Raw/Smackdown men's match

[KaiserGlider]

This match needs to be... "discussed".

So Nakamura and Roode get eliminated almost at the same time, leaving Orton, Cena, and Shane as the only people left on the Smackdown team. Strowman is then put through the table, which accomplishes nothing except take him out of the match for the next 15 minutes, only to come back and do nothing but stand on the apron while his team comfortably wins. John Cena is then eliminated next, leaving Shane and Randy Orton (who I swear is by far the least over person in the entire match judging my crowd reactions). Thankfully Orton is eliminated before too long.

It's now 3-on-1 against Dad Who Likes Jumping Off Things. Strowman enters the ring but waits long enough to not attack Shane for Haitch to tag himself in. Haitch pauses long enough for Angle to tag himself in. They fight, Shane tries to mount a comeback but Angle gets the better of him and puts him in the Ankle Lock. Shane struggles... and struggles... and struggles. He refuses to tap out for like at least a minute. Angle drags him back to the center of the ring, and then....

Triple H, at that precise moment and not sooner for some reason, steps in and pedigrees Angle and then drags Shane on top of him for the cover. Angle is eliminated. Haitch then pedigrees Shane and picks up the win for his team. Hooray?

Post-match, Triple H wants to celebrate with Braun but Braun gets pissed and almost chokes out Triple H. This is actually a really cool moment and Triple H looks absolutely fucking terrified of Braun... but then as soon as Braun turns around Haitch hits him from behind. He tries a pedigree but Braun powers out of it, lays out Triple H, and poses in the ring as the show ends. So basically, the only thing this match managed to accomplish though its WTF booking was setting up Triple H's next feud. Possibly Triple H's next two feuds (Braun and Angle).

The start of the match with all the new interactions was really fucking cool though, I was looking forward to that. I thought Roode looked pretty good. Other than that, WTF?

[Circled Square]

[SlightlyJames]

Shane McMahon is terrible and needs to stop being in wrestling matches, much less actually being the focus of them to the detriment of the rest of the team. They even found a way to make Owens and Zayn look like jabronis when they run in for the beat down on Shane then get their ass beat and run away almost immediately. Kurt Angle's inclusion was about as stupid, I don't see the attraction of watching this guy who blatantly can not go anymore, it's just sad.

John Cena being in there made very little storyline sense to me either. If he hadn't somehow become a 'free agent' and jumped to Raw for the Roman thing then sure, that'd have been fine. But that happened, they still refer to him as a free agent, he doesn't feel like a Smackdown guy so there's no real reason for him to be representing the brand.

For that stuff to even feel worthwhile to me you need to feel that the guys are fighting for their show, the story they built was that Smackdown is mad that they're called the B Show all the time, there's no reason to include a guy who isn't even on Smackdown. He didn't even appear on Smackdown at all in the lead up to this, he just showed up cold and left without really contributing much other than a little sequence with Angle.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm mad that Roode and Nakamura went down early, honestly neither of them have done anything interesting since they got called up in my opinion, but when that leaves the trio of Shane, Cena and Orton as the remainder of the team you've got a problem.

If they had included some more guys to actually give a shit about for most of the match it wouldn't have been left as flat as it was. I would have liked to see Rusev in there, shit they even said the reason he wasn't in was because he had to earn his way then suddenly John Cena is on the team after basically fucking Smackdown over to go and wrestle on Raw

Basically everything after Orton got eliminated was just stupid confusing bullshit. The string of tag ins were daft, Triple H waiting until after the Ankle lock had been on to double cross Angle was stupid. In fact, why did he double cross Angle at all? If he didn't want Angle to be the guy to win the match why did Stephanie even put Kurt in there in the first place? It makes no bloody sense.

There's no satisfying payoff for it either, all they're going to do is retread the Mick Foley storyline from a few months ago and make Angle look like a bitch. The only difference is that this time they'll probably do a match to pay it off and it'll probably be shit.

Haitch then proceeded to pretend that he was jumping ship to Smackdown which was also entirely pointless, I don't see any purpose in it at all, unless the implication is that a basically already dead Shane still needed to be fucking tricked before he could lose to Triple H because Shane is such a total badass? Bollocks.

[KaiserGlider]

Cena was the only one not wearing a Smackdown shirt too. Fake ass bitch.

I think Kurt Angle's return has been ruined. Maybe it's not fair to completely judge him since he hasn't had a singles match yet, but I am not looking forward to that when it happens. Kurt looks like shit out there, even for small 1-2 minute sequences. They are booking him like he's still a main eventer, but didn't notice his limitations at TLC. Angle should have gotten a singles return match that was built up properly, not these random inclusions in tag matches that he feels totally out of place in. Unfortunately it seems like a case of him waiting to long to return to WWE.

