Survivor Series (2018) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw and SmackDown brands. It took place on November 18, 2018 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. It was the thirty-second event promoted under the Survivor Series chronology. The theme of the event was brand supremacy, where all but one match involved wrestlers of the Raw brand facing wrestlers of the SmackDown brand.
Eight matches were contested at the event, including one on the pre-show. The card was highlighted by two traditional Survivor Series elimination matches: Raw's men's and women's teams were victorious over SmackDown's. In the main event, Raw's Universal Champion Brock Lesnar defeated SmackDown's WWE Champion Daniel Bryan. Also on the card, Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey defeated SmackDown's Charlotte Flair via disqualification and Buddy Murphy retained the WWE Cruiserweight Championship against Mustafa Ali in the only title defense on the card, as well as the only non-interpromotional match. Raw won brand supremacy clean sweeping SmackDown in all six interpromotional matches on the main card. Team SmackDown's lone win occurred on the kickoff show, victorious over Team Raw in the 10-on-10 tag team elimination match.
Since I'm a few weeks out on doing a write-up on this show, I'm not going to cover everything in order. As far as I'm concerned this was a two-three match show as most of this easily forgettable. Not to mention that WWE hasn't even worked most of this into their storylines following this event, so what was the point anyway?
I haven't talked about it much on Twitter and Facebook about my opinions on it, but I thought Nia Jax should have been fined or suspended for that act. There's NO excuses to be made for her in that situation. You can go back and watch the footage that's out there. Even WWE's own HD footage that was replayed on SmackDown! Live shows that Nia Jax stopped, looked Becky dead in the face, and struck her down. That was complete malice there - you have to be bat-shit insane to call that an "accident". She keeps that up and she'll be blacklisted in wrestling faster than Sexy Star or whatever name she's going by nowadays. The only reason WWE hasn't done anything to her is because who she's related to *cough* The Rock *cough*, but I will say it's a stroke of genius to just run with the heel heat. That girl is tanking on more heat than Roman Reigns and they would be nuts not to make a few bucks off the heat from pissed off fans disappointed that Nia robbed the fans along with Becky Lynch from this match.
As for this match itself, I thought it was a solid performance from both women. I've been critical of Charlotte in the past and I truly think that this year is where she's really coming into her own as a performer. She doesn't have her father's genuine knack for being able to carry anyone or anything in a wrestling ring, but she's definitely deserves to be at the top of WWE's women's divisions without a shadow of a doubt. For someone who has been training in purely MMA most of her career, Ronda Rousey has taken to this wrestling thing like a fish to water over the past year. I don't know who to blame on that turnbuckle bump towards the beginning of the match, but goddamn did that look nasty. Rousey got my respect just from continuing to tank on through the match regardless there. While I wasn't expecting a decisive victory for neither Charlotte nor Ronda here, I was taken back by the post-match attack that followed. There are no other words to describe it here - Charlotte beat the holy piss out of Ronda Rousey with those chair shots and kendo stick strikes. By the time it was all said and done, Rousey was covered with welts all over her body and even bleeding from ear from the damage that Charlotte inflicted. Heel Charlotte is ALWAYS going to be better than Babyface Charlotte any day of the week, so this was a good move in my eyes, especially when you have Becky Lynch running with the anti-hero tweener vibe.
All in all, I suggest that if you don't watch anything else on this show, go out of your way to watch this match and the post-match attack that follows after it. At least for the latter, I have the highlights of that below:
I can't speak for anyone else but I mentally checked out the moment Samoa Joe went out like it was nothing off ONE Claymore Kick and the crowd erupted into chants of "THIS IS BULLSHIT" for majority of what followed afterwards.
Outside of a few spots in this match, this was easily forgettable.
As hard as these two guys worked their asses off to make people care about this division following Triple H's revamp over the past year, especially with their high quality of matches here and on the brand as a whole lately, I think most people are finding it hard to remotely care about this division. It's sad too because I hear from people left and right that they tend to have great matches on 205 Live since changing things around, but I'm usually burnt out on WWE programming by that point of the week to even care.
Brock Lesnar def. Daniel Bryan
God, I was dreading this match. I joked about it the entire week prior that it might have been Bryan's last match in his career, but as I watched this, I feared the worst, especially after the first German Suplex. Then Brock kept going on and on and on with the punishment on Daniel Bryan that felt like an eternity to watch. At one point I was saying "Just end this already..." to my television as I had seen enough and I didn't want to see Bryan risk his health (especially since he was already on a shaky foundation back with WWE period in terms of them clearing him to compete) any further. About two-thirds of the way into this match, Bryan got like a second wind and started getting some offense on Brock. I wasn't buying this for a second - this match was nowhere as the back and forth contest that Brock had with AJ Styles last year. They were just killing time for Brock to hit the F-5 and win as usual. I'm sure they had a lot of people going that Brock was going to tap to the Yes Lock but do you honestly think that Vince McMahon is going to allow Bryan's ass to beat his golden boy Brock Lesnar? Nope, especially not when Brock Lesnar is set to return to UFC for a few fights while remaining as WWE Champion. They are going to want to make Brock look as invincible as ever until he has that next UFC fight.Ronda Rousey def. Charlotte Flair via DQ
Boy did this match have a main event spectacle feel to it. I know WWE were pissed that they were saving this for WrestleMania next year and were forced to blow their load early in terms of booking, but there clearly wasn't any other alternative following Becky Lynch's injury.I haven't talked about it much on Twitter and Facebook about my opinions on it, but I thought Nia Jax should have been fined or suspended for that act. There's NO excuses to be made for her in that situation. You can go back and watch the footage that's out there. Even WWE's own HD footage that was replayed on SmackDown! Live shows that Nia Jax stopped, looked Becky dead in the face, and struck her down. That was complete malice there - you have to be bat-shit insane to call that an "accident". She keeps that up and she'll be blacklisted in wrestling faster than Sexy Star or whatever name she's going by nowadays. The only reason WWE hasn't done anything to her is because who she's related to *cough* The Rock *cough*, but I will say it's a stroke of genius to just run with the heel heat. That girl is tanking on more heat than Roman Reigns and they would be nuts not to make a few bucks off the heat from pissed off fans disappointed that Nia robbed the fans along with Becky Lynch from this match.
