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For the second PPV in a row, WWE is ending things with a SmackDown World Heavyweight title match involving Batista and Undertaker. I enjoy ‘Taker, but the only way anyone could ever get me to admit that Batista’s a good champion is if the ONLY alternative was to make Finlay champ. Yes, that would be worse, so no thanks, my friend.

I guess what salvages the choice to put it at the end is that it IS a Hell In A Cell match; too bad Mick Foley isn’t involved. But I guess he’s better off hawking diet pills than trying to maintain an in-ring career at this point.

Taker dominated early and I’m kind of pleased to say that it wasn’t a “lazy big-man” match like last month. Something about the Hell In a Cell match seems to bring out the best in whoever is involved, and this one gets pretty brutal and pretty amazing at the same time. The action seems faster and more brutal.

Taker seemed on his way to the win when the all-too-publicized return of Edge screw-jobbed him out of it. Edge was hiding under the ring and gets up inside and breaks up the count. He then hits Taker with a variety of objects, including a chairshot of the sort that I thought he vowed would be banned in WWE, in the wake of both the Chris Benoit Family Tragedy and the drug-steroid scandals that followed. But then, Edge is one of those rumored to have suffered a ‘roid-related suspension, so maybe he wasn’t exactly setting at home watching when the word came down from VKM.

Anyway, Edge knocks Taker senseless, drapes Batista over Taker and allows The Beast to get a cheap win. So I guess he figures Batista is more of a clear-cut good guy for him to feud against in his quest to regain the World Title. Maybe that’ll help business on Smackdown pick up. Time will tell.

WINNER: Batista (with some help from Edge)
RATING: 8.6

While I’m not thrilled with the match-up, Michaels has carried many a WWE superstar to great matches, so hopes are high for this one. Shawn Michaels comes out of the gate fighting hard and dominates about five or six minutes without allowing Orton even a minor breather.

This is the electrifying Shawn Michaels who thrilled crowds 20-25 years ago but who is harder and harder to find in-ring anymore these days because Michaels is simply too old to be believed anymore. He might not be quite Ric Flair old, but Michaels IS old. Still, five or six minutes like these remind us of just how great Michaels used to be.

Orton finally gouges an eye to turn the momentum around and start looking like a champ defending his title instead of a punching bag for a guy closing in on his 50s. Gotta keep that Legend Killer gimmick going, after all. Unlike John Cena, WWE will never feature Orton on kids party invitations - his character’s too much of an evil badass - but Orton is the champ and the face of RAW from now until probably WrestleMania at least.

They give Orton some time to dominate as well and then go into trading finishers and nearfalls, including a crossface hold that could bring to mind some sad memories for longtime WWE fans, and I think Ross had to choke himself back from calling it the Crippler Crossface.

The finishers get more and more convincing, the drama builds and just when you think Michaels has it locked up, Orton escapes, attempts an RKO that Michaels dodges to set up a superkick … but Orton dodges that and LANDS the RKO for the pin.

Like so many Michaels matches, he works just hard enough to make you wish he were still 10 years younger and worthy of a title change. But it didn’t happen tonight; however, hopefully Michaels’ work ethic rubs off on Orton, making him into a better champion.

WINNER: Randy Orton, to retain the WWE Title
RATING: 8.4

OK, here’s where the night takes a bad turn.

We all get the David vs. Goliath allusion, but it’s a gimmick that’s been done to death, and definitely the wrong direction for a monster like the Great Khali. Khali has the potential to get more over with the fans than Andre the Giant, because Khali is younger, bigger, and in much better physical shape than Andre ever was. But to do it right, they can’t jerk him into meaningless storylines like this; that’s how they wasted the wrestling career of The Big Show.

The pre-match pep talk from Vinnie Mac to Hornswaggle was good fun, but the match itself just didn’t come off well. Next to the Great Khali, Hornswaggle looked even tinier, like a midget on hoodia. The match itself was mostly ring intros, some crowd interaction when the “We want Shaq” chant filled the arena; and that was a fun tease, because Shaq is one of the few folks who has the height and weight to maybe put together a good “wrestler vs. athlete” match, but if they do something like that, it’ll be a WrestleMania, not Survivor Series.

The match itself was too predictable, with Hornswaggle unable to even make Khali blink, but striking the Midge down effortlessly when Hornswaggle started getting a bit of action in against Khali’s manager. Then, even more predictably, the save comes in the form of a Finlay run-in, which sets up a feud between Khali and Finlay, which is what this was all about to begin with. And since Finlay is the most boring wrestler on earth, that is ALSO a program that holds no interest for me.

Now, a Khali-Undertaker program… THAT would be something.

