wrestling / Columns

Watry’s Survivor Series Review: Goldberg Defeats Lesnar

November 23, 2016 | Posted by Justin Watry
Goldberg Credit: WWE

Hi, I’m Justin Watry. You may remember me from such classic columns as March 2012’s “WWE WrestleMania 28: Sheamus Should Defeat Daniel Bryan in Less Than a Minute” and October 2015’s “WWE NXT: Bobby Roode, You’re Next.”

Pretty straight forward column today. I will be reviewing Sunday night’s WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view. Didn’t watch the Kickoff show. Reminder: I’m writing this before Raw and Smackdown LIVE airs this week. At the end, there is an advertisement for a charity I am plugging. Even if it is just one dollar, please donate what you can. Let’s get to it!

WWE Survivor Series 2016 Review

Bayley & Charlotte Survive – The opening match was RAW’s Women vs. Smackdown’s Women. Bonus points for each member getting an individual entrance. With an extended time and no restrictions anymore, WWE can offer to showcase everybody one by one instead of throwing them all into one huge entrance. It may have been the Toronto live crowd or the fact that the show was starting, but there was definitely some extra pep and buzz in the air here. Especially when Bayley came out first.

As for the match, I picked RAW to win and figured the Smackdown crew would be too busy fighting each other than actually focusing on winning. Remember they have a TLC event in two weeks to promote. RAW doesn’t.

My suspicions were confirmed when Nikki Bella was attacked backstage by somebody (they all denied it) and replaced by ‘Coach’ Natalya. The Canadian fans loved it; that’s for sure. My guess is Nattie attacked her to steal the spotlight. Anyways, it didn’t matter. RAW overcame Smackdown with the help of Nia Jax, Charlotte, and Bayley. Sadly, Sasha Banks did very little here, as did Alicia Fox. Becky Lynch did all she could, but two on one is two on one.

Afterwards, Charlotte took out Bayley just to remind everyone that she is the RAW Women’s Champion and the dominant female in the division.

IC Championship: The Miz vs. Sami Zayn – I predicted Sami Zayn would be the mystery opponent. Plus I predicted, regardless of opponent, he would lose. That is his role. The underdog, correct? That means losing, losing, losing…until getting the big win. Like over Kevin Owens back in July. This was never about the IC Title going to RAW; that wasn’t in the cards. It was for a RAW vs. Smackdown showdown to take place and wow the fans in Toronto. Originally was set to be all about Dolph Ziggler. However, that flipped to The Miz last week. Still trying to figure out why. All these roster trades keep getting teased; wonder if foreshadowing is involved here…

Solid bout; The Miz (rightfully) retains.

Raw/Smackdown Tag Teams Collide – Just your monthly reminder that The New Day did not defend their tag team titles at Survivor Series 2015, FastLane 2016, WrestleMania 32, Payback 2016, Battleground 2016, and now Survivor Series 2016. Oh, and they LOST at Summerslam 2016 in August and Heck on a Deck 2016 last month. Yep, longest reigning champs! What a record folks! As faces too…

Speaking of, there was The New Day getting eliminated in two minutes by The Usos. I swear, New Day HAVE to be heel right now. They have to be. I know I am beating a dead horse on this subject, but facts are facts. Can’t just keep ignoring all this nonsense. Beyond laughable they are the good guys about to break a record.

Truthfully, I didn’t really care about this match during the buildup. Even if it does fit the Survivor Series format, my preference would have been champs vs. champs in The Club vs. American Alpha – Raw vs. Smackdown. We didn’t get that, so this will do just fine…

…or not.

From the opening bell to the closing sequence, this thing never grabbed my attention. Happy to see Alpha get a chance to shine; that was the highlight. It came down to The Usos and Sheamus/Cesaro, which was okay. My pick of RAW being victorious was correct. Too bad my interest level was nearly at zero the whole time because the final few minutes were actually very fun.

Cruiserweight Championship: THE Brian Kendrick vs. Kalisto – Hey, we got a neat video package before the match. That is already an improvement over the entire division’s past two months on Raw. All kidding aside, I didn’t agree with TJ Perkins losing the title to Kendrick but predicted it anyways. Pretty apparent the company wanted to ‘reboot’ the cruiserweights and try something new. Well, that lasted about a month with the heel champion and various face challengers. At Survivor Series, not only was the belt on the line versus a Smackdown competitor, the entire division was up for grabs. High stakes but necessary.

Lots of people expected the IC and Cruiserweight Titles to switch brands. Not me. Baron Corbin returning to take out Kalisto was the obvious path from the beginning of this ordeal. I wrote about that very outcome multiple times (on another website). Chalk it up as being the lone positive. Get it? Lone? Lone wolf Baron Corbin? Never mind. The negative with this finish?

