Survivor Series 2021

[Danny Franchetti’s Jazzbox]

Last night was the first time since having crowds back that I’ve found the fake crowd noise really noticeable throughout the whole event, and it was really off-putting. I just couldn’t get invested in the matches at all.

[tiger_rick]

5 hours ago, air_raid said:

They could still make it interesting depending on how long it had been since the previous draft. If they’d managed to go from Mania through to Survivors without any cross-brand matches (yes, including SummerSlam) then revive what they did in 2006 where people pick their teams from all brands so you have some crossed-over teams with Raw and SmackDown feuds crossed over in the same matches as both a pre-cursor to the Rumble and also a chance to ignite the touchpaper for some new Raw v SmackDown enmity that you want to continue through the Rumble and into matches for Mania. But that requires both forewarn planning and restraint. Something akin to booking wrestling, as opposed to writing episodic weekly TV, producing content, or whatever the fuck they think they’re doing with their Superstars to produce the right Entertainment for their Universe.

No, I don’t blame the wording used. But it’s effective in underlining the disconnect between what most of us want the company to be, and what it is.

Anything that relies on a fundamental change in the way they book is doomed. It could have been more valuable in the past if they'd booked towards Survivor Series in the same way WCW would with Wargames but they've never had any intention of doing so. The death knell for it was in 2010 when they ran the perfect angle for a Survivors blow off and never considered using it for a second.

It suits them down to the ground in it's current guise. It books itself, doesn't need any storylines or feuds writing and doesn't matter a jot once it's finished. It's like a month off for them. Gives them time to write riveting stories about stolen eggs.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Even though I was the one who started the topic, I didn't watch the show in full as I'd read the results and reactions this morning and figured it wasn't worth wasting 3/4 hours of my evening so instead watched an 80 minute compilation on Youtube. Even that showed the show wasn't worth a toss, the clips of the 2 5v5 matches and the Battle Royal looked awful and the two big matches just seemed to be what they were, bookenders. For one of the old Big 4 events, and the last big PPV show of the year, the lack of hype and build really showed, hopefully they can put better effort in over the next five weeks to build a solid card for the New Years Day PPV

[air_raid]

6 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

effort

That’s the key word. Go back 20 years and every card was hyped up as being so much more important than last months and that you absolutely can’t miss it. Even if you were about to watch The Rock fighting Triple H for the fourth month in a row, this time was going to be different, with more stakes, even more bells and whistles, this time they were going to settle it* and you couldn’t miss it!! It stayed that way for years too, so it wasn’t a byproduct of having competition. Somewhere along the road they lost the genuine effort to put some excitement into build and have real pay off and emotions come out the other side, which from what I can tell only a handful of employees (Lynch for instance) are worth a jot when it comes to pre or post match build or reaction that doesn’t come across bland, generic and overly scripted, usually that any person alive could have written for anyone else.

….. And I can’t help but wonder how much Michael Cole has to do with me stopping trying to watch it. “Oh my” and “Could it be…?” in place of anything approaching genuine passion or excitement just kill anything they try and pass off as big or surprising. It’s the WWE commentary robot reacting how he’s programmed to react. Supplement “for the win” bell to bell and it’s another symptom of the terminal beige that has disenchanted so many of us. I can see why Elite got the traction they have, their style and presentation isn’t stuck in a Beige Hole to the point wrestlers, fans and commentators alike barely muster any verve for anything.

* OK, you knew they might not necessarily settle it this month. But fucking hell, you simply HAD to watch it to find out!

Edited November 23, 2021 by air_raid

[WyattSheepMask]

I’d avoid any talk of this show before watching today. Had no idea about the Vince Egg stuff, the Pizza Hut Product Placement or the obviously dubbed in crowd noise. It sounded like they were piping in the entrances themes too, they just didn’t sound like they had that usual bit of oomph

Pat McAfee - Christ, what an annoying cunt he’s turned into. Imagine sitting behind him all night

All those people that have been let go over the last year and a bit and somehow Natalya and Dolph Ziggler are still there doing the same shit, having not progressed one iota from where they were more than a decade ago.

