Vince McMahon: "The Survivor Series PPV is officially finished"

[KBeef]

Ive just finished reading that Vince McMahon wants to change the name of the Survivor Series PPV.

During a conference call today, Vince McMahon said that the PPV name Survivor Series is now "obsolete," and will not be used as the title of the November event in the future. He added that the PPV name has "outlasted its usage."

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/article/big-news-wwe-finished-with-the-survivor-series-ppv-96251

I think this is horrible considering this is one of the original 4 PPVs. He also said that the name has "outdated its usage".

I think hes wrong but that's just me, Survivor Series Is a Great Event and I feel this is a HUGE mistake!

Let me know your thoughts on this.

 

[ErictheEnt]

Yeah, I'm with you. Royal Rumble and Survivor Series are by far my two favorite PPVs each year. I'm totally bummed about this. We have so many stupid PPVs every year; some of us like our gimmick matches and I noticed they're also floating around new ideas (even though most of them were old WCW PPVs), I love the Survivor Series.

 

[Mystifier]

I just read this over at WrestlingDNA and I was completely shocked. Its one of those announcements were your not actually sure if its truth or not.

I grew up in the old school days of the WWF and I remember watching Undertaker beat Hogan for the title at SS. Its just really tough to see them ending what has been a legacy for them for years bt I guess when you stop promoting the original "concept" of Survivor Series it is in fact useless.

 

[DL23]

This might not be such a bad idea, as the whole survivor series concept went out the window long ago, and the last Survivor series a event i class as a true survivor series was 2006 and before that 2000.

WWE lost the idea of elimination matches long ago which sucks, but WWE could do something unique and have the survivor series return ever 2 years?

Also not bad from top 5 PPV's to top 3? I can see WWE bring back KOTR to PPV for a few years then maybe bring back the survivor series once the demand is high again.

 

[captain.charisma]

Unbelievable... Vince really has lost the plot... I was at Survivor Series in DC last November, it was my first PPV and it was awesome. This seems counter intuitive from the fact that WWE wants more gimmick PPVs, Survivor Series is one of my favorite concepts and I'll be really sad to see it go. One of my favorite moments (maybe because I was there) was Kofi pinning punk and spinning around to give Randy Orton trouble in paradise.

 

[Big Fella]

Well the 2009 Survivor Series buy rate was awful, so I'm not completely surprised.

One reason the WWE "isn't the same" anymore is because it pisses on its own tradition. It isn't the Survivor Series concept that failed to sell, it was poor booking, again.

The concept certainly isn't fresh and I wouldn't want to see more than 1 or 2 elimination tag matches on the card, but the name does have "name value" to long-time fans like myself.

Survivor Series used to be used to set the table for the Rumble, which ultimately led us to Mania. The concept of the Big 4 has fallen with monthly PPV's, with Mania being the only one that is truly special. However, even in an era with monthly PPVs Survivor Series did grab my attention more than the other PPVs.

 

[DiscipleofWrestling]

If you aren't going to use it properly, why keep it? Let's be honest. The last few years, Survivor Series has been a complete cluster(youknowwhat). The only Survivor Series match that really got legit buildup was the Raw vs. Smackdown match in 2005. Since then, it's been made up of feuds between individual wrestlers that wouldn't be resolved at the show.

Survivor Series has always been one of the least interesting PPVs of the year to me. Yes, it is one of the "classic or big four," but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all that great. When it started back in the 80's, it had a purpose. Survivor Series hasn't really served much of a purpose in recent years and was relegated to just another excuse to waste $40. Yes, there will be great individual memories from Survivor Series (Hogan's team vs. Andre's team, the debut of the Undertaker, his win over Hogan at 91, the Montreal Screwjob, the end of the Alliance Storyline, and the debut of the Elimination Chamber). But like other dinosaurs, the time has come for this event to simply enter into the history books. As for the Survivor Series matches, I'm sure they'll pop up with a new name on another PPV. Everything is subject to change and nothing lasts forever.... except death and taxes.

