WWE Survivor Series 2016 Review: Top Highlights and Low Points
Survivor Series is one of WWE's biggest pay-per-views of the year, normally setting the pace for the events to come with the Royal Rumble and Road to WrestleMania.
This year, another element was added to the mix as Raw and SmackDown were set to battle it out by pitting their rosters against each other in a hybrid of good, clean sportsmanship alongside bitter rivalry.
Both brands wanted to succeed in ending 2016 as the dominant show, which is easier said than done when everything depends on unstable groups of wrestlers having to work together.
Outside of the three Traditional Survivor Series Elimination Match gimmicks, both the Intercontinental Championship and Cruiserweight Championship were on the line with the latter's entire division up for grabs if the power should switch to the other side.
Complete with a main event of the returning Goldberg locking up one more time against Brock Lesnar to hopefully make up for the bad memories from their last encounter, this event had an immense amount of pressure on its shoulders, but also a ton of potential.
Now that the results are in and the pay-per-view has ended, how did things turn out?
Were there more positives or negatives and what segments fall under which categories?
Let's look back on what happened at Survivor Series 2016 and single out the biggest highlights and low points of the evening, presented in order of appearance.
Low Point: Kickoff Pre-Show Downtime
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For having a two-hour pre-show, far too many people were still left off the card in favor of over 60 minutes worth of filler.
If you've watched every episode of Raw and SmackDown, it's frustrating to have to sit through the same footage you've already seen time and time again. There's no need to be refreshed about the storylines as they aren't complicated to follow.
Plus, those same video packages are always placed before the matches on the main card itself, too, so you're watching it twice in the same evening!
While two matches did take place, they were rather inconsequential, completely forgettable and still left many people off the event who could have benefited from making an appearance.
Dolph Ziggler, Rusev, Apollo Crews and Neville are just a few of the names that could have been tossed into another match rather than having over a full hour of video packages and previews made of content we've already been shown ad nauseam.
NXT TakeOver events are very efficient in that they last only 30 minutes so people can catch up to what they might have missed, but two hours for Survivor Series was too much considering how the two matches added weren't must-see.
Six hours is a long chunk of time to dedicate to watching a single show when you've already watched three hours of Raw, two hours of SmackDown and more, and for over an hour of it to be just talking, that can be extremely boring.
In the future, two-hour pre-shows should only work if they break up the talk with matches instead of having an empty arena for the first half.
For the amount of time an average feature length movie is, there should have been more entertaining content than just Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens in the social media lounge, which was the only thing really worth checking out during the entire kickoff.
Highlight: Women's Elimination Match
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In previous eras, the women's division matches at Survivor Series would be only a few short minutes consisting of most people hitting one or two moves and getting quick pins, but this match started the show with a solid half hour of quality wrestling.
Right off the bat, an interesting twist was added with Nikki Bella being attacked and Natalya taking her place, which was a nice way to pop the Canadian crowd.
Every woman had a chance to shine at least a bit in this match—even Alicia Fox, who could have easily just been a quick sacrificial lamb and eliminated within mere moments.
One downside to this was how Dana Brooke wasn't a factor at all during the match, as they passed up an opportunity to have her inadvertently get Charlotte eliminated.
This was made up for, though, by having her and Charlotte team up and assault Bayley after the match, proving that this alliance was very short-lived and the champion has bigger things on her mind.
This was a great showcase of how the women's division has matured over the past year and an even better indicator of just how much potential all 10 wrestlers have in them.
Highlight: Intercontinental Championship Match
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This was a tricky situation WWE set up, as the championship couldn't have changed hands without SmackDown losing its midcard title, but clearly Sami Zayn was supposed to be the favorite to win.
Getting around that problem was done in an interesting way where instead of Maryse blinding Zayn with hairspray as we've seen before, she rang the bell to convince Zayn he had made The Miz tap out.
Keeping the belt on SmackDown is the right move as the opposite decision would have caused too many issues for SmackDown's future, but on top of making the right choice for the winner, the match itself was a nice contest.
After seeing so many matches with Dolph Ziggler, it was a refreshing change of pace to see The Miz lock up with someone different, as he and Zayn have good chemistry together.
Hopefully, something can be worked out where Zayn gets drafted to SmackDown so a feud between the two can properly continue, as there's a lot of promise and potential to see this story continue.