I can understand why they do the product placement, sponsors  & movie tie ins. This years Royal Rumble had a Beer advert enter at #26 and as someone mentioned that they got paid $1million for that Zombie stuff at whatever PPV it was. If someone’s giving you chance to make back the money you wasted having The Good Brothers around for a year then they’d be daft not to take it, but surely there’s a way to do it a little less shamelessly. At least Wayne’s World had a bit of a laugh with it.

Sasha Banks got back in the ring twice and somehow still got counted out, what the fuck was that shit?

The vignettes for McIntyre, Lashley and Xia Lee were all really good, but why are they being used to pad things out on the PPV? Surely that’s the kind of thing you show on TV to actually try and get people to invested in characters.

I quite enjoyed Roman/Big E, but the crowd seemed dead for most of it but got there towards the end, although “this is awesome” was definitely pushing it. 
What it did do though is remind me how much I hate them having two World Titles, or more specifically why Roman doesn’t have the WWE Title when he’s positioned as the top guy. I’ve no issue with Big E losing per se, but how often over the course of history has the WWE Champion lost on PPV and there be little or no consequences from it? Even in the dark ages of the New Generation when Vader pinned HBK in a 6 Man Tag he got a title match at the next PPV. 
Here though, the match is done and both guys are off back to their respective shows, likely to not cross patches again until the Royal Rumble at the absolute earliest, and even for that to happen one of them will have had to drop their title.

[Callum1993]

Ironically on the subject of the WWE champion losing. Over the last few years when they’ve done Universal Champion vs WWE Champion at Survivor Series every time they’ve done it the Universal Champion has won (Brock vs Styles in 2017 and Bryan in 2018) and (Reigns vs Mcintyre last year) so it’s not a new development but still not great for the belt which is supposed to be the most prestigious in the company. 

[Supremo]

Admittedly, I’ve only seen clips on Twitter, so maybe the whole thing has been embarrassingly shit. And sure, there’s no denying the tragedy of hosting an anniversary for a wrestler who doesn’t even send in a video. But remove the tie-ins with The Rock and I don’t think this storyline is anywhere near as bad as people are making out. Certainly not when graded on the curve of WWE television in 2021.

Vince McMahon has a precious treasure stolen by a wrestler? I legitimately can’t name a better storyline they’ve done this year. I’d be far more inclined to watch regularly if they continued stuff like this. Anything beyond their normal copy and paste job is a huge improvement. Hopefully Netflix see a huge boom in business and do it again. That new musical with Andrew Garfield looks fun. Someone at Netflix should pay Vince a few million to do a musical episode of Raw.

[DavidB6937]

2 minutes ago, Callum1993 said:

Ironically on the subject of the WWE champion losing. Over the last few years when they’ve done Universal Champion vs WWE Champion at Survivor Series every time they’ve done it the Universal Champion has won (Brock vs Styles in 2017 and Bryan in 2018) and (Reigns vs Mcintyre last year) so it’s not a new development but still not great for the belt which is supposed to be the most prestigious in the company. 

It doesn't matter though, because none of it ever does. Most people forget about it.

[HarmonicGenerator]

37 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Admittedly, I’ve only seen clips on Twitter, so maybe the whole thing has been embarrassingly shit. And sure, there’s no denying the tragedy of hosting an anniversary for a wrestler who doesn’t even send in a video. But remove the tie-ins with The Rock and I don’t think this storyline is anywhere near as bad as people are making out. Certainly not when graded on the curve of WWE television in 2021.

Vince McMahon has a precious treasure stolen by a wrestler? I legitimately can’t name a better storyline they’ve done this year. I’d be far more inclined to watch regularly if they continued stuff like this. Anything beyond their normal copy and paste job is a huge improvement. Hopefully Netflix see a huge boom in business and do it again. That new musical with Andrew Garfield looks fun. Someone at Netflix should pay Vince a few million to do a musical episode of Raw.

