Previously on Survivor Series: NXT was involved which made it seemingly make less sense but also made it a lot more entertaining, because NXT. Lio Rush was Cruiserweight Champion which seems SO long ago. Brock Lesnar had a feud with Rey Mysterio which seems like Flair/Steamboat in comparison to Rey’s recent feuds. Oh, and Shayna Baszler defeated both Becky Lynch and Bayley which seems weird seeing as the show ended with Becky as the coolest person in the room.
Oh, hello there.. It’s me, HGR. You know the guy who writes RAW Emotions? I’m here to give my thoughts about Survivor Series, a WWE Network Event, because SOMEBODY is a sore loser.
The Whole “Emotions” thing doesn’t really jive with Survivor Series. (We’ll get to that) so I’m going to stick to a rough Pops & Botches formula while mostly talking randomly because my brain is a leaking vault of information. So let’s get to it.
Pre-Show Shenanigans
POP: R-Truth doing literally Anything
I don’t know what it is about this man, but whatever Ronnie does just always seems to *work* ya know? Of course he’s the one that brings up the Gobbledy Gooker. A gimmick by the way that a Mr. Undertaker, the man of the evening, has admitted he was terrified might be for him at one point.
And wouldn’t ya know, that blasted bird ends up winning the 24/7 championship! I’m just sad that WWE’s YouTube video cuts out before the literal camera botch of not cutting away right before everyone in the scene stopped fighting. Kevin Dunn where you at?
I love a good Battles Royal
Seeing as The Gooker is not a brand specific superstar, his win over R-Truth doesn’t technically count towards the standings. Which means The Miz’s win in this Battles Royal gives Raw an early 1-0 lead even if it’s on the Pre-Show, IT STILL COUNTS SHUT UP YOU GUYS.
LOL Smackdown is worse than Retribution
YA’LL GOT SWEPT. BY THE TEAM THAT LOST TO RETRIBUTION. AHAHAHAHA.
In all seriousness this just means that The Hurt Bidness is literally the strongest group in WWE, right?
OK, in actual seriousness. The match itself was what you’d expect. Lots of moving parts, the occasional flash pins here and there. Less losing to transitional moves than usual which is a good sign.
Keith Lee gets to look cool and awesome again which is great because we are still waiting for that big ol’ push we heard about a while ago. Jey Uso got to show some fire while obviously succumbing to The Damned Numbers Game™, but his loss wouldn’t be for nothing. Something something foreshadowing.
2-0 Raw by the way. I’m not saying anything, I’m just saying.
If the Spider-Man Pointing meme was a Wrestling Match
All The New Street Day Profits jokes aside, this match was pretty baller, as I think most expected it to be. It was pretty amazing to get to hear Big E do the intro and come out with Kofi and Woods. Even if they haven’t been split up that long. It’s just great knowing this can be a thing going forward.
First I would like to say that I can’t wait for Montez Ford to some day be solo (No offence Angelo) and be super important and awesome and have everyone love him.
But mostly I want to talk about how honest to god great it is to see Xavier Woods back in a wrestling ring. It’s amazing to think he went from “R-Truth’s Friend” to potentially being a random firing after feuding over the Funkadactyl’s of all things to a bona fide WWE HOFer without question. And it’s him too, he wasn’t carried to this spot by Kofi and Big E. He holds as much of the credit as the other two.
Also I considered counting this as a win for Raw seeing as The Street Profits did sorta spend most of the year on Raw. But I want these results to be fair and honest. Also I don’t ever want to claim The Street Profits as my own ever again. Sorry, Not Sorry.
BOTCH: Heel vs Heel Matches that mean less than Usual
This is such a weird set up. Heel vs Heel is very difficult to do in general, as putting “heat” on someone who is by default unsympathetic defeats the purpose of the heat in the first place.
Sami did what he could, trying to work the gimmick to it’s fullest as The Hurt Bidness basically just stood all around, and counting Lashley, in the ring as he acted his way to a Razzie award.
I just really want everyone in these segments to be doing more important stuff. Let Sami actually have some good matches with people maybe? Get the US Title off Lashley and run him and Drew and the big belt at least once. Hurt Biz needs to not just be beating up basically jobbers forever.
