Coming up, Raw walks all over Smackdown yet again, The Rock appears… in a lot of video
packages… from the past and Becky and Charlotte implode in a completely professional manner
- it’s Survivor Series review time baby, like and subscribe.
So the problem with a show like Survivor Series is always stakes, why does anyone care about
brand supremacy when half of the competitors only joined their respective team a month
ago, there’s no bonus for the winners, there’s no benefits to be the winning team and on
a show where Raw walked all over Smackdown, the idea of brand supremacy just gets played
down by WWE. Despite this though, and the lack of anything
from The Rock who forgot to turn up to his own tribute show, Survivor Series managed
to be a fun little show.
The US Champion vs the Intercontinental Champion match between Damian Priest and Shinsuke Nakamura
got itself moved to the kick off show - potentially so that RAW could waltz all over Smackdown
on the main card until the head of the table could save the day.
Priest and Naks had an ok flow going, but were constantly interrupted by Rick Boogs
riffing on his guitar from ringside.
This not only pissed me off, because why, but also got under Priests skin who decided
to release the winning chokehold, go outside, smash the guitar, hammer Boogs in the face
and then accidentally while angry deck Nakamura getting himself disqualified.
This is precisely the sort of match a clean finish would not have hurt, are we actually
protecting Shinsuke Nakamura from a ppv loss? Now we care?!
The main show kicked off with a promo package hyping up the brand warfare and the sponsor
for this show: Red Notice, the new Netflix film starring Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot…
oh yeah and Dwayne Johnson. Setting the WWE desperation meter to three quarters full really
early doors.
The main card kicked off in a big way with the match most people were most excited about
- because they wanted to see it go completely off the rails - Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair.
Sadly for the sh*t-stirrers among us, both Becks and Chaz were consummate professionals
and put on a great match.
Charlotte dressed as Maleficent, Becky dressed as Britney - and oops she did it again, she
cheated to win.
For most of the match Becky had been letting Flair hit her baby one more time, one more
time, one more time, in what felt like a heated fight. Both women sold the hatred in this
one nicely, resorting to using each other’s finishing maneuvers as an insult to injury
and dropping the bitch word mid-slap fight.
It was anything you can do I can do better levels of back of forth, exemplified by an
ending in which Charlotte grabs the ropes on an O’Connor Roll but the ref spots it,
allowing Becky to roll into her own, grabbing the rope at the last second to keep Charlotte
down.
Pat McAfee said it best: “Not like that, that match was too good to end like that.”
Which might be the new “how will they co-exist” in terms of WWE pointing out bad booking.
Honestly, I’m never satisfied by a roll-up but I can see why you don’t want a clear
winner here, but then I’d argue why book the match. People can lose clean and be just
fine.
The men were out next for their traditional Survivor Series elimination match and as is
tradition it was full of shenanigans.
Kevin Owens had words with Seth Rollins about who would start the match before sliding out
of the ring and just wandering off. Giving the advantage to team Smackdown.
Which they used to maintain wrist control on Austin Theory.
Balor brought it back for Raw after a big breakdown spot and a coup de gras to Happy
Corbin.
But it was Lashley who was the MVP for his team taking guys out at ringside, making the
save in the ring and destroying King Woods with the spear and Hurt Lock combo, but a
showdown with Drew got out of hand and had both men eliminated.
Things broke down to Sheamus and Jeff Hardy vs Seth Rollins and Austin Theory, former
messiah and disciple.
Jeff and Sheamus shared some fun tandem offence before Sheamus came a cropper to a roll up,
he then took that frustration out on Jeff, leaving Hardy to get the big babyface comeback
against two guys - eventually nailing Theory with a swanton, but when he went after Seth
he ate the knees and a stomp for good measure.
This was messy and ludicrous but a lot of fun, and it was nice to see someone like Jeff
Hardy used for the closing stretch rather than the more obvious Drew McIntyre versus
the world storyline I thought they might go with - but anyway lol Seth wins.
Vince then arrived at the building carrying a golden egg and he made everyone clap for
him as he came in like that hundred million dollar egg would be used to stop the budget
cuts.
