WWE Survivor Series 2017 Review

The Brand Split version of Survivor Series is a weird beast. It causes people who spend the rest of the year hating each other’s guts to team up because they suddenly care about the name of their TV show. On top of that, it’s WWE openly telling you that one brand is better than the other. Does that mean we should now all give up on SmackDown? Or maybe, I should stop overthinking this stuff. Let’s dish out some stars.

Elias defeated Matt Hardy

I don’t watch Raw every week, so I’m going to assume I’ve missed the reasoning for this match and that it’s not entirely random…

There wasn’t much to this. Elias dominated and won with the Drift Away. It was the definition of OK.

Verdict: Two Stars

Enzo Amore defeated Kalisto to retain the Cruiserweight Title

Enzo is still irritating.

This was fine. It would have been better if it had been literally anyone else in the Cruiserweight division vs Kalisto but mustn’t complain.

I don’t know what else to say. The most entertaining moment was Kalisto mucking up his entrance. It is what it is, and I find it very hard to care.

Verdict: One Star

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango)

Sami and Owens were two of my favourites before they teamed up and I might like them even better now. Their pre-match promo had a ring of truth to it which is a rarity for heels in WWE.

The rest of the match was alright if unspectacular. No one was working too hard, but it wasn’t wholly phoned in. It’s the pre-show, what do you want?

Verdict: Two Stars

The SHIELD (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose) defeated The New Day (Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston)

Imagine taking a group as cool as The SHIELD and making them wear those atrocious shirts?

This was a fun demolition derby style match. These two trios are up there as some of the best examples of that in the world, and they all work like men who have been wrestling together for years. It’s hard to pick out a single star because it was more an example of the teams being the star.

It’s no surprise that The SHIELD got the win because let’s face it, they have a certain Big Dog who must look strong. However, I don’t think it took too much away from New Day as they looked strong in defeat.

Verdict: Three And A Half Stars

Team Raw (Alicia Fox, Asuka, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Nia Jax) defeated Team SmackDown (Becky Lynch, Tamina, Carmella, Natalya and Naomi)

Didn’t WWE tease a surprise entrant for the SmackDown team? Did they ditch that in favour of Natalya?

WWE managed to make Becky Lynch look worse than The SHIELD’s shirts as she ate the traditional chump pin. With the way they’ve ruined Bayley, she’s the best babyface the women’s division has, so it makes perfect sense to have her look like an idiot. For good measure they then had Tamina hit her awful splash to eliminate Bayley too.

I’m going to assume Tamina (the worst wrestler on the roster not named Jinder) eliminating Nia Jax was punishment for the recent rumours of her leaving the company. I know they wanted her to look strong for Asuka beating her but couldn’t she have smushed Fox instead?

Complaints aside, this did give us one thing, and that was killer Asuka. She kicked the crap out of Carmella and got to stand tall at the end when she came back against two women to win. I’m willing to sacrifice a few people if it leads to Asuka being established as the best.

Verdict: Two And A Half Stars

Baron Corbin defeated The Miz

There was a moment in this match where Cole was wanking over The Miz and I had horrible flashbacks. By the way, the commentary is a mess on this show. They’ve got five men on the desk with Saxton and Phillips combining with the Raw team. Three is too many, five is stupid.

The Miz flourishes when he’s in with great workers and Corbin is trash. You can probably guess where I’m going with this. It was boring. Corbin tried to sell the leg but at one point he decided he wasn’t really going to bother anymore and that was that.

I do like Corbin’s finisher.

Verdict: Two Stars

The Usos (Jimmy and Jey) defeated The Bar (Cesaro and Sheamus)

I got distracted at the start of this match thinking about how fantastic a Sheamus and Cesaro indie run would be at the moment. Then I started thinking about The Usos having one too. It was a lot of fun.

It did speak to the fact that the opening of this match wasn’t that great. It was just another tag match with Sheamus and Cesaro working over The Usos. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again. It wasn’t until Cesaro and Jey came in hot that it took off. Outside of Brock vs Styles, this was the match I was most excited for and it took a while to live up to that billing.

