Survivor Series XXX

[Jiji]

You didn't like the Goldberg match at Mania?

[Overly Critical Man]

Some random thoughts about the women's elimination match which was the match I looked forward to the most...

They've done a pretty great job of rebuilding Asuka as an asskicker after those cruddy first matches on the main roster with Emma. 

Nia deserved better.

Loved Alicia's captain's hat. Loved how they kept getting more elaborate every week until she looked like a Soulcalibur character tonight.

And holy crap, wtf are they doing with Becky. It's like Vince is in the back going "We've destroyed Bayley, now let's ruin Becky, pal!"

[Brian Fowler]

20 minutes ago, sydneybrown said:

What are you talking about?  Unforgiven 2005 is right there.  

.... Yeah and 2005 Cena wasn't exactly good

[The Natural]

7 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

You didn't like the Goldberg match at Mania?

Oops, I did like that bomb throwing one. I needed that after watching the show live with Rollins/Triple H and Wyatt/Orton before it.

[DreamBroken]

Incredibly disappointed by the main event after coming in very hyped for it with that stacked lineup and last year's match being my match of the year. This was a massive stepdown from last year's epic. I'm tired of Braun after this one. The early goings of the match was really good and a lot of fun. Triple H's exchanges with Nakamura and Roode were the best. Then Nakamura and Roode got squashed out early and that was the end of that. Cena felt like an afterthought, wish Orton lasted longer with his Survivor Series history and we couldn't even get a decent Shane O hope spot when it was 3 on 1.

On the positive side, thought Alexa/Charlotte was absolutely awesome and lived up to its potential with a great match. My personal favorite of the night. Even with the obvious outcome, thought both put on great performances and Alexa looked like a star all throughout, perfect reactions and facial expressions all through the match. Only wish the finish was a little better executed and could've gone a couple more minutes but what we got was very good stuff. Lesnar/Styles also ended up really good despite a couple rough spots. The transition into the Calf Crusher was wonderfully done and sold. Great near falls for AJ and I loved the finish with the perfect catch. Brock's longest singles match in 2 years and it's a great one.

Glad to see Corbin get a good big win, hopefully this time it's followed up on. Outside of the always great Asuka, thought Tamina was the star of the womens tag. Love how they treated the Nia/Tamina faceoff but other than that the match was just kinda there.

[evilwaldo]

1 hour ago, AquariumDrinker said:

Joe continues to get huge reactions from crowds, and is given next to nothing to do.

He is being punished for getting over when you are not allowed to get over unless they tell you to get over.

Unlike NXT where you are supposed to connect with the crowd.

[Michael Sweetser]

Super Shane can fuck off already.  Enough of this stupid shit from a guy that never did anything but fall off tall things to begin with.

Thank god for the middle of the show, because the rest of it fucking sucked.

[Eivion]

Thought the Shield/New Day match was good but missing something to bring it to the next level.

Women's SS had some nice moments, but Becky's early elimination was complete bs.

Miz/Corbin was pretty good and way better than I expected it to be even liking both guys. Glad Corbin won.

Usos/Bar was good.

Charlotte/Alexa felt kind of ridiculous with Alexa controlling so much of the match against someone who is like 9 inches taller than her. I liked some of it, but I had trouble really getting into for the most part.

Brock/AJ was great, easily the best match Brock has had since WM match with Reigns. Brock limping away and not giving any semblance of grin was great. Aj came out of this lookign great even with the loss.

The main event started off great with the faceoffs, then dropped off quickly once Roode and Nakamura were eliminated so fast. Honestly, damn near every elimination seemed lackluster, even Cena's. I get wanting to build Angle vs. HHH, but that ending was just moronic. The only thing that redeemed this was Braun coming off as an uber face destroying HHH.

Solid show aside from the main event. Still paled in comparison to War Games, but that was sadly expected.

[Overly Critical Man]

22 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

He is being punished for getting over when you are not allowed to get over unless they tell you to get over.

Unlike NXT where you are supposed to connect with the crowd.

Pretty sure he's been injured for the last two months and only came back like two weeks ago and was just in the main event of a big four ppv.

But yeah...he's given nothing to do and he's being punished. 

>.>

[TheVileOne]

There was nothing special at all about Goldberg vs. Lesnar at either Wrestlemania.

The Shield vs. The New Day and Lesnar vs. Styles were both a lot of fun. Booking for the main event was hot garbage.  

