At the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, the Survivor Series last night was the final Big 4 PPV of 2018, focusing on the test of strength between Raw and SmackDown. In addition to various traditional Survivor Series matches, the World Champs Brock Lesnar and Daniel Bryan also met. Furthermore, Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair faced each other in substitution of the injured Becky Lynch.
Winner: Team SmackDown (The Usos as Sole Survivor). Despite the very different line-up and the SmackDown Tag Team Division, which has been much stronger since WrestleMania, both teams were presented surprisingly equally. The logical step now would be to finally give the Raw Division more room in the weekly shows as well and especially to book The Revival, who held out until the end and even eliminated The New Day, according to their talent instead of ridiculing them with irrelevant start-&-stop pushes. At least Jimmy & Jey should return to the title race after their victory.
Winners: Team Raw (Nia Jax as Sole Survivor). In the kickoff the cast was worked on again: Mandy Rose filled as expected the fifth spot on Team SmackDown, while after a loose room brawl between Natalya and Ruby Riott both were replaced by Alexa Bliss with Sasha Banks and Bayley. Jax was already booed into the ground at the entrance, the fans who were angry because of Becky Lynch’s injury made a lot of noise and the whole match was full of atmosphere against the ex-champ. The WWE used the match to bring Nia further over as Heel, not only pinning Asuka at the end, but also causing her partner Sasha Banks to drop out earlier by pushing her from the top rope straight into the Asuka lock. So Jax should be the next challenger for Rousey at Raw, while the Empress of Tomorrow was at least a bit stronger and would make sense as the next challenger for Lynch.
Winner: Seth Rollins. No intervention by Dean Ambrose and accordingly no chance for Nakamura. As expected, the match was top class, but in the end neither Nakamura – who would have needed every form of push urgently – nor the Rollins vs. Ambrose feud advanced. Where the logic should be, of all things the Lunatic Fringe, presented in its promo at Raw the other day, neither to intervene at Crown Jewel nor at the Series, only the WWE will know. Now the feud with regard to TLC has to be urgently built up in the weekly shows, while Nakamura will disappear in SmackDown in spite of his US-title at SmackDown, until the title is passed on to someone else.
SIeger: AOP. An important victory for Akam&Rezar, who after their push out of nowhere needed this success against an established team before reassigning themselves to the weak looking Raw Tag division. With the Revival and Gable&Roode two teams have been presented a little stronger this evening, who are likely to meet at the AOP in the future. Meanwhile, The Bar will soon meet The Usos and their titles will surely pass on to the twins sooner or later.
The more interesting story, however, took place in the audience, where ex-WWE superstar Enzo Amore appeared, made the hall chant his old catchphrases and then fled from the security. He ran over a woman who injured her arm. Amore has now been banned from entering the Staples Center and is also likely to face a lawsuit from the victim.
Winner and still Cruiserweight Champion: Buddy Murphy. In an expectedly high-class match, Murphy actually defended his title, while Ali finally inherited Cedric Alexander’s role as popular Ultimate Underdog, who simply can’t win the Big One. Mustafa’s hunt for the title should continue at 205 Live and sooner or later he’ll dethrone the Australian – simply because he’s too talented and popular not to get a run.
Winner: Team Raw (Survivor: Braun Strowman, Drew McIntyre & Bobby Lashley). This was followed by the clearest dismantling of the evening. Despite animosities in the raw team, the red squad completely dismantled their opponents and especially Strowman and McIntyre were booted as invincible monsters. Samoa Joe was sadly the first to get out after his push against AJ Styles in the last months, even for the elimination of Bálor SmackDown needed the animosities between Finn and Drew, who refused the day and got a kick to the head. In the end, Braun eliminated Miz, Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy and Shane McMahon one by one to make the squash perfect. Lashley was also present, but as usual irrelevant. For Strowman it was after the various defeats against Lesnar once again a monster performance, his booking is far from consistent. After the match the monster among men was attacked again by Baron Corbin to build up their match at TLC.
Winner by disqualification: Ronda Rousey. After a strong match, Flair filled the role that had been planned for Becky Lynch before her injury: She ticked completely and first beat her opponent with Kendo Sticks. Afterwards she missed Ronda Natural Selection on a chair, before she knocked out the referees and knee dropped on her opponent, who was trapped in a chair with her neck. After her Heel Turn, Charlotte is now finally on Lynch’s side, which should make the coming months at SmackDown very interesting, because a face counterweight is hardly recognizable after months of dismantling Asuka. At the same time it should also mean the end of the lynch/flair feud and represent a further step in the construction of the planned Horsewomen vs. Horsewomen feud. Rousey made a few boos during the match and the WWE will have to watch out for Raw if they want to avoid the feared X-Pac-/Roman-Heat for their new flagship. But Jax as the next opponent should be very helpful here.
Winner: Brock Lesnar. Lesnar finally won per F-5, but this was preceded by a match that went completely different than expected. Already during the Entrance Bryan provoked his opponent and seemed as if he couldn’t wait. After further provocations at the beginning of the match, Lesnar brutally beat Bryan out of the pin for minutes after the first F-5, before Bryan stood another F-5, knocking out the referee, giving his opponent a low blow and then kneeling him down with a running knee. The result was an extremely exciting, strongly booted match, which Lesnar finally managed to win. Nevertheless, Bryan has definitely scored here and seems much stronger as Heel after his surprising title win, while Lesnar seems vulnerable for the planned next match against Strowman at the Royal Rumble.
A complete disassembly for SmackDown! It was the third victory in the third year in a row for the red brand, which was even presented as a 6-0 sweep at the end of the show. As usual, the WWE tried to fool their audience here because SmackDown won the day match in the kickoff. If this is not even included in the rating, it clearly shows once again how insignificant the kickoff show really is. Be that as it may, Corbin will be strengthened by the result, while Paige and “Best in the World” Shane McMahon will need some explanation at SmackDown.
You could use this to swap the GM in the Blue Brand, but in case of doubt the whole thing is simply used to build Shane further as a heel. Despite the clear presentation per Raw, the show was able to surprise positively, especially the exciting Main Event between Lesnar and Bryan as well as the strong presentation of the WWE Champs were not foreseeable. Rousey vs. Flair was also strongly boosted and brings with the Heelturn of Charlotte additional excitement into the coming months. In addition there will be the expected high quality matches between the Midcard-Champs and the Cruiserweights.
The extremely weak performance of several SmackDown stars, like Samoa Joe and Naomi, who retired early, leaves a bitter aftertaste, but with the catastrophically weak last weeks, the Survivor Series are a clear step forward and at least give hope for the much-needed upswing towards WrestleMania.