Revamping the Survivor Series Card

Survivor Series is a scant 9 days away, and while it looks like an appetizing card just for the two five-man elimination matches and just the history and its status as a Big 4 PPV, I can't help but feel like they dropped the ball with the other matches. They're lazily teasing tag team breakups with both World Title matches, both of them being mains where no one new is being introduced into the main event. The one fresh money feud they have going is being brought to a one-on-one match way too early, especially since there could have been a way to have them face off while saving a one-on-one encounter for a future PPV, like, I don't know, WrestleMania? And really, the only feds in the world who have the womanpower to pull off 10-women tag matches are SHIMMER and TNA.

The beauty of Survivor Series and the upcoming Royal Rumble is that the events have built-in main-event type matches where you can experiment with an odd title match. The WWE had the chance to do that with them ending the Orton/Cena feud 4EVA!!11 at Bragging Rights and with DX entangled with JeriShow. Instead, we got retreads and the brands mirroring each other. Then again, aside from elevating CM Punk and giving Legacy a cup of coffee, the WWE has been slow up the star-building uptake this year. In fact, they pretty much gave the Internet and the fed's critics a slap in the face when the night after BR, they had John Cena come out and say no one wanted to see Legacy challenge for the titles because it would be "the same ol' same ol'", referring to the fact that Legacy was in name only associated with Orton at that point. Of course, I see the merit in that, but at the same time, Legacy themselves, especially Ted DiBiase, are new, fresh and exciting superstars. Plus, aside from buying Orton his stock car, they've been dissociated from Orton since before SummerSlam, when Trips and HBK started feuding with them as a separate entity while Orton and Cena tangled up. It got to the point where Orton would rather have used JeriShow as his henchmen rather than Legacy.

After the jump... Still, I wouldn't have put Legacy in the title match at Survivor Series for the sheer reason that there's still plenty of mileage in a Legacy dissolution angle down the road and putting them in the title picture now would be a little too much too soon. What would I do? Well first, let's list the current card:

WWE Championship Match
John Cena (c) vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H

World Championship Match
Undertaker (c) vs. The Big Show vs. Chris Jericho

Rey Mysterio vs. Batista

Traditional Survivor Series Matches
Team Orton - Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, CM Punk and William Regal
vs.
Team Kingston - Kofi Kingston, MVP, Mark Henry, R-Truth and Christian

Team Miz - The Miz, Jack Swagger, Sheamus O'Shaunessy, Drew MacIntyre and Dolph Ziggler
vs.
Team Morrison - John Morrison, Matt Hardy, Finlay, Evan Bourne and Shelton Benjamin

Team Melina - Melina, Mickie James, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres
vs.
Team Fugly Cum Dumpster Michelle - Michelle McCool, Layla, Beth Phoenix, Alicia Fox and Jillian Hall

Again, the two men's team matches look good. Everything else looks bad at worst to tired-but-having-potential at best. What would make it better? Well, let's break it down match by match.

First up, there's the WWE Championship match. Right now, the RAW main event has had some combination of Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton, Batista or Cena for the longest time. Batista's on Smackdown, Orton's banned from facing Cena for the time being, so you have a few options. Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Shawn Michaels or something new. The WWE went with option 3. I'm going to present you option four:

WWE Championship Match
John Cena (c) vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Miz

Jack Swagger or The Miz, yeah, but both of them? Didn't their poorly developed feud start after Bragging Rights? Yeah, but they do have good chemistry together, and short of turning one of them face, this is the best option. This match works for a few reasons. One, it's allows Cena to retain the title over two up-and-comers in a PPV main event without burying them. Basically, you have the finish with one of the heels setting up Cena for a decisive victory via finisher. Like Miz has Cena set up for the Skull-Crushing Finale, but Swagger interrupts and nails Miz with the SWAGGAH BOMBUUUU~! before Miz can get the move off. Then as Swagger is gloating over Miz, Cena hits him with the FU Attitude Adjustment and wins.

Two, it puts a strong face presence in the Miz/Swagger festivities. While I'd love to have them put Evan Bourne in their fray and make it an awesome three-way feud for the US Title, Survivor Series really isn't for secondary title defenses with the elimination matches on the slate. John Cena is probably the strongest face on the RAW side right now. Swagger is one of the guys who could be the next big thing, and Miz could be even bigger, plus he has history and heat with Cena.

So what do you do with the other title match? Well how about:

World Championship Match
Undertaker (c) vs. Kane

Undertaker/Kane? Isn't that the most stale match you could have? Well, yes and no. It's been done to death in the past, but recently speaking, it's relatively fresh. Fresher than Taker/Show at least. Batista is tangled up with Mysterio, and Jericho, who'd be the freshest matchup, is needed with Show to anchor the biggest elimination match. Punk could have filled in, but he's already done three PPV matches plus at least two SD TV matches with Taker, and the last thing I want to do is burn out a good thing early.

