Reviewing Top Highlights and Low Points of WWE Survivor Series 2017

Survivor Series is one of the biggest events of the year, where the brand split comes to a head as Raw and SmackDown go to war.

This year, the theme extended even further, hearkening back to Bragging Rights with champion vs. champion matches alongside traditional team elimination fights.

The card was stacked and the lineup looked impressive, even without any titles at risk or any true stakes on the line, so it was simply up to the performers to do their jobs and knock out a great show.

Were they successful, or did Sunday's event end up having more flaws than originally anticipated?

With Survivor Series 2017 in the rearview mirror, it's time for us to look back on what happened and pinpoint the highlights and low points that made the show what it was.

Presented in order of appearance, here are those standout segments of the event, for better or worse.

Kickoff Pre-Show Breakdown

Credit: WWE.com

The pre-show for this year's Survivor Series had a variety of ups and downs over the two hours and even during the matches themselves.

Here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives of the three segments that started the night.

Highlights

• There was a good balance of analysis and matches, since two more fights were added to the card.
• Because of those added matches, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Breezango, Elias and Matt Hardy were all able to get on the card.
• Enzo Amore retaining the Cruiserweight Championship against Kalisto was the smart move for the betterment of 205 Live.
• Seeing Shawn Michaels on the pre-show panel is always a welcome treat.

Low Points

• While it was good to see Owens and company, all three matches weren't too impressive; if you skipped them, you didn't miss much.
• If you were sick and tired of hearing the overly repeated phrase about how Survivor Series is the one time a year where Raw and SmackDown go head-to-head in competition, you needed to mute your stream as it was said so often that Michaels even joked about it.
• All of the analysis was pretty standard, including the social media lounge segment.

If you spent the time preparing your food and having this on in the background, there's not too much room to complain and, thankfully, this wasn't two pure hours of video packages and recaps, which is a step up from the usual kickoff.

Highlight: The Shield vs. the New Day

Credit: WWE.com

This match was an evenly balanced contest, which is exactly what it needed to be.

Despite The Shield coming out on top and even going into the match with the better overall credibility, The New Day were able to put up enough of a fight to feel like they could pull out the win.

At no point did any star look like a weak link, which was key to keeping both Raw and SmackDown looking strong.

In particular, one of the best ways to showcase this was how the match ended, with Roman Reigns spearing Kofi Kingston and then The Shield doing their signature triple powerbomb from the top rope.

That is about as effective a finishing maneuver combination as you can get, so if SmackDown was going to lose the first encounter, they did so in a more-than-respectable fashion.

Highlight: Women's Traditional Elimination Match

Credit: WWE.com

Survivor Series matches can be a mess if poorly handled, but this was a great combination of surprises along with some of the more predictable elements that were still the right call to make.

With her track record, it felt obvious Asuka would be the primary victor for Team Raw, but it was also a nice touch to have her as the sole survivor to give her even more of a focal point.

To counterbalance this predictability, it was nice to see Becky Lynch eliminated first, as the team captain being taken out so early was a shocker.

Nia Jax's elimination was handled well, too. Being counted out keeps her looking strong for a future encounter against Asuka.

Despite Raw winning again, SmackDown still didn't look like it was the lesser brand, so this match did its job to give every woman a platform to show off some of their skills.

Highlight: SmackDown Turns the Tide

Credit: WWE.com

There aren't too many specific things to talk about when it comes to the next three matches, but all were solid and the right decision was made in having SmackDown come out on top.

The Miz and Baron Corbin needed to be a win for The Lone Wolf to offset his recent losses and start to give the blue brand a fighting chance on the night.

Following that was The Usos defeating The Bar, evening things up between the brands with another highly competitive fight.

Finally, the best match of the three was Charlotte Flair defeating Alexa Bliss, where the disparity in height and experience between the two didn't get in the way of WWE giving Bliss enough of a fighting chance.

By the end of Flair's victory, SmackDown and Raw felt as tied as humanly possible, giving a lot of momentum to the match that followed.

Highlight: Brock Lesnar vs. AJ Styles

Credit: WWE.com

It's expected at this point to see Brock Lesnar destroy all of his opponents, which can get rather boring to watch.

Thankfully, instead of making this a glorified squash match, AJ Styles was able to get some adequate offense in to keep him from looking like an inferior competitor.

The end result is still the same, with The Beast Incarnate coming out on top, of course, but in the context of this event, that helped even the odds once more and gave Raw and SmackDown three victories each.

Styles can hold his head high, Lesnar can keep up the trend of his dominance, and essentially WWE figured out a way to have its cake and eat it, too.

Where both of these champions go in the future will be interesting over the next month or so, but at least they both left Survivor Series looking like the top of their brands.

Highlight: Men's Traditional Elimination Match

Credit: WWE.com

After this entire event had been great, it was nice to see the main event didn't botch the trend and turn out to be a mess.

Just like everything else that came before it, this was a well done balancing act, although it can be argued this was the most flawed of the matches as far as booking went.

One of the criticisms could be that Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode were eliminated before the wrestlers fans would be more familiar with, but at least there were still some pairings we had never seen before.

By the time it got down to Shane McMahon as the only person on Team SmackDown, it was hard to believe the blue brand would come out on top, but there were still plenty of twists and turns to come.

Triple H helping McMahon score an elimination over Kurt Angle was a major shock, as was the immediate turn back to Team Raw afterward.

Another highlight was seeing Braun Strowman being booked as a dominant force of destruction—as he should have been—along with teasing a feud in the future between him and Samoa Joe.

To cap things off, having Strowman give Triple H his comeuppance gave the fans something to cheer even if they were rooting for SmackDown and disappointed with Team Raw winning.

This was one of the most chaotic builds to a pay-per-view in years, but it turned out to be one of the best events this year.

What were your favorite and least favorite parts of the night? 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.