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Poor Smackdown.
“WWE Survivor Series 2018” was a pretty confusing show to me. I mean on one hand the match quality was actually pretty solid throughout the long night. But the booking decisions made little logical sense. Why have Smackdown look so bad?
Again the match quality wasn’t bad. I do think it was one of the better Nakamura matches on the main roster against Seth Rollins. We had one of the better moments of the year with Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey.
Flair’s heel turn is one that will be talked about for a long time. We even had one of the biggest surprises of them all: Brock Lesnar actually seemed to care in a pro wrestling match.
As I am still figuring out why Vince hates the Blue Brand so much , I will try to distract myself and present my list of the top five most surprising moments of WWE Survivor Series 2018:
#5 A lot of superstars were missing
The WWE main roster sure loves to have a lot of interference in its pay-per-view matches. However it would have made actual logical sense for Dean Ambrose, Becky Lynch or AJ Styles to appear based on their storylines in recent weeks.
So did they cost their recent rivals the most important matches at Survivor Series? Nope. They couldn’t even bother to show up. For once it would have make logical sense to get them on the card and they decided not to do it on Sunday. The WWE is strange.
To take some of your best faces and heels and have them all no-show one of your biggest events of the year seems strange. However, a lot of their other decisions were surprising on Sunday night. Why not have a lot of your biggest stars missing as well?
#4 Nia Jax gets the win
I wish I could break someone’s nose and get rewarded. However I don't work in the WWE.
Nia Jax is now the biggest heel in the company. That will happen when you constantly injure your fellow workers. I mean, maybe pull your punches against Becky Lynch, the hottest act in the company.
So imagine my surprise when Nia Jax became the sole survivor in her Survivor Series match. Rewarding someone who recklessly injured a fellow worker seems against the biggest rule of pro wrestling. That rule is always protect your co-workers. However I guess that doesn’t matter to the WWE management at this time.
Nia Jax certainly played the heel part well and the WWE has likely created its best heel in years. I just wish it didn’t come at the expense of Becky Lynch’s face.
#3 Smackdown Live loses everything
Why does McMahon hate Smackdown so much?
You would think with Smackdown getting a network television show starting in October 2019 that the Blue Brand would finally get something over Raw. After all, Raw had won the main Survivor Series match the last two years. Surely Smackdown, with its superior storylines, would get one up on the “flagship show”. Nope.
One of the biggest surprises of Survivor Series was having Raw win every single match. They won the Women’s match, Men’s match, Championship match, Women’s Championship match, Secondary Title Match and Tag Title match.
Just the act of writing that out right now is quite upsetting. Why would you make one show look so inferior? Since you want fans to invest in both, why have one lose every single match? One of these years I would like to see Smackdown get the respect Raw always seems to get.
#2 Brock Lesnar has his best match since last year
Brock Lesnar is an interesting man. He is among the scariest guys in the world and has always been portrayed as unstoppable monster in the WWE. It has, especially this year, also led to some really boring matches. His matches consist of a few F-5s and a whole lot of suplexes.
However every so often when Lesnar is interested, he shows why he is one of the better workers in the WWE. He seems to enjoy working with wrestlers smaller than himself. His match with Daniel Bryan was clearly his best since last year’s Survivor Series.
I think Lesnar enjoys the David versus Goliath idea. He helped sell on multiple occasions that Daniel Bryan was going to beat him. I wish we could see this Brock all the time but it was surprising to see him work so well with Daniel Bryan on Sunday night.
#1 Charlotte Flair turns heel
WWE really can’t get anyone over as a bad guy can they?
I know a lot of WWE fans have been waiting for the match between Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey. I would have to say it was likely shaping up to be Rousey’s best match in the WWE to date.
Rousey is a natural and seems to get better with each outing. It certainly helps that Rousey was facing Charlotte Flair, arguably the best female performer on the roster. It was on its way to be one of the best matches of the year, then Flair snapped.
I will give the WWE credit. I didn’t see Charlotte’s heel turn coming. I mean the match itself was going fine and Flair decided to hit Ronday with a kendo stick quite suddenly. She hit her with a kendo stick a lot. She even did a very brutal chair stomp spot as well.
The strange thing is Charlotte Flair was cheered. Maybe people are getting tired of the Ronda character. Maybe they really wanted Flair to turn heel months ago. Regardless I can safely say the Women’s Division is light years better than the men right now.
