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Last night was the 25th annual WWE Survivor Series PPV live from Madison Square Garden. �I had the great privilege of being live at the show. �It was a good, not great, show, but being there live really made it special. �Philly crowds used to be great, but in recent years the hardcores have stopped going to shows, and now it is just another WWE Universe city. �However, New York City had an amazing crowd last night. �The chants and pops made the show all night. �I didn't get back to Philly until 3:45 am this morning and have slept most of the day, so I haven't had a chance to go back and watch the show to see how it came across on TV, but this has to go down as one of the best crowds in years for a WWE show. �From start to finish, the crowd was hot all night long, even entertaining themselves with loud chants during snoozers like Henry/Show. �I would rank largest pops and most heat as the following:
Biggest Pops:
- The Rock
- CM Punk
- Zach Ryder
- Other surprising pop..... Cody Rhodes
- Vickie Guerrero
- John Cena
- Michael Cole
- John Laurinaitis
- Henry/Show match
- Mason Ryan
Here is my rundown of the live show:
- First, if you are in NYC, Bounce is an awesome bar. �It's a shame everyone bailed on me�, but Biff got there towards the end of the day and we had a good time.
- Booker, Cole, and Lawler were announced. �Cole got a ton of heat of course. �No entrance music and came out acting like a douche.
- Santino beat Jinder Mahal in a dark match. �Crowd was into Santino. �I was disappointed we didn't get Daniel Bryan on the show.
- Dolph Ziggler d John Morrison to retain the United States Title. �This was a very good match, but the focus was on Zach Ryder with huge "We Want Ryder" chants all match long. �As I said in last week's thread, this may have been Morrison's last match in WWE. �His contract expired earlier this month. �He signed an extension to stay until the end of the month, but as of now, it appears he is leaving WWE. �Vickie got ejected from ringside. �Morrison went for Starship Pain, but Ziggler got his knees up and hit the Zig Zag for the win. �Ziggler is a great, great worker. �WWE is crazy if they don't move him to a main eventer within the next 6-12 months.
- Vickie came back out and celebrated with Ziggler after the match. �Ziggler cut a promo which I couldn't hear. �This brought out Zach Ryder to a huge pop. �Ziggler got control briefly before Ryder laid him out with a Rough Ryder. �Crowd loved it but was disappointed there wasn't an actual match.
- Beth Phoenix d Eve Torres to retain the Divas Title in a Lumberjills Match. �The Divas on the outside played no real role. �Match was quick and pretty painless. �The finish was awesome with Beth hitting the GlamSlam off the top rope. �I'm surprised Eve didn't kill herself.
- Team Barrett d Team Orton in a Traditional 5 on 5 Survivor Series Match. �The match was fine but felt like it was lacking a little something. �If Ziggler's sole role in the match was to come in and get eliminated�immediately, he shouldn't have been in the match. �The match came to a halt when Sin Cara injured himself. �The guys just stood around for a good 2-3 minutes which killed the match. �I have no idea why they couldn't keep working during this time. �Sheamus's DQ was lame. �I thought for sure when it came down to Orton vs Barrett, Swagger, Rhodes, and Hunico, he was going to eliminate the entire team, but that wasn't the case. �It was easy to see coming, but Hunico diving into the RKO was a cool spot. �It was nice to see Orton lose clean to Barrett and Rhodes. �Rhodes was WAY over with the live crowd.
- Mark Henry was DQ'ed vs The Big Show to retain the World Heavyweight Title. �The crowd hated this match. �Various chants were Undertaker, Sexual Chocolate, D-Lo Brown, Boring, and Daniel Bryan. �The Big Show doing to top rope elbow would have been great if it didn't take him what seemed like 5 minutes to get up there. �The finish absolutely sucked with Henry kicking Show low to get DQ'ed. �They did an injury angle after the match with Show putting Henry's ankle in a chair, setting up a chair match for TLC. �Henry refused help to the back.
- CM Punk d Alberto Del Rio to become the new WWE Champion. �From what I was told, this was the 9th WWE Title change since May 1. �Unreal. �Anyway, Punk got a special ring introduction from Howard Finkel. �The crowd loved The Fink, and you could tell he was choked up. �This was the match of the show. �Great match between the two, probably the best of Del Rio's WWE career. �Crowd was WAY into Punk. �I wasn't sure how they would react to him since I think his character has sucked recently, but they loved him. �The�psychology�was a little bad with Del Rio working Punk's arm all match, and then Punk using the Anaconda Vice to get the win, but I will be accused of being to serious of a wrestling geek with these sorts of comments. �He should have won with the GTS. Anyway, after the match, Finkel made the new champion�announcement�for Punk, and Punk celebrated in the crowd which was cool. �He was really into the win.
- The Rock and John Cena d Awesome Truth. �The match itself meant nothing. �It was all about The Rock. �The Rock was in amazing shape (natural? hmm...). �Anyway, I would say it looked like The Rock hadn't missed a step in his 7.5 year�absence, but he looked BETTER than probably any point in his WWE career. �His stamina was awesome, he was fast, and everything he did was crisp. �Miz and Truth flew down to the GI Joe set this past week to work on spots with Rock, and that was clear from the opening chain wrestling spot with The Miz which was great. �The story of the match was The Rock was in control early, Cena came in and was the babyface in peril, but this was not the crowd to do that act with because the crowd of course hated Cena and didn't give a damn about him getting worked over. �Finally The Rock came back in and hit the People's Elbow on The Miz for the win. �No real dissension between Cena and The Rock during the match, but from what I read, Booker T was putting The Rock over as being selfish for not helping Cena during the match. �I don't know about that one... �Anyway, I would have booked this match differently, with Awesome Truth getting the win from Rock and Cena not being able to work together, but it was fine for what it was, which was basically just a showpiece for The Rock.
- After the match, Cena left the ring as The Rock celebrated. �The Rock told him to come back to the ring. �They took turns climbing the ropes getting cheers and boos, just as was the case when Punk and Cena did it a few months back, thankfully this time without the alternating music. �The two then had a quick staredown in the middle of the ring. �Cena turned to leave, but The Rock spun him around and hit a Rock Bottom. �CENA COMPLETELY NO SOLD THIS, ROLLING OUT OF THE RING AND WALKED TO THE BACK. �Ugh. �Anyway, again, not how I would have booked this, but we are still 5 months from Mania and The Rock won't be around till probably The Rumble, so as a one night thing, it worked.
- After the match, The Rock cut the awesome promo that I posted above.
Overall, being there live, this was an easy thumbs up show for me. �Had a real good time sitting with Biff, RKO, and Mrs. RKO. �Not how I would have closed the show, and you got the feeling in the building it left a lot of people a bit flat as they were expecting more, but still a really fun show.
Tonight's Raw is in Hershey, PA. �The Rock has flown back to the set GI Joe, so he will not be at Raw, and as I said, I don't expect him back until around The Rumble. �I don't believe any matches have been announced for Raw tonight. �Jonah Hill is the special guest host, ugh. �I wouldn't be shocked if there was a Ziggler/Ryder match tonight, which is 24 hours too late. �Brodus Clay is scheduled to re-debut tonight, but that has been the case every week for the past month.
This isn't confirmed, but I believe Kevin Nash and HHH will have a showdown in the ring tonight to set up their match for the TLC PPV. �Let's just say, I expect a table to be involved.
I will add pictures and videos to the thread shortly. �It may be a day or two until I get the Survivor Series Prediction Contest results posted. �Please be patient. �Between catching up on sleep and work, along with traveling for Thanksgiving, I have a busy week.
