Survivor Series 2011

Well, as I finally watched a PPV live for the first time in a long time, I thought i'd give my thoughts, this time.

First of all, I missed the first few matches. I came into it at the middle of the Divas match, which was...... more decent than usual. Actually had some moves in there, and some good spots, including Beth's awesome top rope Glam Slam finish.

It wasn't great, but hey it was a women's match in WWE. Albeit one worth actually mentioning at least, mostly because of a good finish and the right woman went over.

Survivor Series 5-on-5 match was complete dogshit.

It had major problems working against it, however. The badness of the match seems attributable, at least in some small or notable part thanks to Sin Cara.

Basically, Sin Cara proves exactly why he should have had his walking papers handed to him and deserves to have been released from the company months ago.

I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that Sin Cara's endless well of second chances has all but dug through the rock bottom (no pun intended) of the well and clear into the core of the earth, at this point.

The man can not work.

Let me re-phrase that. He can not work in WWE. And at this point, I don't know how much more crystallized this point can be made, anymore. He may be legendary in Mexico, but no matter how much they try to do with Cara, it's clear he should just not be here.

He is a danger to himself and others in that WWE ring. He will never improve no matter how much time he is given, and is completely capable of utterly fucking up an entire PPV, by mere way of counting on him to do anything without blowing it.

This is the second PPV that he outright injured himself in at the early going and had to be thrown out of the match. Basically, on a simple over-the-rope spot, he completely twisted or broke his lower leg outright. The ring announcer had no choice but to immediately throw him out of the match, much to the annoyance of the crowd.

One could just see the looks of anger, frustration and embarrassment of everyone in the match, as they virtually stopped the match dead, and had to completely re-work out their plan for the whole match right there on the spot with each other, barely covering it up by pretending to argue with each other for 3 minutes as they frantically covered for him, and discussed how to virtually re-book the match on the fly without him.

Now, look... I'm not heartless, and I'm not happy that Sin Cara has seriously hurt himself, nor do I think he deserves the pain. I wish him a complete recovery. But I also wish they would just release him. For his own sake, at least.

Selling a few Sin Cara masks to a few kids, CAN'T be worth the trouble of continually allowing him to majorly fuck up nearly any live event you can throw him onto. Not to mention that he's probably gonna kill himself or severely injure someone else if he keeps working in WWE.

But this is not the first, not the second, not the fifth, not the ninth, not even nearly the 13th time that Sin Cara has really majorly effed something up for everyone else.

I don't want them to fire Sin Cara out of some sense of mean-spirited spite on my part. I just think they need to seriously cut their losses with this guy and just lose him. He's really not helping anything in the company, and is causing more problems then anything.

It astounds me that the man they originally brought in to be a Sin-Cara replacement has done so much of a better job, and then they give him a generic mid-card "Mexican JTG" spot, leaving Sin Cara Azul behind, just to continually shit the bed.

That having been said, after Sin Cara as basically taken out of the match (It's later been said that he will be gone for 6-8 months, merely for a simple over-the-top-rope jump).... The match was downhill from there.

There were a series of quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-them eliminations that really felt awkward, starting with one of the stupidest eliminations i've ever seen, where Sheamus essentially refused to stop hammering, I think it was Cody in the corner, and thereby getting moronically DQ'd. I was basically screaming "bullshit" at the screen at this. How stupid.

From that point on, they just rushed it out of the gate, with a tacked on finish that lacked any kind of climactic tension. It just happened and it was over.

Now, I havn't seen every Survivor Series match to compare it to, so I am not sure at all if this is an accurate statement, but it may have possibly been the worst ever, if my assumption is correct on that.

ANYWAY, then there was Henry vs Show.

Another bad match, and after it, I was dreading the rest of the show, to be honest.

Again, I don't know WHAT the hell happened, here. First off, starting with making sure to show us that the ring is being re-inforced. Cool concept......... literally nothing ever comes of it, so I'm not sure why they even bothered. I expected they were going to show it as a way of saying "Well, the ring won't break, but it'll lead to a different kind of "oh my god" spot with the state of the ring, then.

Nope, nothing. But in all honestly that's not why I disliked the match.

Just that it was painfully slow, and horrifically boring. Henry and Show have done better than this. Hell, they've done better than this even building up to this match. This was almost Lesnar vs Goldberg levels of bad.