 

[Wald]

I don't think Vince has had faith in the original Survivor Series concept for a long time, he tried getting away from it before and has only brought it back occasionally so it's not a huge surprise. I think he kept it around because he probably assumed the name value of a Big 4 PPV would draw buyrates, but that was disproven with last year's PPV. I'm disappointed but not surprised by this move.

 

[Post]

I too am a fan of the original 4. I've been to 2 Survivor Series (91 Taker's 1st Title and Show's 1st WWE Title in I think 00'?), so it holds a special place in my heart.

I wish that Vince could do something to salvage it. I loved the elimination team matches and having a team of Ultimate Survivors...but I don't feel that concept sells anymore.

Here is a thought that would never work, but I'm all for it. Move the Survivor Series back to Thanksgiving night (Thursday). I would get the PPV instead of watching a crap football game or Impact.

Maybe even make the Survivor Series a free event on Thanksgiving night with all of the traditional elimination matches (like the tribute to the troops) on USA. Then Vince can still get his neww PPV, but he saves tradition and gets another spot on tv.

 

[emerald phoenix]

im shocked and not shocked....as stated by others Surv Series is one of the original 4... im not shocked bc honestly since deadly games(98?) SS just seemed to drift away from the original idea.... from the ideas given to which would replace i would assume vince finally caved in and we'll either see wargames FINALLY in wwe or lethal lottery back.

 

[The_Instant_Classic]

I am a fan of survivor series and it's so disappointing to see survivor series go. What I would really like to know is why? What makes survivor series 'obsolete' and how was it that vince came to that decision? IMO this will go down as one of vinces most notable misttakes and possibly the one of the worst he has ever made! WWE is now down to the big 3 ppv's instead of 4 and I think this will lose a lot of fans after this. I'm pretty sick and tired of vince's bad decision making and even though I dd not like hulk hogan at all, TNA is starting to look pretty good right now...

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

Vince is absolutely wrong on this one.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of Survivor Series, as it has to do with the concept of his ridiculous fucking obsession with Triple Threat Matches, and having to have the same people wrestling each other over and over again.

Vince got low buys for this PPV because of the two Main Events with:

Cena vs Shawn Michaels vs Triple H

and

Undertaker vs Big Show vs Chris Jericho


We have seen all of these people in the Main Event for quite some time, and we've seen them all wrestle each other for countless times. Making it a "Vince Special" did him no favors at all, and the audience told Vince what they thought of his Triple Threat Matches and stale Main Events.

It isn't the concept of Elimination Style matches that is the problem with that PPV. It was the Main Events that were the problem here.

Vince just is upset because he doesn't want to accept that he is wrong and the fans were the ones that told him to shove that PPV up his ass that time. So this is his temper tantrum.

 

[emerald phoenix]

This has all to do with BUYRATES. This years survivor series did abysmal ppv numbers, with Cena vs HHH vs HBK headlining the event. I thought the builds to the matches were decent, but team miz vs team morrison wasnt ready to sell ppvs. The bigger issue is that they got away from having champions in the match, and went the route of every big championship being defended, which wasnt done up to just a few years ago. See Team Cena vs Team Big Show SS 06. To me, Vince is rushing his judgment as the ppv just didnt simply draw. This, outside of the rumble, is my favorite type of match to watch personally. Hopefully they will at least utilize the concept if no longer using the name.

i would almost bet that the ppv that replaces this is in fact wargames as hhh,hbk,taker have all pushed for this match........vince likely will change the idea to be HIS and mix survior series with it to make wargames elimination style.


and i have a ?... what did the previous ppv rating do? vince says hes not trying to compete with the ufc but i call bs on this, and he will never recieve the numbers they get on avg

 

[Planty]

I always feel like the Devil and God are raging inside me metaphorically.

You have one side talking about great legendary stories from the past and you have the other talking about how bad things are today.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not a major Christian and I was not talking about the bible, I am agnostic.

I'm talking about Survivor Series.

Personally, I think Survivor Series has just lost a lot of appeal. Is it because ECW was involved in the last few events and then it was a clusterfuck of three bands? Is it because the feuding just didn't seem as well built up as it was in the past (Even the recent past, who could forget Team Angle vs Team Brock and Team Orton vs Team HHH). Now there was some pretty poor build-ups such as Team Orton vs Team Batista recently.