And I finally get to see the debut of Les Miz? Yes please. Chuck in some Dear Stan Hansen as a tribute to the Lariat and it’ll be an all time great episode.
Although knowing them, they’d probably manage to get The Rock to turn up for that one to do his Moana song.

[Tamura]

Way back in April 2019 I said...

Quote

Well, if you believe some people, the competition created by AEW will improve WWE's output. I'm not sure where they get this idea from, presumably it was from WCW starting Nitro that created competition with the WWF. However, there's a significant flaw in this reasoning. The WWE creative team do actually seem to be doing the best job they can, despite the falling viewing figures and other criticisms. I don't believe they are sitting on lots of killer angles just in case there's some competition somewhere down the line, I honestly believe they are trying to put out the best shows they can. Neither do I see AEW creating a sea change in WWE's output, a second Attitude Era if you will. WWE are quite happy with their current advertiser and TV network friendly programming, especially with the monstrous TV deals they've signed recently.

Has the competition from AEW improved WWE's output? Silly question I know. Large (record? I can't be bothered researching too much) profits aside, it's difficult to be enthusiastic about WWE at present. How long has Roman Reigns been the top guy now? Five years? All over TV pretty much every week (excepting his illness obviously) even when he's not champion? Ditto Charlotte. There's the occasional fresh face on the roster, but rather than getting rid of the dead wood (Ziggler still employed in 2021? Wow) they cut all the people that people aren't sick of seeing. There's plenty of turds that have been festering for years on the roster who still have jobs, but they fire the people who might have some future potential?

I took a look at the card before the show, there was nothing on there I wanted to see. Virtually the entire roster is over-exposed and stale.

[tiger_rick]

11 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Has the competition from AEW improved WWE's output?

No.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

11 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

   Even in the dark ages of the New Generation when Vader pinned HBK in a 6 Man Tag he got a title match at the next PPV.

Actually he didn't. Vader had already had his ppv shot at Michael's prior to this six man.

[WyattSheepMask]

1 hour ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

Actually he didn't. Vader had already had his ppv shot at Michael's prior to this six man.

He hadn’t - 6 Man Tag was at IYH: International Incident in July then the Michaels/Vader title match was at Summerslam in August. 
Prior to that Michaels had the No Holds Barred against Diesel at IYH: Good Friends, Better Enemies in April, then two defences against Dave Boy at IYH: Beware of Dog in May then King of the Ring in June

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

50 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

He hadn’t - 6 Man Tag was at IYH: International Incident in July then the Michaels/Vader title match was at Summerslam in August. 
Prior to that Michaels had the No Holds Barred against Diesel at IYH: Good Friends, Better Enemies in April, then two defences against Dave Boy at IYH: Beware of Dog in May then King of the Ring in June

Ahhhh apologies. I was referring to a six man that happened on raw when Vader pinned Michaels again.

Ill see if I can find it.

[air_raid]

3 hours ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

Ahhhh apologies. I was referring to a six man that happened on raw when Vader pinned Michaels again.

Ill see if I can find it.

The Raw match in which Vader pinned Shawn was a tag match where Vader and Cornette beat Shawn and Jose Lothario, between Mind Games and Buried Alive. In theory (and alluded to on commentary) this merited Vader getting another title shot, which in practice never came. My suspicion is that at this point the plan was still for Vader to go over Sid and then take the title at Survivors, going into In Your House “It’s Time!” as champion as was the plan when they came up with the name. I’ve never figured out whether they changed the plan to Sid because they knew Vader was going to need a little time off when finding out he needed shoulder surgery (ruling him out of Its Time), or whether they just decided to go with Sid instead and the shoulder injury was coincidental.
 

Worth pointing out that for anyone thinking “But wasn’t the plan Sid v Taker for the belt at Mania?” …. no, at this point the plan was still Shawn v Bret for the belt at Mania, and Shawn just needed to flip flop the title with ANYONE to sell the Rumble at the Alamo Dome off him going to get the belt back. Plans only changed to Sid/Taker with the belt and Bret/Shawn without it, the week before Thursday Raw Thursday. You probably don’t need reminding how it turned out.