WWE Survivor Series 2017: Biggest Takeaways from Latest PPV Event
WWE Survivor Series 2017 was nothing short of a newsworthy night as Raw and SmackDown Live battled for brand supremacy, with Raw ultimately emerging victorious over the blue brand.
Granted, nothing was up for grabs and only one championship was defended on the Kickoff show, but there were still plenty of talking points coming out of the event. More importantly, with Survivor Series being such an important event each year, the latest installment successfully set the stage for the coming months of WWE programming.
It was perhaps WWE's most star-studded card of 2017, with several former and future world champions taking part in the main event elimination tag team match. As good of a bout as that was, it was AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar that stole the show with their outstanding performance.
Furthermore, the women had a memorable night, with Asuka surviving against Team SmackDown and Charlotte Flair toppling Alexa Bliss. Tag team wrestling was also showcased with The Shield and The New Day ripping it up in the opener and The Usos and Sheamus and Cesaro contesting a classic.
Survivor Series was an above-average event from an in-ring standpoint, but it will largely be remembered for how it planted the seeds for what we might see come WrestleMania season. Raw solidified its spot as the superior show, but what are the other big takeaways from WWE's latest pay-per-view?
The Shield Are Back in Rare Form
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WWE fans were deprived of their long-awaited Shield reunion at TLC 2017 due to Roman Reigns suffering from an illness that put him on the shelf for nearly a month. Thankfully, he returned to the ring just in time for Survivor Series 2017, where he, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins took on The New Day for the first time ever.
Their exceptional opener to the show was shades of The Shield of old that went all out in every match they were involved in. New Day have had their fair share of stellar matches this year, but Shield especially shined at Survivor Series and picked up Raw's first win for the night.
It was further proof that despite being singles stars for the better part of the last three years, their chemistry is still off-the-charts. They dominated the entire roster during their original run, and it appears they're determined to do the same this time around if this outing was any indication.
Lest we forget that it was at Survivor Series five years ago that The Shield debuted as a unit, and they have been wreaking havoc ever since. They're destructive as it is on their own, but together, Reigns, Rollins and Ambrose are virtually unstoppable, and not even a decorated trio such as New Day can halt their hot momentum.
What's next for The Shield coming off their monumental win against New Day at Survivor Series is unknown, but with Reigns capturing the Intercontinental Championship on the next night's Raw, Ambrose and Rollins recapturing the Raw Tag Team Championship soon would be only academic.
Asuka Is Destined for Greatness on WWE's Main Roster
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Auska arrived on Raw with a bang by beating Emma in back-to-back matches in late October, making her a shoo-in for Team Red at Survivor Series. Sure enough, she outlasted not only every other woman on her team, but all of her opponents on Team SmackDown as well.
The match itself was nothing of note, but the showcase of Asuka couldn't have been more effective in establishing her as a dominant threat. In addition to emerging victorious for her team, she eliminated three of the blue brand's finest talents: Carmella, Tamina and Natalya.
That was clearly an endorsement of Asuka and a sign that officials plan to position her as a top act in the Raw women's division going forward. After all, she reigned as NXT Women's champion for a whopping 523 days, so it would criminal for her to become an afterthought on a bigger stage.
For over two years, Asuka has remained undefeated in singles competition, and based off her Survivor Series performance, the powers that be are aware she has plenty of potential to be a major star for them in the future. Snapping that streak any time soon would be a mistake, but it looks like she'll be running through the Raw roster for a while to come.
The carnage she caused at Survivor Series is merely the beginning of what should be a successful stint for The Empress of Tomorrow on Raw.
The Future of Tag Team Wrestling in WWE Is in Good Hands
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Sheamus and Cesaro clashed with The Usos in a champions vs. champions match at Survivor Series, and although the SmackDown Tag Team champs emerged victorious, the real winners were the fans.
Tag team wrestling has been more prominent in WWE in 2017 than it has been in several years thanks to the likes of The Usos, Sheamus and Cesaro, The Hardy Boyz, The New Day and many more tandems. The matches they have been producing have been spectacular, so The Usos looking to Raw for more competition was exciting.
The Usos have reinvented themselves in a major way recently and have beaten pretty much everyone on the blue side. Meanwhile, Sheamus and Cesaro are the makeshift tag team most never thought would amount to much, but they too have taken tag team wrestling by storm throughout the year.
Their Survivor Series match was seriously fun from start to finish and could have gone either way. In the end, The Usos secured the victory, but a rematch would certainly be welcomed if they ever find themselves on the same show down the line.
How the tag team divisions on both brands can get any better is the real question coming out of the event, but the teams involved in this encounter will ensure that they do. Survivor Series simply served as a reminder that the future of tag team wrestling in WWE is in good hands.
AJ Styles Remains WWE's Most Phenomenal Performer
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No one delivers when it matters most quite like AJ Styles, and that was more evident than ever at Survivor Series when he did battle with Brock Lesnar.
Needless to say, Styles vs. Lesnar was a massive upgrade over what we would have gotten from Lesnar and Jinder Mahal had their match gone on as originally planned. If Styles was able to get an above-average matchup out of Mahal for the WWE Championship a few weeks back, there was no question he could do the same with the Universal Champion.
For the better part of the last few years, most of Lesnar's matches have fallen victim to the same old Suplex City formula, but Styles managed to bring the best out of The Beast Incarnate and took the fight to him like no one ever had before. The amount of offense Styles landed on Lesnar was actually amazing and made the match much more compelling and entertaining as a result.
Lesnar surely held his own in there and came away looking dominant, but Styles was largely responsible for that bout being as outstanding as it was. There can be no doubt that he truly is the greatest performer of anyone in WWE at the moment, Raw or SmackDown Live.
Even in defeat, The Phenomenal One lost absolutely nothing against Lesnar. Here's hoping he holds on to that title at Clash of Champions so the blue brand can continue to have its best wrestler and biggest fan favorite on top of the pecking order as WWE champion heading into WrestleMania 34.
Kurt Angle vs. Triple H Is All but Confirmed for WrestleMania 34
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Despite the exceptional array of talent we have across both brands these days, WWE programming never seems to deviate from focusing on the McMahons. We caught a bit of a break when Triple H and Stephanie McMahon took time off after WrestleMania 34, but The Authority is apparently back in full swing coming out of Survivor Series.
In a main event so stacked with star power, only a handful of names survived until the end, and other than Braun Strowman, all of them are seasoned veterans. John Cena, Randy Orton, Triple H, Kurt Angle and Shane McMahon had no business lasting longer than the likes of Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode.
Doing that sent the wrong message that the Superstars of today can't hold a candle to the aforementioned icons. Even the conclusion of the contest was confusing, with Triple H betraying Angle and then hitting a Pedigree on Shane to pick up the win for Team Raw.
If nothing else, it was virtually confirmed that at WrestleMania 34 it will be Angle vs. HHH. The face-off between Strowman and HHH afterward seemed to plant the seeds for a future match as well, but all roads will lead to Angle and The Game rekindling their rivalry on the grand stage.
That will be an interesting story to follow in the months ahead, and expect Angle's "son" Jason Jordan to play a significant role in the family affair as well.
Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, is an Endicott College alumnus and aspiring journalist. Visit his website, Next Era Wrestling, and "like" his official Facebook page to continue the conversation on all things wrestling.
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