WWE Survivor Series 2018 Live Blog

New Day/Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson/The Colons/Sanity/The Usos vs. The Revival/Lucha House Party/The Ascension/The B-Team/Bobby Roode & Chad Gable

ER: Can I get an over/under on how many times we'll hear "Brand Supremacy" spoken on commentary tonight? I don't think we're ever going to get an actual "good" version of this type of match again. It seems impossible to have a bad version of a match with this many people, yet now you always just get a bunch of super quick eliminations, no strategy, and still somehow get people lying in holds even though there are nearly a dozen guys who are fresh. There are a ton of guys who get eliminated after taking moves that would never finish a match normally, so we clear out a bunch of guys and cut to Revival, Gable/Roode, New Day, and Usos. We do get an extremely fun trainwreck spot, dives from everyone, awesome spear to the floor from Big E, Big E tossing Wilder with great overhead belly to belly suplexes, Gable getting backdropped to the floor, a huge suplex to the floor, just a fun extended crash segment. I wasn't expecting things to come down to Revival/Usos, but I'm happy the Revival are there. I was hoping they'd get to have more of a tag match once they were alone, but it went straight into a finisher stretch. The stuff looked cool, like Revival connecting on the Power Plex, and we got some nice saves to amp things up, and it was fine. This could have been really good, but it wasn't bad at all, and that's something. Some of these teams were total non-factors, Ascension was limited to basically Viktor locking Kingston in a headlock, Sanity was gone with I think only Dane getting in the match, and you end up with a 90 minute pre-show and this match still feeling incredibly rushed.

Carmella/Naomi/Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville/Asuka vs. Mickie James/Tamina/Nia Jax/Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: Love the huge heat Nia is getting, haven' really heard anything like that, and her blowing and dusting off her knuckles is THE BEST. Becky vs. Nia is gonna be DOPE. Right off the bat Naomi and Tamina get eliminated, and while I'm not happy with Naomi being out so early, I'll accept the sacrifice to get Tamina out of this thing. I dug the extended Rose/James section, James getting a cool heel hook reversal and Rose working a nice abdominal stretch. And before long Mickie is practically running this for Raw, working through Asuka and Sonya Deville, and they've oddly fallen into the trap this match of having all the heels be the ones taking heat. We're also getting an odd amount of partners making zero attempts to save a member from their team. Is there some rule against breaking up a pin? People are just getting eliminated left and right, a member of their team always ready to replace them but rarely ready to save them. This makes no sense. None of this feels like it has any kind of team make-up to it. But things get pretty hot once it's down to Nia/Bayley and Asuka/Deville. Nia milks heat when she comes in but takes a big bump to the floor, eating an Asuka kick after a missed charge. They do, however, their best to suck that heat out of the arena by having Deville and Bayley counted out. It was all supposed to come down to Nia, but they've taken a ton of uninteresting ways to get there. Neither of these "traditional" matches felt mapped out well at all. Still, it was smart to make Asuka the final survivor on SD as she's felt a bit too much a part of the crowd lately, it was good having her fight back against Nia and Sasha, and I like how Asuka matches up with both. I thought the end stretch was handled well, liked a lot of the Sasha/Asuka stuff, Sasha took a wild German suplex, and thought it was smart for Nia to throw Sasha to the wolves to then be able to wreck Asuka. The match didn't add up to a whole lot, really both elimination matches have been pretty mindless, but they're moving ahead perfectly with Nia. Nia/Becky is going to be fire, and Nia/Asuka until we get that match should rule.

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: Everybody always looks like such a goon when they're forced to wear their brand colors. Nakamura looks like he's wearing a blue version of Green Man, and Rollins - who doesn't really need help looking dorky - isn't helped by his half/half Rawlins shirt. And the layout of this match is not something that's going to make me like this match, as we get a long slow Nakamura control to build to some lousy Rollins FIRE offense. Those topes look bad, dude. We get some nice kicks followed by a silly slap fight, then some more Rollins silliness with a buckle bomb and that beyond dumb superplex/Falcon Arrow. And it's all very serious, people. This match is definitely as uninteresting as I feared it would be. They gave it an effort but this constant back and forth with kickouts replacing actual drama just doesn't do it for me. I'm sure if Graves calls it an incredible match-up a few more times, I might come around. This felt like a lot of motion for what we got. This PPV is still turn-aroundable, but my enthusiasm is waning.

