Black Widow
11-26-2008, 02:14 PM
WHEN WWE want to shake things up they don’t do things by halves – as was proven again at the Survivor Series.
Two big stars made their return on the PPV and both walked away with heavyweight championship gold.
It means instead of Triple H and Chris Jericho on top, the company now has a much fresher feel with the titles around the waists of John Cena and Edge.
The 22nd annual Survivor Series was built around Cena’s comeback and he took the Raw strap away from Jericho in a solid up and down main event with a clean pin fall after an impressive FU.
Edge’s return, on the other hand, was unadvertised, a total surprise and came after a rather tasteless show-long storyline featuring Jeff Hardy.
Early in the PPV Tazz and Jim Ross, both donning their best ‘this is real folks’ serious voices, told fans Jeff was in hospital – adding it had reported by major American news outlets of the sort that usually cover pro-wrestling tragedies.
JR’s exact words were: “Jeff Hardy was found unconscious early this morning in his hotel.
“He’s been hospitalised, he’s been released and it’s under investigation.”
Given how many grapplers have been found dead in hotel rooms - including Eddie Guererro almost three years ago to the day - and Jeff's well-known battles with drink and drugs, many fans would have thought he'd had an overdose.
Building suspense for further on in the show is one thing, giving the impression another superstar could have ended up dead for real is quite another.
It wasn't until later when brother Matt told how Jeff had been "hit in the head with a blunt object" did it become clear that this was part of a regular wrestling storyline.
The actual angle did play out well, but only after one of the worst matches of the year between Triple H and Vladimir Kozlov.
The Russian is almost a Great Khali level of awful and Hunter hasn't had a match this bad since his diabolical series with Scott Steiner back in 2003.
But after 12 minutes of that, things got really good as Vickie Guerrero came out and announced: "As promised this will be a triple threat match. He's here.
He's here. Here he is...."
Fans expecting Hardy, got the returning Edge instead - followed by an angry, and rather well looking, Jeff.
A few chair shots later and Edge was pinning Triple H, back-dooring his way into championship gold once again and celebrating with Vickie.
Who cares that he cheated on her, terrorised her and she arranged for Undertaker to send him to hell - Vickie and Edge together are the best thing in wrestling so it's nice to have them back.
Sadly though it wasn’t a good night for purists – as just like Triple H, The Undertaker also had one of his worst bouts in a long time.
So impressive of late with smaller men, putting Taker against Big Show has been a huge mistake.
Undertaker just does NOT perform well against fellow giants - see Khali, Gonzales, Sid et al for the historical evidence.
His bouts with Show have been very poor, with this Casket Match a new level of bad.
As Jim Ross predicted it was a "slugfest", ending with Taker simply whipping his foe into a standing coffin and it falling shut.
Luckily we had some traditional Survivor Series bouts for something better.
The show opened with Team HBK downing Team JBL with Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio and Great Khali as the survivors.
There were some cool moments – especially Rey leaping off Khali’s shoulders – and any time Shawn Michaels is in the ring the action is high quality.
The contest also gave Miz & Morrison a nice push, as they proved they could hang with the big boys right until the very end.
The women’s 5-on-5 was as expected – fast, fun and good or bad depending on who was in the ring.
In the end Beth Phoenix stood alone, with boyfriend Santino Marella once again stealing the spotlight with his hilarious over-celebrating.
The best wrestling match of the night was the one pitting Team Orton v Team Batista.
The more we watch Randy Orton, the more we love him. Everything he does is so methodical and deliberate, it’s impossible not to get into his matches.
His love/hate programme with Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase and Manu is also brilliant.
Both Orton and Rhodes surviving this one, thanks to Randy’s clever blind tag, the perfect way to keep it going.
It’s no surprise then that many fans in Boston cheered Orton when he pinned Batista for his team’s victory.
Overall the Survivor Series kept fans hooked from beginning to end, for reasons both good and bad.
Sadly the wrestling wasn’t the level of most recent WWE and TNA PPVs, meaning we can’t rate it above 7 out of 10.
