Continuing another series from If Destroyed, it’s time for another WWE pay-per-view preview.\u00a0 Mercifully, the days of three-week gaps between shows appear to be behind us, as the 2010 schedule is generally more relaxed than this year’s.\u00a0 So this time, the writers have had plenty of time to build to the show.\u00a0 This isn’t to say they’ve done it very well.\u00a0 But they’ve had the time.<\/p>\n
Survivor Series<\/em> is traditionally one of the big shows of the year – which is to say, it’s the Thanksgiving show, and they’ve been using the name for 23 years now, so it must<\/em> be important.\u00a0 As we’ve mentioned before, the WWE is currently on a kick of giving every show a gimmick, but Survivor Series<\/em> always had one: 5-on-5 tag team elimination matches.\u00a0 Fortunately, the company seems to have figured out that you can’t always shoehorn the main event storylines into the gimmick match du jour<\/em>, so a pattern is emerging: two title matches to headline the card, three gimmicks below.\u00a0<\/p>\n And this month’s card looks like this…<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 WWE Title: John Cena v. Triple H v. Shawn Michaels. These two matches go hand in hand, so I’ll take them together.\u00a0 For those who need reminding, in an attempt to generate its own competition, the WWE has split itself into three sub-promotions: Raw, Smackdown and ECW.\u00a0 ECW is now basically a transitional show for debuting wrestlers with a few veterans around to show them the ropes, and we need say no more about it.\u00a0 Raw is the flagship and has just been renewed through to 2014.\u00a0 Smackdown is notionally equal to Raw (or at least a close second), but it’s stranded on MyNetworkTV and its long term future is not entirely secure.\u00a0 In fact, because it attracts less internal politicking, and because it features fewer excruciating “comedy” skits, Smackdown is usually the better show by a mile.<\/p>\n Each brand has its own version of the world title, which is silly, and the titles should be unified, but there we go.\u00a0 John Cena is the Raw champion, with the WWE Title; the Undertaker is the Smackdown champion, with the generically-named World Heavyweight Title.\u00a0 (It’s supposed to be a continuation of the defunct WCW Championship.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The big idea here is that both babyface champions will defend their titles in three-way matches against a major tag team.\u00a0 Undertaker is defending against Chris Jericho and the Big Show, a heel team who hold the Unified Tag Team Titles.\u00a0 Cena is defending against both members of D-Generation X, a babyface tag team currently doing the umpteenth revival of their mid-nineties gimmick.\u00a0 And in both matches, the story is that if the tag team work together, the champion is screwed.\u00a0 But if they fight one another, he’s got a chance.<\/p>\n Here’s where it gets complicated, and a bit weird, and not very well written.\u00a0 Although Jericho and the Big Show are heels, they’re also an alliance of convenience.\u00a0 So they both want to win.\u00a0 That means that the Undertaker is probably going to get a fair fight from his heel opponents.\u00a0 But D-Generation\u00a0X claim that they don’t care which of them wins.\u00a0 Which means Cena is effectively facing a handicap match, even though his opponents are meant to be babyfaces.\u00a0 Irony!<\/p>\n The problem is that the promotion of this match on Raw has basically consisted of a bunch of comedy skits in which DX and Cena all affect not to take the match seriously, and then have wacky fun with Hornswoggle, who is a midget wrestler playing a leprechaun.\u00a0 There is a mystifying subplot going on, where said leprechaun wants to join DX and they don’t want him to, and Cena is trying to protect the leprechaun from getting beaten up by an irritable DX.\u00a0 And on last Monday’s show, DX did in fact\u00a0beat up the midget.\u00a0 Which is odd behaviour for babyface characters, to put it mildly.\u00a0 Of course, if you promote the match this way, there’s an obvious problem.\u00a0 If the characters don’t much care about the match, why should we?<\/p>\n In fact, both matches are likely to be good.\u00a0\u00a0The talent level is pretty high.\u00a0 The question is, what’s going through the minds of the writers?\u00a0 One factor here is that the December show is meant to be themed on ladder matches.\u00a0 If they’re really going to have two ladder matches for the world titles, then the aging and increasingly fragile Undertaker has to lose, because there’s no way he’s doing a match like that in his condition.\u00a0 (Unless it’s going to be a very cosy and gentle one, which rather defeats the point.)\u00a0 Then again, they could just do the gimmick matches on the undercard, and have regular matches in the main event.\u00a0 I think that’s more likely.<\/p>\n Another factor is that, as the unified tag champions, Jericho and the Big Show can appear on any show they want.\u00a0 So if one of them wins the title, you could have both champions wandering around on Raw.\u00a0 This might make sense if you wanted to build to a unification match, but they probably don’t.\u00a0 In fact, if Big Show wins, it gets even more complicated: he’s a Raw wrestler who can only appear on Smackdown because<\/em> he holds the tag titles.