The crowd shit on this match from the beginning, and I don't blame them. Chanting for everyone else during the match. Chanting for Ryder. Chanting for D'Lo Brown of all people.

When the crowd is chanting for D'Lo during a match like this, you know that the crowd's mind is on anything else other than this. And then a prolonged "BORRRING" chant. Couldn't have been more accurate.

Anyway, Mark Henry inexplicably becomes a chickenshit all of a sudden (where did this come from? I thought Mark Henry was being built as the monster champion here?), backing off from Show and complaining about the technicality of being in the ropes of all things.

There's a few Strongest Slams, and even a WMD, and some kickouts... and the most awkward top rope spot ever done, in which Show takes an entire 5 minutes to get on the top rope and does a standard arm drop for it. Don't see the point of that.

But anyway, suddenly ends on........... a DQ.

Wait, a DQ? After the hype of this match, Mark Henry just kicks Show in the gonads and that's it? Again, Mark Henry: Complete chickenshit.

Yeah, a DQ finish. Then, about 10 more minutes of a lame chair spot, and really I could not have cared less at this point. This match pretty much eradicated all of Henry's hard work and Monster Build, and just evaporated it into a cloud of dust with a stupid DQ and a prolonged chair-in-foot spot, in a painfully slow match that went nowhere, and shit on continuously by a crowd who emphatically stated that they wished they were watching anything else.

I was really going to give up on the show, but then....


here came Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk in one of the best matches i've seen in a long time.

First of all, it was great seeing CM Punk called to the ring by Howard Finkel. That set the stage and the rest was one of the most exciting matches i've watched in a long time.

Punk and Del Rio worked this one magically, and I was really excited. The crowd was back into the show too, but it was an amazing back and forth match, that had me on the edge of my seat.

The last several minutes really had them kicking out of everything and trying to outmaniuver and throw everything at each other, leading to a VERY passionate and amazing pin attempt by Del Rio, leading to a very emotional Punk countering and putting on one of the coolest looking Anaconda Vice's he's ever put on. I loved it.

Punk's celebration was well deserved, the match was a classic, almost Wrestlemania caliber, I think.

No matter how stupid or shitty the Survivor Series match was, or the abysmal Mark Henry and Big Show train wreck was, this really made up for it.

Great match from start to finish and it was riveting all the way through, as I was actually kinda biting my nails, rooting for Punk but also legitimately believing that Alberto, at any time, had the talent or even the edge to beat him until the end.

God dammit, it's what a wrestling match is supposed to be. Even if Alberto Del Rio had won... I would have been livid, but I totally still would have congratulated Del Rio as he was great in this match as well.

Absolutely best match of the night. Kudos to the both of them. This match should have gone on last.


And then I watched Cena and Rock versus Awesome Truth.

Honestly I didn't catch all of this one, because my interest steadily waned after their entrances, and I really was just looking forward to how the end of the match would play out. It was ok, just kinda there.

But I will say this. From what I saw, Rock was GREAT in this match. First off, he looked to be in phenomenal shape. Far better than I expected, anyway. He also retained all his ring presence, and was actually good to watch. If Rock messed anything up other than being ever-so-slightly too sow to get up, I didn't notice.

A decent match, nothing to complain about, and Rock winning via the People's Elbow (A really good one, too) was great to watch. I liked that afterwards, it made a deal out of Cena trying to be the gracious one, but Rock being the one determined not to let the animosity go.

However, one thing I DIDN'T like about the match was that, again, it proves Miz and Truth's point.

Miz and Truth, I think come off as really sympathetic here. I think the Cena and Rock thing got way too much attention. I also thought it sucked that this overshadoewed the far superior Del Rio/Punk match as the main event, which is just wrong. So I agree with Miz and Truth, even.

So that being said, I didn't like how soundly that Truth and Miz were defeated, with Miz laying down for that entire People's Elbow that took forever, simply becuase Rock and WWE by extention knew they wanted to milk it for the admittedly nostalgic, major photo-op that it was.

But it also made me feel sorry for Miz and Truth, who again, seem to be heels, but also seem to have a point. They felt like afterthoughts in the match, just to tell the story of Rock and Cena.

I would have vastly preferred if Miz and Truth got the upset becuase of a fight between Cena and Rock, but whatever. That didn't happen.

Anyway, regardless of this, at the end of the match, I could see every opportunity where Cena looked like it was a half second away from turning heel.

