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An exciting weekend for wrestling fans all over the world has just gone by with Survivor Series ending on a high note. This year's event featured some great wrestling matches from top to bottom along with some great surprises.
In trying to follow a very good NXT TakeOver: Wargames event, which featured incredible matches like Aleister Black vs. Johnny Gargano and Velveteen Dream vs. the NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa, the pressure was on the main roster to deliver.
Which 5 matches from this year's mega cross-promotional event were able to meet the level that they could be called a great match? Let's take a look.
#5: The Men's Survivor Series Elimination match
Team RAW featured Strowman, McIntyre, Ziggler, Lashley, and Finn Balor while team Smackdown featured Shane McMahon, Rey Mysterio, The Miz, Jeff Hardy, and Samoa Joe.
The RAW was very strong on paper but lacked the chemistry that was needed to put together a team, while SmackDown was definitely lesser on star power but worked well together as a team to overcome RAW.
The first elimination came at the hands of Drew McIntyre when he blasted Samoa Joe with a claymore kick by reversing Joe's submission manoeuvre. Smackdown gained the upper hand a short time later and lead 2-1 but once Braun Strowman bounced back in the match, it was all him as he eliminated the rest of the opposition team to lead team RAW to victory.
As far as the storytelling goes, it was very consistent here. The story of Raw clean sweeping Smackdown shows that the WWE was interested in making Smackdown the inferior brand and anyone that has watched WWE for a long time knows that the company favors RAW over SmackDown, so indeed they would book the flagship show to win here.
#4: Seth Rollins vs Shinsuke Nakamura
The highly anticipated match started to a slow pace but it didn’t stay that way long as Rollins and Nakamura put on a great show.
This was an exceptionally well-wrestled match between two of the best in-ring performers of their respective brands. Although it didn't reach a level that it could be called a top-notch match we expect from Shinsuke Nakamura. He has a tremendous ability inside the ring, but not every opponent has been able to bring that out of him.
But Rollins was the man here. There was no doubt about Nakamura stepping up his game here or he would be seen as a flop. As for Seth Rollins, he is one of the best performers on almost every show he is on and tonight was no different.
The match was eventually won by Rollins. This came after a very good sequence of both guys exchanging their finishers, but it was Rollins who came out on the top.
#3: Buddy Murphy vs Mustafa Ali
The event also featured a match for the Cruiserweight Championship. Murphy put his belt on the line against Mustafa Ali. They started the match with a dead crowd but the performers worked extremely hard to win them over, which resulted in the crowd chanting "This is awesome" for them.
If you are familiar with 205 live and their series of matches before this, these two performed for a bigger audience this time and it was great. The only minor gripe was the match not being longer than it already was.
Ali is a very good babyface character, and I would love to see him win the big one at some point in his career. Despite that, these two showed that they are the standard bearers for 205 Live and deserves a bigger platform to showcase what they were able to achieve here.
#2: Ronda Rousey vs Charlotte Flair
This match had such a big fight feel and intensity that most of the matches lacked on the show. The atmosphere was surreal.
The match was a hard-hitting slugfest as you would expect from a Ronda Rousey match. At first, it lacked a bit of chemistry as some strikes didn’t connect or looked quite right. This wasn’t a technical masterpiece, but it truly conveyed a sense of struggle. No one expected Charlotte to be dominant so early in the match.
They went back and forth with power moves, submission holds, hard strikes and everything in-between. Rousey busted open her mouth mid-match due to an errant elbow from Charlotte but she fought through it like a champ and got better as the match went on.
Charlotte was great here, she has been a good performer since she faced Becky Lynch. Rousey has the Brock Lesnar vibe to her, her matches are always different compared to other performers.
In the end, it was incredible to see Charlotte going back to being a dastardly heel. She is so good at it. The fans were supportive of her during the entire segment, and it’s easy to see why she let out her frustrations for not being able to put away Ronda Rousey and the story of her failing to beat Becky Lynch a few weeks ago.
#1: Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan
This was the ultimate dream match for many and an interesting encounter to say the least. Did they live up to the hype? Yes, you can say that.
It was a very good match with Lesnar dominating the first half and Bryan making the comeback after a low-blow. It’s a real shame that Daniel Bryan was the heel on this, his character shift left the crowd unsure of what to think of him, so they didn’t have much sympathy for him early on.
It was joyful to see Brock Lesnar work the way he is capable of working with selling a lot of his opponent's offence. Say what you want about him, but his matches have a very different dynamic than anyone else on the roster. If he gets to work with the best workers like Styles and Bryan most of the times, people would have a hard time hating him. It’s a reminder of how good Lesnar is when he wants.
This was very similar to Lesnar's match against Styles last year as he also came close to winning, but Lesnar managed to win that match just like this one. The David vs. Goliath dynamic worked here even though Bryan met his end, he put in an award-winning performance to close the show.
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