WWE Survivor Series 2010 Recap: A Great Show With Some Puzzling Moments

Last night, many of us paid as much as $50 to watch WWE Survivor Series 2010. From the getgo, Survivor Series was looking to be a great show, as we had a new stipulation added to the ever present Barrett-Cena-Orton feud; Cena would guest referee the match between Barrett and Orton. If Barrett lost, Cena was fired from WWE. If Barrett won, Cena would be free from the Nexus. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the buildup to this match has been one of the best of the year, even rivalling the buildup to the final showdown between HBK and Undertaker at Wrestlemania 26. Roddy Piper greatly contributed to this buildup with his great promo on last week's RAW.

The Kane-Edge rivalry was built up some. Not a whole lot, but enough to be entertaining. It was great seeing someone other than Undertaker playing psychological mindgames on Kane for once and the story was well told by both men.

As for the other matches, there wasn't a whole lot of build up, though the matches themselves didn't suffer from this, though they didn't gain anything either.

All in all, Survivor Series was a great show in my opinion, but there were a few things that really puzzled me...

Kaval and Dolph Ziggler: Rematch in the Works

Kaval finally achieved his first victory last Friday against the Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler. Feeling pretty confident, Kaval used his guaranteed championship match that he earned from winning NXT to challenge Ziggler for the IC title at Survivor Series.

I like this, considering how "rookies" shouldn't be challenging for the WWE and WH Championship this soon anyway, even though Wade Barrett has been pretty impressive since his big NXT victory.

Anyway, this match was good and was second only to the Bryan-DiBiase match, but there is something about this that bothered me; Dolph Ziggler won cleanly.

I am a huge fan of Ziggler and I'm glad he's had such an impressive run with the IC title, but why have Kaval lose cleanly? They're just gonna set up a rematch next month for no reason. I mean, Kaval won't be in any #1 contender's match, but he'll still face Dolph. It's like, if Dolph can beat you cleanly now, he can beat you cleanly next month too. I don't care if Ziggler grabbed Kaval's tights. It may have been underhanded, but next month will be a no DQ match anyway, considering how its TLC. Heels usually do great with No DQ rules. Usually...

I'm looking forward to a possible Ladder Match between these two great competitors, but why did they have Kaval lose clean? I don't know, I guess I'm just picky...

Team Del Rio Loses: Big Show and Rey Mysterio Survive

Alberto Del Rio and Rey Mysterio have had a great feud ever since Del Rio debuted. He defeated Rey Mysterio in his first match on Smackdown and shocked the entire world. They have faced off multiple times since then, most of which saw Mysterio with the upperhand.

This feud has continued into Survivor Series with a last second Traditional Survivor Series 5 on 5 Elimination Style Matchup. Team Mysterio had Mysterio, Big Show, MVP, Kofi Kingston, and Chris Masters while Team Del Rio had Del Rio, Jack Swagger, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, and Tyler Reks.

I'm gonna skip to the part that bothers me: Team Mysterio won, with Big Show and Mysterio as the sole survivors. Take a look back at the other names in this match. Mysterio and Show are the only big names in this match. It could've been so beneficial to all of the young guys in the match if Team Del Rio would've won. Or if Team Mysterio would've featured Kofi or MVP as the sole survivor(s). Instead, they pulled a WCW and had the two established stars in Mysterio and Show win the match.

A few things are really bothering me about this:

1. Show and Mysterio, while entertaining to watch I guess...I don't know or care, never seem to lose. I mean, they should be helping put over the younger talent, because they won't always be around, especially Show who is getting up there in age and who has already been on top. I'm not saying they should be constantly jobbing to young talent, but they should at least lose BEFORE the PPV. They can't keep winning every match leading up to the PPV and then win at the PPV as well!!! It kills the credibility of their opponents. This isn't one of those cases where WWE tells you that they are credible and that makes them credible. They actually have to win matches. Its pretty simple actually. I wish we had more HBKs and Y2Js, who are so secure with their positions that they don't mind putting over younger guys. Unfortunately for Swagger, McIntyre, and the gem that is Alberto Del Rio, they have their own Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash.

2. This makes Mysterio's second straight survival in two months in elimination tag matches. Last month, he and Edge were the sole survivors of Team Smackdown. This month, it was Mysterio and Big Show. To make matters worse, Big Show and Mysterio were the survivors of the battle royal on Friday. Damn, talk about predictable and lame.

3. Alberto Del Rio was actually the first person eliminated on his team, though he wasn't legitimately eliminated. And that's the problem: He wasn't legitimately beaten. Last month, a similar thing happened to Mysterio and he was beaten worse than Del Rio (i.e. more than one punch). Del Rio didn't come back out. To make it worse, Del Rio's team lost. They could've really used him but instead, he had to sell an injury to one of the worst finishers in WWE today. Last month, Mysterio's team won. They could've just had him stay back. He didn't need to come back out and take away the spotlight from Edge. He could've let him be the sole survivor.

4. WHY DID THEY BOTH HAVE TO SURVIVE!?

Kane and Edge Ends in a Draw

Kane and Edge was one of my favorite matches of the night...or at least it should've been. It was the only match where I didn't care who won. I would've been happy either way.

Kane has held the title for 4 months now and has had 5 impressive title defenses since then. He is on quite a roll and has had arguably the best title reign of the year (as far as World Titles go).