I don't get why Shane McMahon is still wrestling this much.  He shouldn't be able to give Samoa Joe a run for his money.  It's ridiculous.

[Casey]

At this point, if anyone but Braun Strowman wins the Royal Rumble then it'll be a fuck up on a massive scale. It's going to be 2014/2015 levels of heat if he doesn't, especially if Reigns wins like we're all thinking. He's so beyond ready that it's not even funny and the crowd is super behind him. If they wait another year, they're going to have another Reigns situation on their hands, where they pull the trigger but the fans have moved on.

[The Natural]

2 hours ago, EVA said:

Hopefully the reaction to AJ/Brock will compel Brock to work more matches that aren't just 20 German suplexes and an F5.   Granted, they aren't all going to be against AJ, which makes a world of difference.

I want to like this a number of times.

[Brian Fowler]

1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

There was nothing special at all about Goldberg vs. Lesnar at either Wrestlemania.

This year's match was perfect. Five minutes of two big dudes throwing absolute bombs and a decisive finish. Loved every second of it.

[jstout]

2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

This year's match was perfect. Five minutes of two big dudes throwing absolute bombs and a decisive finish. Loved every second of it.

Yup. It wasn't a five-star wrestling classic, but it was absolutely perfect for what it was and was exactly as long as it needed to be. It was so damn well thought out.

[RonL21]

The only problem I had with AJ/Brock was that I think AJ has enough credibility to kick out of one F5. They could have had AJ barely get a shoulder up, then have Brock give him another.

[StuntmanCrowley]

If I ignore the main event, this was a good to great PPV and AJ/Brock was awesome.  Take away the main event and just have it end with Braun wrecking HHH and it's a good PPV.

[RIPPA]

 

[RIPPA]

 

[RIPPA]

 

[Phantom Lord]

That show didn't need to be almost 4 hours. The traditional survivor series matches were terrible. Who ever on this board called Team Smackdown coming down to just Shane, when it happened I was like "you have to be kidding me". I at least thought they would have Jason Jordan come running out and cost RAW the match especially after that promo where he said he hoped Triple H got eliminated.

Anyway my favorite part of the night was Sheamus going full on Johnny 5 with his hair.

The Bar's new motto is "we kick your balls into outer space"

[TheVileOne]

Shane being the last guy in there for Smackdown was offensive.

[nate]

What's more distracting: Brock's fupa, or trying to figure out what Brock's tramp stamp says?

[Matt D]

10 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Well what did you think of the match. AJ's bumping..  out of this world..    Brock's selling on the leg after the reversal into the calf crusher,   very good. Stiff shots from both guys.   I'm not calling it MOTY or anything but I loved it.  It's too bad that it was too predictable.  

Here's my longer form write up. I had to burn through it quickly because of lack of time this morning. Still, spoiled for length:

To me, the great joy in watching wrestling is to see how the pieces on the table (offensive moves, bumping, selling, the connective tissue between moves) come together to impart meaning on action and reaction, to create a greater whole. That's part of why I have been down on Brock over the last couple of years. His matches tend to be visceral. They tend to stir emotion, to be exciting, to feel special, to have their own aura of electricity, but that, in and of itself, is just one element of greatness. It's rare in modern WWE, so it stands out, but that's more about modern WWE as a whole, where there are no stakes or grudges, where there is no real hatred or animosity, where it's all about entertaining the fans or making a memorable meme-worthy moment. What makes Brock matches special is as much about the absence of that in everything else as it is about what Brock brings to the table. It's like candy, a great sugar rush in the moment, maybe fondly remembered as well, but the substance just isn't there. It's not true in all cases, but that's how it plays out more often than not. You might get a fun exchange or two or a beautiful transition or an interesting start, but it all devolves into a meaningless cacophony of diminishing returns (suplexes) before the end.

This was not that. Why? Because it was much more carefully put together and because instead of appeasing your sugar tooth, there was thought and restraint, even in a match that was fast paced and full of constant action. For one thing, there was an outright physical mismatch. There's a mindset that's hardly prevalent in 2017 that flyers work best against bases and while that's not exactly what AJ is, when compared to the sheer force of Brock, it was the symbolic (if not literal) role he played here. They didn't go straight to the suplexes. At the same time, it didn't start on even footing either. Styles is dangerous and competent. He can stand with anyone in the WWE (except for maybe against Shane's punches and superior wrestling skill?), but Brock's the storm and Styles is not Braun, Goldberg, or even Joe (who had to rely on an ambush anyway). they didn't start with suplexes, but they did start with Brock manhandling Styles, tossing him around, crushing him in the corner, oppressing him on the mat. Styles' bumps made it all work. It made a simply throw across the ring or whip more impactful and meaningful than ten Brock suplexes. It was like getting tossed around by a tornado even though there wasn't anything in there which would be considered an actual "move."