The Bar vs. AOP

ER: Does Drake Maverick always look like a smoked orange peel, or is the color on my TV all wonky? This tag match is perfectly good wrestling although it never went up to "next level" and felt about as good as something you'd typically see on weekly TV. I've not been too impressed with AOP, but like some of their clumsy power spots. It was pretty uneventful and we soon realize that the whole match was basically a set piece to have Drake Maverick pee his pants after getting scared by Big Show. Oh wow. Oh wow that's lame. Big Show was literally only out there to build to a pissed pants spot. This ain't good.

Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: This starts really good, Ali snaps off a nice rana and Murphy shoots out to the floor (much smoother than Anderson's clunky take of a rana in our first match), but Ali is crazy and gets shoved off the buckles by Murphy and flies backwards into the barricade. The replays really made it look like he flew far. Murphy also launches him to the floor after blocking another move, leading to another massive Ali bump to the floor. Murphy follows with a big tope con hilo, and Ali sells that back in the ring by hitting a superkick and reverse rana. He also makes bug eye faces when Murphy kicks out of things. Ali is clearly one of those guys who does some things I like, and then proceeds to wrestle like all of those indy guys I'm already tired of. Each man is both completely dead while also completely able to break out a sunset flip powerbomb or any other Modern Indy Offense at a moment's notice. They did things to make me care about the match early, but they quickly turned this into the same match I've seen from dozens of wrestlers in dozens of feds this year. Murphy catching Ali with a knee off the ropes at the finish looked great, and really was cool enough to be the finish. BUT, it didn't involve one or both guys flipping, so it could not finish this match. Crowd was into this and they seemed pretty dead after that tag match, so they get some credit for that.

Bobby Lashley/Finn Balor/Dolph Ziggler/Drew McIntyre/Braun Strowman vs. The Miz/Jeff Hardy/Samoa Joe/Rey Mysterio/Shane McMahon

ER: So who was the agent for these matches? Did we really need every one of these matches to start with an immediate elimination? This is bad, man. This whole concept works better when you have teams who actually want to team together; having in-fighting while also fighting with another team of in-fighters just makes for a big mess of spots. And some of the mess of spots is good! Nobody needs Shane wrestler cosplaying with armdrags, but watching him do a really stupid stunt through a table is welcome. It's wild how Mysterio has barely been back and just feels like some guy. That said, it's hilarious how easily he dispatches with Balor. You'll be shocked to know that according to Cole and Graves, that this match - just like every match that we've seen so far tonight - is ALSO an incredible match. It's just literally impossible to believe how incredible this night of wrestling has been. Everything is incredible! I'm in silent awe, like an immigrant seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. I can't care too much about Shane eliminating Ziggler, but it's amusing watching Lashley throw him with huge suplexes. And I dug Shane, red faced, tired getting urged to the top rope by Miz, needing to hit that coast to coast, and getting hammered out of the sky by Braun. Really just having Braun smash through everybody is the most fun this can get, and I sickly love that this comes down to Shane McMahon heroically having to stand against 3 men. We didn't get enough of Shane fighting valiantly and he went down pretty easy to Braun, whole match wound up being pretty flat. The elimination matches have all felt like set-up matches to get to bigger matches - which is totally cool - but weird to spend an actual PPV setting up matches that feel more important than the PPV. And is Braun vs. Corbin something that people want to see? This had some strong showings throughout, Miz was good as active team leader, Rey turned in a typically good Rey multiman performance, they integrated Shane about as well as possible. This is most likely the best match on the show so far, though that's not a very esteemed title.

