Opinion: The Kickoff Show match was actually great

Last night at Survivor Series, the Kickoff show consisted of the 5 on 5 tag team elimination match. We saw Lucha House Party, Roode and Gable, The Ascension, The Revival and The B-Team on the Raw side. For team blue, we saw Sanity, The Colons, The Good Brothers, New Day and The Usos.

While pre-show matches can sometimes be a bore, this match actually exceeded expectations. Almost everyone had something to bring to the table and that's what makes wrestling so enjoyable.

One by one, teams were eliminated as we came down to the wire. Overtime, the weak links were broken and the final two teams standing were The Revival and The Usos.

At this point, there was at least 20 minutes left on the pre-show. It would've been nice to see them tear it up in the ring for the rest of this time. But it was The Usos who would quickly pick up the victory in what seemed to be 1-0 for Smackdown Live.

We later learned that this match wasn't counted because Vince McMahon wanted a clean sweep for Raw. Apparently, Raw was supposed to win but something happened and The Usos got their hands raised in victory. The win was overlooked and the rest of the night was all Team Red, shame.

Here's what Dave Meltzer had to say on The Wrestling Observer.

“So here’s the deal, okay? The storyline was supposed to be a clean-sweep for Raw and somewhere in the communications process, don’t ask me why, SmackDown won that tag match so they had to tell everyone that it didn’t count.That was the reason. One hand forgot what the other was doing. Vince wanted a clean-sweep and I don’t know how this happens, so yeah, it didn’t count." Via Ringsidenews.

It's a shame that Smackdown Live crashed and burned so badly on the main show. Especially since it's speculated that WWE will return to their one roster format when Smackdown goes to Fox next year.

So, they may never get the chance to assert dominance as the superior brand ever again.

Smackdown Live got the worse end of the stick this year, and the show will most likely suffer because of it. If the writers don't care about the blue brand, neither will the fans.

Nonetheless, the match was good. As opposed to just being a snooze-fest, or a complete squash match, both teams actually had a pretty good showing here.

They've definitely raised the bar when it comes to Kickoff show matches. At this point, we are looking ahead to TLC. Hopefully they can be that much better next month.

---

Do you think WWE has buried the tag team division? Sound off in the comments.