Still reeling from Sunday’s events, PWP’s Joshua Gibbs gives his thoughts in a full breakdown of WWE Survivor Series.
Were you expecting some surprises at Survivor Series? Too bad.
Maybe I just care too much. I care about build up. I care about storyline. I care about results. Survivor Series was less about quality builds and more about scrambling to fill the talent voids left by John Cena, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, etc.
The Survivor Series pay-per-view is one of the “big four” – along with the Royal Rumble and Summer Slam – which all culminate at WrestleMania. Since 1996, the WWE has given us at least 12 pay-per-views each year, even going so high as 16 in 2006. I would have assumed that the WWE would give special attention to at least these four shows which account for about 33% of their pay-per-view events.
That was not the case this past Sunday in Atlanta, GA. Survivor Series 2015 seems to have been the victim of bad timing due to unforeseen circumstances. If Seth Rollins wasn’t injured, the entire format of the show would have been different, even if the result may have been the same. We’ll talk about that horrible decision in a moment, but let’s go through everything else first:
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Semifinal Match: Roman Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio
I was excited for the booking of this match even if the writing was on the wall about Roman Reigns emerging as the victor. The match was solid and gave us some good back and forth before Reigns hit Alberto Del Rio with the air hug for the pin and win. While I wasn’t necessarily surprised at the outcome, I was surprised at the reception Reigns received from the Atlanta crowd. At this point, there is little he can do to make people like him. Their minds are made up and now Reigns and Cena have more in common than ever before.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Semifinal Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens
Another solid choice to start the event, which also makes complete sense since the winner would need time to rest up before appearing in the main event later that night. Yet again, the outcome wasn’t a shock and these two men delivered a match that started out slow but built up to a satisfying finish as Dean Ambrose advanced. I believe the crowd would have been happy either way as Kevin Owens has an incredible following and will find himself in the title picture soon enough. These men started with far too many rest-holds for my taste, as if they were both gassed simply by coming down to the ring.
I feel that ever since Owens ended his feud with Cena, his move-set has become predictable and somewhat bland. He started out so strong because his moves were fresh and impressive for a man of his size but lately we haven’t seen much variety.
Survivor Series Elimination Match: Lucha Dragons, Ryback & The Usos vs. The New Day, Sheamus & King Barrett
This match puzzled me and not just because it wasn’t announced ahead of time.
The New Day epitomize heel heat. They have annoying (albeit hilarious) catchphrases and sayings, they trash your local sports teams and most importantly, they win. But during the match Big E was eliminated and seemingly injured, which prompted both Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods to escort him backstage and leave Sheamus by himself. While heels leaving in the middle of a match isn’t new, it seemed like a cheap way to force the ending where the good guys win the match. This type of cheap gimmick should be reserved for RAW or Smackdown, not an event that I paid money to watch.
BONUS GRIPE: Commercials? Really? I don’t pay $9.99 a month to watch antacid commercials.
WWE Divas Championship Match: Charlotte (c) vs. Paige
This match went on for almost 15 minutes, which felt like 15 minutes too long. The match wasn’t a complete train wreck, but didn’t need to drag out this long simply because the WWE wants to occasionally “give Divas a chance.” Regardless of your feelings about Paige‘s comment from a week ago regarding Charlotte‘s dead brother the fact remains that it generated a ton of heat for this match. Making light of a family member’s suicide should be more than enough reason to want to go out and destroy someone in the ring, yet WWE chose to avoid it entirely as if it never happened.
Perhaps this was done as the insistence of Ric Flair or even Vince McMahon himself since the comment was cringe inducing, but the irony is that without it, this feud seemed hollow and worthless. Charlotte got the submission victory but certainly didn’t look strong as if she really wasn’t that motivated to win and clean up her family’s honor. The crumbling of the Charlotte/Paige friendship was bumbled from the start and if nothing else I was happy to see this storyline come to a close.
Tyler Breeze vs. Dolph Ziggler
Yes, plenty of people like Tyler Breeze. I do not.
