WWE Survivor Series (Nov. 22, 2020) -- Results & Afterthoughts

Survivor Series (2020) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view and WWE Network event, produced by WWE for their Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. It took place on November 22, 2020 at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, and featured WWE's virtual fan viewing experience called ThunderDome—it was WWE's final pay-per-view presented from the Amway Center during the COVID-19 pandemic before the ThunderDome relocates to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida due to the start of the 2020–21 NBA season. Like the previous years, the theme of the event was brand supremacy and pitted wrestlers from the brands against each other. It was the 34th event under the Survivor Series chronology, and celebrated the 30th anniversary of The Undertaker's WWE debut—his retirement ceremony closed the show.

Seven matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff 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 match, SmackDown's Universal Champion Roman Reigns defeated Raw's WWE Champion Drew McIntyre. Also on the card, SmackDown Women's Champion Sasha Banks defeated Raw Women's Champion Asuka, and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) defeated Raw Tag Team Champions The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods). Raw won brand supremacy by winning four of the seven matches.

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Results:

18-Man Dual Brand Battle Royal

The Miz won by last eliminating Dominik Mysterio

When it got down to Jeff Hardy, Chad Gable, Dominik, and The Miz, I was thinking, "Hmmm, maybe we might have a chance to give Gable and Dominik a bit of shine with a win here..." only to see Jeff and Gable get tossed out and it be down to Dominik and The Miz. That's when I went "Oh shit..." and knew that they were going with Dominik winning this for the babyface pop since The Miz was probably cashing in Money in the Bank later this evening. Boy, was I wrong in both avenues of that assumption. This match did absolutely NOTHING for me to care about anyone involved in this battle royal. 

5-on-5 men's Survivor Series elimination match

Team Raw (AJ Styles, Keith Lee, Sheamus, Braun Strowman, and Riddle) (with Omos) def. Team SmackDown (Kevin Owens, Jey Uso, King Corbin, Seth Rollins, and Otis)

I was utterly shocked that Team Raw completely swept Team SmackDown under the rug. Thanks for comin', boys. Your checks are in the mail. I couldn't understand why this couldn't have been competitive with SmackDown getting a bit of offense in and an elimination or two. I did enjoy seeing Otis and Jey Uso having a few moments to shine in this match, but it was ultimately all for nothing. 

I couldn't help but laugh at all of the screenshots of Rollins refusing to even look at Matt Riddle when he was in this match, showing that Rollins had his eyes closed on the ring apron. That's a whole new level of petty (or rather unprofessionalism...) right there. As for the Messiah "sacrificing himself for the 'greater good'", that was complete kayfabe bullshit for he can go on leave for Becky Lynch's upcoming birth of their first child. I'm sure he'll be back in time for the Royal Rumble at the start of the New Year. 

For the rest of this match, there's not really much else to talk about. Team Raw won in dominating fashion and this match did little else to hold anyone's interest. 

Moving on...

Champions vs. Champions Tag Team Match
The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) (SmackDown Tag Team Champions) def. The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) (with Big E) (Raw Tag Team Champions)

I have said it time and time again, but I'm not a big fan of the New Day - never was, never will be. Double can be said for the Street Profits AKA Great Value brand "Cryme Tyme". That being said, I thought both teams came out here and worked their asses off to make this match entertaining. This was fine as a tag team match, but these two sets of tag team belts desperately need to be unified. Neither brand has enough depth to justify keeping these two tag team divisions separated at this point. It's foolish to even think otherwise. 

The right team went over too with the Street Profits picking up the win here. The New Day doesn't need the rub from anyone at this point in the tag team division(s). They should be at the point of putting over everyone else from how many title reigns that they have under their belts. 

Champion vs. Champion singles match

Bobby Lashley (Raw's United States Champion) (with MVP, Cedric Alexander, and Shelton Benjamin) def. Sami Zayn (SmackDown's Intercontinental Champion) by submission

This was an absolutely huge piece of nothing in the middle of this show. Sami tried to heel it up, but with the rest of the Hurt Business at ringside to cock block his antics, they weren't going to let any of that shit fly that works over there on SmackDown for him, thus resulting in Sami thoroughly getting his ass kicked. He even tried to bring back up that "shortness of breath/vertigo" angle that he had going for a while before in their previous feud, but that didn't work either. 