But what happened was that Cena kept being the nice guy. Being gracious, Rock goading him and goading him, and pushing at him. And then got Rock Bottomed for his trouble. I like the idea this presents.... that Cena being so nice all the time is making him look like a butt-monkey when Rock comes along and repeatedly steals his thunder.

I think it's a decent developing story and I can finally see where they are going with this. I just don't like that it's entirely at the expense of making Miz and Truth look like chumps, even though they really entertained as well with an excellent rap and a hilariously beautiful promo about pidgeons.

Seriously.... R-Truth's bizarre tangents are making me warm up to him even though I've been resistant to him this whole time. But that pidgeons line was hilarious and really cementing Truth as this demented character that comes off as both funny and goofy, yet unhinged, and psychopathic at the same time. I dare say I do like him, now.

But in the end, I think it's unfair that they were right about no one giving them any credit, and true to their word, Cena and Rock make short work of them and get the ending to the PPV all to themselves.



Like I said, I didn't get the chance to see the show before the Diva's match, so I can't say if the first part was any good, but on the whole....

I thought the PPV had some serious problems, offset by one amazing, classic match that I absolutely loved, and the main event that wasn't as good as the actual championship match, but was still entertaining, if not flawed. It was great to see The Rock and I gotta hand it to him, he really got himself into prime shape for this and it's obvious that he trained his ass off for it.

Decent women's match that was a cut above their usual Divas crap...

Terrible Survivor Series match.

Horrible Henry vs Show match.

Wonderful Punk vs Del Rio match that totally made up for the suckiness of the two preceeding matches combined...

And a decent affair to go out on, even if Miz and Truth were kind of used as bowling pins to tell a story between Rock and Cena that we already knew, even if we got slightly more development out of.


If the matches I didn't see were good, then I would say this PPV was passable. If not, i'd say it's kinda ".......eeeeehhhhhhh it was bad at times, it was good at times."

Ok, well, some thoughts from me, because I agree with some of your statements, but not with others.

Firstly, I did see the opening contest of Dolph Ziggler .v. John Morrison, and I thought it was a terrific opener. Ziggles just gets better and better, and he was tremendous in this, even playing up to the "We Want Ryder" chants that actually seemed to niggle Morrison a little. Morrison is a decent mid-carder and he played his part well enough here to carry his side of a very good opening match. The attack by Ryder at the conclusion was a nice way to give the crowd what they wanted without actually giving them the match, and I like the way the WWE is playing the angle with Ryder. The reaction is going to be incredible when he finally wins the title.

Didn't bother watching the women's match. Come on, I got up at 3am to watch the show before going into the office, so I had to skip something. It was always going to be this!

I completely agree with your views on Sin Cara. The guy has been given too many chances now, and on every occasion he's screwed something up. The leap was abysmal and as soon as he went over, before he even hit the ground I knew he was screwed. It did indeed make for an awkward on the fly rebooking of the match, but TBH I didn't see what followed anything as nehatively as you did. I actually quite enjoyed the Survivor Series match. I will agree that the Sheamus elimination was bit dumb (it was Swagger he was hammering), but the rest I liked. Cody Rhodes was excellent in the match I thought, and I did like the mid-air RKO on Hunico. It made good logical sense for Barrett to win the match (and a nice surprise) and I hope that they might actually pull the trigger on him as a future WHC. He's got the tools, no doubt. So no, I don't agree it was anywhere near the worst Survivor Series match of all time (even discounting the mini-Doink one!) I thought it was perfectly OK.

I also liked Show .v. Henry. The ring reinforcement made perfect sense not just given the previous incident, but also because of what came later in the match. I thought the crowd were harsh for this, but then its an MSG crowd and they are always harsh for the slower matches, and have never loved Big Show for some reason. I quite liked the slower and harder hitting stuff, and while you can build Mark Henry up to be a menacing monster, you have to give him a nemesis he feels outmatched against, and Show fits the bill perfectly. Henry isn't supposed to be a heel you can respect or like, he's supposed to be a bully, so there has to be someone the bully is scared of. I thought the story was well told with him using the ropes. As for the top rope spot, well that was where the ring reinforcement came in. Had Show hit that without the ring being "reinforced" smart-asses would have pointed out that the impact was just as hard as from the suplex and it did no damage. Show did take a while to get himself in place, but bloody hel he's 7ft and 465lbs. It takes some doing for a guy that size to hit a top rope elbow drop and make sure he doesn't injure either himself or his opponent, so all the credit in the world for him doing it, and it provided a terrific visual.

