411’s Instant Access: Survivor Series 2007

Survivor Series 2007

Introduction: Hey everyone, this is Mike Minotti, the writer of Can They Be Champ? here at 411. I’m pretty happy to be doing the instant access for Survivor Series. Sure, a few matches look a little underwhelming (mostly those involving midgets), but the card looks pretty good overall. Let’s take a look at this baby match by match.

Match #1: ECW TITLE MATCH: CM PUNK VS. THE MIZ VS. JOHN MORRISON
Match Result: CM Punk via pin on the Miz
Match Length: 7:55
Match Analysis: First off, I don’t like the decision to have Punk come out first. The champion should come out last, always. Morrison’s slow-mo camera effect is… interesting. Maybe they should give him a time bending gimmick. “That isn’t a camera trick, folks. He really can manipulate time!” I have to comment on how HUGE Punk was over with this crowd. As for the match, there were a lot of enjoyable spots that flowed pretty well. A few things looked a bit sketchy, usually involving the Miz. A lot of the faults were overshadowed by how hot the crowd was for the match. It was great to see the crowd get into things this early in the match. I know a lot of people will be critical of having the ECW Title match first, but come one people, the ECW Title is a glorified IC title these days. I think it was a great match to start things off on. The Miz ate the pin, which makes sense, since he has the least to lose as far as credibility comes. So, what will the future show? Are the Miz and Morrison going to help to start up a tag team division on ECW, or are they going to remain in the ECW title scene? Well, besides Big Daddy V, I don’t know who else Punk would fight. And Morrison and Miz will probably blame their loss on each other, so I don’t see how good of a tag team they could be. I’m willing to bet that they’ll lose the titles back to some Smackdown team, and they will still be apart of the ECW title scene.
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 7

Match #2: BETH PHOENIX, VICTORIA, LAYLA, JILLIAN HALL AND MELINA VS. MICKIE JAMES, MICHELLE MCCOOL, KELLY KELLY, MARIA AND TORRIE WILSON
Match Result: Mickie James (and thus her own team) via pin on Melina
Match Length: 4:50
Match Analysis: Heh, Melina fell down. Good recovery, though. I appreciate that the teams are color coded. I have a had time telling some of them apart, especially since Layla started wearing her hair down. I don’t know why the heel team wouldn’t want the Woman’s Champion to be in the match more, especially since she dominated whenever she was in. The wrestling was a bit better than I was expecting for such a match, but not by much. Having 5 vs. 5 meant that each wrestler only got to be in the match for a small amount of time, so the in ring story telling was kind of shot. Mickie got the pin, which I assume will lead to her being the #1 contender for the Women’s Championship.
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 3

Match #3: WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: LANCE CADE AND TREVOR MURDOCH VS. HARDCORE HOLLY AND CODY RHODES
Match Result: Cade and Murdoch via pin (Murdoch pins Rhodes)
Match Length: 7:25
Match Analysis: I love this crowd. They freaking chanted “Holly! Holly! Holly!”. Fantastic. They died a bit some ways into the match, but I could hardly blame them. This match had little to no build up, and the match suffers for it. The wrestling was fine, nothing spectacular. Cody is showing signs of improvements, which will continue as long as he keeps limiting the number of sloppy high flying moves he does. I’m not sure what the point of this match was. Cody and Holly lost, and it looks like they broke up as a team. Did that really had to be done on PPV?
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 5

Match #4: TRADITIONAL SURVIVOR SERIES MATCH: TRIPLE H, MATT HARDY, JEFF HARDY, KANE AND REY MYSTERIO VS. UMAGA, MVP, KEN KENNEDY, BIG DADDY V AND FINLAY
Match Result: HHH’s Team (Jeff Hardy pins Umaga)
Match Length: 22:05
Match Analysis: Well, I guess Matt is out. Strange choice if he isn’t really injured, and I’m assuming he isn’t since I haven’t heard that he is. I’m glad Kennedy got to do his intro, though it took the sound guys long enough to get the mic working. I’m hoping that Edge will join HHH’s team, as little sense as that makes. I definitely don’t want 4 vs. 5. That’s hardly “traditional”. Sigh, I guess it is 4 vs. 5. Lame as hell. Luckily the match didn‘t suffer as much from it as I thought it would. It was a good deal of fun. Putting the faces in a 2 vs. 5 situation early made for some good ring drama, so I think Rey’s credibility may be hurt a little bit. Plus Umaga almost killed him with that spinning sidewalk slam. I was worried that this was going to turn into another HHH slaughter fest, but they let Hardy get the pin, which makes me happy. I’m not sure why they had MVP and Kennedy be the first two eliminated from the heel team, since they should be booked as much more competent and threatening up-and-coming heels. As far as consequences, I can’t imagine many. Maybe we’ll see a Hardy/Umaga feud for the IC belt, but that’s been done to death already.
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 7