WINNER: The Great Khali (via DQ)
RATING: 2.2 (out of 10)

Finally, what is for me probably going to be the highlight of this PPV! A real, traditional, five-on-five Survivor Series elimination match. Only trouble is, a real-life injury to Matt Hardy means it’s not even five-on-five, but four-on-five. Geez, can’t they at least pull off a surprise here and insert someone?

I mean, with all that footage of Edge with his chainsaw, it’s not like it would require some highly technical plasma cutting to write someone new into the match. Oh well.

This match had the best in-ring psychology of the night, even if it ran a bit predictably. OK, so Matt’s out and the odds seem against Triple H’s team of babyfaces? No problem. Let’s get the boring ones out of there right away. So DOWN goes Kane. Then DOWN goes Rey-Rey. Now it’s five on two and we have some classic ring psychology to work on here.

I will say, it was nice to see Mr. Kennedy and MVP in the same ring again; they have good in-ring chemistry and although Kennedy is on Raw and MVP’s on SmackDown at present, I predict big things for these two; they will be tearing it up against each other sometime in the next five years, at some major PPVs, and doing it for a championship strap. Both are great “talents of the future.”

After that, the other team began to thin out. First down goes MVP. Then Kennedy. Then Big Daddy V. Then Finlay.

By the time it’s down to Triple H and Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga, I half-expected Hardy to get eliminated. But not this time. Triple-H and Jeff show some good teamwork in a crowd-pleasing, feel-good, Thanksgiving PPV finish that has both men celebrating a babyface win. And the match was appropriately long! Over 20 minutes of ring time and with interviews and entrances, almost twice that!

OK, I’m a happy man as far as this PPV goes with, after THIS match.

WINNER: Triple H’s team
RATING: 8.7

I’ll admit this right up front: I’m not a huge fan of Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch.

Sure, they became more entertaining after their “Gee, we’ve reformed, we wanna be good guys” routine they played out in their program against The Hardys, but really all that did is make me long for an extended reunion of Matt and Jeff as tag champs, rather than the short program to puff Cade and Murdoch. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Hardcore Holly does nothing for me, though, and he certainly does nothing for the young and promising Cody Rhodes. While he’s enjoying an extended babyface run, though, I think long-term, Cody needs to follow the Randy Orton path to truly become successful.

By which I mean, when he’s starting to become decently popular and over with the crowd, give him a shocking betrayal to play out and become absolutely HATED! But in the good, “I’m a bad guy and you’d just love to see me defeated but it ain’t happening” sort of way. The Triple H way, basically.

As for the match, even home theater chairs wouldn’t have made it a comfortable experience. A few years ago, the Hardys were doing TLC matches to defend their tag titles against Edge and Christian. This is a noticeable step down. Really noticeable.

WINNER: Cade and Murdoch to retain the tag titles
RATING: 5.5 (out of 10; just a very average tag match - nothing special.)

Well, here’s something I haven’t seen in … forever. A five-on-five, traditional Survivor Series-style diva match!

But, oh crap, it’s not an elimination match. Which makes the whole thing just a glorified tag match. Which stinks. This is NOT what Survivor Series is supposed to be about.

Still, 10 divas? I was hoping maybe it could work, be fun, even be a decent showcase for the improving ring skills of some of these women.

No such luck. Vinny Mac’s organization may not have WGA writers working for it, making it immune to the writer’s strike, but there’s a clear need for some corporate performance management reviews in terms of how the company is managing some of its talent assets.

With 10 divas active, they have a since women’s title, but split the divas between three shows so that only about four of them on Raw are in the title picture at any one time, and usually are involved in “girlie” matches like the traditional Thanksgiving “gravy” match on SmackDown, or some crap like that.

Even this match wasn’t much of a success; not even all the divas saw action and it was over in only five minutes. Booo-riing!

WINNER: The team led by Mickie James
RATING: 4.5 (The women tried hard, but need more time to build an in-ring story.)

Welcome back, all!

These are my reactions to what used to be one of the WWE’s more enjoyable gimmick PPV’s. I’m speaking, of course, about Survivor Series. I love the old-style Survivor Series matches, but as time has gone on the company has drifted away from traditional five vs. five elimination matches and turned it increasingly into a generic PPV. I think there was at least one year where they had no traditional five-on-five match at all.

Well, we’ll see how tonight goes soon enough.

I’m doing this PPV a bit differently than I handled last month’s PPV, Cyber Sunday. Instead of trying to blog about each match as I watch it, I’m just doing this all after the fact. So it’s not so much live thoughts as reflections. Ready? OK.

Match 1: C.M. Punk vs. John Morrison vs. The Miz for the ECW Title

Well, ECW gets the first match of the night. That’s not as bad as being buried in the first hour, I guess. Nice to see Miz involved in the title picture; he gave good match last month with some moves that surprised me at his ring ability, when given his shot at Cyber Sunday.

