Survivor Series meet War Games: And other ways to improve the match.

[Showtime]

If the buy rates for 2008's Survivor Series are any indication, then Survivor Series is in desperate need of some revamping. The figures showed only 205,000 domestic buys and only 326,000 total according to wrestle zone, making it the lowest ordered Survivor Series ever. Argument can be made that all WWE PPV's have been dropping in numbers lately and this could be attributed to a number of reasons, UFC and yes even TNA gaining in popularity, and WWE giving away far too many big matches on free TV, but that's not the argument here, the argument is what can WWE do to improve it's Survivor Series buys.

How does one of WWE's big four PPV's suddenly loss all interest in it. The card was pushed heavily by the return of WWE's golden boy, John Cena, and the possibility that Hardy would walk out WWE champion, which ended up being Edge's shocking return, which may have been even better, not to mention, the card also included a casket match between Taker and Show. Not even the return of Cena could make this PPV draw, it even lost out to last years which didn't include Cena, so what is the problem here. My thoughts, it may be the gimmick match that first started up this once great PPV.

The Survivor Series matches have become quite stale and boring. What once began as an interesting and intriguing matches back in the 80's, now they are quite unentertaining. There are too many matches out there that are too much like it, which use Tables or Ladders or Chairs or Cages and all sorts of other props that the young fans with the attention span of a JBL squash match like so much more. The teams have little to no creativity in them what so ever. Whereas before, alliances were made to fight an evil group or stable and the teams were as much a part of the storyline as the match itself, now the wrestlers all do their separate things and get together at the PPV to have this match. The teams look at times like they were put together purely at random, like that the WWE picked team captains then drew everyone's name from a hat and put them on opposite teams from the person they were feuding. Then in the matches, you rarely see anyone break up pins, it's like they don't even care much. There's little excitement and no drama to the matches, they have become the filler as the WWE has tried everything from surprise appearances, screwy situations and almost a guarantee that a title will change hands.

So the solution, well that is for you guys to try and come up with your owns, me I have one idea. The WWE should adopt the War Games idea made big by WCW. War Games, much like TNA's Lockdown, where two people start and then one person randomly enters till all people are in the ring, then it's first pin fall or submit to win inside the two ring's surrounded by a huge cage. The WWE owns WCW and has adopted other aspects of the company, why not try War Games out for one Survivor Series. It would eliminate the annoying tagging aspect of the match, as much as I might not like it, tag team wrestling has kind of been pushed to the back of the wrestling menu. As well it would make the match more entertaining as the ring would be filled with 8-10 wrestlers at once inside a huge two ring cage. They could even if they wanted tweak it so that they can claim it more as there own, like when all members of the team are in the cage, then instead of first pin fall or submit, everyone has to be eliminated from a team to win. Or they could use the EC instead and have say 8 guys in there with single elimination or team.

Or, to give one more idea of how the Survivor Series match could be improved, have it really mean something. Give the winners of the match a guaranteed title match verse their brands champion for next weeks shows. It would give the match more of a purpose rather than just it being a filler match and a prolonger of feuds. There'd be some understanding why one team wouldn't save someone from getting pinned, fewer people on the winning team means that you may get a one on one match verse the champion rather than a triple threat or a four way. Heels could continue to play cowardly heels by refusing to tag in, thus coincidentally hurting their team and the WWE could use these title matches to add excitement and much need ratings to their post Survivor Series PPV shows. Also there should be qualifying matches for the teams, like how the WWE has qualifying matches now for EC at NWO and for when they had the scrambles. These are just some of my ideas to spice of the Survivor Series match, what are some of yours?

 

[Thriller Ant]

You said that one of the big problems is with the elimination matches being boring. To an extent, this is true due to the higher number of gimmick matches now. However, I, being someone who enjoys the elimination matches, think that the problem is in the build-up to these matches. I'll use the Team Orton vs. Team Batista one as an example (since it is the only one I can remember off the top of my head, which is very helpful to your point). You had the teams as:

Team Batista: Batista, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, Matt Hardy, and R-Truth

Team Orton: Randy Orton, Shelton Benjamin, William Regal, Cody Rhodes, and Mark Henry

Besides Cody Rhodes on Team Orton, where the hell did these other guys come from? They just took three other feuds and shoved them into this match without any reasoning. Why does Shelton Benjamin want to defeat Batista? What does R-Truth get out of beating Randy Orton's team? That right there is why the Survivor Series isn't as good as it used to be. All it takes one little thing to make someone being in the match make sense. We'll use Kofi as an example. Let's say that after a match Kofi is in the back and bumps into Orton. Orton gives some kind of arrogant line about how Kofi isn't good enough to touch him, etc. Now he has a reason to be in this match to defeat Randy Orton, and anyone who he feuds with has a reason to join Randy Orton's team. It's that simple.

