former enemy Dusty Rhodes - dubbed "the Superpowers", they would go on to win the 1987 Crockett Cup.

Big Bubba Rogers, disgruntled at his pay-off for his participation in the scaffold match, moved to the Universal Wrestling Federation after JCP bought the territory in April 1987, winning the UWF Heavyweight Championship then briefly returning to JCP and reprising his bodyguard role for Jim Cornette before jumping to the WWF to become the Big Boss Man. Jimmy Garvin turned face in 1987 after his (kayfabe) brother Ron Garvin had his face burned at the hands of Cornette and the Midnight Express, then would challenge Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship during that summer's Great American Bash. Sam Houston, in real life, married Baby Doll and would eventually leave Central States Wrestling for the WWF. Also headed to the WWF shortly after this event was Krusher Khruschev who replaced Randy Colley in the role of Smash of Demolition in late January 1987 - the resulting "classic" Demolition line-up of Smash and Ax went on to win three WWF World Tag Team Championships, the first of these being the longest reign ever with the belts. Kruschev's spot in the Russian Team, meanwhile would be taken by Vladimir Petrov who, along with Ivan Koloff, continued to feud with Nikita.

• Starrcade '86: The Skywalkers at IMDb