Survivor Series 2014
Survivor Series 2014
We skipped most of the pre-show as they’re just sound-bites from the white noise panel, hype videos that get shown on the PPV and a Fandango match. We watched the Malice at the Palace instead, but we got confused as we found out Swagger pinned Cesaro. The same Swagger who was supposed to be on Team Cena but got injured on Raw by Rollins…and then wrestled on The Main Event and the pre-show? What was his injury, yellow streak on his back? In fairness, if they run with this and have Swagger becoming a Real Frenchy then I’m all for it. Mark Henry would challenge him to a fight on Raw and Swagger would be like ”I’d kick your ass…if it wasn’t for this crippling back injury!” and then he’d wrestle Heath Slater on SmackDown and Henry be like ”HEY, WAIT A MINUTE.” They could call him Swagger-Puss.
So after Swagger pinned Cesaro (think of the money Cesaro, think of the money. Well shit that’d be easy for you, you’re Swiss) and the typically great intro hype video and the fireworks and the close-ups of the screaming fans…we cut right into a promo with Vince and others, reminding us what was happening in the main event again. I can give them the benefit of the doubt in that because they’re hyping this month of free Network (unless you’re Adrian Neville or Sheamus) that there would be a certain amount of people watching the show not knowing absolutely everything about the main event storyline. So this segment would have been fine it a) there hadn’t just been a (even free-er)pre-show and hype video summarising everything and b) the main event was some Tolkien-level in-depth storyline and not just ”the losing team gets fired/loses power.” It was like being at a party and some guy comes along and switches off the music and makes people gather around to listen to his acoustic guitar songs he wrote himself. We missed two matches on the preshow to watch a promo. Fucking Wonderland.
The Miz & Damien Mizdow vs. Goldust & Stardust vs. The Usos vs. Los Matadores
Oh right, that last segment lasted fifteen minutes so backstage the writers could write some matches onto the show. Vince said ”This Survivor Series will be unforgettable!” before adding quietly ”even though we forgot it was on.” In fairness, The Dusts and The Usos have had one of those new-age feuds where they have great matches every week but with nothing else going in the feud (which is weird considering The Dusts are involved and the whole reason they got over was doing those crazy backstage bits, but I digress) it had to move onto something else. Especially after the feud-ending cage match on SmackDown and Stardust’s change from Cool Original to Chilli Heatwave.
That next thing thankfully did not involve Los Matadores who continue to do less than nothing apart from making one of my non-wrestling friends go ”There’s no DQ in Fatal Four-Way matches, right? Like in Three Way Dances? Why’s the bull not interfering for his team then?” before being explained ”because he hates Los Matadores too.”
Crowd was hugely into Mizdow, as they are every time he appears on TV. I used to read reviews of Raw after I finished watching it to make sure I didn’t miss anything obvious for the videos, but I’ve officially given up after reading more than once ”Mizdow did his tired comedy act which we’ve seen before.” I’m a few steps behind most wrestling fans and websites and I’m really happy with that. Mizdow (and yes, Miz) are great and thankfully were able to get the crowd really into the closing part of the match. Goldust decided to remind us all he’s a crazy old guy and they modified the pyramid of doom spot with a holy-shit-that’s-risky back-suplex off the top rope…which ended up with Mizdow getting the pin and the titles as the crowd exploded. And then Miz took both titles. Miz has been on the best run in years with this and Sandow can turn chicken-shit into chicken soup, so good times everywhere.
During the match, Michael Cole said ”For those just joining us”. On PPV. Or special, whatever. I’m an optimist, so at least he didn’t spend the match talking about the main event.
A promo for Larry The Cable Guy hosting Raw tomorrow night aired. I know of him but I don’t know him so for a few seconds I legitimately thought it was Road Dogg. Then they aired the promo for Jingle All The Way 2 (featuring Santino!) and I learnt why so many people hate him.