Brock is always something of a tweener, beloved by the crowd in the same way they'd love a malicious, successful gladiator. Styles is more of a direct babyface than Braun or Joe, and I'd argue more of a conventional 2017 one than Goldberg, and he was able to garner sympathy with the bumps, with his selling, with scant and futile attempts to get into the match. By going straight to Brock so definitively but also letting the match have an opening, letting it have some build, letting it have a first act and not just jumping straight to suplexes, it built up the tension and primed the fans for Styles finally fighting back. It's not the only way that wrestling can work, but it's certainly the purest and most straightforward and here it worked beautifully. Styles isn't a Del Rio or Rusev or Harper. He's established. He's a force. The fans knew he was going to be able to make a comeback somehow. He's also not a Cena or a Reigns, though. Whatever comeback he made certainly wasn't going to be a superman one. So as Brock was compellingly battering him up and down (though never escalating into things that should be in a later act, because Brock's stuff is so legitimate and because Styles' bumping and selling is so good), there was a buzz of intrigue on just how Styles could possibly battle back. 

And they nailed it. A shot to the leg, not as an end unto itself but as the means to unlock Styles full offensive potential. It would have been okay for him to stay on the leg, to work his comeback that way, but it would have been a different sort of match. That's a twenty, twenty-five minute match, not a ten minute one. To me, this is where it felt like a Hansen match (against someone like Kobashi, maybe). Styles wanted to meet Brock head on (perhaps had to, because you can't beat a tornado by chipping away at it) and the leg was just a means to that. They came back to it three of four times (with the whip to the stairs on the outside that allowed for the first of the forearms, for instance), culminating in the calf crusher and the act break that followed with Brock viciously fighting his way out like an animal. That animal intensity is part of why the botches don't really hurt the match too. It all came off as struggle. None of it seemed contrived. It all had its own impactfulness even if it wasn't entirely clean (in some ways it's better for not being clean like in some of the best Sasha vs Charlotte matches). When a match is wrestled as such, especially if it's hitting other narrative marks, it makes some things forgivable.

The finishing sequence was part of the rehabilitation of the F5, which I think will pay off in spades over the next many months. Styles tried for the Styles Clash and almost paid for it. He was having much more luck, in and out of the ring with the forearm. We all knew that eventually he was going to get caught on something if he didn't put Brock away, and I especially liked the touch of him pulling down the elbow pad to set up the second one. That helped rationalize why he'd try the same thing again. It had been working for him, but not enough to finish Brock. Maybe this would make the difference. If not, what else did he have? It was a calculated risk, a desperate last ditch risk for someone who was in control of the match but fighting nature itself, and it failed him. There's no shame in that though.

This was, despite its uniqueness, still a Brock match, which meant constant stimulation. It meant keeping the fans up for ten minutes instead of going up and down. That they were able to manage that while still investing meaning upon almost every movement and upon the match as a whole is hugely impressive to me. It's a real testament to how the parts can come together. Expectations matter. Escalation matters. Bumping matters. Selling matters. A logical, interesting transition matters. Appropriate intensity matters. Foreshadowing matters. Payoff matters, maybe most of all. Meaning is when all all of this comes together and that's the absolute beauty of pro wrestling. We're lucky to have it.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

13 hours ago, nate said:

What's more distracting: Brock's fupa, or trying to figure out what Brock's tramp stamp says?

It says Kill 'Em All, as in Metallica's first album. I don't think a lower back tattoo that says Kill 'Em All qualifies as a tramp stamp, especially on someone like Brock. If it said Kill My Anus, I'd call it a tramp stamp, just not anywhere there is any chance Lesnar could hear me.

[Spritenaut 32]

9 hours ago, nate said:

And Angle. ... sweet Jesus, dude looks like that weird position I'd have to put my action figures in when they wouldn't stand up on their own.  Looked like my old Clawful figure.

It's true!  It's true! Oh, it's damn true!