Edge has also been on a roll since being moved to Smackdown. Back on RAW, it didn't seem like they had anything for him, so he was kind of an after thought, being bullied by the RAW GM. He hasn't held the title in quite some time and main evented Wrestlemania this year. A title reign for Edge would've also set up great things for the heel heavy Smackdown main event scene.

Well the match happens and guess what: Both men won/lost. Edge speared Kane and they ended up pinning each other (realistically their arms fell on top of each other and the ref counted it as a double count but still). Since I would've been happy with either guy winning, you'd think I'd be satisfied with this ending. Hell no. I'm so tired of these insane endings to every PPV of every month. Seriously, look back to every PPV this year and you'll see that other than Wrestlemania and Night of Champions, at least one main event ended in DQ, Countout, Interruption, Cash In, etc. It is so frustrating and its getting pretty damn old.

WWE obviously isn't ready to take the title off of Kane just yet, but they aren't willing to make Edge look bad either. What better way to keep them both strong by having them TIE? WWE must really think they are clever with all of these "swerves" they throw our way, but unfortunately, most fans don't like "clever" as your ratings, buy rates, and ticket sales will tell you.

The bright side in all of this is that we'll see a rematch between Kane and Edge next month at TLC, Edge's home turf. Edge will most likely win then and have one more match against Kane at Royal Rumble, setting up the Road to Wrestlemania.

Orton Beats Barrett With Cena's Help

Randy Orton vs Wade Barrett has obviously been the main focus of the WWE creative team for quite some time now. Considering how it received the most attention, it'd be hard to argue with this statement.

For the past month now, we've been hearing nothing but "Free or Fired" coming out of Barrett, Orton, Cena, and R-Truth's mouth. The buildup was great and it really helped that Roddy Piper sold it the way he did. In fact, let me paraphrase something he said: "If you help Barrett win the WWE title, you'll be spitting in the face of all those Legends that you claim to respect, and all of the guys who never got the belt. Cena, don't spit in my face." Alright, so if Barrett didn't win cleanly because Cena helped him, then it would've been a slap in the face to former champions and non-champions everywhere. Pretty good...

What would you call what happened though? Barrett pinned Orton, Orton grabs the rope, Cena stops the count because Orton grabbed the rope, Barrett gets frustrated, pushes Cena, Cena punches him right into an RKO and counts the win for Orton. Sounds to me like Orton got a little help there. Its okay, he was already the Champion. Helping him beat the challenger still protects the name of the championship and the respect of all the former champions...right?

I mean come on. Its like the pot calling the kettle black. Cena should've never got involved. Yeah sure, Barrett started it, but refs get attacked all of the time. Besides, the match was No DQ anyway.

Most people will probably say that this is okay and that Orton would've won anyway, but I'm saying Cena shouldn't have helped. He did exactly what Piper told him not to do, but he did it to the OTHER guy.

Other than this, the match was still pretty good, despite Orton and Barrett being very limited in their moves due to time constraints.

Excellent "sendoff" for Cena BTW. It really sold him getting fired and we'll definitely see the ramifications for it tonight...Speaking of the ending of the match...

Where Was The Miz???

Early in the night, right after the Bryan-DiBiase match, Miz came out and quickly attacked Daniel Bryan.

He grabbed the mic and claimed he was tired of carrying around the briefcase and how he didn't care what happened to Cena, all he cared about was the title. He then went on to bash the Nexus, comparing Wade Barrett to LeBron James and probably making all of the Anti-Nexus smarks happy.

Anyway, with this in mind, why didn't he come out after the Orton-Barrett match? I mean, he always brags about being Mr. MITB but he hasn't attempted to cash-in in a while. I'm not saying he should try to cash in at every opportunity, but he could at least try a sneak attack every once in a while.

There's a list of plenty of reasons for why he didn't cash in, or attempt to at least, so let's go through the real quick:

1. Orton was in good condition after the match. This is a pretty legit reason. Orton didn't seem to be in too bad of shape, so the possibility of a successful cash-in was low. However, Orton was being attacked by the Nexus after the match. During that time, The Miz could've snuck through the crowd and tried to attack Orton with the briefcase.

2. The Nexus were attacking Orton and probably would've turned their attention on the Miz. This reason seems a little silly, but pretty likely as well. The Nexus have always attacked everyone in their path. They could've easily beat down Cena and Orton and then pretended to step aside for the Miz, before attacking him or chasing him off. I mean, that's their thing.

3. To sell Cena being fired, Miz stayed backstage to allow Cena his moment. This was probably the main reason honestly. WWE has done a good job making it seem like Cena is truly being fired. They are doing so well in fact, that I am still questioning whether or not Cena is ACTUALLY being fired. I truly doubt it, but you never know! Anyway, this could've been easily remedied by having Miz come out when Nexus first struck and try to get the drop on Orton, who was then saved by Cena. Cena did say he was going to prevent Miz from cashing in, though that probably only applied for Monday Night.

The real reason behind Miz not cashing in is because it's not the right time. Miz needs to hold onto the briefcase for a little while longer, but don't have him come out and brag about cashing in later on that night unless he's going to take some kind of action.

On the brightside, at least they are giving Miz face time without having him job to Big Show.