Backstage, Adam Rose plugged the flipping wrestler toy set whilst encouraging people to not be a Rosebud. He took the lyrics to Reel Big Fish’s Sell Out literally. Heath Slater showed up, possibly remembering when he used to shill the toy-sets and some stuff happened and a tag match is happening tonight. There’s no European Title scene in 2014, but there is a thriving Adam Rose Product Placement division. They should go the full hog and win toy-sets after matches and tie them around their waist. ”You may be the K-Mart exclusive John Cena Title Set Champ, but I’m the Corporate Kane Office Set With Printer Accessory Champ!”
Team Fox (Alicia Fox, Emma, Naomi & Natalya) vs. Team Paige (Paige, Cameron and The Slayers)
Featuring Tyson Kidd, who tried to carry the entire match like Terry Crews trying to save White Chicks. There’s a guy on this site who posts every time a Botchamania or review comes up to defend the Divas and think I’m overly harsh about them, but here’s the thing: Eight women, no real feud apart from some of them are w-w-wacky and the others are blonde. On a PPV. Crowd chanted for Mizdow and I got about two hundred tweets saying ”Maffew must be loving this match!” because people assume I get happy when wrestlers are botching in front of an uncaring crowd (well, they’re right.)
In fairness, there was some spots that worked amongst the ones that didn’t. And Tyson Kidd was taking selfies at ringside. But you can’t put Nothing into a match and expect Something. The commentators showed how much they cared by discussing The Mean Street Posse. Yeah, they were supposed to suck too.
They dared to shill The Network after two matches none of my mates who watch Raw every week knew were happening. The Network shilling sounded like ”here’s some Nitros to soften the blow.” As they shilled, the show continued to be written backstage like Gromit laying the tracks whilst on the toy train.
Triple H talked to his team. Rather than have them sat down and chilling, they were all stood up and posing like they were having a group photo taken. Bits like this get to me, because WWE forgets sometimes that wrestlers are human beings and so we see shit that looks like it came from a David Lynch film and we don’t bat an eye-lid until someone points it out because it’s wrestling.
Bray Wyatt vs. Dean Ambrose
Alright, here we go! The hype video reminds us that Wyatt stopped Ambrose from getting his revenge on Rollins and mocked his Dad…and then Wyatt had some promos that sounded like the film Dethklok made. “Does your daddy still send you postcards from prison?” Wyatt asked. I hope he’s a wrestling fan and all they say is “When’s Sting appearing so I know when to cancel my Network subscription, love from Dad”. No wait, he interfered to save him. Yeah, I turned the volume up and I heard him say “don’t get the DS version of Smash Bros, just wait for the Wii U one.”
These two always deliver on PPV and it felt like a big deal. Especially Wyatt’s brutal clothesline out of nowhere. The only negative is I’m noticing more and more they’re emphasising Ambrose’s w-w-wacky nature, when the reason I (I was going to type ”we” but I don’t want to speak for anybody. Get your own Mizdow-hating site) like him is his rebellious nature. WWE thinks he’s Batman Forever but we see him as The Dark Knight. But I digress (again), Wyatt decided to give Ambrose the chair because he’s trying to get Dean to join him (I think) which didn’t make any sense as he fucked him over at Hell In A Cell. But in the Wonderland of WWE, Dean hitting Wyatt with a chair makes him more beloved by people because the other guy Wyatt did this with was Cena, so if Ambrose does the opposite to him then men cheer him. And it worked, Wyatt won via DQ but Dean beat the fuck out of him with a chair and put him through a table. People tweeted me how angry they were with this match, but the difference between this and Rollins at Battleground was that we got a full-length match with a reason to watch the rematch next month. Not that I needed a reason, these fuckers and TLC? Yeah I’m sold.
Ambrose climbed a ladder afterwards to oh-so-subtly hype the match next month but no wrestler should ever climb a ladder, not even a popular guy who is posing. We (speaking for everybody, pretty sure) expect a guy to jump off. And how did the music guy know Ambrose was done and wanted his music playing? Bloody wrestling. Anyway, I was happy with this as it means even if Wyatt comes out for three weeks and does one of his Ayn Rand lectures every week, we still know ”these guys are gonna tear it up soon” so they can use Wyatt promo time to go make a sandwich.