Champion vs. Champion singles match

Sasha Banks (SmackDown Women's Champion) def. Asuka (Raw Women's Champion)

This would have been my personal favorite match of the night if Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre didn't headline this show in stellar fashion. That being said, the resident reigning Women's Champions from Raw and SmackDown represented their brands well. I personally wanted Asuka to win, but I am not going to complain about Sasha Banks going over when it felt like Asuka was beating her left and right over the summer over on Raw following WrestleMania. Sasha is the one who needed the boost to her stock value. 

5-on-5 women's Survivor Series elimination match

Team Raw (Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Lana, Lacey Evans, and Peyton Royce) defeated Team SmackDown (Bianca Belair, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Bayley, and Natalya)

I don't know what was a bigger waste of time, this match or the men's Survivor Series 5-on-5 match. It was bad enough that WWE had to scramble at the last minute to assemble the teams. Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke were originally going to fill the team with Shayna Baszler, Nia Jax, and Lana, but Mandy Rose suffered a legit shoulder injury, so their team was written off out of the match, only to be replaced with the lackluster pairing of Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce at the last minute. I wasn't a fan of the IIconics (outside of their entrance music) but they split those two up for this mess? Ugh. Bayley (the former SmackDown Women's Champion who held the title for well over a year no less) and Natalya (who lost almost every opportunity to get a spot on this team until she got a pity vote onto the team because SmackDown! really didn't have anyone else) were added merely two days prior. 

I did like that Bianca Belair attempted to hold down the fort for her team, but the finish was absolutely moronic, especially for a Survivor Series match no less. Lana, Nia Jax, and Bianca were all the remaining members of their corresponding teams until Bianca and Nia were counted out, thus naming Lana the winner who did absolutely NOTHING but stand on the steel steps at ringside and cry for majority of this match. I get they are trying to make her a sympathetic babyface after going through the commentary tables nine weeks in a row, but if people were in the buildings, people would have shat all over this finish and WWE knows it. It would have done the same effectiveness to get Lana over as a babyface if she turned on Nia in this match and helped Bianca get the win instead of going with that god-awful finish that they went with. 

Champion vs. Champion singles match

Roman Reigns (SmackDown's Universal Champion) (with Paul Heyman) defeated Drew McIntyre (Raw's WWE Champion) by technical submission

Before you watch this match, you should take the time to watch the contract signing between these two on SmackDown. This was great stuff from both men involved. 

If this was a sample of what we may be possibly getting at WrestleMania next year between these two Superstars, then I'm all for it. This was easily the best match of the entire night with Sasha vs. Asuka as the close second. They took their time with this and slowly built this match up to a proper crescendo, hitting their biggest and hardest hitting maneuvers, neither man refusing to stay down. The tale of the tape was that Drew McIntyre could take anything Roman Reigns AKA "The Tribal Chief" could dish out and come back for more - that is until Jey Uso came out and gave the assist for Roman could pick up the victory. 

This is your WrestleMania main event, folks, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. I definitely want to see this rematch. That's saying a lot when I didn't give a damn about their match at WrestleMania a year or two ago.

The Undertaker's Final Farewell

This video packaged aired after WWE gathered all of The Undertaker's closest friends and rivals into the ring, including Kane/Glenn Jacobs who was the only one in his entire ring gear/gimmick. I guess someone told him come dressed to work as a rib. 

Apparently, Kane didn't get the memo.

The only jarring thing about this is that they were all gone when the cameras switched back to the ring. What was the point of dragging all of those old guys out here during a pandemic (without wearing masks no less) if they weren't going to at least hang out at ringside and pay respects as a mock audience instead of having the Thunderdome screens there with awkward silence?

I'm legitimately worried about Vince McMahon's health at this stage.

Vince McMahon making a rare appearance was another shocker, with him actually saying "WWF" in his speech about The Undertaker's fabled career, but seeing Vince like this makes me worried about his health at this age of what, 70+ years, and still hands on with everything top to bottom in this company? He looks like he doesn't even know what a good night's sleep even is. Dude, go home and get some rest before you die at the gorilla position. I'm not even saying that jokingly either. The guy looks like he's in rough shape. He keeps this up and he might not be with us much longer. 


This was really depressing that he didn't get to do this final farewell/send-off in front of a full crowd of fans. The silver lining is that he will get his Hall of Fame induction sooner more than later and he will get the praise and proper send-off that he deserves. I wish they did this with the other legends at ringside for the crowd and just take in the silence as I'm sure the fans would have done that out of respect for his final appearance here. The fake/piped-in crowd noise was goddamn distracting and didn't add anything at all.

The Undertaker bows to Paul Bearer watching down from the heavens for one final time.