[Circled Square]

i watched a match recently it was angle vs Alberto del memeo at wcpw and he looked old but fine idk what the fuck happened here he looked 145 years old how is he cleared to wrestle but Daniel Bryan isnt

[Messiah]

I stopped watching once Nakamura and Roode were the first two eliminated. What a joke. I can't believe I got my hopes up for this match.

[Hanley!]

This match accomplished the rare combination of both boring me and pissing me off. I stayed up late to watch it, but it was holding my attention so little that I started reading articles and playing games online at the same time, occasionally muting the match because it was irritating me.

I could do a multi-page rant about this one, but I don't care enough anymore. All the younger, newer guys were eliminated first with little chance to shine. It all came down to the oldest performers and the giant. Replace Strowman with the next giant to come along and we'll probably see the same Survivor Series main event in another ten years at this rate.

If you like to see nonsensical twists, exciting talent being buried, 90s guys looking and wrestling like their age, and Triple H's ego then this was the match for you. It sucked.

[Str8Shooter]

I knew Nakamura was getting eliminated first once they were having him beat the shit out of everyone, they at least attempted to make an effort to make him and Roode look good before they were gone. Of course they would have looked better if they weren't gone so soon.

People will give Triple H shit for wrestling still but I thought he looked way better in the ring than Kurt did, it was kind of sad.

Cena was an complete afterthought, other than his new merch. Came in without much fanfair from the announcers, didn't do much, was eliminated without much fanfair and left. I don't get why he wasn't eliminated by Finn when Finn stomped him, at least could have put Finn over a bit with that.

I actually thought the early portions of the match were pretty fun with all the different combinations they were putting in the ring, and the crowd was into it. You could tell the crowd lost something when Nak, Roode, Finn, etc were eliminated.

[Hanley!]

They did absolutely nothing interesting with the match. I basically predicted the entire match in my head beforehand, other than the fact that I thought Strowman would be DQed or counted out at some point.

The exciting thing about Survivor Series is that the elimination style allows you to try new things, get multiple people over and tell interesting stories. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what would happen here, but with that many variables it was always possible - even probable - that SOMETHING interesting would happen at some point in the match. Someone like Nakamura, Roode, Joe or Balor might get an upset elimination on a bigger star, for example. But they capitalised on none of the match's potential in that regard.

Cena was the only one not wearing a Smackdown shirt too. Fake ass bitch.

That's how you know who the company considers to be stars right now. The guys on this show that (as far as I can remember) didn't wear the dumb brand T-shirts were Roman Reigns, Triple H, John Cena, Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles.

[Str8Shooter]

That's how you know who the company considers to be stars right now. The guys on this show that (as far as I can remember) didn't wear the dumb brand T-shirts were Roman Reigns, Triple H, John Cena, Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles.

Haha I noticed this too. Especially with Reigns not having to wear the goofy half and half Shield/Raw shirt that Ambrose and Rollins wore. At least Hunter's shirt was Red though

[The Legend]

I'll chime in and agree that I can't understand what they were even really trying to accomplish with that match. Even if this was the route you wanted to go with establishing new feuds following Survivor Series, this was about the crappiest way you wanted to do it. I won't change anything about future plans, but come up with a more logical conclusion to this match with little effort.

Let's say it gets down to 3-1 like last night, instead of HHH non-sensically doing what he did, have Jason Jordan run down, be the one that takes out Angle and helps Shane eliminate Angle. Braun then steps in as the next competitor, but HHH blind tags himself in to be the hero instead of Braun. Braun gets pissed after the match and does the beat down of HHH.

In the end you still get matches for Braun vs HHH and Angle vs Jordan at Rumble. Angle and Jordan could have a respectable match that allows Jordan to work out frustrations, but in the end Angle can make him see that it was HHH, not Angle that made that decision. And you get Jordan vs HHH at Mania with Angle in Jordan's corner.

Even without changing where WWE is leading us, you get there in a much more suitable way.

[Str8Shooter]

Triple H ain't wrestling Jason Jordan at Wrestlemania, come on now. I'll be surprised if Jordan is even a babyface still by Mania. It's either going to be Triple H vs Angle or Triple H vs Braun.

I don't know why they did a backstage interview where Jordan blamed Triple H and said he hoped he was eliminated then not have him run down and cost Trips a pin.

[Hanley!]

Did they literally use the match to set up three feuds for Triple H, and nothing else?

[Str8Shooter]

Did they literally use the match to set up three feuds for Triple H, and nothing else?

