WWE Survivor Series: Five Things We Learned

At the end of every pay-per-view, we are left with many questions and few answers.

However, last night at Survivor Series—in a rare change of pace—we were left with plenty of definitive answers.

Sure, there are plenty of questions we can still ask:

Who’s next in line for Undertaker’s title?

Will JeriShow be able to co-exist as partners?

Is Rey Mysterio ever going to be the same?

Why do they still book awful women’s matches?

The list could go on and on, but questions notwithstanding, here’s a look at five things we learned at last night’s Survivor Series.

Kofi Kingston is Officially a Star

The WWE has been pushing the Kofi Kingston/Randy Orton feud very, very well in recent weeks.

Rather than throw Kofi right into a “war of words” they’ve made the feud more physical and violent than a lot of what we’re used to seeing in the PG-Era of WWE. And that angle has really worked.

At Survivor Series, two pretty solid teams clashed and put on great performances, and in the end, we saw Kofi Kingston vs. two recent World Champions.

Kofi went toe-to-toe with CM Punk and then Randy Orton, eliminating both of them in decisive fashion.

The WWE is giving a young superstar a very hot storyline and he’s making the most of it.

In fact, BleacherReport’s very own Ray Bogusz summed it up best by saying that “Kofi Kingston has been handed the ball and is running with it harder than Bo Jackson.”

This builds up to the inevitable one-on-one clash with Orton at TLC. They could try and stretch the factions into it for another PPV, to further build the one-on-one clash.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kofi/MVP/Mark Henry vs Legacy at TLC, but we see that same match every Monday, so they’ll have to spice it up.

Kingston/Orton has some real legs to it, but I don’t want them to try and stretch it out too long for the sake of stretching it out. There is too much TV time for anyone to believe that these two wouldn’t clash before Royal Rumble.

In the end, I can only hope this is a big push for Kofi winning “Money in the Bank” at WrestleMania and setting up a legitimate main event run next year.

CM Punk is Wasting Away

It’s almost impossible to believe that just a few months ago, CM Punk was the World Champion.

He’s fallen so far so fast. He has essentially become mid-card enhancement talent.

He has gone from feuding with Jeff Hardy and the Undertaker over the World Title, to feuding with R-Truth and referees.

He is still money in the ring and on the microphone. The crowds give him whatever reactions he wants whenever we wants them. And, to top it all off, he’s grown in a pretty sweet beard.

Punk deserves better than what he’s getting and no doubt will return to the main event soon.

Everyone has to cycle out of the main event—except for John Cena and Triple H, that is—but it just seems like he’s fallen flat on his face since dropping the title.

Orton left the main event and landed in a hot feud with Kofi Kingston, yet Punk ends up in a lukewarm (at best) feud with referees and R-Truth.

Not cool.

In ‘Taker WWE Trusts

Keeping the belt on Undertaker makes a lot of sense in the essence that the World Title, much like the WWE Title, probably shouldn’t change hands again until WrestleMania 26 to build some credibility.

Credibility notwithstanding, keeping the gold around Undertaker’s waist—when he’s reportedly in such bad shape—is a risky move. The next pay-per-view is slated to be TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs.

If TLC (the former Armageddon) is what in the same vein as Breaking Point and Hell in a Cell, we can expect to see the main event matches all taking place as TLC matches.

Undertaker has some experience in this environment having fought in many violent matches and some ladder matches over his career, but he is—reportedly—in no shape to take major bumps and TLC is all about taking bumps.

It will be interesting to see where Undertaker’s feud goes now.

Logically JeriShow should return to the tag ranks—as I’ve been begging them to do—and continue re-establishing that division.

The aforementioned CM Punk finding his way back into the title picture could work. It is more likely that they’ll book a veritable spotfest with numerous superstars who can do most of the work and let Undertaker snatch the title at the end.

Bad Batista is the Best Batista

Batista’s complete and utter destruction of Rey Mysterio was perfect in every way possible.

Since turning heel—and leaving the face population on Smackdown dreadfully low—Batista has been at his absolute best.

He was never top-notch on the microphone or in the ring, but his new cold, calculating persona just seems to work.

His matches are still boring, but I’ve been into the storyline thus far. Personally, I hope this is the end of it, at least temporarily.

He gave Mysterio a very sound beating and the next PPV is only a few weeks away.

The WWE could logically use this opportunity to let Batista get into the title picture and then bring Mysterio back to cost him the gold at TLC to continue the feud into Royal Rumble before—hopefully—blowing it off for good.

I don’t know what the WWE has planned for Batista at WM26, but I foresee big money in Cena/Batista II for the WWE Championship.

HBK vs. HHH is Still Money

I’ll be honest, I hate Degeneration-X.

The idea was great when it first happened more than a decade ago. It’s been run into the ground time and time again. And with the PG-Era of the WWE, the “edgy” factor is gone and it’s all fart jokes and leprechauns. I’ll pass, thank you very much.

What we did see tonight, however, was that HBK and HHH still have incredible chemistry in the ring, when they’re opponents. We’ve seen them do nothing but tag together for years, so it was a refreshing change of pace to see them duke it out.

I would really like to see one of them—preferably Triple H—turn heel at the Royal Rumble or something and let these two have a good ole fashioned blood-feud leading into WrestleMania.

Clearly a Hell in a Cell or Ladder Match would be pretty played out by then, but they could go old school and do a no-holds barred type of thing and just let ‘em beat the crap out of each other.

Either way, I want to see more of HHH/HBK and WM26 seems like the perfect place to make it happen.