I think its all about the build-up. These days WWE are pushing PPV's down our throats as fast as they can like an oral perv because Vince gets a hard-on for money. Whatever happened to long feuds even between two interesting superstars (Not counting most of today's main eventers)? More and more we have been seeing the same old thing with WWE, fans just getting persuaded to buy the PPV only to have the next one plugged like hell the night after on RAW. The new gimmick PPV's, even though I frowned at first, offered the fans something new and its no secret that fans actually bought them more than the prequels. Royal Rumble will still have had a decent buy-rate because the winner is unpredictable. Wrestlemania will have a good buy-rate because of its prestige. Survivor Series? What happens after one team wins and the other loses right now? Not much, things just simply fizzle out.

I think all of this is why Survivor Series... has... um... ironically died.

All in all, I think WWE has done the right thing. It has preserved the legacy of Survivor Series and is giving us a new day of programming. See what I did there? I hope you didn't as it was a terrible pun.

Vince is offering something new before Survivor Series became more and more of a "meh" PPV.

I'm all for it. Personally.

 

[latinoheat8979]

Wow I can't believe this. The Survivor Series was one of the original big 4 PPV's. It has a history as big as WM does why did Vince do this for? It was an original concept team elimination matches that as time passed added a Championship match/matches. Wouldn't this be considered a "theme PPV?" I know WWE wants to create more theme PPV's and Survivor Series fits that bill. Why not keep Surviovor Series and eliminate something meaningless like the Bash or Backlash? All I can say is that is this a terrible move and as I loyal WWE fan I'm not happy. What's going to go next Summerslam, Royal Rumble?

 

[GIMH]

The irony for me here is that I thought Survivor Series was awesome last year. The survival matches were good, the DX-Cena match was very good and in general there wasn't much I didn't want to watch on there. But, money talks etc and it does seem my opinion is a minority one.

It is a shame to see a big four event fall by the wayside, but, despite how much I enjoyed it, it didn't have the same 'big' PPV feel as the other three last year, so it's not the end of the world, I guess.

 

[Suffy]

The way I see I think Bragging Rights kind of devalued Survivor Series (at least the Survivor Series concept of Team v Team elimination). In fact I didn't even understand the point of Bragging Rights when Survivor Series was just around the corner. If anything i'd honestly blame Bragging Rights for the decrease of buyrates because who really wants to see a ppv that mirrors the former ppv before it?

However when Bragging Rights started rolling I started seeing the innovation in how it was approached as opposed to Survivor Series.

Instead of just having the Heel v Face team we are now introduced to the concept of each brand attempting to earn "bragging rights". Therefore building up the ppv by having each GM testing their wrestlers for who will make the team. Regardless of heel or face status each wrestling is pushed into working with each other. This makes it easier to build these teams towards the ppv rather than just throwing random people together as it has been in the past 5 years. Not only that, but the winning brand actually wins something (the bragging rights trophy) in contrast to the survivor series matches which while good they ultimately win nothing.

Also instead of reading the results we are no longer reading one shot teams stating "Guts and Glory lost" or "Team Cena won", we are instead reading it as "Smackdown won" "Raw Lost".

So with Bragging Rights set to return I can see why Vince would rather focus on something fresh rather than the dried out concept of SS.

 

[Phoenix]

I'm quite suprised by this, but given how much history the Survivor Series has, you would think Vince would think twice about it. I mean Survivor Series is the PPV that had Taker's debut, Montreal, Austin's hit and run, the Elimination Chamber to name a few. The PPV has not outlived it's usage, it's simply them being lazy to think about how to renovate it.

I saw the other report of WWE asking what fans want in their PPVs, given that some of them already use to exist in PPV format (like KOTR/Deadly Games as an idea), one of them listed is th War Games, which fits perfectly to the SS theme. I mean are they really that lazy to just add a specialty to the PPV? I think just because "it's out of it's usage" does not mean it's worth putting down, especially when the history outweighs what is happening.

Vince, use your brain, Survivor Series is not dead, it's your lack of creativity.

