The biggest wrestling star on the planet just returned to WWE.
Will he main event WrestleMania?
Will he right the wrongs of his past?
Or will he rip another locker room apart at its seams?
That’s right…
R-Truth has returned to WWE!
Oh, just one more thing…
Randy Orton came back too.
From outta…
well, being heavily referenced on the go-home Raw.
Just one more thing…
Closer.
CM Punk return confirmed.
I know, I know, we all just want to talk about one thing.
Mainly because the rest of Survivor Series was mostly filler, no killer.
But there wasn’t a Kickoff match, and the show was a glorious 2 hours 54 minutes in
total, so it won’t take long.
And remember to keep checkingWrestleTalk.com throughout the day for all the up to the minute
developments and reaction.
The show opened with War Games - Women!
Where randomly assorted babyfaces Charlotte Flair, Shotzi, Bianca Belair and Becky Lynch
took on Damage CTRL in a four vs four match up.
Commentary pointed out this is Charlotte Flair’s first ever WarGames match.
She’s presumably missed them so far because they require her to actually take bumps.
Her and Becky provided the faces’ main story throughout the match.
The lifelong frenemies showed a lot of tension up until the end - remember, the last time
they met was in that awkward month where they reportedly shoot hated each other, following
Charlotte’s controversial belt drop segment on SmackDown - but they had a cool payoff
when they finally embraced, teaming together to take out their opponents.
Charlotte’s performance for me, though, feels so lacklustre these days.
She was nowhere near the fiery passion or intensity that Becky brought to those moments.
Even when Flair was doing a moonsault off the top of the cage she looked bored.
The main story on the heels side, was that Bayley is to be trusted.
She was constantly saving near falls on her Japanese teammates, and even sacrificed herself,
pushing Kairi out the way to take a Charlotte spear herself.
That led to the end, where all the faces hit their finishers, with Becky pinning Bayley
off a 2nd rope Manhandle Slam through a table.
Bayley in Judgement Day’s theme song will soon become: One of these things is not like
the other.
She’s the Sami Zayn in the Bloodline.
The only other thing to note from this match is I was right.
I predicted a thing:
This was a really good match to open the show.
With the tag titles held up in the main event scene, the actual tag division is now being
used exclusively for branded content integration.
Alpha Academy and Pretty Deadly promoted Ruffles - which is where R-Truth made his return - and
the New Day drove to the arena in a Slim Jim car.
After not being beaten for two years, Gunther then defended his Intercontinental championship
against Miz.
It was like two clashing artistic styles occupying the same screen - like The Miz had glitched
into Gunther’s dimension in Across the Spiderverse.
The King of Sports Entertainment Soft Style vs one of the hardest hitters of his generation.
And…
it was over relatively easily, barely an inconvenience.
Miz would target Gunther’s left knee for his Figure 4, and he managed a babyface low
blow and exposed turnbuckle for one genuinely great near fall, but overall, this was a decisive
filler victory in Gunther’s longer reign.
He hit a lariat and splash, and then made Miz tap in the Boston Crab.
A fun match, but it never reached that second gear to make it properly competitive.
Santos Escobar vs Dragon Lee had some good back and forth action, with Santos bringing
the intensity of his recent heel turn, but ultimately this was another filler match.
It wasn’t even a proper grudge match, as Dragon Lee was neither of the two men Escobar
actually has beef with - Carlito and Rey Mysterio.
At 7 minutes long, this was just a way to give Santos a pay-per-view win ahead of those
bigger matches.
And then we got Rhea Ripley defending her Women’s title against Zoey Stark - the third
predictable pay-per-view filler match in a row.
Zoey’s physics-breaking offence is always fun to watch, but she was never a believable
winner, and the crowd only ever cheered Ripley.
Rhea won with a Riptide.
In between this filler midcard matches, the night long narrative was would famed kayfabe
dickhead Randy Orton actually show up to help his mates.
Sami Zayn and Jey Uso said they’d have each other’s backs no matter who turns up.
Judgement Day gloated that even if Randy does she up, he’ll probably turn heel on one
of his teammates.
And Seth kept shouting at Cody for updates.
The jeopardy felt somewhat forced.