As far as other ideas, I don't remember War Games enough to comment on it, but what I do remember is World War 3. I understand that it is very, very similar to the Royal Rumble, but the concept is way to good to sit unused. For those who don't know or can't remember, WW3 was a WCW pay-per-view where the main event was a 3-ring battle royal with eliminations coming by pinfall, submission, or being thrown over the top rope (I've seen a couple of these and I never saw a pin or submission in it, however). If the WWE could come up with a way to make this work, it would definitely be something I would enjoy watching. Plus, it makes the undercard matches more exciting. I remember seeing a match between Juventud Guerrera and Kidman on a WW3 pay-per-view where they used all 3 rings.

I say that the traditional Survivor Series matches can be salvaged, but there are changes that need to be made.

 

[Scorpio8975]

Ok, the main problem with the Survivor Series Matches is that they are all pointless and boring we get that. After all isn't that why they debued the EC at a Survivor Series in the first place? Now it's No Way Out's main draw at least for the time being. Personally the War Games match is tied for my favorite type of match next to the Royal Rumble. However, Vince won't do the Wargames match because as it has been reported here on wrestlezone Vince thinks its too much of an old "WCW/NWA" idea nd he wants to keep away from that, let's not forget that the Wargames match is one of the most bloody and brutal matches of all time, that DEFINATELY wouldnt fit McMahon's new "TV-PG" rating.

What Vinny Mac needs to do is to basically stop trying to sell wrestling to kids because when you take a look at wrestling it's not for kids at all. That's another topic however, would the Wargames fix Survivor Series? Maybe, but more than likely no, we all know that the beginning to the middle of the year is when WWE amps things up and the product gets better and then after Summerslam it starts to decline, at least that's what I've noticed. However it could work if it's built up right as with everything and unlike WCW Vince actually delivers on the match and doesn't put an M.Night Shymalan like twist on it. In essence Wargames has a slight chance of saving Survivor Series but Vince has said before that he will NOT do it.

 

[Starchild]

I remember WarGames quite vividly and was always a huge fan of these matches at the old Fall Brawl ppv's in wCw. I know Vince likes to take credit for everthing, but he needs to swallow his pride and take a look at some of the old wCw ideas, just as a trial. This could definitely make for some good matches as we saw in the early years of it in wCw and even better for an end to a feud between stables which WWE has never really had a specific match for. Also the timing is perfect, as Survivor Series is held only a couple months after Fall Brawl used to be.
I also like the idea of adding the idea that it's still an elimination match with one team having to eliminate the entire other team, and also the winners getting title shots. For stables it could be for example Orton getting a world title shot, Priceless for tag titles, and an unnamed 4th partner for IC title. This would differentiate it a bit from the original wCw style which might just appease Vince enough to try it.
Now I know that supposedly WarGames was one of the inspirations for the Elimination Chamber but there are no teams in that match (except on the SVR games) and that coupled with the completely different look of the cage used and the two rings would totally differentiate the two matches.
I know that people are saying that all the gimmick matches and ppv's are watering down the matches and making the point of using them obsolete, but I disagree. I think more times than not one of the better gimmick matches (HIAC, TLC, Ladder, EC, and even cage) are pretty good matches, often being great and some of the better matches of the year. I think if you just use them at the right times it makes for great entertainment.
So using the WarGames match in one match per year..at Survivor Series would be great and wouldn't get old at least for a few years as long as there is sufficient build and storyline surrounding the match itself.

 

[Shocky]

The main reason for the fall of Survivor Series is the continual decrease of speciality for this event. Out of the Big Four pay per views, it is without a doubt the least popular of the four, which I would argue in times past, it may have been more. Survivor Series has simply fallen to the rest of the pack, and i honestly believe that a pay per view like Night of Champions may take it's place as a big four pay per view.

Why, because the WWE has given up on the concept of the Survivor Series in the first place. Simply giving us a one match elimination match each year doesn't make it unique anymore, therefore people don't feel compelled to watch it as much at a Summerslam or a Rumble.

