The SmarK Rant for WWE Survivor Series 2019–11.24.19

The SmarK Rant for WWE Survivor Series 2019 – 11.24.19

Sort of.

I was working tonight and unable to watch the show live, and don’t really have four hours to dedicate to the whole thing. So here’s the last few matches compromising the last 90 minutes, at the very least.

Live from Chicago, IL

Team RAW (Seth Rollins, Ricochet, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre & Kevin Owens) v. Team Smackdown (Roman Reigns, King Corbin, Mustafa Ali, Shorty G & Braun Strowman) v. Team NXT (Tommaso Ciampa, WALTER, Keith Lee, Matt Riddle & Damian Priest)

Well I’m glad they were at least able to find an NXT team by showtime.

WALTER should just beat all these geeks single-handedly and unify the titles. So we start with Seth, Ciampa and Strowman as I guess it’s going to be three people in the ring, and that’s got potential to be a huge trainwreck. Braun overpowers Rollins, so Ciampa brings WALTER in and he teams up with Drew to stomp Braun down in the corner. And then WALTER trades chops with Drew and lays him out with a big boot and butt splash. Braun tries to powerslam Drew, but WALTER breaks that up and chops Strowman and dropkicks him into the corner. And then Drew hits WALTER with the Claymore Kick from behind and pins him at 3:00 to MONSTER heel heat. Seriously, this is his PPV debut and they job him in three minutes to a kick? I agree with the crowd, BULLSHIT indeed. So Priest comes in, along with G and Rick O’Shea, and Shorty hits Rick with the Chaos Theory. Matt Riddle comes in and rolls into an anklelock on Gable, but he reverses to his own and they’re at a stalemate. Ciampa comes in and beats on Gable, and Owens hits a frog splash on Gable at 6:29 to eliminate him. Roman and Corbin argue over who should tag in next, so Owens superkicks Roman out of the ring and then hits him with the cannonball into the railing. Stunner on Corbin on the floor, but Ciampa cuts him off with a draping DDT and pins Owens at 7:44. And then Ciampa celebrates and Orton sneaks up on him and tries the RKO. Ciampa counters out and tries his own draping DDT on Orton, but Orton blocks that and runs Ciampa into the railing. Orton stomps on Ciampa’s fingers and hits the RKO, but Priest had already tagged in. So Orton gives him an RKO as well and pins him at 10:15. No big loss there. Riddle cradles Orton and pins him at 10:29, however. And then Orton gives him an RKO on the way out and Corbin pins Riddle at 10:52.

So now we get the Strowman v. Keith Lee showdown, but McIntyre dives in and hits Lee with a forearm. So Strowman clears the ring and then does his run around the ring, but runs into Keith Lee and they’re both down. Lee beats the count and Strowman is counted out at 13:20. Are we back in 1989 or something with these finishes? Ricochet runs wild and dives onto Roman, but walks into End of Days at 14:28. Ali comes in and runs wild, and hits Rollins with a tornado DDT before diving onto people on the floor and sending Ciampa into the post. Corbin gives Ali shit about something, however, and Rollins pins him with the curbstomp at 16:13. Drew hits Ciampa with an Alabama slam for two and threatens to “kick him back to NXT”, but Roman comes in with a spear for the pin at 17:41 to eliminate Drew. Rollins rolls up Roman for two and sends him to the floor, but tries a dive and gets hit with a Drive By. And then Ciampa hits the draping DDT on Roman, but Reigns gets the superman punch and both guys are out. Corbin tags himself in after taking Keith Lee out, so Reigns hits Corbin with the superman punch and spear, and Ciampa pins Corbin at 19:54. Reigns and Rollins decide to team up on Ciampa and then on Lee and clear the ring. They set up Ciampa for a Shield bomb through the table, but Keith Lee breaks it up. Back in, Ciampa hits Rollins with the Project Ciampa backbreaker for two. Fairytale Ending is countered by Rollins with a superkick, but Ciampa tries it again and Roman hits him with the superman punch and Rollins pins him at 24:00. This match is so incredibly tone deaf I don’t even know what to do with it. So we’re down to Rollins, Reigns and Keith Lee. So Lee tosses Rollins around and hits them both with a slingshot bodypress, but Rollins gets the enzuigiri and superkick to set up a frog splash for two. Rollins sets up the stomp, but Lee hits him with the jackhammer for the pin at 26:40. So we’ve got Keith Lee and Roman Reigns left, and Roman hits him with two superman punches and gets two. Roman tries the spear and gets walloped with a powerbomb for two. Keith goes up, but misses the moonsault and Roman spears him to win the match at 29:14. I dunno, most of the match was those super-quick eliminations that didn’t mean anything and there wasn’t really any chance to have a storyline running through the match. It was certainly fast-paced but putting Roman Reigns over at the end yet again didn’t really accomplish anything. And Keith Lee barely got a chance to show anything in the ring because it was over so fast. Plus they tried to give Rollins a bunch of shine, but he’s a lost cause at this point and just gets booed out of the building. ***1/2