The whole “Miz and Morrison team up against Punk” concept is such a retread, but they broke with it somewhat early by having Miz play the opportunist card against Morrison. Of course, the real reason he was in the match was to have someone for Punk to pin while building up the feud between Punk and Morrison for that big, ultimate showdown at WrestleMania next April.

Punk pinning Miz keeps Morrison looking like a bigger threat, though that’s kind of like watching a fire from behind fire glass: there’s not a lot of danger to it.

Again, I was impressed by Miz’s work ethic in-ring. He hit some nice high-flying moves that frankly I never thought he was capable of until recently. Seems like the kid’s really trying to make the most of his opportunity.

WINNER: C.M. Punk retains the ECW title
RATING: 7.6 (out of 10)

Publish!

Best costume contest: Hottest Halloween dive is… It’s Mickie James, 21%. Wow, kind of a shame they telegraphed the results by listing the names in order of finish before the results percentages were posted.

Kelly Kelly was number two with 17 percent. Torrie a distant third at 15… I told you she was past it! Meline and Maria tie for fourth with 12 percent each and the rest don’t matter.

So, who will be the special guest referee?

1. Stone Cold Steve Austin

2. Mick Foley

3. JBL

I voted for Austin. The Rattlesnake is the best entertainment-value choice. Sure, gotta love Foley, but it’s all about Stone Cold for me. JBL? Are you kidding?

History of the rivalry before the reveal. That Batista spear off the stage was fun.

Back to the Grish…. here we go… this is clearly the final match…

Over 13 million votes? Cool!

Crowd pops larger for Stone Cold than anyone. And they HATE JBL….

Aww crap… JBL interferes…. Is this a fix?

Way to draw heel heat… for a color commentator?

Here comes Foley…

OK, it’s just a clusterfudge before the result is announced.

OH HELL YEAH! It’s Stone Cold 79%!

AND HE’S HERE!

Like the Been There, Destroyed that shirt.

JBL clotheslines the Texas Rattlesnake?

Fun exchange! Stunner!

Cool little warm-up.

Four-corner pose. And here comes Taker… And we’re into the World Entrance Entertainment segment now…

Love that glance between Taker and Austin. The history there makes it speak volumes and makes me wish Austin could come back for a short, meaningful run. Wouldn’t even have to involve a title. Austin doesn’t need that.

Ugh. Batista out with the title on him. No wonder SmackDown is the least-liked show of WWE’s trio of prime-time shows.

Batista is a big, slow slug; so’s Taker. Only Austin is electric.

This could be painful. Horrible without Austin.

Let’s see…

Fast start by Taker. He’s hyped. Cool.

And now predictably slowing down with tie-ups in the middle of the ring. Ugh.

A couple near-falls traded.

Taker’s matches are so paint-by-numbers these days…

Batista selling like crazy for a long time for Taker.

Nice duck from the knee to the back in the corner. Batista’s turn to take control for a bit. He’s a big man, he gets those opps.

Great high-flying clothesline off the ropes from Undertaker. He still puts out effort; Taker’s no Nash or Hall.

Another great flyer move as Taker goes for a knee in the corner again and flips head over ass out of the ring. A bit later, I like the big leg across the neck on the ring apron.

Taker’s converting me; he can still put together a fun match.

Weird homoerotic tie-up in the middle of the ring, Taker avoids the pin.

Batista tries to pin him. Looked like a three to me, but it wasn’t the scripted finish so they call it a nearfall. OK, whatever.

Great kickout by Batista. Crowd was ready for the Taker win, though.

Spear to Taker. 1… 2… No!

Storyline is Batista can’t beat Taker… guess we’ll see if they build on that or pay it off.

Last Ride on Batista out of the corner.

Nearfall!

Spinebuster reversal by Batista. Taker kicks out.

Batista Bomb… NO! Kickout again!

Second Basista Bomb… that’s it. Crap.

WINNER: Batista… Winner… Still World Heavywieght Champ. Too bad. Taker gave great match tonight

RATING: 8.1, helped considerably by convincing near-falls in the last five minutes.

Wow, no Stunners by Austin post-match, no beers? What a rip. You expect that when Austin refs. But no, it’s over folks.

That’s a pretty decent Cyber Sunday 2007, even if the REAL main event was match 5, not match 7… Hey-ohhh! PUBLISH!

Brooke and her “jungle” don’t interest me at all.

Jillian and her Britney wannabe act is tired. King seems to love it, but he’s paid to.