Slater Gator vs. Adam Rose & The Bunny
Slater-Gator are the tag team version of making a meal out of the leftovers in the fridge and somehow getting a meal that has no right being as delicious as it is (previously known as ‘The New Age Outlaws’ approach). Shame they’re doing nothing, I love the ‘Titus beats up his opponents and then Slater loses’ dynamic. Adam Rose is an entrance with eye-liner and I’m really glad he’s being Essa Rios’d by The Bunny Lita. For those who don’t get that reference (AND WHY NOT, GO AND YOUTUBE ESSA RIOS NOW), Essa Rios was a highflyer who debuted with Lita and it didn’t take long for everyone to go crazy for Lita and Rios got kicked to the curb. I hope Rose’s legacy will be introducing a fucking bunny to WWE PPV. So yeah, The Bunny won but didn’t unmask which is the only reason to watch a match like this. Next!
The commentators (who stood up, as if addressing the President) spoke to Reigns via satellite. I know why they do these (to keep the guy relevant) but these only work to Reign’s negatives. He should have a promo package or something showing him rehabbing or punching trees or anything other than having to resort to saying ”bitch” to get a pop.
Nikki Bella vs. AJ Lee
They re-enacted Sheamus vs. Bryan (that highly acclaimed match) and Nikki won. The best Bella match is a quick one, but this wasn’t enough time to make a cup of tea like I usually do during these matches! Wrestling fans are never happy.
Team Cena (John Cena, Dolph Ziggler, Big Show, Erick Rowan and Ryback) vs. Team Authority (Seth Rollins, Kane, Mark Henry, Rusev and Luke Harper)
Like Survivor Series 2001, the PPV mega-hyped the main event and the show was still looking shaky as the hype video started with an hour left on the show. Just as well the match delivered then.
Like every other great Survivor Series match, the match really got down to the good stuff once the numbers were whittled down. Rusev looked great doing something that wasn’t just wrestling an American and bragging about Putin and his elimination worked well. Rowan and Harper again looked good but they need a feud, stat. Henry got insta-KO’d by Big Show (as he walked out of the corner, just like Glass Joe!) which was weird…and then got weirder as Big Show turned on Cena for what I think was the third time (Backlash 2009, Over The Limit 2012) and so it was down to Dolph Ziggler vs. three guys. So up to now the action had been great but now everyone in the rooms just shouting at the TV like C’MON ZIGGLER, C’MON YOU FUCKING BASTARD, YOU CAN DO IT. He manages to pin Corporate Kane, then rolled up Harper after having his face kicked off. So it came down to Rollins vs. Ziggler and fuck if this wasn’t great. After shenanigans and a Triple H pedigree…Sting appeared. It turns out if you say Sting is appearing every time there’s a PPV, you’ll be correct once. All kidding aside, we lost our shit when he came out in full gear with new music and not wearing a shirt. He disposed of Triple H (thankfully not trusting him only to get betrayed like Sting usually does), pulled Ziggler on top of Rollins and that was the end. The day is saved thanks to Ziggler and the WWE will never be the same again etc.
Great emotional rollercoaster that reminded me of an Attitude Era main event (in a good way). Not to sound cunty but I’d have preferred Ziggler winning the match by himself THEN Sting appearing so Ziggler could have looked even better…but to hell with it, I’ll take it. The only way the main event could have been better (apart from that) would have been Journey being blasted over the speakers as Dolph celebrated.
Mark Henry must feel confused right now though, but not as confused as Big Show. Like Italy, he switched to the wrong side during the war.
Overall: Hey, I had fun. There were shit moments to laugh at, Mizdow winning titles, a great Ambrose match, awesome main event and Sting.
Good enough for me.
What did you guys think?