When it did, though, it was exactly what I’d hoped for. A hard-hitting war with a few cool spots thrown in for good measure. That Samoan Drop from the powerbomb position was particularly impressive. Both of these teams have had career-defining years with Cesaro and Sheamus going from bickering partners into worthy champs and The Usos stepping up in their feud with The New Day. The only shame is that we won’t be seeing it again anytime soon because it felt like they both had another gear to hit.

Verdict: Three And A Half Stars

Charlotte defeated Alexa Bliss

I was worried that this match would be sloppy. Both of these women can be great but when they lose it, it tends to fly off the tracks. What I didn’t expect was for it to be dull.

They gave Alexa most of the match, and she did nothing with it. It was rest holds and pest heel moves. Bliss wasn’t dominating Charlotte, she was annoying her.

There’s not much more to say. It went far too long and they never clicked. Both women will go on to have much better matches in the future.

Verdict: Two Stars

Brock Lesnar defeated AJ Styles

The first five minutes of this was a Brock Lesnar match. The fact it went past five minutes shows that wasn’t all it was. This is the longest someone has survived in the ring with Brock for a while and Styles got the chance to be AJ Styles. He wasn’t just Brock’s playtoy. He showed heart and fighting spirit and even though he took countless suplexes this match was brimming with his personality.

It’s been a while since Brock has competed in a match like this. The Beast was still dominant but there was a period where it became back and forth. Where Styles looked like he was in Brock’s league. As enjoyable as Lesnar destroying people is, it’s nice to see that he’s still capable of that. Those matches with Kurt Angle were a long time ago.

This was a great match and easily the best thing on the show. It’s also something they can go back to someday. Styles opened up a chink in The Beast’s armour and he might fancy his chances in round two.

Verdict: Four Stars

Random post-script to say that this commentary team need to be put in the bin. Twenty seconds after these two men destroyed each other they were back to bickering over which brand was going to be affected worse by this. That can fuck off. At least act like you are wrestling fans you bellends. We don’t care about your shitty brands.

Team Raw (Kurt Angle, Triple H, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman) defeated Team SmackDown (Shane McMahon, Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode and John Cena)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In a match filled with guys that Triple H brought into the company for his great new era of wrestling who stands tall at the end? Triple fucking H. I have always been a Hunter fan – and I still am – but come on, seriously?

Even without all that nonsense, I didn’t like this match. I wanted crazy. I wanted full-blown Michael Bay with stuff blowing up and people being thrown about the place. Instead, we got a bunch of straightforward eliminations, a Zayn and Owens run-in and some McMahon bellendry.

So many people in this match were made to look weak as hell. Roode and Nakamura didn’t put up much more fight than James Ellsworth when they came up against Strauman. Cena being there served no purpose. Owens and Zayn were chased off by fucking Shane McMahon (who is not a good wrestler and who I’m fed up with watching being treated like he’s a megastar). It was an epic disaster from start to finish and it sums up everything I hate about WWE in 2017. It made no sense and I’m bored of it.

None of the talent in this match was particularly young, but you did have the fresher acts of Roode, Nakamura, Joe, Balor and Strowman. However, rather than focusing on them, this was all about Triple H, Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle. It’s 2017. That’s like New Japan concentrating on Kojima, Nagata and Tenzan. This was shit.

Verdict: One Star

After the match, Strowman powerslammed Triple H. Of course, the move that took out Nakamura and Roode only kept Hunter down for five seconds before he got up and ate another one. Let’s pray that it hit him so hard that he wakes up on the main roster as his NXT persona.

Overall Show

Despite all my moaning, I enjoyed most of this show. Ignoring the pre-show guff, it was quite fun. The undercard was nothing special but it was easy enough to watch and The Usos vs The Bar and The SHIELD vs The New Day were good. On top of that, AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar was then one of WWE’s matches of the year and all they needed was a decent main event to see it off. We didn’t get that. We got some McMahon family drama and a load of shit. I don’t think I’ve ever given any promotion’s main event one star before. It ruined what was otherwise a decent show.