Match #5: THE GREAT KHALI VS. HORNSWAGGLE
Match Result: Great Khali via DQ
Match Length: 3:17
Match Analysis: Well, I’m happy Shane is here, at least. “We want Shaq!” Ummm… ok. Vince plays off it well. Shane looked hilarious when Hornswaggle kicked that translator on the floor. So, about a minute into the match, Finlay comes out and causes the DQ. What the hell was the point of that? Finlay has barely associated himself with Hornswoggle since the bastard son angle began. Sigh, whatever. Who gives a shit. It’s not worth getting upset about.
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 1

Match #6: WWE TITLE MATCH: RANDY ORTON VS. SHAWN MICHAELS (SUPERKICK BANNED/ORTON LOSES THE TITLE ON A DQ)
Match Result: Randy Orton via pin
Match Length: 17:54
Match Analysis: Shawn looks awesome with a cowboy hat on. Just wanted to get that out there. That match was all kinds of AWESOME! I absolutely loved the story told there. Michaels had to turn to a different game plan, so he put on a much more technical match, trying to wear Orton away slowly instead of counting on getting a win out of nowhere. HBK pulled out some of the best submission moves he knew from past matches, including the Sharpshooter, Crossface (questionable?), and the ankle lock. They even teased a figure four. HBK also played some good mind games, taking a page from Orton’s book. He used Orton’s fear of the super kick against him on a couple of occasions. I also approved of the ending, since it gave Orton the clean win, but also made it clear that Michaels would have won if he was allowed to use the super kick. HBK also got to kick Orton in the end. Imagine that, the WWE found a way to make both people in the match look good. The pacing here was great. Things started off slow but really built up towards the finish. I’m hoping they still get one more match out of this feud, mostly because I’ll be at Armageddon live, but also because I enjoyed this match so much. Definitely the best one of the feud so far. This match exceeded my expectations.
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 9

Match #7: HELL IN A CELL FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHOP: BATSITA VS. THE UNDERTAKER
Match Result: Batista via pin
Match Length: 21:25
Match Analysis: First off, where has Edge been? Is he going to interrupt this match? Hey, maybe he’ll use a chainsaw to cut into the cell! That could either be sweet or really dumb. Either way, I’ll be a bit upset if Edge doesn’t show up at some point during this PPV. Champion doesn’t come out last again. Sigh. As expected, this was an incredibly physical match. We had a lot of near falls, and a lot a over-the-top violent moves, especially Undertaker’s guillotine with the chair, the Batista Bomb through the table, and the Tombstone on the steel steps. Batista was bleeding like mad. Things looked like they were building up for a real hot finish, and it looked like Taker was going to get the win, and then Edge showed up and cost Taker the match. Well, that definitely hurts the quality of the match. I‘m glad to see Edge back, and this definitely puts him back in with as much heat as possible, but I wish they could have done it without hurting the match so much. JBL: “Edge has robbed the world of a masterpiece.” I don’t know if he robbed us of one, but he kept it from being as great as it could have been. It looks like they are going to be bulding for the Edge/Batista match at WM24, at least (unless they jump the gun an run that feud for Armageddon).
Match Rating/personal enjoyment index: 7

Final Thoughts on Show:

Match of the Night: WWE TITLE MATCH: RANDY ORTON VS. SHAWN MICHAELS (SUPERKICK BANNED/ORTON LOSES THE TITLE ON A DQ)
Trash of the Night: THE GREAT KHALI VS. HORNSWAGGLE
Final Analysis: I really enjoyed this PPV. Sure, the Diva match and the Hornswoggle matches were as bad as we thought they would be, but the title matches and the classic Survivor Series match delivered big time. The WWE Title match particularly stepped it up, and was my favorite match of the evening. I would definitely call this one of the better PPVs the WWE has put on this year.
Verdict: 8