Still, Kane? Show's reasoning for turning at Bragging Rights was a solid one, but the way I'd book it would be the Smackdown roster, sans Jericho of course, not being too happy with winning the way they won and wanting retribution on Show, especially Kane who was supposedly Jericho's right hand man for the match. Kane lays out the challenge and beats Show, clean or otherwise, with the contendership on the line.

But why? Well, I think Kane deserves some love for being a good soldier and remaining an effective character all these years. I wouldn't strap him here, but a moment in the sun at a big PPV wouldn't be too much to ask. And it's not like he's going in there against someone he's never faced before. He and Taker have good rapport. It wouldn't be the best match in terms of quality, but it wouldn't be bathroom-break quality.

While having a 10-Diva tag match would be an awful idea, I get what the WWE is trying to do promoting Divas on all their shows. That's fine, but let's keep the utterly horrible women wrestlers to a minimum, and keep them all in the same match, which brings me to:

Two-Fall Divas Double Championship Fatal Fourway Match
Melina (c - Divas) vs. Michelle McCool (c - Women's) vs. Mickie James vs. Alicia Fox

I'd rather have Beth Phoenix in there over Alicia, but that would make the match too Smackdown-heavy, and they seem to be high on Alicia as a wrestler. For what reason, I'll never know. Anyway, I'd envision this match being like the WrestleMania 2000 double-fall three way for the European and Intercontinental Championships with Kurt Angle, Jericho and the Murderin' Midget. First fall for the pretty butterfly title and the second for the Women's Championship. This is for the bookers to make that change-for-change's-sake booking that they like to do with the Divas, even if it just meant Melina winning the Women's fall and Ms. Fugly winning the pretty butterfly fall.

Now, onto the elimination matches, which should be the centerpieces of the show. They're what Survivor Series are all about. They serve plenty of purposes - showcasing wrestlers who don't normally get on PPV, advancing feuds while still protecting the people involved and so on and so forth. Having taken JeriShow and DX out of the title matches, the logical thing would be to continue their feud with reinforcements, so:

The World Warriors
Chris Jericho, Big Show (co-captains), Sheamus O'Shaunessy, Drew MacIntyre and William Regal
vs.
The DX Army
Triple H, Shawn Michaels (co-captains), Shelton Benjamin, R-Truth and Christian

I give JeriShow the international flavor because he's Canadian and it would be fun to have him recruit guys who weren't leeches and parasites like most Americans. Triple H's team would follow the feuds. The next elimination match is actually a tweaking of a match they're running. Of everything the WWE is doing right now, the current feud between Kofi Kingston and Randy Orton, at least until Legacy started race baiting in the VIP lounge on Monday. Be that as it may, here's my tweak on the match:

Kingston's Kings
Kofi Kingston (captain), MVP, Mark Henry, JTG and Shad Gaspard
vs.
Legacy Immortal
Randy Orton (captain), Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, Tyson Kidd and DH Smith

Same lineup except replacing R-Truth and Christian with Cryme Tyme and Punk and Regal with the Harts. Honestly, Punk should be heading his own team, and the Harts fit the Legacy motif better as second generation superstars. Speaking of Punk:

Straight from the Edge
CM Punk (captain), Batista, Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder and Mike Knox
vs.
Shamans and Gurus
John Morrison (captain), Rey Mysterio, Evan Bourne, Finlay and Yoshi Tatsu

Since one of the elimination matches is primarily concerned with a RAW feud, why not bring together a match based on Smackdown tensions? Integrating Rey/Batista into an elimination match, as well as cultivating heat between two of the future main event rocks on the Smackdown side (Punk and Morrison) makes for a stellar match that doesn't really feel like an undercard match, even though that's where its placement would most likely be. Basically, this would be Batista's way of ducking Mysterio after turning on him, claiming that he doesn't want Mysterio to get in his way. Rather than take the one-on-one challenge, Batista can inform Rey that he's joined Punk's team, to which Rey would join Morrison's team. And yeah, this was just a shameless way of getting Zack Ryder on PPV FINALLY! Woo woo woo, you know it.

With a little tweaking and retrofitting the book, a potentially tired card can turn into something fresher and more exciting. While the WWE doesn't need fresh and exciting to maintain its stranglehold on the market lead (lol TNA), it could use it to get some extra bump in its cash influx and to keep the fans that it already has interested. Hopefully, with Kingston, MVP, Morrison and other heretofore unknown guys ready to jump to main event status, that will change. Hopefully. *sigh*