Method To Madness

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.

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.

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.

Hwang Seong-gyeong will be returning to the Stage of History as part of Season 2 - DLC 13 for SOULCALIBUR VI.

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Hwang's return rounds off the last slot of content for SoulCalibur VI's round of content for Season 2. I wouldn't doubt that this game is getting another season worth of content, especially when Tekken 7 is still rolling along without any signs of stopping soon.

While I'm glad to see Hwang back after all of these years (even though we've had filler replacements for him in the forms of Yunseong in Soul Calibur III and IV then Assassin in Soul Calibur II) - "officially" anyway, I thought Bandai Namco did a shitty job at keeping this a secret, even though I thought it was hilarious people were joking about this was a guest fighter from Bloodborne. His new skills seem interesting enough. I'm anxious to see how he fares with the rest of the cast with his improvements. I loved what they did to reinvent the wheel with Setsuka's return, so I have the utmost confidence in what they have in store for Hwang's return.