Survivor Series has lost buys because the WWE doesn't treat it as a special pay per view anymore. If they went back to building it up and the uniqueness of the match, then you may see an increase again in those buys.

 

[Hacksaw Highway]

I agree with the sentiment that randomly thrown together teams hurt the whole concept. Remember when Team Angle fought Team Lesnar that one year? They had the guys announce their picks on TV, and then the guys started to feud. Nowadays, it's just 5 feuds thrown into a match, back then it was a match with a feud built around it.

 

[klunderbunker]

Back in the original days of the PPV, it was built to extend feuds by giving the main eventers a chance to get their hands on each other. Look at the card of the original show:

Savage's team against HTM's team. Midcard Survivor Series match, ends with Savage's team beating up Honky but Honky runs away before he gets pinned, leaving all of the faces wanting another piece of him.

Women's match. Ends with the women's tag champions against the only other women's tag team of all time. The faces beat the champions clean in back to back falls. This leads to the big tag match at the first ever Royal Rumble. Throw in that the women's champion gets pinned clean and you have two title matches set up from one match.

Tag Team Survivors match. 5 teams on a side, when one member is eliminated, the other is eliminated. Captained by the tag champions and the team they beat for the belts. The former champions pin the champions here, setting up a reason for the big rematch.

Main event-Hogan's team vs. Andre's team. Continuing the feud between Hogan and Andre, but this time Hogan's team loses with Andre as the sole survivor, making the series 1-1 between them.

Compare that to this year's show. For the sake of time I'll do a lot of summarizing.

We have three survivor series matches here, but what do we really gain? One is for brand supremacy amongst the divas. Big whoop. The other two are just feuds with teams on them of people that are feuding at the time. The feuds don't really advance and they're just thrown on there at the end. We get a pointless Show/Taker match as they're fought more times than I can count. Edge who isn't even advertised runs out and wins the world title after a Hardy run in, and Cena gets the big return win over Jericho.

Comparing these two shows, what sounds like the better show? The original was unique as it had never been done before. It was fresh, kept the feuds going, and kept you wanting more. It's one of the few tapes I own and it's one of my favorites. The 2008 show just seems like any other PPV of this year. We could call this anything and the show would be the same for the most part. Change the SS matches into two matches each and you have 9 matches all together. Why call it SS anymore? They're not the featured matches nd it's the same in name only now. Easily the older one is better.

 

[shadowlaw85]

survivor series is one of the big ppv of the year so I believe they should bring in the elmination chamber to make things more intresting. its funny how the smackdown vs raw 2008 video game had the chamber set for survivors series but wudnt push the idea for the company which is a real head scratcher.if they could at least have one chamber match for the ppv it would really bring back life to the survivor series and maybe become a new tradition.war games was big in wcw but it would be bigger in wwe

 

[DC24]

War Games would never work because Vince didn't think of it; hell he didn't think up the Elimination Chamber Bischoff did. WCW always had the better gimmick matches of the two companies. I can't see why Vince wouldn't use it shit he just come out with WWE Starrcade DVD which totally pissed me off. As far as Survivor Series I actually liked the card in 08; but they did lose the concept of what it was made for.

 

[TheSportsGuy1014]

I am personally a big fan of the gimmick matches at PPV's. I like when each PPV has its own specialty match. I think the WWE would increase buy rates for their PPV if each PPV had its own flavor. Rather than seeing just singles matches or triple threat matches.

As far as I know WWE only has a couple:
Royal Rumble - 30 Man Match
No Way Out - Elimination Chamber
WM - Money in the Bank & Royal Rumber winner vs. World Champion
SS - 5 vs. 5 Elimination Match
Extreme Rules - All Matches Are No DQ
Night of Champions - All Championship Matches
Unforgiven - Scramble Match (Last Year Only)

What other specialty matches are available: Steel Cage, Hell in a Cell, TLC, Ladder Match, First Blood, i can't think of any more at the moment. But I think that if Each PPV had it own flavor it would make it that much better for the fans.

Survivor Series to either be revamped or storylines need to be developed. Add a title match stipulation to the winning team or something to create some interest. The elimination match has turned into a filler match.

Personally I would like to see WWE bring back King of the Ring as its own PPV. I liked having a tournament go on during the show. Wrestlers competing in multiple matches in one night. If they brought it back they could have it right before Summer Slam and have the winner given a World Title Match at Summer Slam.