Yes, so in one of those rare instances where I gave Netflix a premium for a month of divesting its material, I took the time to throw up the Survivor Series PPV from this past weekend on the telly. It’s in a stadium setting, which is nice. The show itself, on the other hand…
The Face Team of AJ Lee, Iyo Sky, Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss defeated the Heel team of Becky Lynch, Asuka, Kairi Sane, Nia Jax & Lash Legend with AJ tapping out Becky with her Widow’s Peak finisher after Iyo Sky’s annual trash can spot on the four heels who are just conveniently standing there waiting for this small lady to just plop over and land on them. I mean, yeah, it’s a cute spot and all, but cute spots in a Wargames match – the thing that’s supposed to be a major blood & guts affair (oh wait, those are the other guys and gals) – is really, really stupid. Yeah, I’m not a fan of this match. The Face team that don’t entirely trust each other schtick stopped working for me (brother) a long time ago and having two Wargame matches running with such concepts on the same show really soured me on the whole deal. I mean, hey, if you want a spotfest, this is the match for you… but I don’t know. Call me old school, but Wargames shouldn’t be about spot fests. That removal of the roof from the double cage was just a bad decision to encourage stupid spots that kill the whole vibe of the match.
Dirty Dom defeated Intercontinental Champion John Cena with an assist from the returning Liv Morgan (who fakes turning on Dom before turning on Cena because… why can’t we keep things simple, stupid?) to regain the title he lost a couple weeks back so that we can make John Cena a grand slam champion and give audiences false hope that this whole Last Time tournament would have some actual (storyline) sakes rather than be a lazy attempt to book John Cena’s final contracted WWE match before he walks off into the sunset… or whatever James Gunn project is coming up next. Yeah, this match was a thing that happened and felt like a complete waste of time… much like John Cena’s entire retirement run, as it turns out.
Women’s World Champion Stephanie Vaquer defeated Nikki Bella to retain the title in a thing that happened. I don’t necessarily say that because the match was bad or anything. Vaquer did what she could with Nikki, who did her part in keeping up. It’s probably one of the rare occasions where I didn’t sour on a Bella Twin match, but it just felt like something you’d toss on RAW to fill time. Not exactly something worthy of a “premium” showing… and I’d say the same thing about the Dom/Cena match. These felt like things tossed in to fill time rather than another parade of product plugs and commercials… which I guess is something, I guess?
The men’s wargames match closed out the show, seeing the Heel team of Brock Lesnar, Bron Breakker, Logan Paul, Drew McIntyre & Bronson Reed defeat the Face team of CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, and the Usos with the assist of a mystery masked man who may or may not be the returning Austin Theory… because if there’s anyone in WWE that’s going to entice me to retain my Netflix subscription, it’s Austin fucking Theory… then again, it could also be Seth Rollins, because fuck knows it wouldn’t be the first time he’d work the internets with exaggerated injury reports. Hey, at least there was some color in this match and there was less of a reliance on flying trash cans and other goober spots, but on a whole, I was like… meh. Honestly, despite the heavier star power, this felt less like a Wargames and more like an extended cage match. And the idea of a mystery assailent coming in during a Wargames match… we need outside interference in a fucking WARGAMES match? Yes, chances are we’ve had outside interference in Wargames before. Yes, I’d be asking the same question then. Not a fan of the match, but at least it wasn’t boring for the most part.
Yeah, so that was a premium live event that I just watched. Looked pretty, but never felt like a premium event. Felt like any other show I would’ve seen on TV. Hell, the AEW show that I watched felt more like a “premium” show than this Survivor Series show and that was on regular television. How does that happen?
Oh well, I guess I can cancel my Netflix subscription. I only needed it to give Cosmic Fury a rewatch and see if they uploaded any of the Re-Ignition episodes to the MMPR tab (they did.)
dtm666 