WWE title: Brock Lesnar v. Rey Mysterio

This is no-DQ and Rey has his clown shoes on, so you know he means business. Rey immediately grabs a lead pipe and chases Brock, and that goes badly for him. Brock just handles him like a child and takes the pipe away after two clotheslines, then tosses him to the floor. Rey gets hurled onto the Spanish table and then suplexed onto the wreckage. And then Brock stops to tie his boot, but Rey runs him into the post. Brock ignores that and then brings him back into the ring for a german suplex, which lands right on the lead pipe. OUCH. More suplexes and now Dominic Mysterio runs in pleading for mercy, which allows Rey to hit Brock in the nuts and make the comeback. Rey and Dom do a double 619 on him and Dom gives him a frog splash, followed by Rey for two, complete with Dom dogpiling on top. Finally Brock has had enough of this shit and hits Rey with the F5 and pins him at 6:52 to retain. So despite the babyfaces teaming up on Brock 2-on-1, Brock still beat them both and was never in any serious danger, and made them look like the geeks they are. Tremendous. Match was just the usual lazy stuff from Brock. **

Bayley v. Shayna Baszler v. Becky Lynch

Becky gets rid of Shayna and elbows Bayley down for two, then goes up and gets cut off and slammed by Bayley. Bayley tries a cannonball or something in the corner and misses completely, but gets two regardless. No idea what that was supposed to be. Baszler comes back in and tries for the wrist break on Becky, but Bayley saves and ends up taking the arm-breaker instead. Baszler with a running knee in the corner, but Becky cuts her off and Bayley hits Shayna with a clothesline to put her on the floor. Bayley chokes Becky out as the crowd is just completely dead for this, and rams her into the mat for two. I’m still struggling to figure out exactly what Bayley’s character is supposed to be now. Bayley slugs away on the mat and works the back for a bit, for two. Baszler comes back in but Becky makes a comeback with Bexploders on both and a double DDT for two. Becky throws Shayna out again and rolls Bayley into the disarmer, but Shayna breaks that up with a gutwrench and Becky disappears now. Bayley hits Shayna with a running knee for two. Bayley to Belly gets two as Beth Phoenix talks about “the workrate from the past two days”. WHOOPS. Bayley misses a charge in the corner and Shayna beats her down as the camera CUTS CUTS CUTS CUTS CUTS and it looks even more ridiculous because the crowd doesn’t give a shit at all and has mostly given up on the match. They slug it out, but Becky comes in with a missile dropkick on both of them and now Bayley disappears into the Phantom Zone. They slug it out and Bayley hits them with a crossbody, but they fight onto the apron and Baszler gets the choke on Bayley out there. What good does that do? Becky brings Baszler back in with a powerbomb for two and then a rollup for two, into the disarmer, but Shayna reverses to the choke. Bayley pulls Shayna out of the ring, but gets run into the post, and then Baszler runs Becky into the post as well. Whatever the peak of this match was, they’ve missed it. Becky gets dumped onto the table, and back in Baszler tries the choke on Bayley and gets suplexed. Bayley goes up and misses the big elbow, and it’s back to the choke again, and Bayley taps at 18:06. This didn’t work, like at all, and felt about 5:00 too long on top of it. This was the wrong match for Baszler, who seemed mostly lost, and the crowd wasn’t with them at all. **1/2

So NXT wins 4-2-1. Seemed like an OK show, I guess?