John Morrison already did this character and he did it way better. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that I’m not supposed to “like” him but my grievance is with the character, not the actual wrestler or his ability. During the kickoff show, Breeze and Summer Rae were interviewed by Tom Phillips and chose to respond by using very questionable abbreviations and phrases such as, “you should Googs it. It’s an abbrev, Tom.” Yikes. The match itself was ok, although I would expect more from an NXT star making his pay-per-view debut against one of the better mid-carders in the business. Despite what I thought was a lackluster showing, Tyler Breeze picks up the win against a former world champion, Dolph Ziggler.
Undertaker and Kane vs. Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper (w/ Braun Strowman)
Let’s be honest, Survivor Series 2015 was not much more than an Undertaker homage show. With all of the build-up and clips regarding his 25 years in the WWE did anyone genuinely believe that he would lose this match? To be fair, the WWE delivered exactly what they had been promoting all night. The Undertaker arrived, dominated and left, just as he has been doing for the better part of 25 years.
Plenty of people marked out watching the Brother of Destruction but for me, I need more. I’ve seen them plenty of times before and no, they don’t automatically get a pass just by stepping through the ropes. Simply watching Undertaker go through the motions isn’t enough for me and it shouldn’t be enough for you. The mystique surrounding the Undertaker has always been about his image. No one has ever described him as a technical mastermind and that’s OK because his style of wrestling combined with his over-the-top character is a perfect embodiment for what the WWE is, was and always will be. But after a while, even that character gets old. Undertaker wins with the tombstone on Luke Harper, which now make shim 2-0 against The Wyatt Family. I feel bad for Bray Wyatt because for all the supernatural strength the WWE wants me to believe he has, it has yet to bring him a signature win.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Finals Match: Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose
As plenty if people had predicted, it would come down to Reigns vs Ambrose for the title in a rare face vs face battle. There is nothing inherently wrong with knowing something like and it doesn’t take away from enjoying the match itself but I was somewhat confused as to why each man still had to work in their signature moves in such a short amount of time. These guys are supposed to be BFF and as such, should be well aware of each other’s skill set, reversals, etc. You mean to tell me that Reigns can’t see Ambrose’s mid-rope clothesline coming from a mile away? I would have loved to see these moves done and countered by each man, forcing them to reach deeper into their bag of tricks in order to earn the company’s biggest prize.
In the end, Reigns caught Ambrose with a spear to get the win and earn his first WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
**CUE TRIPLE H MUSIC**
The COO of the company arrives amidst confetti and celebratory music to congratulate their newest champion and instead of shaking his hand, Reigns drops the title and spears Triple H. The satisfaction on Reign’s face wouldn’t last as he would turn around into a giant Brogue Kick from Sheamus who promptly cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns
Please, no.
Reigns is down from the kick so Sheamus covers. 1…2…KICK OUT!
The kick out was merely a tease as Reigns would only last a few more seconds before falling victim to another Brogue Kick and being covered by Sheamus for the win. That’s right, the guy who was jobbed out earlier in the evening to Ryback just because a four-time World Heavyweight Champion.
Fallout
So what happens now? My biggest problem with this ending, other than my opinion about Sheamus being insufferably boring and uninteresting, is that we have been given another heel champion, once again backed by The Authority. Even if the WWE wants me to believe that Triple H isn’t entirely happy with the idea of Sheamus being champ, there is zero chance that he brings anything even close to interesting to his title reign. There is no part of me that cares even remotely about the Sheamus character and I can only pray that his run is short.
Even worse, this result does nothing for Reigns. The guy was almost brought to tears in the middle of the ring and the crowd was still booing him long after Sheamus and Triple H had left the stage. We all see what they’re doing; give Reigns the sympathy vote as the guy who always gets this close to victory and then gets it taken away from him. The problem is that fans overwhelmingly just don’t care about Reigns’ side of the story.
Maybe that’s been the dastardly scheme all along. The only way to put Reigns over is to find something the fans hate more than the idea of him being champion…and that is Sheamus being champion. Will this be enough to rally the WWE Universe into the Roman Empire? I don’t think so, but that won’t stop them from trying. The only way I see Reigns earning a guaranteed shot at the title between now and WrestleMania is by winning the Royal Rumble.
And the boos will be deafening.