Boy, I’m tired of Umaga as a “punishment” opponent. When’s the last time he really crushed anyone? And Triple H just doesn’t fit into this face/Degeneration X persona anymore. With his new, borderline blasphemous “King of Kings” moniker, he just feels more like he needs to go back to being a hardcore heel again. But even that’s tired. Triple H is reaching Undertaker status, where he’s very very good, but overexposed and hard to get worked up over anymore.

But hey, we have three stips that were voted on.

1) Street Fight

2) First Blood

3) Steel Cage

I think I voted steel cage… Here’s the Grish….

And it’s… street fight by 57%? No one wanted the first blood match.

Hmm, OK. This could be livable. Really wanted that steel cage to come down, though.

Crowd’s disappointed there will be no cage, too. Street fights always kind of suck for the live audience, though, since the match invariably goes outside of the ring AND outside of the arena, which is a real heat-suck for the live crowd. And I know whereof I speak, since I was at the SummerSlam in Minneapolis several years ago and that hardcore match that went outside of Target Center really sucked the passion out of the live crowd.

Wow, H is no-selling for Umaga. No surprise.

Yup, action goes out of the arena early… and come crashing back in!

Taking the action close to the crowd. Nice.

Back in the ring now. That’s good for the live crowd.

Trash can move. Nice shot on Umaga! And he goes down. Nearfall. Good deal.

Goes for it again. Samoan drop reversal by Umaga.

Action’s heating up in the ring.

Eventually a nearfall by Umaga. Nice whip into the steel steps.

Back into the ring. Umaga dominating for a nice stretch by now. This is good for ring psychology.

H is finally selling? For Umaga? Crowd pops and buys it. Guess son-in-law is a company man.

Steel chair now. What exactly is the difference between a Street Fight and an ECW rules match again?

Reversal by Triple H… nice nearfall. Almost thought the match was over.

Here’s the pedigree… nope! Reversal.

Nice swinging sidewalk slam by Umaga. H is getting manhandled. Good sell job.

Action moves out to the announce tables. Funny how they upset the ECW and Smackdown tables but not the live announcers for the match at the Raw table.

Samoan Bulldozer on top of a table! It collapses! Nice break-down.

Umaga misses the top-rope head-butt. Here comes the turnaround so that the predictable Triple H win comes off.

It’s the sledgehammer! Well, at least it’ll end on a crowd-pleaser.

Low blow by Umaga.

Sledgehammer by H. Pedigree. Triple H win!

WINNER: Triple H.

RATING: 7.2 (out of 10)

Well at least the finish wasn’t bad. Predictable but nice turns.

About a half-hour left. Probably only one match remaining…

PUBLISH… see you in the next post.

If you’re the kind of person who enjoys WWE PPV’s, you really should check out the new hosted version of this blog, ProWrestlingViews.com. I’m currently doing a match-by-match analysis of last weekend’s top-notch PPV, Cyber Sunday 2007.

While it’s not exactly a miracle cure for what ails you, like Botox for headaches, it is a lot of fun to read and a fresh approach for me toward dealing with covering this wild and crazy industry.

I’m having fun, and usually that means you will, too. Check it out!

Anyone wanting to follow the plotline of the ECW title of late had best get travel insurance.

I’m glad CM Punk got the title when Morrison HAD to give it up due to a suspension. But for Punk’s sake, I wish it hadn’t come quite so early on. He’d just been building heat as a title-chaser, and now he’s already champ. Part of building a big superstar is that he is the obvious champ in fans’ hearts LONG before he ever wears gold.

Punk was getting there, he was on the path, but his opportunity came a bit too soon, and now it’s too late to undo. Short of having him job to Morrison soon in an obvious screw-job, Punk is actually hurt by being champ so soon and so suddenly, and he could be put through the wringer by fans.

Let’s hope they find a creative way to put the title back on Morrison and make Punk fans feel he was cheated out of his title. Then keep the belt off him until AT LEAST WrestleMania 24.

I’m about halfway through my match-by-match coverage over at sister site ProWrestlingViews.com. I have five matches up so far and hope to add more soon, till they’re all covered.

I’m certainly not the first or the earliest to do something like this, but hopefully people find it entertaining. Those five matches are about 90 minutes… basically the first half of the PPV.

Not many of the votes have gone my way so far. I called it on the stretcher match gimmick between Finley and Rey-Rey, and that’s been about it. Mr. Kennedy got jobbed outta the WWE Title shot, Great Khali was jobbed outta the match against MVP, and I didn’t get to see John Morrison mark his return against new champ CM Punk.

The biggest surprise of the PPV so far has been how good the Miz was against Punk in the ECW title match. It’s been a veritable Swiss Army knife-style PPV, and I can’t wait to finish my coverage of the second half. Coming soon.