At the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, last night, the Survivor Series brand wars rose between Raw and SmackDown. The overbooking was significantly lower than expected in advance. Instead, they focused on the rivalry between Raw and SmackDown, even the clash between World Champions Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles went clean.
Winner: Elias per Drift away. After the brief feud with Jason Jordan, which was only used to push him, the drifter was awarded a win against his allies. A filler match without much sense or perspective, which Elias has won again, while Matt will continue to sag until a) one can agree with TNA and give him his Broken Gimmick, or b) Jeff returns from his injury.
Winner: Enzo Amore per JawdonZo. Enzo’s defending his title was even safer than the Church’s amendment, given the miserable portrayal of Kalisto, with which, apparently, one has no plans whatsoever so soon after he joined the division. This feud should be over and the Lucha will join the other ex-cruiserweight champs, which are hanging without a big perspective and at best get a not completely useless feud.
Monday at Raw, the next rival for Enzo is likely to show up, with only two options left: 1. Hideo Itami, who hasn’t been seen at NXT before, actually gets his call-up. However, there is little hope that the Japanese will be better represented in the future. 2. Indeed, as was speculated last time, Neville has been agreed with him and he returns to claim his throne as king again. This feud would undoubtedly have the potential to give the division a much-needed boost – at least in the title race.
Winner: Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn by Popup Powerbomb from Owens to Fandango. If Raw gets a filler-match without a build-up, SmackDown has to follow suit, and that’s probably how this setup came about. After all, the match made sense to present the two heels and try to make an intervention in the main event a little less likely. After all, KO and Zayn were not punished for the reported incidents on the European tour, but were allowed to clinch a meaningless victory.
Winner: The Shield per Triple Powerbomb from the Turnbuckle, whereupon Dean Ambrose pinned Kofi Kingston. You couldn’t have chosen a better opener to heat up the hall right at the beginning of the Main Show. The two most popular stables of the last decade received a lot of time and fought a great battle, which was celebrated extensively with chant duels and “This is awesome”. The Shield victory was clear in the forefront, because you have much bigger plans with the trio and of course primarily with Roman Reigns.
However, the New Day was nevertheless presented in an equivalent way and in the end it needed the spectacular super-variant of the shield-finisher to defeat the unicorns. Since this feud unfortunately cannot go on, the Shield will now, after Roman’s recovery, face up to several wildly mixed multi-men teams before one of the three turns and one tries to push them/reigns even more than before.
On New Day, on the other hand, the perspective seems to be more difficult: their feud against the Usos is over and, as great as it was, should cool down at least for a while before they put the two teams against each other again. Without the tag titles SmackDown doesn’t have much to do for Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi. The feud against Owens and Zayn has already been hinted at several times and will probably keep them busy for a few months, after that it will be more difficult to find attractive pairs.
Page 1: Matt vs. Elias, Cruiserweights and the PPV return of The Shield
Page 2: Women’s action, tag team champions among themselves and Lesnar vs. AJ Styles
Page 3: Elimination Match and Result