Survivor Series

Sorry first of all we never did get back with predictions; this weekend, already expected to be busy, became even moreso than expected as some of our guests stayed later into Sunday than expected, so ... yeah. But here now, and should be back on track for the rest of the week!

The show itself was absolutely fantastic match-wise, nothing less than which should have been expected given it looked like a GREAT PPV on paper; however very often the PPVs these days do the opposite of what you expect; those with low expectations perform reasonably well, while those with high often fail to meet them.

Team Morrison vs. Team Miz was the opening match (John Morrison, Finlay, Shelton Benjamin, Matt Hardy and Evan Bourne vs. The Miz, Seamus, Scott Macintyre, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger) and incredibly strong wrestling wise as it should have been. No one was damage by this showing as John Morrison was defeated only in a three-on-one situation, and it made the heels they wanted to push - Miz, Macintyre and Seamus - look incredibly strong and scary. Followed up by their promo a match later, they did an awesome job with this situation.

Batista vs. Rey Mysterio could have been much better as Rey has an innate ability to bring out the best in otherwise-somtimes-plodding big men, and Batista CAN perform when he wants to, and would want to for his real-life friend Rey; but we knew going into this PPV that little Rey was injured again and an injury angle would have to be followed in order for him to get offscreen and take care of his injuries. As such, while the great potential 'match' here didn't happen, a great monster heel beatdown establishing Batista as scary DID, which Rey sold beautifully, as he would. An all-around good performance by both me, again followed up by a strong, effectively-short promo a few matches later by Batista, serving the purpose of sending Rey off into the sunset for his much-required maintenance on his knee.

Team Orton vs. Team Kingston (Randy Orton, Ted Dibiase Jr., Cody Rhodes, William Regal and CM Punk vs. Kofi Kingston, MVP, Mark Henry, R-Truth and Christian) was also decent, and was PRECEDED by a funny, comic relief promo focussing on all the ways Christian was different from his team (the obvious one need only be seen in the skin colour; but they used the fact he was the only ECW roster member ... the only Canadian ... etc.); I think there was more potential here than what they used, but it certainly didn't stink up the joint and seeing Kofi Kingston get two pins in a row over two former world champs in CM Punk and Randy Orton was incredibly strong; WWE is doing such a great job of pushing Kingston, it makes me wonder why they can be such failures with other pushes. I guess it's which ones their hearts are in at the end of the day ...

The Divas traditional Survivor Series match (Mickie James, Gail Kim, Melina, Kelly Kelly and Eve vs. Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, Leyla El and Alicia Fox) was very good and focused on the strongest Divas wrestling wise, while making appropriately short work of those who aren't the strongest in the ring; I don't quite see where this belonged so high on the card, past the Batista and Orton-Kingston teams matches, but the girls went out and put on a good performance heading into the world championship matches.

Undertaker, Big Show and Chris Jericho was nothing unexpected - one of the prediction sets I included got this match right, right down to the win structure of Undertaker, on Big Show, with the Hell's Gate choke hold. But these three veterans acquitted themselves well and rose to the match, delivering a script everyone could see coming - the dissention between the tag champs, the World Champ retaining, etc. - very, very well. Similarly, the WWE Title match featuring the John Cena-Degeneration X (Shawn Michaels and Triple H) Triple Threat wasn't delivered on quite as strongly (though it certainly didn't suck), but got off to an 'off-script', unpredictable early start with the heretofore-cohesive DX witnessing some fissures as Shawn Michaels' opening move was superkicking his longtime tag team partner out of the ring to focus on Champ Cena.

Again - strong match, strong PPV, about which my only complaint was a lack of progression in 'storyline' or any big surprises (title changes, returning fighters, guest appearances - say by Edge in the Smackdown Triple Threat for example), given Survivor Series is one of the traditional Big Four PPVs. But since often the formula is 'storyline on Raw, strong wrestling on PPV', this isn't entirely unexpected. WWE needs to step up their game in anticipation of raising their PPV rates (as has been much discussed here and elsewhere on the internets), and this wasn't an awful step in the wrong direction by any means (although a long way is to be gone before they convince me $45/mo. is worth plunking down on their product).

Programming note that tomorrow is a 3-hour Raw so be sure and check what time it starts and ends in your area; the guest host will be former WWE wrestler and commentator, and former Minnesota Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura - which should be interesting as he's been on the outs with Vince McMahon for some time now! Be sure and ch-ch-check it out. I know I will. And of course, always check on back here for my thoughts on tomorrow's Raw, sometime during the day Tuesday (if not sometime late tomorrow). :) I look forward to seeing you here then, and wish everyone a great start to their week! Peace.