WWE: Why November Was a Great Month of Wrestling

It's seems like WWE got its act together last month.

There will always be high and low points; that's just the nature of the business. But among wrestling fans who frequent the Internet, the consensus seems to be that both Raw and SmackDown  were hitting their stride in November.

The question is why? Has WWE really done anything different?

That's really what I was curious about. It seemed like, simply out of the blue, Raw became a fun program again. SmackDown had its stroke for a while, but something wasn't clicking for the Red brand.

I was curious about why that was, so I began going over my notes from the shows and came to a few conclusions.

Shall we?

Two Keystone Matches for the Shows

The first thing that stood out was WWE choosing to "keystone" their recent programs and allowing two matches to be given extra time.

Take, for example, the November 4 edition of SmackDown. Sheamus vs. Barrett—and the subsequent ending segment of Sheamus blowing his top—and the Rhodes vs. Orton Street Fight were equally good matches.

The November 7 broadcast of Raw showed Cena and Ryder vs. Awesome Truth as a good TV main event, while Ziggler vs. Morrison was a good match as well.

SmackDown on November 11 had strong performances from Christian vs. Sheamus and Barrett vs. Orton.

Raw on November 21 gave us the awesome Ziggler vs. Punk matchup and a good performance for Kofi vs. Barrett.

November 25's SmackDown gave a good match in the Fatal Fourway between Orton, Rhodes, Barrett and Bryan. Sheamus and Ryder vs. Ziggler and Swagger was also a good tag match.

Most of the other programs followed a similar formula in the ring.

It's fairly easy to see that this premise works to soothe the savage WWE fan. 

Aside from the pre-taped Liverpool show on November 7, Raw has been getting a solid 3.2 rating for the three weeks in November, while SmackDown has been doing about 2.0 in its Friday night "death slot."

The WWE again switched the formula a bit on Monday. Ryder vs. Cena was a good match with some time, but nothing else really stood out.

The result? Raw got a 3.0 rating for their trouble. Whether the "Two Keystone Match" formula works in the long term or not remains to be seen.

In my opinion, however, there wasn't a single weak show last month.

The "Slow Burn" Simmering

In wrestling parlance, a "slow burn" is something that takes time before climaxing. A heel or face turn, a solid "money" feud or a long drawn-out angle are the most common devices. For the most part, WWE is notorious for aborting good angles, but this wasn't the case last month.

For the past month, WWE has been slow-burning the feuds of Ziggler vs. Ryder, Punk vs. Del Rio, Barrett vs. Orton and Big Show vs. Henry. They also began intersecting Punk vs. Laurinaitis, Henry vs. Bryan and started laying the groundwork for Ziggler vs. Punk and the renewal of Cena vs. Miz.

Add to that the hot angle of Cena's "Self-Doubt" storyline. In November, Cena had been humiliated, upstaged and booed in every arena where he had appeared. WWE turned that into an intriguing angle for the "Commander of CeNation"—not to mention the whole thing leading to his showdown with The Rock at WrestleMania 28.

These little things add up to long-term benefits. Feuds have logical progressions that the viewers can understand, while angles have a payoff in the form of pay-per-view matches and title changes as appropriate.

Simply put, it's a classic tool that, when used appropriately and intelligently, has rich dividends. November is a testament to that.

Logical Storytelling

The Raws throughout the month of November were highlighted by a build toward Punk vs. Del Rio and Awesome Truth vs. Cena and The Rock at Survivor Series.

During the storyline between Punk and Del Rio, both men traded beatdowns and screwovers of the other person. Punk even got his title match by finding a logical loophole in Laurinaitis' degree that he would get his title shot if Del Rio agreed to it.

Keep in mind that this was after Del Rio protected his title reign by screwing Punk in a match against Henry by causing Punk to get disqualified. Nothing too off the wall, but it made the feud worth watching.

Cena, Truth and Miz were left with some improvising in their build, due to The Rock's absence. They used a handicap match, a tag match involving Ryder and some average promo work to help make the match relevant for Survivor Series. Again—simple, logical development.

SmackDown mainly featured the build for Orton and Barrett. They used three separate matches between the two to help build the Elimination tag team match. Good stuff overall in the fact that it laid the groundwork for their current feud.

Big Show and Henry reversed this trend a bit in the fact that Henry has been booked as more cowardly. The quality of the feud suffered because it completely reversed Henry's build up to that point. This was offset by some great matches on SmackDown, but it still didn't work as well as it could have.

However, using Bryan in their storyline was good, as it helped gain mileage out of a feud that was dying.

A Very Good Pay-Per-View

I tuned in to Survivor Series and felt satisfied in doing it.

I read some comments that the ending was formulaic and various other things. However, there are a few things to consider that made the pay-per-view so good.

The "Team Orton" vs. "Team Barrett" Elimination Match was surprisingly good, given that Sin Cara injured himself and it forced the men to improvise. The ending of the match was good and let the heels actually win in a clean way.

Punk vs. Del Rio was, in my eyes, the best match of the night. Good ring work and some good storytelling is hard to beat.

Ziggler vs. Morrison was a good pay-per-view match that saw Morrison's last big performance in WWE—for a while at least.

Awesome Truth vs. Cena and The Rock indicated that The Rock was ready for WrestleMania 28 in Miami. Also note that it sparked the current Cena saga, which has already drawn intrigue from fans.

The ending was kind of boring in retrospect, but I am okay with that.

For the record, I like the occasional wild ending to a pay-per-view event, as it can add spice. Consistent use of such tactics, however, detracts from the reason for the pay-per-view, which is the matches themselves.

Such endings lose their impact from consistent over-use and become useless as storytelling tools.

I bought the pay-per-view for good matches and some intrigue, which is what I got. For my money, Survivor Series was the second-best PPV of the year. It's hard to recreate the magic that was Money In The Bank, but it was a great effort nonetheless.

A Few Bones To Keep the Fans Happy

One of the oldest adages in wrestling is that you can't always give the fans what they want. The heroes can't always triumph over the villains. Otherwise, there is no reason for the fans to keep tuning in because the end result is predictable and pedantic.

However, you need to give the fans a bone once in a while. A good match where heel, regardless of all their tricks, loses to the face is a good example of this.

November was heavy on heel dominance, with Barrett consistently getting the better of Sheamus and Orton, while Del Rio sought to screw over Punk time and again. Awesome Truth picked apart Punk and Triple H at Vengeance and defeated Cena and Ryder leading up to Survivor Series.

With that said, at Survivor Series, Punk defeated Del Rio to finally get his first lengthy reign as the sole WWE Champion, while Ryder got the jump on Ziggler after the latter defeated Morrison.

While Cena hasn't turned heel and The Rock isn't back full-time, the fans got some things to keep them happy. They were given a bone that kept them happy and wanting to come back for more.

In the end, November was a very good month as a wrestling fan. By using classic ideas with some variation and remembering their roots, WWE reeled off a series of solid shows that made the whole thing memorable.

Thanks for reading! What do you think? Was November the best month as a fan of the WWE? Could they have done better?  Leave your thoughts below.