WWE Survivor Series 2014 Results: Breaking Down Biggest Missed Opportunities
The results from the 2014 WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view have had people buzzing about everything from Dolph Ziggler's amazing performance to Sting's surprising debut and all of the other interesting things that transpired.
But no show is perfect, and despite WWE putting on a fantastic show, there were still some missed opportunities.
Keeping in mind that hindsight is 20-20 and every fan has his or her own ideas about what should have gone down and what he or she was disappointed to see—or not see, for that matter—what stands out?
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Now that the dust has settled from this week's episode of Raw, what could have been tweaked to make Survivor Series an even better event than what it already was?
Ryback Doesn't Quite Rule So Much
Going into the event, the hottest star was arguably Ryback, who had been making great strides in regaining ground after spending the past few years struggling in the tag team and midcard divisions.
There were glimpses of the unstoppable beast from his original WWE Championship push from 2012, and it seemed as though The Big Guy was going to continue his hot streak at the pay-per-view.
However, for some reason, Ryback accomplished absolutely nothing and was the first person to be eliminated from Team Cena.
What was the purpose of this? Is it a textbook case of the old mentality of humbling someone before giving him a push?
If so, why does WWE continue to think that it is necessary to break someone down before building him back up if he is already popular with the crowd?
Did Ryback do something to put himself in the dog house? Was this a punishment to convince him to check his attitude at the door or he would be back to jobbing faster than he could chant "feed me more"?
It doesn't appear as though this factors into some grand scheme that will pay off down the road, so it was an unnecessary slight against a relatively big star in a time when the roster is too thin to sacrifice wrestlers for shock value.
Worse off, the first elimination of the match saw Big Show knock out Mark Henry in mere seconds. Couldn't this spot have been given to Ryback instead?
Big Show would turn on Team Cena later on. If he could eliminate the biggest man on Team Authority with one punch only moments into the match, why would he ever be so worried at their chances to win that he would quit?
If the plan the whole time going into the match was to be a mole for Team Authority, he never should have touched Henry, let alone pinned him.
With the way things went down, logic was thrown out the window in favor of giving Big Show a rub that he didn't need at the expense of Ryback, who is in a healing period and could desperately have used it instead of coming out looking like all bark and no bite.
WWE Divas: Smart, Sexy, Powerful and All Interchangeable
The Divas division is rather confusing at the moment, and it looks as though WWE's creative team isn't sure which women are supposed to be heels and which are supposed to be babyfaces.
Despite it making zero sense, Brie Bella is now supportive of her abusive sister, and Natalya fights as a babyface while teaming up with her heel husband whom she is either completely aligned with or arguing against depending on the whims of the writers for that particular episode.
After spending a few months building up Rosa Mendes as a face, she is now partnered with a heel in Fandango. This, of course, comes after the chaos of the Summer Rae vs. Layla partnership where they fought over Fandango, partnered up together as babyfaces and then suddenly were heels again.
For this match at Survivor Series, Alicia Fox had recently turned face after ending her friendship with Paige, so WWE slapped together some faces and heels and put them on opposite sides.
With Nikki Bella as the current Divas champion, some babyfaces would need to be built up to be worthy challengers for her in the future.
One can argue that the whole team of faces looked strong since none of them were eliminated, but it wasn't so much that the faces were better rather than the heel team being worse.
Ask yourself if any of the women on Team Fox truly came off as someone who was ready for a title run instead of just being on the winning side in general.
Even if this weren't the case and Nikki were to turn face sooner than later, would there be any heels set up during this match to look like a threat, either?
Summer Rae came off as a cheerleader who doesn't want to break her nails, Layla has certainly looked better, and Cameron was about as useful as Ryback was for Team Cena.
The only one of them with any bit of clout to her name was Paige, but the best she accomplished was being humiliated and wanting to run away. She couldn't even eliminate one person on the opposite team.
To an extent, it makes sense that WWE would want to book one of the matches to be a clean sweep and the other to be down to a sole survivor, but that concept did no favors for any of the eight women here.
If Brie is not going to turn on Nikki and challenge her for the Divas Championship once the feud with AJ Lee is done, WWE will have to spend the next few weeks building up one of the four women on Team Fox. Otherwise, the next challenger will seem like a lame opponent who has no shot at winning.
This week's edition of Raw did nothing of the sort, so time is running out.
RKO Out of Nowhere to be Seen
There's no doubt that Sting's WWE debut was a much bigger deal to the WWE Universe than Randy Orton's eventual return, so the more important of the two was chosen.
But if one plays devil's advocate, WWE missed a chance to have its cake and eat it, too.
Orton is from St. Louis and was backstage, so it wasn't as though having him show up on the event would have caused a problem.
After all, a storyline had already been built in revolving around him and Seth Rollins feuding with one another, and his hometown pop would have been huge for it.
Instead of Sting saving the day for Team Cena, it could have just as easily been Orton running out from the crowd, giving Rollins an RKO out of nowhere and dragging Ziggler's body on top for the win.
While Orton was dealing with Rollins, Sting still could have come out to handle Triple H just the same as he did on the pay-per-view.
Granted, WWE may have made the right call by not overloading Survivor Series with too much and holding off on Orton's return, but that remains to be seen.
Sometimes, too much of a good thing isn't necessarily a bad thing, and while Sting's debut could have dampened the importance of Orton's return, it likely wouldn't have done any harm to Sting.
Unless WWE can think of a good alternative method to bring Orton back with just as much pomp and circumstance or more, the ball could have been dropped with this one.
What do you think were some of the biggest missed opportunities from this event?
Would you have been happier with these tweaks, or did WWE make the right calls in the end?
Tell us your theories, fantasy booking ideas and criticisms in the comments below!
Anthony Mango is the owner-operator of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment as well as the host of its podcast show, Smack Talk, on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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