Survivor Series Was Everything Good About WWE

by Matt George – Sports 1140 KHTK Reporter

Survivor Series is one of my favorite WWE Pay-Per-Views of the year. With the RAW and Smackdown brands going head-to-head, the drama and story lines really write themselves. On Sunday, the WWE bounced back from the shocking news that their top guy, Roman Reigns, had been re-diagnosed with Lukemia, with a bang. And they did it with their hottest superstar, Becky Lynch, on the sidelines.

While the clean sweep by RAW wasn’t the greatest decision (WWE decided to just ignore the fact that Smackdown won the pre-show tag-team match), each of the six main-card matches were incredibly entertaining. Seth Rollins and Shinsuke Nakamura put on an absolute classic, the ending of Charlotte vs Ronda Rousey was near-perfect, and the women’s elimination match that opened the show set the tone for the entire night.

EXCLUSIVE: The women of #Raw are totally unbothered by the crowd's reaction tonight at #SurvivorSeries…@NiaJaxWWE @AlexaBliss_WWE @TaminaSnuka pic.twitter.com/SHHDWkhD27

— WWE (@WWE) November 19, 2018

The men’s elimination match was full of incredible moments, a significant improvement over last year’s nostalgia play, and even though Shane McMahon was the last man remaining for Smackdown, the whole fight was entertaining from start to finish. WWE creative allowed for each of their matches to tell a different story, and leaned heavily on the individual abilities of each wrestler to bring the crowd along for the ride. A significant improvement over the regular gimmicks.

Normally I can correctly predict the winners and endings of most pay-per-view matches long before they take place. I am delighted to say that Survivor Series threw me completely off, in the best way possible.

Even the Brock Lesnar-heavy main event was spectacular. This new cocky, arrogant, and downright crazy Daniel Bryan is amazing. Lesnar vs Bryan had all the makings of a squash match, and it looked that way for the first 10 minutes, before Bryan threw caution to the wind, hitting Lesnar with a low blow, and unleashing a flurry of offense that actually made me think he was going to win. Lesnar, of course, won out in the end, but did so in a way that WWE fans cant be mad at. Regardless of his work-rate, or his ties to UFC, Brock put on an incredible match and showed why he does deserve to be a top-guy in WWE.

EXCLUSIVE: This looks like the beginning of a VERY different @WWEDanielBryan…#SurvivorSeries pic.twitter.com/62ab0OfqBV

— WWE (@WWE) November 19, 2018

It sucks that Becky Lynch was unable to compete, having her face broken on Monday Night RAW by Nia Jax, who absolutely milked the Los Angeles crowd for all the heat she could get. Yes, RAW is the dominant brand with the better superstars, but a 6-0 sweep is pretty overkill. However, WWE managed to make RAW’s domination look like luck, with most of the Smackdown superstars ending the night on top of the world.

Well done WWE. Good show.

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