As for this match itself, I thought it was a solid performance from both women. I've been critical of Charlotte in the past and I truly think that this year is where she's really coming into her own as a performer. She doesn't have her father's genuine knack for being able to carry anyone or anything in a wrestling ring, but she's definitely deserves to be at the top of WWE's women's divisions without a shadow of a doubt. For someone who has been training in purely MMA most of her career, Ronda Rousey has taken to this wrestling thing like a fish to water over the past year. I don't know who to blame on that turnbuckle bump towards the beginning of the match, but goddamn did that look nasty. Rousey got my respect just from continuing to tank on through the match regardless there. While I wasn't expecting a decisive victory for neither Charlotte nor Ronda here, I was taken back by the post-match attack that followed. There are no other words to describe it here - Charlotte beat the holy piss out of Ronda Rousey with those chair shots and kendo stick strikes. By the time it was all said and done, Rousey was covered with welts all over her body and even bleeding from ear from the damage that Charlotte inflicted. Heel Charlotte is ALWAYS going to be better than Babyface Charlotte any day of the week, so this was a good move in my eyes, especially when you have Becky Lynch running with the anti-hero tweener vibe.
All in all, I suggest that if you don't watch anything else on this show, go out of your way to watch this match and the post-match attack that follows after it. At least for the latter, I have the highlights of that below:
Seth Rollins def. Shinsuke Nakamura
Solid match, but that's to be expected with the talent involved here. I just wish that they had an actual program building up to this match rather than throwing shit against the wall and hoping that it sticks. On the bright side though, if they were to do another Superstar Shake-up between now and before/after WrestleMania, I would love to see Nakamura and Rollins on the same brand to get a full blown feud between them. I wonder if Nakamura's going to renew his contract with WWE in 2019 though or head back to New Japan...AoP def. The Bar
For some reason, someone on WWE Creative thought it would be a great idea to have Drake Maverick piss himself after being cornered by The Big Show, which led to The Bar taking a loss here during this stupidity since they were "distracted". Ugh... just ugh is all I have to say about this match.Raw men def. SmackDown men (Strowman, McIntyre, Lashley survivors)
I honestly don't understand why does Shane McMahon put himself through this every year. When it came down to him and The Miz, I knew Team SmackDown! wasn't winning shit. Shane might have won the "Best in the World" tournament in India, but that doesn't mean shit against the wealth of RAW talent that he was across the ring from. I don't watch RAW nor SmackDown! regularly, but from what I gathered from this mess between Braun Strowman and Baron Corbin is going to lead to another match between them and you can count me out on that one. I have as much interest watching that as I do wanting to watch paint dry. This match was ultimately a huge waste of talent for all men involved if I'm perfectly honest.I can't speak for anyone else but I mentally checked out the moment Samoa Joe went out like it was nothing off ONE Claymore Kick and the crowd erupted into chants of "THIS IS BULLSHIT" for majority of what followed afterwards.
Raw women def. SmackDown women (Nia Jax sole survivor)
Mandy Rose ended up taking the vacant spot on Team SmackDown since Charlotte Flair got bumped up to fill in for Becky against Ronda, but it made little to no difference here. Most of Team SD fell like dominos back to back, but it ultimately came down to Asuka as the last woman standing to attempt to pull out a win for Team SD against the final members of Team RAW, Sasha Banks and Nia Jax. Like I mentioned earlier, it was a very wise move of WWE to take advantage of Nia's massive amount of heel heat that she has garnered as a result of what she did to Becky Lynch, but I don't necessarily agree to "rewarding" her with a win here. The only way I can agree to that is if Becky costs her the win at the Royal Rumble and that somehow sets Becky on the warpath to face Ronda at WrestleMania.Outside of a few spots in this match, this was easily forgettable.
Kick-Off: SmackDown tag teams def. Raw tag teams (Usos sole survivors)
I didn't see this match personally, but I only bring it up as it was the only match that SmackDown! Live actually won, but commentary made a point to sweep it underneath the rug during the main part of the show like SmackDown didn't the scoreboards at all during this PPV. Xavier Woods tweeted it out too, but it went on deaf ears for the bulk of the PPV and the shows that followed on the week afterwards.Buddy Murphy def. Mustafa Ali to retain the Cruiserweight championship
As hard as these two guys worked their asses off to make people care about this division following Triple H's revamp over the past year, especially with their high quality of matches here and on the brand as a whole lately, I think most people are finding it hard to remotely care about this division. It's sad too because I hear from people left and right that they tend to have great matches on 205 Live since changing things around, but I'm usually burnt out on WWE programming by that point of the week to even care.
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