Triple H promo about Team Cena vs. Team Authority at Survivor Series.
It’s time-uh, for the Game-uh, to talk about Survivor Series-uh.
Rusev d. Dolph Ziggler
As someone who enjoyed Rusev-Ziggler I nearly as much as Sami-Cesaro’s 2 out of 3 Falls match, your correspondent might be a little biased, but this could be on the shortlist for “match of the week”. And matches like this — specifically against non-giant “smart” fan favorites — are going to be Rusev’s ticket to ride to the top of the company, as support (and more importantly, respect) from the type of people that chant “We want Ziggler!” will be what makes Rusev a viable main eventer (likely alongside Ziggler) for years to come.
New Day vignette w/ Kofi Kingston, Big E. & Xavier Woods.
EVERYBODY! IT’S BIG E.! ON TV!
Los Matadores d. The Miz and Damien Sandow
Reports have this match building up more tension between Miz and Damien. Which breaks your correspondent’s heart, but is something needs to happen between these two before the schtick gets stale. Miz has a history of bringing lesser — or less talented all-around, to be clear — performers up to his position on the card (which varies with each feud) before they fall off the face of the earth without him. Which is weird to think about. But this time, he’s the less talented all-around performer in the pairing, so, hopefully, neither of them fall off the face of the earth and into a never-ending abyss Lucha Underground.
Dean Ambrose comes out for his Survival Kit segment in the ring.
Juice Make Sugar’s favorite writer, Matthew Timmons, asked yours truly what exactly I meant in Raw Regurgitated when I said:
Not just as a pairing, but individually, the WWE doesn’t seem to understand or care what makes either performer generate the type of heat necessary to build this feud into something that will get viewers to pay Free-Ninety-Nine to see Survivor Series.
The long answer?
The issue appears to be that both of these performers are agents of chaos, with Bray Wyatt playing the role of chaotic evil (e.g., The Joker) and Ambrose’s chaotic neutral (Wolverine). And, as those two examples highlight, their “alignment”, or more accurately “moral characterization”, works best when working against someone with either a defined set of rule or rules (See: if done correctly, John Cena and/or, though different, Batman) or someone who relies on exploiting the structure and security of a society to achieve out their goals (Seth Rollins as a member of the Authority/Magneto). When you’ve defined characters as explicitly as the WWE has with these two, the characterization you’ve developed has to be used in a way that allows fans to root for a philosophical construct just as much as they are rooting for the person that is representing it. Otherwise, as I told Matt, you simply get a random number generator facing off against a roulette wheel. Or, in this case, a backwoods hillbilly against a guy with tool kit.
The short answer?
This segment.
AJ Lee d. Brie Bella
A triple inception here, as AJ Lee pretended to be Nikki Bella to beat up Brie Bella, makes this match worth your time. Or at least, a periodic use of the play button as you fast forward through the boring bits. And try to not think about The Monarch dressed as Wonderboy trying to get Captain Sunshine to fuck him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsIeacQnQEs
Luke Harper d. Cesaro with a Torture Rack
There has to be a good explanation for this match, like “Cesaro begs the Authority for a title shot and Creative wanted Luke Harper to look as strong as possible going into Survivor Series” or your correspondent is going to have to throw in the (red) towel on my “Cesaro will be WWE World Heavyweight Champion before the end of 2014” bet. Though, in all honesty, there’s just as much interest for me in what they are planning to do with Luke Harper as I could possibly imagine they’d be able to do with Cesaro. Cesaro is, of course, a uniquely talented force of nature. But so is Luke Harper. And that dude has a better beard.
More vignettes for A New Day.
Please don’t, please don’t screw this up.
Triple H rules that if The Authority wins, Team Cena is fired.
Closing up the final plot hole may make the match more predictable, but this match was never about the destination — though the match should be all different kinds of exciting — but the journey to a new Survivor Series screwjob. Preferably with significantly more Ziggler than previous installments.
Seth Rollins and Kane vs. Ryback and Big Show ends in clusterkerfuffle.
Killing Ryback to end the show seems to imply for some that Randy Orton is returning for the Survivor Series, and while that would be awesome, it seems a little on-the-nose, even for the WWE. It is good, however, to hear that Ryback continues to get a monster push, this time running roughshod over this match before the entirety of The Authority came down and presumably took him out.
You should WATCH this show, as it looks to be a fitting go-home show for what should be an extremely exciting, if criminally underbooked, free episode of Survivor Series.