Agree totally on Punk .v. Alberto. It was a fantastic back and forth match. Loved Punk joking with the Fink about how long he took to announce him. Really good stuff from both here, and I think regardless of who won you couldn't have complained. Glad they gave Punk the win though - I'm no fan of Alberto.

As to the main event - and regardless of how good Punk/Alberto was, there was only one match that was worth being the main event - I really enjoyed that too. You're right that Rock looked excellent. He was in geat shape, but he was fast, he was fluid, and he looked convincing for a guy who hasn't wrestled in 7 years. I was quite impressed with the way he handled himself in the ring. I don't really agree that Miz and Truth were made to look like chumps, or that the match did them any harm. Yes, we know that the match was all about Rock and Cena, but at the end of the day they were main eventing one of the "big four" PPVs in a match with one of the biggest legends in the business. That isn't a bad position to be in in the great scheme of things. WWE must be high on the pair of them to trust them to make Rocky look good.

I like the Rock being the one to keep the animosity going, as he's a more natural heel than Cena. That said, if they wanted to turn Cena, the reaction at MSG, and the Rock Bottom, is the perfect way to do it.

So yeah, overall I enjoyed Survivor Series and I'm glad I ordered it. I wasn't going to, but I took Matt finding that photo yesterday as a sign - photo of me at MSG on the last night the Rock wrestled for the WWE, in that building. I had to order it after that!

Thanks.

I was actually kind of worried that I sounded really harsh on parts of it (I actually did get kind of irritated by some of it), that it would actually be kind of controversial and was also trying to balance my honest feelings with hoping it wouldn't cause an argument. (Because I gotta be honest, I was really unhappy with some parts of the night, and I couldn't just lie about how I felt.)

But I don't wanna say i didn't like it, because the final two matches of a show (or at least the final match of any given night) are the moments that are going to give one their biggest impression of the night, and in that way, I felt positive by the time it was over.

It took me some time to mull it over, but this was a good show.

Maybe because I feel the Del Rio vs Punk saved the night almost singlehandedly, but Rock looked good too, and the last match was a very happy note to go out on.

This PPV could have been a total disaster if Rock was out of shape, or if Punk or Del Rio had brought anything less than their A game. Fortunately, these things both exceeded expectations.

Also, is it just me, or did it look like they purposefully booked some things to be right out of WWE '12?


Maybe it's just that WWE '12 is very authentic, but there were times when it seriously looked like someone doing their wake-up taunt right out of the game, or transitioning into a move just like the new game does?

I could have sworn that Cole started hyping up Del Rio's "limb targeting" (He actually used the exact words "Limb Targeting". Am I weird for not thinking this was a coincidence?)

And the giant images of the wrestlers on either side of the stage looked like giant CGI Video Game Renders.

...or maybe i've been watching too much WWE 12 footage.

No, I think you're right and there were definitely some nods to the game in there along the way.

Once again, I didn't watch this so I couldn't say.

I was watching some old Survivor Series matches the other day. I quite like 8-man elimination matches, they're usually a good laugh. The last one I watched was Val Venis, "Sexual Chocolate" Mark Henry, Gangrel & Steve Blackman vs. the British Bulldog in jeans and boots and the Mean Street Posse. Wasn't too bad. Whoever said it is right, Gangrel's entrance is the bollocks.

I've skipped past all the long posts as I don't want to read any spoilers. can someone tell me if Survivor Series 2011 is worth watching? I don't want a match by match thing, just a quick "yes it was good" or "no it was bad" .

Gangrel's entrance was one of the best they've had! Anybody who's different is insane!

Wheato, in my opinion, yes, I think the show is worth watching.


WARNING. WARNING. WARNING. WARNING. SPOILERS BELOW SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!











I just watched the Sin Cara match again. At first I thought the impact had torn his knee, but watching it again, his knee actually collapses as he plants his feet for the dive. It's why he gets no lift over the ropes. You can see his knee twist and flop as he takes off, and that then causes him to drag on the ropes. So strictly speaking it wasn't a botch in the normal sense, it was an unfortunate injury.

Of course, none of this takes away that he is an injury-prone waste of money botch-monkey.

Thanks. I'll definitely watch it then.