That hologram of Paul Bearer/Percy Pringle was a nice touch, even though it was a little corny there.

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Afterthoughts:

In my honest opinion, this was a two-match show at best. Outside of The Undertaker's Final Farewell, this is an EASILY forgettable show, hence why I didn't go out of my way to get this write-up done after the fact. It's a darn shame too that little thought and effort went into this show when it was billed around showcasing The Undertaker's Final Farewell. You would think that WWE would want to have an amazing card to compliment that, especially for older fans that may be tuning in just to see Taker's send-off that walked away from the product ages ago. Like many people have been saying for several years now, it's hard to get invested into this event (much like Bragging Rights before it) when there's nothing on the line outside of the boasts of "brand supremacy" for the next year or so when in reality everyone knows which brand is the "best" in terms of ratings and booking. In retrospect, I'm glad that NXT wasn't involved with Survivor Series this year, despite their dominating performance last year, as that brand has been a hot bed of COVID-19 outbreaks as of late and there's no need to be infecting the main roster with that too. 

NXT TakeOver: Toronto (Aug. 10, 2019) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Toronto (2019) was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on August 10, 2019, at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Seven matches were contested at the event, including two taped for the following week's episode of NXT. In the main event, Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano in a two-out-of-three falls match to retain the NXT Championship. The undercard saw NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler, NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream and NXT Tag Team Champion Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) retain their titles.

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Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) (c) def. The Undisputed Era (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) Tag team match for the NXT Tag Team Championship

This was easily the best match that I have seen the Street Profits compete in their entire NXT careers to date. Going into this show, I was convinced that they were dropping the titles to the Undisputed Era since they have been seen hanging around on the main roster backstage for the last few weeks now. They haven't been wrestling any matches, so I guess WWE figures that they can juggle both roles without any problems for the time being.

Montez Ford might want to look into wearing a singlet for his gear as his "odd" looking nipples are a red flag for possible steroid usage. So yeah, he might want to hide that. He's got that same look going on that Jinder Mahal had a while back. Dude's got a bigger chest than his damn wife (Bianca Belair FYI). That being said, he's easily the star of this act. The Street Profits could split up tomorrow and Ford could be EASILY pushed to the moon as a singles act with his charisma and in-ring ability. Angelo Dawkins isn't bad - it just seems like that dude is moving in slow-mo half of the time. Besides, I would like to see these guys against teams who don't have a record of excellent performances under their belt for I can truly determine whether or not they are that damn good or the former members of reDRagon along with other noteworthy NXT tag teams have been making them look better than they actually are.

There was a brawl between Matt Riddle and Killian Dane at one point of this show, but it didn't result into a full blown match between the two. Riddle got the jump on Dane for once and it ended after Dane jumped off the stage with Riddle still latched on his back with a sleeper hold applied while performing a STO on one of the poor unfortunate security guards in his wake.

Io Shirai def. Candice LeRae by technical submission

Throughout this match, I couldn't buy into the beating that Candice LeRae was on the receiving end for, especially when I have seen her take FAR worse punishment from opponents of the opposite sex. At the same time, I was not ready to see her "hulk up" like Cena or Hogan and turn around to win this thing either. Her husband does enough of that bullshit where he's kicking out of a million and one finishers and getting up for more. I don't want to see them rehash the same thing for her. I'm sure the Full Sail crowd doesn't want to either.

Heel Io going over was the right decision and I'm glad that NXT went that way, even though I thought her turn was stupid to begin with. Too bad Asuka isn't around for we could have seen that feud in NXT.

This was arguably the best match on this entire card to be quite honest.

Velveteen Dream (c) def. Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong Triple threat match for the NXT North American Championship

I popped for that trip down nostalgia lane for The Mountie's theme before this transitioned into a performance by the Toronto Raptors' dance crew to see Velveteen Dream down to the ring. We better enjoy these elaborate entrances for him now because we know that they are going to neuter that the second he gets called up. Just look at what they did to Aleister Black's entrance and Finn Balor's. I can count how many times we have seen the Demon on the main roster on one hand.

This match was a lot of fun, but ultimately, it felt like it was missing something before you could regard it as something truly phenomenal. Without a shadow of a doubt, we all know that these three men are amazing individually, but sue me for expecting a little more here. Plus, they really lost me during the finish where they telegraphed that someone was going to screw the other out of the pinfall. That was my biggest knock against this match.

Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Mia Yim by submission Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship

Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the weakest match on this card. From her tenure in Impact Wrestling as Knockouts Champion and various bouts in the indies, I know that Mia Yim possesses the ability to be a threat for Shayna's NXT Women's Championship, but she hasn't been built up as such in NXT thus far. This whole story seemed hastily put together and this match suffers as a result as Yim is setup as the one with everything to lose here.

To be fair though, I did enjoy the psychology of this match with Yim systematically wearing down Shayna's arms so she couldn't use the Clutch, but Shayna's technical savvy and experience led her to improvise by using her legs to secure the win regardless.

After another successful defense for the Queen of Spades, I pose this question - who is left for Shayna to beat or beat her? She's gone through just about every big name that they have on that roster and then some. They have to be ready to call her up to the main roster at this point. She can remain undefeated too if they want to sweeten the deal.

Adam Cole (c) defeated Johnny Gargano 2–1 Two-out-of-three falls match for the NXT Championship

I feel like a broken record when I bring up my issue with these Johnny Gargano main events on these TakeOver specials. He does FAR too much in his matches. In this case, he and Cole took the cake and then some in that regard. We already seen Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano do a Best of Three Falls match in the past and they are just recycling the same concept with different stipulations for each fall. I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking in the first fall when they blew through most of their big moves and near-falls right off the bat and turned the match into a bunch of nothing until Gargano got himself disqualified like a moron. That played into the next fall being into his favor with it being a Street Fight, but it just came off stupid to me since they kept doing more and more spots and not trying to get any pinfalls off of it. When a babyface gets himself/herself disqualified in multi-fall matches like this, it's to quickly get the next fall and even things up. Nope, that wasn't in the playbook at all here. The match quickly spiraled into doing shit just to do it until FINALLY Gargano got the fall to tie things up.

When I saw the barbwire steel cage, I honestly busted out laughing as they had it decorated like the last round/finale of Impact Wrestling's Lethal Lockdown Match, save for the Hell in a Cell style roof on the top. (Laughs) NXT ran out of early 2000s (and some current) Ring of Honor stuff to rip off and now they are moving onto Impact Wrestling's catalog. Can't say that I blame 'em at this point. Just when you thought this match was going to probably end soon, it didn't. This dragged on for what felt like an eternity as Cole and Gargano scaled the cage walls gingerly to each bring down each of the marquee weapons hanging up on display on the side of the cage walls until Gargano thought it was a wise idea to cut off a piece of barbwire (using the wire cutters that were in a bag that I'm sure the crowd was fooled into thinking had thumbtacks, broken glass, or something vile to use within). For some reason, this scared Cole up onto the platform setup on top of the cage with Gargano in pursuit. The two then shoved each other off the top and through the two tables that were setup below. Unfortunately, they only hit one of the tables (barely at that...) and Cole was the one fortunate enough to roll over onto Gargano to get the pin and retain the title.

(Laughs) I guess Johnny Failure came out to play after all.

I'm sorry, but this whole match from start to finish gets a huge "Meh" from me. After all of that and it ends with essentially a draw to (hopefully) close out this feud? In the post-match video that WWE shared on social media, Regal was raising Gargano's arm and the crowd was cheering as if this is the last time that we would see him on the black and yellow brand. If this match was his swansong, then whatever I guess, but he's got more than enough "good" to "great" performances to hold his head high about on his resume as he heads up to the main roster.

NXT TakeOver XXV -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: XXV was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on June 1, 2019, at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the twenty-fifth event under the NXT TakeOver chronology.

Seven matches were contested at the event, incuding two taped for the following week's episode of NXT. In the main event, Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano to win the NXT Championship. The undercard saw NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler and NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream defeating Io Shirai and Tyler Breeze respectively to retain their titles, and Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) won the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship in a Fatal Four-Way Ladder match.

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Match Results: 

Matt Riddle defeated Roderick Strong

I felt that Riddle/Strong was a strong (no pun intended) opener for this show. I was completely fine with Riddle going over here. That one sequence of tons of strikes to the near-fall was what me and my best friend used to call Roddy's "ROH Special" to end matches back there on his comeback. I had little to no issues with this match, even though it got a little spot-fest heavily towards the end.

Ladder match for the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship

Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) defeated Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, The Undisputed Era (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish), and The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler)

This tag team ladder match was good but over the the course of the match, I was getting more pissed off than being entertained by it from the sheer number of moronic spots. I get these guys have something to prove here, but it seemed like they were intentionally trying to injuring each other at one point. Kyle O'Reilly was dying for our sins in this match from the sheer amount of punishment that he was putting his body through here. I hope Bobby Fish is alright too because his arm was in a sling when he came back out later in the night to celebrate with Cole after his title win. 