\u00a0 So if he lost the tag titles, the world title would be permanently lost to Raw…\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I can’t see them wanting to get into this murky territory.\u00a0 So my guess would be that Undertaker retains, in order to establish the point that the challengers only have the advantage when they work as a team.\u00a0 Then, the Raw match is probably going to be a de facto <\/em>handicap match, and my guess would be that one of DX – most likely Triple H – turns on his partner at the end,\u00a0becomes a full-fledged heel, and wins the title.\u00a0 Hornswoggle probably has to get involved somewhere, because they’ve done so much with him.\u00a0 An outside, and deeply unpalatable, possibility is that Triple H turns heel and is thwarted by the midget.\u00a0 That would not be good.<\/p>\n So… Undertaker to retain, Triple H to win, both matches probably good.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Batista v. Rey Mysterio. Now, Batista hasn’t been a heel since he split from the Evolution stable in early 2005, so at least this opens up some fresh matches for him.\u00a0 And as a big guy specialising in power moves, he’s fairly well suited to the heel role.\u00a0 On the other hand, his matches on Smackdown over the last few weeks haven’t been all that great.<\/p>\n But there’s little doubt about what happens here.\u00a0 This is the first major match for a newly-turned heel who’s coming off something of a losing streak and who therefore needs to cement his status with a convincing win.\u00a0 He will demolish Mysterio, Mysterio will get a few hope spots, Batista will win.\u00a0 It’ll probably be okay but thoroughly predictable.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Survivor Series Match: Kofi Kingston, MVP, Mark Henry, R-Truth & Christian v. Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, CM Punk & William Regal.<\/strong>\u00a0 The WWE are well aware that they need to elevate some new main eventers, but they also have a dreadful tendency to abort plans halfway through.\u00a0 This has left the upper midcard littered with wrestlers who, at one point, seemed on the cusp of making it to the next level, only for the company to forget about them and the fans to lose faith.<\/p>\n This month’s pet project is Kofi Kingston, who was called up to the active roster three years ago, claiming to be Jamaican.\u00a0 He never did really master the accent.\u00a0 Luckily for him, the WWE has finally decided to jettison that idea, and (after a bit of awkward distancing) he’s now being announced as hailing from Ghana.\u00a0 This is actually true, though his family moved to America when he was an infant.\u00a0 Fortunately, he’s not being required to attempt a Ghanaian accent.<\/p>\n Kingston has been plugged into a feud with Raw’s top heel Randy Orton, and so far, they’ve booked him pretty strongly.\u00a0 He’s now at the point where Kingston v. Orton in a singles match would draw, and if Kingston won, it would give him real momentum into the top tier.\u00a0 Of course, history says the WWE will probably screw it up.<\/p>\n And besides, we’re not getting a singles match; we’re getting a ten-man tag featuring a bunch of randoms assembled from around the roster.\u00a0 Rhodes & DiBiase are Orton’s regular henchmen; they’re matched up with midcard babyface tag team MVP and Mark Henry.\u00a0 CM Punk and R-Truth are in a half-hearted feud on Smackdown.\u00a0 Christian is the current ECW Champion, and William Regal is his main challenger; their appearance making up the numbers in this match says a lot about how seriously the company takes ECW these days.<\/p>\n Still, there’s a lot of talent in this match.\u00a0 (Mark Henry’s the\u00a0odd man out, but\u00a0it’s easy to\u00a0use him effectively and hide his weaknesses in a ten-man tag.)\u00a0 There are basically two ways you can book it.\u00a0 One possibility is for Kingston’s team\u00a0to win decisively, to keep his momentum.\u00a0 The other, and probably more likely, is that Kingston’s team get picked off, and he fights heroically against the odds, nearly pulling things back before finally getting beaten.\u00a0 Cue rematch next month.\u00a0 I can see this being good.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 Survivor Series Match: John Morrison, Matt Hardy, Evan Bourne, Shelton Benjamin & Finlay v. The Miz, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger.<\/strong>\u00a0 Welcome to the midcard.\u00a0 John Morrison is the Intercontinental Champion, which is the secondary title on Smackdown.\u00a0 The Miz is the US Champion, the secondary title on Raw.\u00a0 And for a while, they were the WWE’s dominant heel tag team.\u00a0 (Morrison turned babyface when the team split.)\u00a0 They had a singles match at the last show, as part of the Raw vs Smackdown theme, which Miz won.\u00a0 This is effectively the rematch, and since there’s no obvious way of extending the feud further, chances are Morrison’s team are winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n That would still be one match apiece, and an outside possibility is that they want to do Morrison and Miz in a ladder match next month to unify the secondary titles.