The Sun
Two big stars made their return on the PPV and both walked away with heavyweight championship gold.
It means instead of Triple H and Chris Jericho on top, the company now has a much fresher feel with the titles around the waists of John Cena and Edge.
The 22nd annual Survivor Series was built around Cena’s comeback and he took the Raw strap away from Jericho in a solid up and down main event with a clean pin fall after an impressive FU.
Edge’s return, on the other hand, was unadvertised, a total surprise and came after a rather tasteless show-long storyline featuring Jeff Hardy.
Early in the PPV Tazz and Jim Ross, both donning their best ‘this is real folks’ serious voices, told fans Jeff was in hospital – adding it had reported by major American news outlets of the sort that usually cover pro-wrestling tragedies.
JR’s exact words were: “Jeff Hardy was found unconscious early this morning in his hotel.
“He’s been hospitalised, he’s been released and it’s under investigation.”
Given how many grapplers have been found dead in hotel rooms - including Eddie Guererro almost three years ago to the day - and Jeff's well-known battles with drink and drugs, many fans would have thought he'd had an overdose.
Building suspense for further on in the show is one thing, giving the impression another superstar could have ended up dead for real is quite another.
It wasn't until later when brother Matt told how Jeff had been "hit in the head with a blunt object" did it become clear that this was part of a regular wrestling storyline.
The actual angle did play out well, but only after one of the worst matches of the year between Triple H and Vladimir Kozlov.
The Russian is almost a Great Khali level of awful and Hunter hasn't had a match this bad since his diabolical series with Scott Steiner back in 2003.
But after 12 minutes of that, things got really good as Vickie Guerrero came out and announced: "As promised this will be a triple threat match. He's here.
He's here. Here he is...."
Fans expecting Hardy, got the returning Edge instead - followed by an angry, and rather well looking, Jeff.
A few chair shots later and Edge was pinning Triple H, back-dooring his way into championship gold once again and celebrating with Vickie.
Who cares that he cheated on her, terrorised her and she arranged for Undertaker to send him to hell - Vickie and Edge together are the best thing in wrestling so it's nice to have them back.
Sadly though it wasn’t a good night for purists – as just like Triple H, The Undertaker also had one of his worst bouts in a long time.
So impressive of late with smaller men, putting Taker against Big Show has been a huge mistake.
Undertaker just does NOT perform well against fellow giants - see Khali, Gonzales, Sid et al for the historical evidence.
His bouts with Show have been very poor, with this Casket Match a new level of bad.
As Jim Ross predicted it was a "slugfest", ending with Taker simply whipping his foe into a standing coffin and it falling shut.
Luckily we had some traditional Survivor Series bouts for something better.
The show opened with Team HBK downing Team JBL with Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio and Great Khali as the survivors.
There were some cool moments – especially Rey leaping off Khali’s shoulders – and any time Shawn Michaels is in the ring the action is high quality.
The contest also gave Miz & Morrison a nice push, as they proved they could hang with the big boys right until the very end.
The women’s 5-on-5 was as expected – fast, fun and good or bad depending on who was in the ring.
In the end Beth Phoenix stood alone, with boyfriend Santino Marella once again stealing the spotlight with his hilarious over-celebrating.
The best wrestling match of the night was the one pitting Team Orton v Team Batista.
The more we watch Randy Orton, the more we love him. Everything he does is so methodical and deliberate, it’s impossible not to get into his matches.
His love/hate programme with Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase and Manu is also brilliant.
Both Orton and Rhodes surviving this one, thanks to Randy’s clever blind tag, the perfect way to keep it going.
It’s no surprise then that many fans in Boston cheered Orton when he pinned Batista for his team’s victory.
Overall the Survivor Series kept fans hooked from beginning to end, for reasons both good and bad.
Sadly the wrestling wasn’t the level of most recent WWE and TNA PPVs, meaning we can’t rate it above 7 out of 10.
The Sun