11/23/2014
St. Louis, MO
Opening Vince/Authority/Cena segment - Meh
Would have been a good segment for smackdown, but not good to lose all this time on the PPV. I really don't know why Vince is such a dick to his own family, tough love? maybe, but if Hunter and Steph already have a big stipulation against them, why makes things worse. Also, this pretty much telegraphs the result of the main event.
Fatal Four Way Tag Team Title Match
The Dust Brothers (C) vs The Usos vs The Matadors vs Miz and Mizdow - 6/10
It wasn't a bad match per say, but it wasn't nothing new from what we've seen from all these teams in the last, what? 360 days? give or take 5. Mizdow was definitely the most over guy in all 9 involved, he pretty much got the hot tag over everyone. Coming off from Lawler and BRM's point that Mizdow should just stand in the ring when Miz is not doing anything in the apron, it would be cool if Miz had to fight air outside the ring for Mizdow to move around inside the ring. But i guess Hugh Jackman already did that movie. The right team won and finally the tag team titles have something going on for them.
Adam Rose plays with toys - I guess they got tired of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Waste of time.
4 vs 4 Survivor Series Match
Layla, Summer Rae, Cameron, and Paige vs Natalya, Naomi, Emma, and Alicia Fox - 3/10
1 pt for actually lasting more than 3 minutes and not everyone got eliminated after 1 move.
1 pt for letting Emma get most of the in ring time for team Natty. The only thing worth watching, rest of the match sucked.
1 pt for hot chicks.
Bray Wyatt vs Dean Ambrose - 6/10
The feud I care nothing about, stipulation of the match is whoever wins needs to lower themselves to other other's position on the card. The wrestling was good, some good hits here and there, but nothing that special really. Some of Dean's lunatic fringe offense is getting boring and worse is the oversell by Cole, but whatevs. Ending saw Bray trying to talk sense into Dean to join forces, then decided to let himself get beat up, and we got the ending I wanted half a year ago between Bray and Cena. Ambrose took it a bit further destroying Bray under a table, chairs, and a ladder to really stand up tall. Since TLC is less than a full month away, might as well start promoting it already. Later in the show it was announced that the TLC rematch would actually take place. Felt like RAW promoting a Smackdown match.
Team Authority Segment - Kinda felt they were the faces at some point.
Slator-Gator vs Adam Rose and The Bunny - 0/0
This being the 14th anniversary of the Gooker's debut, WWE decide to do more stupidity. The bunny had a match in a PPV. Positive me was thinking, "Hey! a chance for Slator-Gator to pick up a win" but no, the Bunny actually pinned Slater. It is a slap in the face of every fan and every wrestler out there training to one day make it in the WWE that The Bunny not only has a storyline featured in every RAW, but now has a PPV win in the books. Meanwhile Cesaro didn't even make it to the pre-show.
Roman Reigns Interview - RR is literally the person with the worst promo in WWE, and you can BUUH-LEEEE DAAT!
Team Cena Segment - meh, i hate how Cena reacts to getting pumped up. He looks so fake.
Divas Title Match
AJ Lee (C) vs Nikki Bella w/Brie Bella - DUD
Just let this sink in. There was an opening segment, a 4 v 4 divas match, an Adam Rose/Bunny segment AND match, a RR irrelevant interview, meanwhile AJ Lee vs Nikki Bella got an <1 minute match. Charlotte should really consider going for tenure at Nxt.
5 v 5 Survivor Series Match - 7/10
Team Authority (Seth Rollins, Luke Harper, Mark Henry, Kane, and Rusev)
w/ Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, Joey Mercury, Jamie Noble, and Lana
VS
Team Cena (John Cena, Dolph Ziggler, Big Show, The Ryback, and Eric Rowan)
The good things:
(1) All eliminations (including Ryback) were good and appropriate. Ryback could have lost in a better way, but it's not gonna hurt him at all.
(2) Ziggler pretty much eliminating everyone was beautiful, obviously no one will ever reference this to compare to RR's record.
(3) Big Show's (millionth) turn was awesome for once, this is not Plan F from Triple H, this was just Show reacting at the moment. And it made me pop since it meant that Cena was out and Ziggler was on his own.
(4) Triple H's reactions ALL night we great, props to him for selling how important this match was for him.
(5) Seth Rollins. There was something about this match that made you realize that The Shield was really Seth's and only Seth's. He is the true architect. There were parts of this match where you could feel the Shield at work, Seth knows exactly when to interfere and most of them lead to either taking control or an actual elimination. RR was always a hot tag and Dean had no control over what or when he attacked. Seth is a true commander in the field.
The bad things:
Only two things really, but one of them really hurt the match to me.
(1) The Rowan/Harper fight. The tease at first was good, but the later fight was meh at most. And the story of why this guys suddenly hate each other so much sucks.
(2) Sting. yeap, that's right, that debut that has everyone jizzing their pants really screwed off my enjoyment of the match. First and foremost, i was looking at this match as Ziggler's swan song, he was the last of his team and he was to defeat the juggernaut by himself, he had already defeated two monsters, indirectly eliminated Rusev, and had Rollins down for the three count on two occasions. He took a beating from Triple H and the only thing he needed was for him to kick out once more, superkick Hunter, Zig zag Rollins and become the savior of our people, but no. Old man Sting, had to come out.
And ok ok, it was good for business and all, but still the execution was ALL wrong! (1) Sting comes out to a song that no one recognizes (2) Sting instead of appearing LIKE ALWAYS in the ring after a black out, slowly comes out the ramp (3) No bat in hand (4) 3 minute long stare off where we are to assume Ziggler, Rollins, Joey, Jamie, and Steph are still knocked out silly, and (5) the one i hate the most, Sting drags Ziggler on top of Rollins. Sting's deux ex machina was to take out Hunter, not decide who won the match. Sting needed only to even the field taking out Triple H AND THEN Ziggler can either drag himself over to Rollins or both of them have one final exchange. It sucks that these big moments in WWE history were executed this way.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was pretty much a one match show. Aside from the main event, nothing is even worth watching, it felt like a Sunday Night RAW. This show will likely go into history as a huge event for Sting's debut, but in due time, this will also be one of WWE's most overrated shows. Was it the worst show of the year over RR or Battleground. Yes. Potentially.
