The one time of the year when Raw and Smackdown Live will face off in head to head competition, WWE Survivor Series comes to you live from Houston, Texas, as the five best men on Raw face off against the five best men on Smackdown Live, including names like Kurt Angle, SHane McMahon, Triple H, Brawn Strowman and Shinsuke Nakamura, with the winning team able to claim bragging rights and bran supremacy. THe five best women from each brand will also step into the ring with each other, as Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Asuka, among others, will see which show has the strongest women. All the champions from each brand will face off against their counterparts, as AJ Styles faces Brock Lesna,r Charlotte Flair faces Alexa Bliss, The Usos do tag team battle with The Bar and The Miz gets in the ring with Baron Corbin. All of this and more at WWE Survivor Series.
+ Team Raw (Kurt Angle, Triple H, Samoa Joe, Finn Balor & Braun Strowman) vs Team Smackdown Live (Shane McMahon, John Cena, Shinsuke Nakamura, Randy Orton & Bobby Roode) (5-on-5 Elimination Match): obviously the order of eliminations (there have to be at least 5) will be subjective on how you take them, but I personally found it all pretty silly. This was lots of competitors first Survivor Series match, and arguably their biggest match, and frankly I would have liked a bit more from these people (which is not implying they were eliminated. This was exciting in the moment, but the more I think about it the less I liked it
+ Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) vs AJ Styles: thank god this was changed from Lesnar vs Jinder Mahal. Any doubts you may have had that this would be a typical Lesnar suplex-spam match can be laid to rest: this was fucking incredible.
+ The Bar (Sheamus & Cesaro) vs The Usos: the two tag team champs of Raw and Smackdown Live, respectively, finally put on a good match for the show. The Bar have become such a good team, and The Usos series with American Alpha, The New Day and Breezango of late have been so good that there is no surprise this was a great match
+ The Miz (w/ The Miztourage) vs Baron Corbin: I had severe doubts that this was going to be a good match, but at least the story leading up to it had something going for it. This was as much of a standard Raw match as you’ll ever see, and I can’t believe that of all the titles they changed recently they didn’t switch this one. It is a horrible thing to say but this was not a great match, but until this point it was still the best match so far
– Charlotte Flair vs Alexa Bliss: this battle between the two champions of their brands, was little more than a match you’d see on any weekly show and the overexposure of the WWE talent has become far too obvious. Both women did bust out some good moves, but nothing about the result/lead up meant much at all, because there were no stakes to who win or lost.
– Team Raw (Alicia Fox, Sasha Banks, Nia Jax, Bayley & Asuka) vs Team Smackdown Live (Becky Lynch, Carmella, Naomi, Natalya & Tamina) (w/ Lana) (5-on-5 Elimination Match): this was an absolute mess. Foolish eliminations aside (because those are subjective), there were so many mistakes in this match, and so many poorly done eliminations that it was hard to even keep track of who was still in the match. This was a really bad showing from lots of women that we all know can wrestle in the right circumstances
– The Shield (Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns) vs The New Day (Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston & Big E): this match took far too long to get going, and once it finally did, it ended. Admittedly, the ending was a prett good stretch, but for the most part there was nothing overly special about this. I just can’t feel that The Shield are anything other than three singles guys, anymore
– Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs The Fashion Police (Tyler Breeze & Fandango): two of the best wrestlers, and two of the best characters, relegated to the pre-show is a travesty. I think the former team knew it, too, because they were as half-assed as you’ll see, and the crowd was still entering the arena, so this was as pointless as it gets
– Enzo Amore (c) vs Kalisto (WWE Cruiserweight Championship): the only title match on the show, this was a botch filled mess – and surprisingly, most of the shoddy work came from Kalisto. Enzo is not a good wrestler, but he knows it, and doesn’t try to be flashy. Kalisto, on the other hand is a good wrestler who just had a really off night
– Elias vs Matt Hardy: I am always disappointed when Elias has to wrestle, only because I love his songs so much. I can only look on with disbelief at the fall Matt Hardy has had since the Hardy Boys Wrestlemania return, despite this being a perfectly fine match, although nothing special
> I have to say, it was disappointing that the undercard matches were not inter-brand. Elias vs Aiden English, for example, could have been a fantastic comedy match, rather than the heatless affair Elias and Matt Hardy had, or even Chad Gable vs Jason Jordan, to continue their little rivalry following their split
Should you watch this event: I was falling asleep by the end of the 2 hour pre-show, and there wasn’t a huge amount on the main card to keep my excitement up. There were more bad matches than good, but I always get a kick out of elimination matches in general; go out of your way to see Lesnar/Styles, and even the men’s eliminaton match, but don’t bother with the rest unless you are a fan of the competitors.
MoshFish Reviews 