Roman then popped by the office to get a whole load of waffle about The Rock and how this
was the real Cleopatra’s egg and worth millions… and millions. Desperation meter at 90%.
Roman snapped back “like my next contract” and mooched off.
After that we honoured the legacy of the Great One who first appeared at Survivor Series
25 years ago by sponsoring this whole segment with Pizza Hut, a food The Rock definitely
does not eat. It’s what he wanted. Desperation meter has maxed out by this point.
Not much to write home about in this one, it was your typical battle royal with big
boy Omos dominating from the start, resisting R-Truth's offer of pizza, handily seeing off
other big men Shanky and Commander Azeez before winning the whole thing.
There was a brief moment where I thought they might do something with Ricochet but nah.
You get one and only chance and that was in NXT.
Post match AJ goes to get pizza but the Profits jump him and start lobbing pizza into the
crowd, I cannot tell you how annoyed I would be to be hit by a slice of flying, greasy
pizza.
The Usos and RKBro put on a fun little tag match with both teams working well together
- The Usos almost clinched the entire thing but the RKO outta nowhere on a splash put
Orton on top.
This was good wrestling well done with a clean finish and sometimes you can’t ask for more
than that.
Oh no guys, someone has stolen the bloody egg, that’s worth millions of dollars!
Fortunately Vince puts his best people on the case Sonya Deville and Adam Pearce. Best
watch Raw to see if they find this obvious prop tomorrow.
What a load of sh*t
If the men’s match had just enough chaos to hang together well, the women’s match
seriously struggled to maintain coherency.
Carmella was so busy sorting her face that she got rolled up immediately, even with Banks
and Shotzi not being able to agree on anything, Team Smackdown easily whittle the women of
Raw down to just Bianca Belair vs four of them.
Then with the numbers advantage on their side they decided to keep Sasah out of the ring
to get counted out which she just walked away from, without even like fighting back, then
the absolute plums let Bianca storm through them in about two minutes. Landing a KOD on
Shotzi for the victory.
This did nothing for nobody not named Bianca really. Sasha Banks had a good innings but
her sort of accepting her elimination by her teammates made little sense. The Raw women
including Ripley looked weak and the Smackdown women looked either weak or stupid for not
sealing the deal 4 v1.
If all felt rushed yaknow, Bianca heroically battling back from the deficit works with
a longer lead in, if you earn the moment, but here she single handedly made a roster
already struggling with star power look like chumps.
Surprise Kayla attack. Paul Heyman gets blindsided by Braxton backstage who says Brock’s suspension
is no longer indefinite. Uh oh,
Closing us out was Roman Reigns vs Big E, champion vs champion, conclusion vs foregone.
Roman was always going to win this one, and the two did well to pack the match full of
hard hitting moves, and some fun moments, like Big E popping up from a trio of superman
punches to stop Roman’s spear before hitting his own to the outside.
Some finisher trading towards the end gave us some near falls and then Roman’s superman
punch from the ring steps, to the spear back inside the ring felt a little rushed.
But ultimately this was good from the two of them and it's great to see Big E being
able to shine in the main event scene - he’s so easy to root for and was the perfect foil
to Roman who needs to become this unstoppable champion in time for the Rock to return.
Oh yeah, speaking of the Rock, he was not there at all in any capacity. Despite frequent
name drops, plugs of his new film and historical promo packages Rocky didn’t even pick up
the phone, WWE got absolutely ghosted and it feels like such a missed opportunity to
even tease the match if it is happening at WrestleMania.
But that feels quite fitting for a show with no real stakes, no real consequence, which
is why janky finishes like those between Becky and Charlotte matter even less - you’ve
just spent all night telling us that this is the one night a year the two brands go
head to head, so this limited feud is over right?! Ended on a spot of cheating and a
roll up. Or this is the set-up for a two belt Mania match and therefore Survivor Series
means nothing.
Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the wrestling on this show, but wrestling only has as much
meaning as your stories and narrative tell us it does, and what you’re saying with
this show is that it doesn’t matter at all. I’m giving this a high three out of five.