Charlotte vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: I guess Rousey is going for geisha makeup? It...doesn't not work, I guess. I don't get why else you'd be doing the white pancake makeup if not for a geisha look, but her wrestling has been so strong that the only place she really needs to be reined in is at Sephora. Ronda is nice and tenacious to start and I love her relentlessly going after Charlotte, even jumping right back in after the ref separates them, constantly going after that arm. Ronda's greatest strength may very well be her bumps, she's a crazy bumped whose specialty is flying face first into things. You saw her excellent ringpost bumps in the Nikki match, and here Charlotte gets an opening when Ronda flies fast face first into the bottom buckle, really looked nasty. Ronda gets a busted mouth and Charlotte begins taking over. I really dug Charlotte kicking out Rousey's leg when she was on the top, even though I was dying to know what Rousey was going to do off the top. I'm going to need a Steiner 450 from Ronda. The rolling armbar off the top is a cool spot I hope doesn't start getting overused. Ronda is so great at building drama, great at selling (look at how she stood up with that rolling fireman's carry, look at the emotion she showed) and I don't think anybody has made Charlotte's spear look that great. That spear looked so nasty and Rousey's kickout was so great that I fully bought that finishing the match. Ronda is good at paying service to the work Charlotte has done to the leg, without being obvious and hammy about it, really feels like she has a grasp on complicated selling, moreso than many in WWE. I normally think Charlotte's chops look a little flimsy, but here I loved her firing out of the corner with them. Ronda getting a chest full of bruises only helped with that visual. We get the DQ finish, which is disappointing, but I like that they at least went with a full beatdown and not just a one move DQ. Charlotte beats her with a kendo stick and Ronda takes a great bump into the ring steps. It continues the trend of this PPV being used to set up actual important matches, but I thought this match ruled. I think it's undeniable that this is the best Charlotte has looked in ages, and it's not a coincidence it came against Ronda. Rousey is legit at this point, she's arguably the best salesman in the fed, right up with the best bumpers, and has strong offense. It's pretty shocking how good she is, so quick. This blew away anything else on the show, by a mile.

Daniel Bryan vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well. This completely owned. This is one that I imagine most wrestling fans have been interested in seeing for a long time now. I didn't think we'd ever get this match, and it feels weird that we finally get it. And they take things slow, circling, Bryan mocking Brock, and it feels like Brock is going to wreck him once they make contact with each other. Bryan throws a hard kick but Brock walks through it and wings a lariat at the side of Bryan's head. It's going to be that kind of match. Suplex City comes early, with Brock mocking the chants, and then throwing some ungodly suplexes to Bryan, really sending Bryan crashing in all sorts of ragdoll ways. This goes on for awhile, and the longer it goes the more it genuinely seems like Brock is going to completely steamroll Bryan. He's done that before, and it looked like he was doing it again. But just as the extended Brock thrashing was starting to feel a bit too long, the match gets flipped, when the match gets flipped things get great. Bryan gets F5'd into the ref, which slows it down and allows Bryan to land on his feet, then he punts Brock in the balls behind the fallen ref's back, and they turn a massive ballshot into a fantastic nearfall, like a elementary school playground version of David & Goliath. We get this awesome run of Bryan slipping out of Brock's grasp and Brock getting tricked into a bunch of big bumps (and Brock big bumps are unlike any other), and Bryan laces into Brock with an absolute BEATING. Bryan is throwing stiff kick to the ribs of the grounded Lesnar, then Bryan grabs Brock's arms and starts stomping the hell out of Brock's face. We get a moment I don't think I've EVER seen, as the cameras show BRYAN'S BOOT MARK imprinted on Brock's freaking face!!! This is next level. The stretch run is just killer. Brock gets his leg worked over, gets it wrapped around a ringpost, but is still capable of catching Bryan, and we get an awesome Lesnar moment where he catches a sprinting Bryan up on his shoulders and coming *this* close to an F5, but Lesnar's knee buckles and drops Bryan right down into an awesome Yes Lock. Brock's tap teasing was engaging as all hell throughout, totally looked like they could have given Bryan a plausible win over the beast, and Bryan looked like he was going to flat out knock Lesnar out once he started clonking him with the sickest crossface strikes. Holy shit. Bryan hung with Brock and it was glorious, but Brock eventually smashed him after Bryan looked as good against him than anyone. I really loved this one, thought they knocked it out of the park.


ER: I really wasn't digging this PPV, was chalking it up as a major weekend loss as I didn't really like the TakeOver either. And then WRESTLING GOD RONDA ROUSEY showed that she's an instant great, and Brock Bryan gave me exactly what my lizard wrestling brain wanted to see. Can't help but recommend this PPV after those last two matches put me in a great wrestling mood. All of that last hour owned.