But at least they didn’t just suddenly announce Adam Cole as his replacement!
For the men’s WarGames match itself, Seth started for the babyfaces, with Cody, Jey
and Sami waiting in the cage - with Orton still not having appeared from outta somewhere.
Balor started for Judgement Day, recalling his long and recent history with Rollins,
while JD, Dominic, Priest and McIntyre watched from the ramp - with palpable tension between
Drew and Damien.
The heels had the advantage, a far better working of psychology than the women’s opener,
meaning JD was in next.
Then Jey Uso - with Yeet chants from the crowd and evils from Drew McIntyre on every strike.
Damien stopped McIntyre going out next, so consumed was he by hate for Jey.
Then it was Zayn, then Drew, then Cody, then Dominic - where the Chicago crowd wanted to
boo him so much, they didn’t even do the countdown!
It was now four faces against five heels, with still no sign of Randy.
Seth started to shout at Cody.
The numbers game got the better of the faces, for Rhea’s music to hit - trying to cash
in Damien’s Money in the Bank briefcase for him.
But in an ingeniously plotted next beat, Orton’s music hit - fittingly kind of from outta nowhere
- for his full return.
He looks big.
He didn’t really do much, but whatever limitations he has were protected by the spots he had
- masked by storyline tension with Jey, the man who injured him; hidden in a five person
draping DDT spot; and helped by Sami and Seth throwing JD off the top of the cage for Randy
to hit a RKO beneath.
Orton gave Priest to his Legacy protegee Cody, who hit a CrossRhodes to win.
Because apparently it doesn’t matter how many times you get pinned when you have the
Money in the Bank briefcase.
You had a perfectly good JD McDonagh right there!
Now, I didn’t watch this live.
So I could see there were five minutes left of the broadcast while all the faces were
celebrating.
Never trust a Triple H-booked copyright logo.
I thought Randy might turn on someone.
Or maybe the Judgement Day would turn on Priest.
Or maybe, but very, very, very unlikely, we’d get…
CM Punk return confirmed.
Cole was getting ready to throw to the post-show press conference, when Cult of Personality
hit.
The crowd exploded.
Then they exploded even louder when Punk appeared in the entrance way, looking like he borrowed
Bryan Danielson’s AEW debut outfit of a simple white tee.
The whole place screamed ‘It’s Clobbering Time’.
And a fan embraced Punk screaming Chicago over and over again, while Punk himself shouted
‘who’s time is this?’
- coincidentally at the same time his old show Collision would’ve been concluding.
Here’s how everyone reacted at our watch party livestream:
I, er…
I think we can rule him out as the Devil, guys.
Punk then did this weird OOOOOOOAH noise like he was Gary Neville, and the show went off
air.
Obviously, CM Punk is my favourite wrestler.
I cried on-air with overwhelmed joy when he returned to wrestling with AEW.
I imagine a lot of you want to know my thoughts on him coming back to WWE.
I don’t know, right now.
It’s a bit too soon, so I don’t want to set my emotions in stone.
But I’ll tell you what I wrote in my notes as it was happening: “What a sell out.
This doesn’t feel the same as before.”
Because a huge part of my love for Punk was how he stood in opposition to a system and
corporation I despised in the last decade.
He was the Voice of the Voiceless, speaking up for a number of badly booked, mistreated
wrestlers backstage, and hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied, frustrated fans at home.
People change.
Companies change.
And sometimes they do inversely.
While WWE, under Triple H, has become a hot promotion, Punk, with his backstage behaviour
in AEW, has been an increasingly difficult anti-establishment figure to follow.
And in this act, returning to WWE, it feels as though Punk sold out.
The TV will still be great, his performances will be captivating, particularly if he goes
corporate heel.
But the authenticity that I so loved him for, right now, feels compromised.
But Ryback also tweeted he’d officially retire from pro wrestling if Punk returned
at Survivor Series, SO IT’S ALL GOOD.
CM PUNK!
Survivor Series was a mediocre main card, especially by big 4 standards, with an insanely
hot closing angle.
This was 80%.
Now go watch Luke and I review every Survivor Series ever in 3 words or fewer…