 

[marklouis]

I think this is a bad idea. But because I'm solutions oriented, here's what Vince can do: Make the Survivor Series a USA Network special that airs on Thanksgiving night. Have the original elimination matches-no title matches. You can use the current rivalries and storylines to form the teams, but make it clear this is a stand alone event. I promise it would get good ratings, especially considering the 2 football games would be over. There is a 3rd game on the NFL Network, but more people get USA than the NFL Network.

 

[Schizophrenic]

I'm bummed and I'm not. The Survivor Series used to have a good purpose with the matches and the way it was set up. Once those stopped happening more often than not, the PPV was just a name and was just another every day PPV. I am sad that the name will be gone but with what they are thinking up for the replacement could be even better.

 

[pm2]

It seems that if you are a WWF FAN over 20 years old the WWE doesn't really have a place for you. We aren't considered fans now we're part of a universe. To get rid of a match like Survivor Series, because it doesn't draw is ridiculous. It's a function of who is put into the matches and not the theme of the PPV. It's a gimmick match, no doubt, but so is Royal Rumble and it's one of the best PPVs of the year consistently. I agree just having teams thrown together to fill out the PPV is a bad idea, but take the time to actually build up the rivalries that go into the teams. Rather than building a month in advance, start the rivalries right after Summer Slam. Give FANS a reason to actually want to see these teams go against each other. Make the teams up of a couple of singles wrestlers and a tag team and give the winning SS team shots at various titles. Make the PPV more than just a bunch of teams fighting for no real reason and no real prize.

 

[Kenny Powers]

I really don't feel Vince should throw out the Survivor Series PPV altogether. As some people have said before, a War Games themed PPV would be a great idea to incorporate into a PPV. Instead of making War Games into a separate PPV, WWE could use it as the main event for Survivor Series.

Usually the Survivor Series PPV has had low buys over the past few years, but I don't think Vince should throw it away. If anything, he should throw out all the low selling gimmick match PPV's like Breaking Rights and TLC.

 

[Checkmate]

From a business and somewhat logical perspective, it is just a name. Names can come and go, as long as the event itself still takes place. Survivor Series hasn't been about survival in quite some time, so I can see why Vince would feel the name obsolete. Essentially, we will get a late November PPV hosted by the WWE with the same names as any other PPV. Why does the name matter?

Then, I look at it as a fan. If you change the name of Survivor Series, what is next? Is Summerslam going to become Summerfest? What about Wrestlemania? Something has to be sacred here. Granted, the traditional match type that gave the PPV its name hasn't been used properly in years. However, isn't this more a problem with the booking than with the name?

I agree with Sid so much here. This is Vince's ego at work. Survivor Series was one of the big 4 for a reason. When the matches were changed and the booking faultered, so did the ratings. So, Vince looked at the product and decided, rather than revert to something tried and true, that a name change was better suited. How does that make sense. Changing the packaging doesn't change the product.

Life will go on, with or without Survivor Series, but unless something killer takes its place, it definitely will be missed.

 

[Schizophrenic]

If anything, he should throw out all the low selling gimmick match PPV's like Breaking Rights and TLC.

The sad thing is that all the gimmick PPV's last year like TLC and Breaking Point and Bragging Rights outdrew the Survivor Series. I'm not entirely sure why since in my mind Bragging Rights sucked, HIAC brought down the value and excitement of the match and Breaking Point was incredibly boring.

 

[Wainy]

I'm gutted! Survivor Series was one of the originals, & Vince has slowly made it shitter every year since about 99 by phasing out THE SURVIVOR SERIES MATCHES!!! That's why the buy rate is poor, do you think the Royal Rumble's buy rate would go to shit if they removed the Royal Rumble match itself? Of course it would. Vince has dropped the ball again here, his ridiculous booking decisions have gone to shit, & he hasn't got the balls/is too arrogant to admit it. The Raw v's Smackdown match will always go down well, they could mix it up, having 6, 8 or 10 man matches. They could even have a tag title match with SS rules, or how about a ECW/NXT v's FCW match? It's a piss poor call by Vince (again) & it's just gonna push long term fans like myself further away from this shitty, watered down product that were forced to watch every week.