Those suits were absolutely fire though. Oh and by the way 3-1 RAW!
I refuse to make any jokes about Planting or Spreading Seed
I’m obviously not going to talk negatively on any Wile E. Coyote level humor. Hitting someone with a bag of bird.. food seems like a great way to win a championship! Come on guys it’s R-Truth what do you expect me to do? Hate the segment? Pfft.
POP: When the match you knew would be good, was Good
People on the internets may be big mad that Asuka has become “just another” WWE Superstar over her career and takes “too many losses” but honestly she was never going to be NXT Asuka. The win streak we got to start was surprising enough.
And I’m not going to sit here and say that Sasha is some bum that shouldn’t be able to go one on one with her. They both went out there and threw it down and it was great.
I’m really glad they only teased the German Suplex onto the apron, because Sasha is just dumb enough to do it, but also upset they potentially put that idea into Shotzi Blackheart’s brain.
Oh and we got through this match without Carmella showing up and ruining it, which is pretty great honestly. It’s not what you’d call a “clean win” but a good win that Sasha absolutely needed.
Ok so there is a lot to unpack here. First off, and I can not stress this enough.
WHO THE ABSOLUTE $#@% DECIDED THAT BAYLEY SHOULD BE ELIMINATED FIRST? FIRST?? BAYLEY?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?
ok calm down, take a deep breathe, it’ll be ok.
I really want to say that beyond a few IDIOTIC choices in eliminations or I don’t know, putting a submission on someone who isn’t legal. The match overall told a pretty solid-ish story. If I am trying to be very very nice.
It didn’t slow down too much, and there wasn’t a single elimination via the Diva Driver ’98 which is good! However the issue with this match from even a few weeks ago was we absolutely knew the general outcome.
Now about the outcome. It was great! Ok that’s a bit strong. It was.. different? I guess. The best thing I can say about it is that it gave the desired outcome, LOL LANA WINS, without having anyone in this match, even Natalya, having to be pinned BY Lana! Kudos to that I guess.
Oh also..
RAW IS VICTORIOUS!!!!111!!!
RAW WINS! LANA CLUTCHED IT OUT! 4-2 WITH ONLY ONE MATCH TO GO! SUCK IT BIRD-BOY!
Sword and Shield
Another tip of the old cap to EvilDucky in our SRP Discord live thread for that byline I just stole (with credit!) If you’re not on the Discord, uh, why not? Anyways.
We have reach the pinnacle of the evening (as far as I knew at the time of watching the show) and as I sat there watching Roman and Drew literally waste time in a wrestling ring, I drifted off, waiting for the match to pick up like I assumed it would at some point.
And did it ever.
These two huge dudes threw themselves at each other while also throwing each other at other objects like they were fighting for somethign that really mattered. Maybe some day down the line this match will be used as a stepping stone for a Roman and Drew program or something, who knows.
What I do knows is that these two guys can GO. Heel Roman continues to be the best thing in wrestling that doesn’t involve Killer Clowns or Invisible Children Sidekicks. It’s kind of crazy that Reigns has Paul Heyman with him but does most of the talking, and that makes him even MORE of a badass!
I’m not totally mad the the schmozz finish with the ref going down. The story they were telling with Jey was an important peice for him and Roman to be able to move forward.
And now with Roman winning the match via a passed out Drew McIntyre, it’s the perfect opportunity for Mr. USA Network, The Most Must See WWE Superstar, Mr. Money In The Bank.. The Miz to cash in!
He should be here any minute now.
Ok, give Roman time to leave, don’t need to rush him of all people.
Drew’s kind of stirring you might want to..
Oh no, why are we fading to black?
$#@%.
30 Years of The Deadman
I’m not going to go too deep into the closing segments of the show, because they really didn’t feel like part of the show at all anyways. We have the wonderful Tara from the SRP Discord who will be doing a write up as I’m much more of a Kane and Mankind fan myself. So defiantly look for that to drop soon.
Beyond that, If you enjoyed Survivor Series, Enjoyed this Column, or just enjoy life in general, give this a share. Leave a comment below with your thoughts. Stop by the SRP Discord and say hi. Until next time, I’m HGR and Tango Mike.