I think everyone, including Ray Charles, could have seen that the Street Profits were going to win here (even though I would not have been opposed to putting the straps back on Undisputed Era). In terms of booking, they could have done that when the Street Profits "almost" beat the War Raiders/Viking Experience/Viking Raiders (or whatever the fuck Hanson and Rowe are calling themselves) a few weeks ago on NXT programming in the first place instead of vacating the titles and still did the tag team ladder match. 

NXT North American Championship

Velveteen Dream (c) defeated Tyler Breeze

I thought that Dream/Breeze wasn't anywhere as good as Dream's last few TakeOver matches, but it was a great reminder of how good Breeze is. I'm glad to hear that he's sticking around on the brand and not sticking around being wasted sitting in catering every week on the main roster. Dream being so extra got a ton of laughs from me here too. I guess they could do more with this feud, but I'm fine with it being a one and done. No need to drag this out further.

Prince Pretty was Velveteen Dream back when Patrick Clark was sitting in hot tubs on Tough Enough 😏

— Walmart (@Walmart) May 30, 2019

Shoutout to Jason Solomon (@solomonster) for pointing this out on his podcast and bringing it to my attention. That definitely got one hell of a laugh from me.

NXT Women's Championship

Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Io Shirai by submission

I definitely didn't care for Shayna going over Io here but it's obvious they are setting up another rematch. This was okay overall - I'm being generous here - but the same ol' shit from Shayna in terms of her title matches. It's starting to get stale really fast. Shayna does the same song and dance in almost all of these title defenses, only for her entourage to come out and save her ass in the end. You cannot tell me that they don't have other women in developmental that they can't be building this division around instead of Shayna and the rest of Ronda Rousey's friends. 

As much as I would hate to see the main roster misuse and mismanage Shayna, I think it would have been a good idea to call her up post-WrestleMania to feud with Becky Lynch since Ronda Rousey was going to be on the bench for a while with a broken hand. I mean really, anything is better than her feuding with Lacey Evans at this point. Like why the hell did they call up Lacey Evans of all people over Shayna anyway? Lacey was just getting into the groove of this Southern Belle character and they called her up to the main roster, yet people are surprised that she's under-performing in that position? C'mon, it's Dana Brooke all over again. 

Another travesty? Calling up Kairi Sane, teaming her up with Asuka with Paige as their manager, and not doing jackshit with them while the IIconics somehow still hold those Women's Tag Team titles. Seriously, who are those girls banging in the back to keep those titles without doing absolutely nothing of merit?

NXT Championship

Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano (c)

At one point in this match, I was beyond rolling my eyes at all of the near-falls and kickouts. I kept saying, "C'mon end this already. You've done enough spots for 3 matches." Gargano's awesome without a shadow of a doubt but that's what I cannot stand about his TakeOver matches. Dude does FAR too much.

For the main event, y'all saw my earlier tweet. I have nothing against Gargano's in-ring ability nor ability to tell a story with his matches but I just can't stand how he does a million and one things in these TakeOver matches. I didn't care for it when the Young Bucks & Kenny Omega did it last weekend either. I didn't care for it when Lucha Underground did that one main event where Pentagon Jr. "broke" both of Brian Cage's arms, performed a curb stomp through a stack of cinder blocks, did that Piledriver on top of 4 chairs spot, before ending it with a Pentagon Driver off the top rope or some shit. It's really getting to the point where people are doing far too much in these matches, not just in NXT but in modern wrestling as a whole. I truly think it's becoming a problem.

That being said, Gargano and Cole had a great match here. They could have done a FRACTION of what they did there and still it would have been a barn burner. All I'm saying is modern wrestling as a whole needs to be reminded that less is more in terms of matches

I want a screenshot of that disheveled look of Gargano looking sad at ringside during Cole's post-match celebration. Johnny FAILURE is back, BAYBAY.

Oh yeah, there's one more thing that I want to bring up. In my honest opinion, the biggest thing AEW needs to take notice of from NXT tonight is their presentation/production style. From the moment this show started, you knew it was NXT from the unique lightning & presentation. It instantly distinguishes itself from the rest of WWE's programming from it's mere presentation and lighting alone.

I love how they didn't have any of those random/rapid fire camera cuts like the main roster stuff. The lighting focused on the ring, NOT the goofs in the crowd. This makes what is going on in the ring much more special and intimate and plays a massive part of giving NXT their identity. That's what AEW needs - a visual identity.