\u00a0 This would not be a bad idea at all.\u00a0 Given the way they’re using the separate rosters, and the shaky future of Smackdown and ECW, the company doesn’t need three world champions, it doesn’t need two secondary men’s titles, and it certainly doesn’t need two women’s titles.\u00a0 There is much to be said for paring down to just four titles (world, regional, tag, women’s), and extending the rule that the champions get to appear on every show.\u00a0 Not only does it make the belts special, it also provides extra possible match combinations in a company that really needs them.<\/p>\n Morrison’s babyface team consists of veteran midcarders Matt Hardy and Finlay, the high-flyer Evan Bourne, who’s very talented but rarely gets to show it on Raw because he hardly ever gets to win, and Shelton Benjamin, a long-time heel currently on the ECW roster who recently turned babyface.\u00a0 Since very few people watch ECW, this is likely to confuse many viewers.\u00a0 Miz’s heel team consists of two midcard heels who once appeared to have been chosen for big things before the company lost interest in them (Swagger and Ziggler), and two recently debuted heels who are currently getting the same big push (McIntyre and Sheamus).\u00a0<\/p>\n McIntyre actually had a brief run in the company in late 2007, but we’re supposed to have forgotten that.\u00a0 Unusually, he’s a Scottish wrestler who’s actually Scottish, and who isn’t doing a national identity gimmick.\u00a0 Sheamus is Irish, and is doing a national identity gimmick.\u00a0 Incidentally, even though I’d expect it to be spelled “Seamus”, that’s apparently how he used to spell it when he worked on the indie circuit.\u00a0 Then again, we are talking about a man who thought that “Sheamus O’Shaunessy” would be a good ring name.\u00a0 Both are currently at the stage where they’ve yet to convince the audience that they have the ability (or at least the entertainment value) to merit their pushes, but the jury’s still out.<\/p>\n Again, this ought to be a decent match.\u00a0 The level of talent is pretty high, and plenty of these guys have good reason to put on the best possible show, whether to defend their existing pushes or to remind the company why they’re on the payroll.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 Survivor Series Match: Mickie James, Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly, Melina & Gail Kim v. Michelle McCool, Jillian Hall, Beth Phoenix, Layla & Alicia Fox.<\/strong>\u00a0 And finally, the obligatory women’s match.\u00a0 The best thing to be said about this is that at least in a ten-woman match it’s easier to hide the weaknesses of the more limited performers.<\/p>\n WWE Kremlinologists will take note that there’s some odd booking here.\u00a0 The heel team is captained by Michelle McCool, who is the women’s champion\u00a0on Smackdown.\u00a0 You might expect, then, that the babyface team would be captained by\u00a0the\u00a0women’s champion on Raw, Melina… but no, it’s led by Mickie James.\u00a0 That’s not exactly a vote of confidence, so chances are Melina won’t be holding on to that title for much longer.\u00a0 Another curiosity is the inclusion on the heel team of Layla El, who’s a decent valet but nothing to write home about as a wrestler.\u00a0 Once again, the company seems to have forgotten that it employs Natalia Neidhart, currently working as the manager of a tag team, who’s a better wrestler than most of the people in this match.\u00a0 In fact, even the underused Katie Lea Burchill (marooned on ECW with nobody to fight) is better in the ring than Layla.\u00a0 To be sure, we’ve seen many worse wrestlers than Layla over the years… but there are better ones on the roster who aren’t being used, for no readily apparent reason.<\/p>\n They’re clearly building to Mickie versus Michelle for the Smackdown women’s title, so I’d say the likely booking here is for Mickie to pin and eliminate Michelle, but for the heel team to cheat their way to a victory at the end.\u00a0 As for the match quality… well, if they plough through the first few eliminations and get rid of the dead wood, it could be okay.<\/p>\n Worth buying?<\/strong>\u00a0 I’ve always liked these elimination matches, and there’s actually some good reason to be optimistic about these ones.\u00a0 They’ve done a wonky and lopsided job of building up the main events, but the actual wrestling is likely to be good.\u00a0 I can see this being a good show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continuing another series from If Destroyed, it’s time for another WWE pay-per-view preview.\u00a0 Mercifully, the days of three-week gaps between shows appear to be behind us, as the 2010 schedule is generally more relaxed than this year’s.\u00a0 So this time, the writers have had plenty of time to build to the show.\u00a0 This isn’t to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2.\u00a0 World Heavyweight Title: The Undertaker v. Chris Jericho v. The Big Show.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Dave Batista turned heel at the last show, after failing to win the world title for the umpteenth time.\u00a0 He promptly blamed his ad hoc<\/em> partner Rey Mysterio for the loss, and beat him up.\u00a0 This is the obligatory match.<\/p>\n