Last night, WWE presented its 20th Annual Survivor Series PPV live from the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. As well as featuring traditional elimination-style "Survivor" matches, this show had an added bonus in the fact that the elimination matches featured Superstars from Raw, SD! and ECW.
Effectively built up in the space of just 1-week, Survivor Series still looked set to be one of the biggest events on the WWE calendar. The question is, did it live up to the hype?
Kicking off the show was the "legends" VS The Spirit Squad in a traditonal 4-On-4 "Survivor" match. Ric Flair led his team of old-school veterans (Sgt Slaughter, Dusty Rhodes and Ron Simmons) to the ring, and also had some moral support from his old "Horsemen" buddy, "The Enforcer" Arn Anderson.
Ron Simmons appeared to be the most over legend of all, although he was quickly eliminated on a cheap count-out decision (as was Spirit Squad member Mitch). "Double A" then got banished from ringside for shoving Mitch into the ring-post in full view of the referee.
Next to hit the showers was Sgt Slaughter, Although he locked Nicky in the "Cobra Clutch", Mikey came in illegally and drop-kicked him in the back of the head, thus allowing Nicky to steal a victory and eliminate "The Sarge".
Nicky didn’t last long though, as "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes then came in to deliver a huge elbow drop and eliminate another Spirit Squad member from the contest.
Kenny soon surprised "The Dream" with a roll-up, leaving Ric Flair in a 3-On-1-handicap situation. Against the odds, Flair eliminated Mikey (with his feet on the ropes) and then shockingly pinned Kenny as well!
Now it was down to Johnny and Flair. After pushing Johnny into Kenny (who was stood on the ring apron), "The Nature Boy" applied the "Figure-Four" and forced the youngster to tap out.
Post-match, The Spirit Squad jumped Flair and amazingly, the legends didn’t return to help their team member.
Overall, this match was ok, although there were far too many cheap and abrupt eliminations for my liking. Plus there’s no way that Flair and Co should have won this one.
I said in my "predictions" column that Lita and Mickie James would have been eager to reverse the trend of bad matches together, and I was proved right with this effort.
Lillian Garcia actually announced this as being Lita’s last match, although the Philadelphia crowd sure as hell didn’t give her a warm send-off (and JR and King didn’t do her any favours, either. But more on that in a moment).
Following a slow start, Lita and Mickie soon put on a decent and occasionally exciting WWE Women’s Championship match that the crowd was well into.
Lita was shocked to see Mickie kick out of her top turnbuckle moon-sault (incorrectly referred to as a "Lita-Canrana" by an incredibly off-the-pulse Jim Ross) and got a rude awakening when Mickie planted her with a swinging DDT for the 3-count.
Then came the humiliation. Cryme Tyme (who had been snooping round Lita’s locker room earlier on) came out and began to sell off Lita’s personal possessions to members of the audience.
To her credit, Lita’s reactions were great, as she pleaded with Cryme Tyme to stop. However, this segment (together with the scripted comments from JR and King about Lita being "on her back again") was disrespectful and unnecessary.
To compare the situation, WWE made a big deal of Trish Stratus’ retirement by producing a nice video package of her career and by having the likes of JR and The King put her over on commentary as possibly the greatest Women’s Champions of all time.
Now look at their treatment of Lita. This woman joined WWE at near enough the same time as Trish and was actually a BETTER in-ring performer than her for the first few years of her career (Trish only really stepped up her game in the last 4 years of her career). She actually helped Trish GET OVER and worked with Trish when she was nowhere near being the skilled performer that she would eventually become.
At Survivor Series, it was as if in one foul swoop, WWE spat on Lita’s legacy and attempted to turn her into one big sexual joke (you know the "hoe" references and all that). As a pioneer of women’s wrestling and one of the biggest (male or female) names to break into the business in the last 6 years, Lita deserved better than this. (Incidentally I’ll be doing my own tribute to Lita here on Smash).
Now it was time for the 2nd elimination-style match of the evening, "Team DX" VS "Team RKO". Following a very long pre-match introduction from DX (in which CM Punk hilariously beat them in the popularity stakes, forcing even HHH to publicly acknowledge it), it was time to get down to business.
Mike Knox (accompanied by "exhibitionist" Kelly Kelly) suffered one of the fastest eliminations in Survivor Series history when he got super-kicked by Shawn Michaels after telling HHH to keep his eyes off his girlfriend.
Hilariously, Michaels and HHH claimed to have no idea who Knox was (ordinarily, this would bother me, however Knox is a lost cause anyway).