Hmm, I suppose Joe and Finn bickering could continue that feud. Sami and KO attacking Shane furthers that feud. But pretty much just the HHH and Angle stuff.

Part of that is the Raw vs Smackdown dynamic and how it puts all feuds on hold and causes characters to have to act completely different for a month. I mean unless you have the teammate infighting there's not much you can do to create feuds in a brand vs brand match.

[KaiserGlider]

Imagine if it was Nakamura in there as the last man in a 3-on-1 instead of Shane. In fact off the top of the my head, the Smackdown eliminations would have been better as:

Orton first - mostly because nobody gave a fuck about him, but also because it would have been hyped as a big "loss" for Smackdown if the guy known for his Survivor Series record was eliminated first. Besides, Orton's record at SS isn't perfect anyway, he's lost there before so it's not a big deal.

Shane second, because fuck him. Probably would have Triple H eliminate him in some dick fashion so Steph is happy.

Roode third, because he's currently better than the previous two but not a bigger star than the last two.

Cena fourth, and then Nak last. I don't know who wins or what kind of finish the match has, but fuck it anything would be better than what we got.

PS, is anyone else not a fan of Braun's finishing move? It's cool when he uses it to put people through tables, but it was just weird seeing guys like Nakamura and Roode get pinned after a running power slam.

[Hanley!]

I would have done the Smackdown eliminations the same as you, Kaiser. Keeping Shane until last didn't accomplish anything other than making the match worse. If they wanted to advance the feud between Shane and Triple H, then Triple H could have eliminated him at any time. Meanwhile, having Nakamura outlast the rest of his team would have helped to establish him as a real main event contender on Smackdown.

Plus, again it would have made the match better. Which is also important.

On Braun's finishing move, I kinda agree. The running powerslam just feels a little outdated at this point. It worked for Bulldog, but in 2017 it doesn't seem quite devastating enough for a wrestler that size. Plus it's a move that a lot of larger wrestlers traditionally use. I'd rather see it as a signature move for a bunch of guys than a finisher for just Braun.

[Messiah]

It's time that we accept that Jason Jordan sucks in a singles role. The only reason anyone cares about him is because of a tag team with Chad Gable, who was clearly the more over of the two.

[Hanley!]

Jordan is awesome in the right context. The sad thing about his shitty run at the moment is that now people are saying that he sucks and should never have been picked for the role. It's the role that's the problem, not the performer. Nobody could have made this work.

I don't think Jordan necessarily sucks as a singles guy. He's not a bad talker in terms of modern day WWE, he's got plenty of charisma in the ring and his moves look cool. He could have worked out with a better gimmick. But I preferred him with Gable. Breaking up that team was a massive waste. They could have been the best and most over main roster WWE tag team in years, but they went cold because they were never used on the main roster, and then they were split up before their time. Enzo and Cass were similarly broken up for no reason. I'm sure when the Revival return it's just a matter of time before they're split up too.

[Messiah]

Jordan is awesome in the right context. The sad thing about his shitty run at the moment is that now people are saying that he sucks and should never have been picked for the role. It's the role that's the problem, not the performer. Nobody could have made this work.

I don't think Jordan necessarily sucks as a singles guy. He's not a bad talker in terms of modern day WWE, he's got plenty of charisma in the ring and his moves look cool. He could have worked out with a better gimmick. But I preferred him with Gable. Breaking up that team was a massive waste. They could have been the best and most over main roster WWE tag team in years, but they went cold because they were never used on the main roster, and then they were split up before their time. Enzo and Cass were similarly broken up for no reason. I'm sure when the Revival return it's just a matter of time before they're split up too.

I'm just not a huge fan of Jordan. You are probably right that I would like him in a better role, but he seems like a guy destined to be closer to bland than anything. He's not terrible in the ring, but almost everybody in the WWE is a good in-ring performer nowadays.

Speaking of tag teams: can we all agree The Usos are fucking awesome? I'm so happy they were given this heels run. So much charisma and in-ring ability. Shame they broke up DIY because that would have been an amazing feud closer to WrestleMania.

[Hanley!]

I hated the Usos a year ago. They turned things around in a hurry. In fairness, they were always good in ring but had no personality. Now they're more of a complete package.

On Jordan, I always liked his goofy sense of humour with Gable. I thought he brought a lot of charm to the team. And his charisma on his hot tag was always on point. That team had such strong chemistry and it really pissed me off to see them break up. NXT keeps producing quality tag teams that ultimately go to waste.

Would love to see a DIY reunion one day because that's another team that I really loved. But I think both guys have singles runs in them too. I could definitely imagine Gargano as a Zayn-esque NXT champion.