The cruiserweight division is still in a bad place. Unfortunately, nothing changed. With 205 Live on the Smackdown taping schedule, it just made too much sense to move the belt (and division). Zero confidence things will improve on RAW with The Brian Kendrick still champion. Torn on this one, as the bout was fairly decent. Felt like a gut punch to have the title stay put, even if it was predictable to have Baron be the party pooper and ruin the excitement. Like I mentioned, roster trades are being hinted at on television…hmm…

Team RAW vs. Team Smackdown – I will break this down by each elimination as it happened.

Dean Ambrose eliminated by Braun Strowman – Yes, the guy who is headlining TLC in two weeks going for the WWE Championship in the main event! Out first. I was/am all for making Braun look like a million bucks at Survivor Series, but this was certainly a questionable move THIS early. AJ Styles may have caused the elimination. However, if the idea was to hype up their current rivalry, the execution fell flat.

Braun Strowman eliminated by count out – A flying elbow from Shane McMahon and a nasty RKO from Randy Orton did the trick to even the odds. Most suspected Strowman would lose via either DQ or count out. WWE went with the count out. At least he threw James Ellsworth off the stage while exiting. That sight alone was worth $9.99 for the WWE Network.

Kevin Owens eliminated by DQ – He used THE LIST on AJ Styles. Yeah, that is what the Universal Champion did at Survivor Series. I wrote about it in my preview column, but KO has been a background player for the past month. All about Jericho, The List, and this transparent RAW vs. Smackdown LIVE story line. Only fitting Owens is eliminated via The List.

Chris Jericho eliminated by Randy Orton – Moments later, we had another man get booted. Mr. RKO pinned Jericho and sent him packing. In a matter of minutes, the ‘best friends’ were out. In Canada. That left RAW with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns (predictable final two).

Shane McMahon eliminated by Roman Reigns – Coast to Coast into a spear. He was pretty much motionless upon impact but had his shoulder up, so Roman Reigns could not finish the pinfall. Scripted or not, let’s hope Shane O’Mac tones it down and whatever he does at WrestleMania 33, it is well thought out and safe. He was just a last minute replacement here and was never going to alter the outcome very much. I compared it to Survivor Series 2001 and well, I was right. He came in, did a few things, and then the non-wrestler was eliminated. Simple as that. Lots of time and energy wasted (as usual) in fantasy booking Shane’s involvement at Survivor Series. What we saw was all he was going to do.

AJ Styles eliminated by Seth Rollins – Dean Ambrose came back, and we DID get a mini-reunion of The Shield. All three original stable members took out Styles via triple powerbomb through a table. I like this followup to the ridiculous early elimination of Ambrose. Good stuff. Memorable Survivor Series moment. Raw’s Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns vs. Smackdown’s Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt remained. Two on two.

Seth Rollins eliminated by Bray Wyatt – WOW! A top rope frog splash turned into an RKO!!! Wow. Wow. Wow. Incredible height and an amazing maneuver. Reigns vs. the pairing of Wyatt and Orton with Luke Harper now ringside. Crowd is getting into the action.

Roman Reigns eliminated by Bray Wyatt – I admit it. My prediction was Smackdown wins…but I certainly didn’t think it would be Bray Wyatt standing tall with Randy Orton. A shocker in that fashion, not so surprising that Smackdown won. They usually get the nod over RAW in these brand battles. What this means for the Wyatt Family moving forward will be interesting. Roman Reigns and the rest of RAW will simply carry on to setting up Roadblock in four weeks.

This concludes the pointless Raw vs. Smackdown feud (for now). I don’t care for it that much and feel it REALLY exposes too much. Rather than focusing on actual feuds; everything is just put on the bacburner for some non-existent reason of RAW vs. Smackdown LIVE. Back to business for both brands now. Nice match though, credit to all the guys out there for delivering. Heck of a showing.

Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg – Paul Heyman said it would be a short match, and he wasn’t lying. Honestly, I am in shock. Can’t believe what just happened. Unbelievable and beyond words. When Brock Lesnar ended The Streak in 2014, nobody, NOBODY thought his next pinfall loss would be to Bill F’N Goldberg. I mean, it is just shocking in every sense of the word. This is where I preach the KISS Method and blah, blah, blah. Lesnar just lost to a 49 year old man in one minute, the same guy who has not been seen in 12 years and may or may not even be with the company past Mania. If even that!

Sure, it was cool for Goldberg’s family. I love that part of the story. Heck, think of it from Brock’s point of view. He didn’t have to do this, but he did. All so Goldberg’s son could look at his dad as a hero for one night. That is actually pretty awesome when you think of it from that angle. Lesnar and WWE did this for him. They didn’t need to do this. Why they did it and where this goes is a whole different story. For now, it was pretty surreal and epic…but so was ending The Streak, and two years later, there’s the payoff.

I don’t know. In a bubble, this was spectacular, and for that, I loved the unpredictable moment it created. Long-term and using any sense of logic, that remains to be seen.

Those are my thoughts on WWE Survivor Series. Rough night for the oddsmakers, while I missed on only the main event, and that was a stunning upset. Be sure to comment below and/or send me an email on what you think. Another “reader feedback” column is coming later next week.

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