The comedy continued when Michaels slid out the ring during an exchange with Johnny Nitro and posed with Melina (who for a moment, thought she was standing next to Nitro!).
CM Punk (who had to be the most popular guy in this match) soon forced Nitro to tap out to the "Anaconda Vice". Not too long after, a Hardy Boyz double team sent Gregory Helms packing. This now left Edge and Orton in a 5-On-2 situation.
It didn’t take long for Edge to get double-teamed by Matt and Jeff and then super-kicked by HBK, thus eliminating him from the match. "Legend Killer" Randy Orton then got some "Sweet Chin Music" from Michaels and a "Pedigree" from HHH to officially end this squash-style slaughter.
Overall, this match was a huge letdown for me. Once again, it was a "DX Domination" and in the process, WWE killed off the strong run of Edge and Randy Orton. I defy anyone to tell me whom exactly DX have put over this year apart from themselves. Go on, I’m listening.
Speaking of "putting over", Undertaker simply HAD to put Ken Kennedy over in their "First Blood" Match. Thankfully, he did, although the fact that Mr Kennedy needed help from MVP took the shine off his win somewhat.
Up until MVP’s interference, this match was a wild brawl that rarely stayed in the ring. Kennedy was bleeding from the mouth early on, but the referee didn’t see it (Michael Cole made a big deal of it, but it shouldn’t have mattered. Since when has a "First Blood" Match ended due to a little trickle of blood coming from the mouth?).
An apparently inadvertent chair shot from MVP meant that Undertaker was spewing red stuff from his skull, meaning Kennedy was the winner.
Needless to say, Undertaker was pissed and he took out his frustration on Kennedy. In one of the sickest chair shots I’ve ever seen, ‘Taker literally had Kennedy wearing the chair round his neck. It’s quite possible that Kennedy’s subsequent blood loss was the result of the chair itself and not a blading job on the mat.
Now it was time for "Team Cena" to tangle with "Team Big Show". Would Philadelphia give John Cena a loving welcome? Er..no. Not at all.
The crowd positively hated Cena, even siding with Umaga at one point. Logically, you would have expected "The Samoan Bulldozer" to dominate and possibly eliminate a few members of Cena’s team before moving on to "Mr Word Life".
However, WWE decided to have Umaga go nuts and get himself disqualified almost immediately (to take the idiocy further he didn’t even return later on to "finish the job").
MVP got eliminated after taking an illegal choke-slam from Kane, followed by a Five-Star Frog Splash from RVD. Van Dam then took a boot to the face from Test, thereby eliminating him from the contest (why?).
Sabu eliminated Test with an impressive swinging DDT, but then walked into a choke-slam from The Big Show for an early exit.
Kane soon squared off with The Big Show but soon got eliminated when Finlay’s "Leprechaun" interfered and allowed "The Man Who Loves To Fight" to strike "The Monster" with an illegal shillelagh, thus allowing Big Show to get the pin.
Finlay soon got eliminated by Lashley, leaving Big Show outnumbered. It didn’t take long for Lashley and Cena to double team Show and set him up for the match-winning (and always-impressive) "FU".
Again, like the previous elimination, this featured far too many quick-fire and unnecessary eliminations, thus rendering the "Survival" concept worthless. If WWE had no intention of making proper use of guys like Sabu and RVD then they shouldn’t have included ECW in this match.
Another thing WWE shouldn’t have done was end Survivor Series with a World Title match between King Booker and Batista. On paper, this wasn’t a PPV-calibre main event and their boring, slow-paced bout did nothing to change that perception.
Before the match, SD! GM Theodore Long added the stipulation that the title could change hands on a DQ or count out (perhaps he’s been watching TNA). Most of the fans in attendance didn’t really care.
When the match got underway you could almost hear a pin drop. Younger members of the audience seemed to be behind Batista, but most sat on their hands.
In the end, it took a cheap belt shot from Batista to get the duke (Sharmell bought the belt into play). Survivor Series closed out with Batista getting emotional in the ring, but curiously there was no proper acknowledgement or the usual PPV ending from Michael Cole and JBL.
Overall, Survivor Series had its moments but was far from the extravaganza that it should have been. The booking rarely made sense, a long-time employee (Lita) received one of the worst send-offs in company history and the commentary, by and large, was a shambles (were JR and JBL doing badly on purpose?).
Also, where was the ECW representation (I’m talking about Styles and Tazz)?. WWE may have hyped December To Dismember during the show, but ultimately this will just be another watered down attraction, peppered with WWE brand names. Will ECW even be around next year?
Previously posted on Smash Wrestling:
http://www.firetank.com/smashwrestling/
