Survivor Series, Bray Wyatt vs. Dean Ambrose and More from Team Mailbag

Remember when Survivor Series was filled with elimination matches? Some years, each team even assumed a nickname, usually in honor of its captain.

There was Razor Ramon’s Bad Guys, The Undertaker’s Darkside, Lex Luger’s All-Americans and Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team, to name a few.

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of Jerry Lawler’s Royal Family taking on Doink the Clown’s Clowns R Us, and WWE has rediscovered the lost art of the Survivor Series team name. This year’s main event is shaping up to be Team Cena vs. Team Authority.

Not the most creative names ever, but it’s a start.

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@ThisIsNasty predicitons for the SurvivorSeries match + is it good that a SurvivorSeries match is actually maineventing the PPV? #WWEMailbag

— @RealColinGinter (@RealColinGinter) October 29, 2014"

I think it’s great a Survivor Series match is main eventing the pay-per-view. Due to Brock Lesnar’s contract situation keeping him off WWE programming for the time being, what’s old is new again.

We’ve now reverted back to a time when the WWE Championship was defended on only a select few shows, and Survivor Series was traditionally used to tease top feuds we’d be seeing during WrestleMania season. This may sound like a step backward, but in pro wrestling nostalgia is king.

The idea of having a world championship defended on every pay-per-view has always been a bit overrated.

CM Punk is the longest-reigning champion of the modern era, but during his run the WWE Championship match rarely closed the show. Main events sell pay-per-views, and the harsh reality is world championship matches are not always viewed as main events in WWE.

One could even argue that it’s better to not have a WWE Championship match on a pay-per-view than to feature it in the middle of the card. The theme of Survivor Series not only calls for an elimination tag team main event, but WWE will also have the chance to elevate lesser stars.  

Booking the top babyface against a top heel stable is a simple, yet effective, way to build to a compelling elimination match where some members of WWE’s struggling midcard will have the chance to at least temporarily rub elbows with top-tier talent. All Dolph Ziggler had to do is shake hands with Cena and he became a fixture on Raw's top angle.

And for those who think the concept of gang warfare in professional wrestling is passé, just look at the stars spawned from The Shield and the Wyatt Family.

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@ThisIsNasty do you think Mike awesome is one of the most underrated wrestlers in history? #WWEHIAC

— Carlos Garcia (@cubanoboi) October 27, 2014"

I don’t know if underrated is the word to describe Mike Awesome. He’s more of a story of what could have been.

Awesome infamously left ECW for WCW while he was still the ECW Heavyweight champion, dealing a death knell to the cult promotion. Had he stayed, his potential as a main eventer would have been much more apparent.

Instead, he was used as a chess piece in WCW’s attempt to run ECW out of business, but he was more of a bishop than a pawn.

Awesome was talented and would have gotten more out of the pro wrestling business had he made better decisions both in and out of the ring.

My favorite Awesome memory is when he stole the show with Masato Tanaka at ECW One Night Stand in 2005. ECW announcer Joey Styles did everything he could to condemn Awesome’s involvement in the reunion show on commentary, which was just as understandable as it was unprofessional. After all, he was Benedict Awesome to a lot of people in that company.

In addition to Styles’ narrative for the pay-per-view audience, an otherwise hot crowd wasn’t very hot for either wrestler. Crowd participation is huge in ECW, and there’s nothing fun to chant or sing along to with Awesome or Tanaka. They were pretty much just wrestlers.

But in a promotion where street clothes and grunge were the status quo, it was the two combatants in traditional wrestling gear who had arguably the most hard-core match on the show. Following multiple variations of powerbombs, table spots and powerbombs through tables, Awesome surprisingly won.

At that event, Awesome achieved what the entire ECW brand had set out to accomplish—to go out on a good note.

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@ThisIsNasty possible that WWE are trying to do with Ambrose what they had to back out of with @WWEDanielBryan at the start of the year?

— Ben Mescher (@benmescher) October 28, 2014"

I always thought Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt would make much better allies than enemies.

Both have twisted, sadistic characters, so to see them feud with one another runs the risk of becoming unintentional comedy. In order for this to work, Ambrose will now have to become the straight man with Wyatt playing the loony villain.

As promising as Ambrose and Wyatt can be as allies, Ambrose is still pretty early in his babyface singles run. Turning heel to join forces with Wyatt would be an overly ambitious and premature character overhaul.

Per storyline, however, I wouldn’t be opposed to Wyatt at least trying to convince Ambrose to join him now that Wyatt is running solo. This was teased on Raw as Wyatt pointed out the similarities between the two before vowing to destroy Ambrose.

So much for that alliance.

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