Putting together a professional wrestling pay-per-view is an art. There are a ton of moving parts and if I’m being completely honest, promotions miss more than they hit in this area. On Sunday night, the WWE hit the bullseye with Survivor Series.
Bryan-LesnarCredit: WWE
The final of the promotion’s Big 4 pay-per-view shows had a number of positive elements, the following five are the reason it was the WWE’s best pay-per-view of the year. First, take a look at all of the results from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
- Universal Champion Brock Lesnar def. WWE Champion Daniel Bryan
- Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey def. Charlotte Flair by Disqualification
- Braun Strowman, Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley survive the Men’s Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Elimination Match
- Cruiserweight Champion Buddy Murphy (c) def. Mustafa Ali
- Raw Tag Team Champions AOP def. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Bar (and Big Show)
- Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins def. United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura
- Nia Jax wins the Women’s Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Elimination Match
- The Usos win the Tag Team Traditional 10-on-10 Survivor Series Elimination Match (Kickoff Match)
Smart Match Order
Just as the booking of a match is best when there is a build up to a memorable climax, a pay-per-view should function the same way. Too often we see the most compelling match take place in the middle or three-quarters of the way through a show, and the more highly publicized matches fall flat trying to follow it.
That wasn’t the case on Sunday. Sure, the Seth Rollins-Shinsuke Nakamura and Buddy Murphy-Mustafa Ali matches were great, but Survivor Series truly got better as the show went on, and it climaxed with two epic bouts.
Standout Matches
You can’t have a good/great pay-per-view show without standout matches, and Survivor Series delivered there as well. The two aforementioned matches, plus the men’s brand Survivor Series bout, as well as Ronda Rousey-Charlotte and Brock Lesnar-Daniel Bryan, would get scores of 7.5 or higher on a scale of 1-10.
Rollins-Nakamura had a slow and deliberate build, but they managed to tell an excellent story despite the fact that the match had no background. It was just an exhibition of two highly skilled in-ring performers firing off an amazing series of transitions. Most of all, we got to see a satisfying finish as Rollins won after he landed the Stomp.
The cruiserweight title battle between Murphy and Ali was predictably amazing. Those two guys are such breathtaking athletes who are both adept at selling and delivering a plethora of crowd-pleasing moves. It was an entertaining match, to say the least.
Brilliant Mind Games
It was legitimately difficult to predict the outcomes of the matches on Sunday. Raw completed a sweep of Smackdown, but the booking did a good job making you think each match would be the one the Blue brand pulled out to stop the streak.
Also, no one could have predicted Charlotte would turn heel and deliver such a hellacious beating to Rousey. Most believed Brock Lesnar would defeat Bryan, but the way it happened played tricks on the mind. The match told a great story and Bryan’s use of a below-the-belt kick to gain an advantage seemed feasible.
The new, sadistic and cunning Bryan is intriguing and he seems to be undergoing an Edge-like transformation, which takes him from being a lovable WWE face to a truly gifted performer. The psychology was in full effect.
Excellent Pacing
Because most of the matches didn’t have a ton of backstory, due to the split brands, the stream didn’t waste time showing a slew of vignettes re-acquainting the viewers with the build-up. These kinds of presentations were present here and there, but for the most part, the show was more action than fluff. The WWE may have stumbled upon this quality, but it was a positive nonetheless and led to the show wrapping up around 9:40 p.m. CT.
Strong Commentary
This is often lost during a pay-per-view, but the Survivor Series commentary team did a strong job across the board. This was especially the case in the men’s Survivor Series match, Rousey-Flair, and Lesnar-Bryan. The commentators were very much in sync with the booking and never too overt with their baiting dialog.
Corey Graves, Byron Saxton, Michael Cole, Renee Young, Tom Phillips and Percy Watson did a fabulous job.
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