Low Point: Tag Team Elimination Match
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Who thought it would be a good idea to take the most popular tag team in the company out of the match almost immediately?
The New Day are close to breaking the Tag Team Championship title reign length record in a few weeks, and they were captains of their brand's team yet they didn't even outlast The Shining Stars.
On paper and in execution, it makes no sense to remove a fun, entertaining team at the beginning of the match in favor of keeping other people the crowd couldn't care less about.
Likewise on Team SmackDown, the best team of the bunch—American Alpha—weren't even able to work better than Sheamus and Cesaro despite all the problems they've had.
None of this makes any sense as it comes off more like the opposite of how the booking should have gone, which is either a lapse of judgment or a purposeful choice to subvert expectations.
Another downside to this was since Team Raw was victorious, SmackDown by this point in the pay-per-view looked like a total joke.
The blue brand already struggles to get out of the stigma of being the B-show, and by having Raw's captains taken out at the beginning of the match, but two teammates who can't get along are stronger than SmackDown comes off more like an insult than anything else.
Also, both of Raw's wins ended with the surviving teammates not getting along, so that was repetitive.
There was a chance here to even things up and make several teams look strong in the process, but all this accomplished was giving Cesaro and Sheamus another title shot that we've seen before.
If they are able to dethrone The New Day before they pass Demolition's record, that will be another negative consequence of Team Raw's win here.
Highlight: Cruiserweight Championship Match
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While the future of the cruiserweight division is up in the air and it may be a mistake not to have Kalisto come out the winner of this match, looking at this segment purely by itself lends it to a more positive perspective.
Most cruiserweight matches have high energy and crazy maneuvers that are always fun to watch, and this was no different in that regard. Particularly, Kalisto's Spanish Fly off the ring apron was nice surprise.
If shock value is a huge factor in whether you consider something a highlight or low point, the end of this match should definitely qualify as Baron Corbin's interference prevented the obvious Kalisto win from happening.
Where does this go from here? Does Corbin feud with Kalisto separately or is The Lucha Dragon going to continue fighting for the cruiserweight title?
For that matter, how does the cruiserweight division move to Tuesday nights without being associated with SmackDown?
Creating lingering questions that will get people to tune into 205 Live, Raw and SmackDown to find out is exactly what WWE wanted to do, and that was accomplished here.
Highlight: Men's Elimination Match
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Although this was the longest match of the night, there were so many oddball things in it to keep it from getting boring.
Not only that, the eliminations were some of the best of the evening and definitely more logical than anything that happened in the Tag Team Elimination Match.
In general, the utilization of each wrestler and giving them time to share the spotlight was done much better here than the other two Survivor Series bouts.
Even Shane McMahon had his moments, not the least of which was his jump off the turnbuckle onto Strowman on the outside.
This led to another highlight which was the interaction with James Ellsworth, as he held Braun Strowman back to cause him to be counted out.
This, of course, resulted in Strowman exacting his revenge by tossing him off the stage and through a table, showing how dominant he can easily be, which was a running theme throughout the whole match.
The spear from Roman Reigns onto McMahon was an uncomfortable botch, but on the plus side, it was one of the most enthralling moments of the whole match.
Another fantastic touch was the logic behind The Shield reunion with Rollins and Reigns attacking the security so Ambrose could help them powerbomb Styles, which was the only time of the night the crowd was pro-Reigns in any fashion.
SmackDown absolutely needed the win here after being on the losing side for nearly every other match, and the way this went down was one of the better Survivor Series matches in recent years.
Low Point: Goldberg Squashes Brock Lesnar
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Was this a monumental shock? Of course it was. But was it the right move? That's a different story.
After all the work done to build Brock Lesnar up as this unstoppable monster who can't be defeated even by The Undertaker at WrestleMania, he was completely squashed by Goldberg here in mere moments.
Now, Goldberg is 2-0 against Lesnar, but if his declaration that this was his last match is true, what was the benefit for the main roster?
If something crazy good comes out of this, fine. But if this was all just to stroke Goldberg's ego, it's strange to end the pay-per-view 30 minutes early with a squash match that hurts the credibility of the top dog in the company.
What do you think were the best and worst moments of the night? Do you agree or disagree with the choices here?
Be sure to tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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