The Rock & John Cena v. The Miz & R-Truth at Survivor Series 2011 is discussed by Jason Mann  and Alex Torres of Failraiser.  They talk about the strengths and weakness of the Rock-Cena story in 2011 heading to WrestleMania 28, how Rock and Cena have each been insufferable louses at times, how fun the Awesome Truth were together, and Alex’s experiences attending this show in person.

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Highlights

• The guy who got the biggest reaction during the Dolph Ziggler/John Morrison match was Zack Ryder, who attacked Ziggler after his successful United States Championship defense.
• Beth Phoenix hit Eve with a top rope Glama-slam to retain her largely worthless Championship.
• Cody Rhodes now wears knee pads.
• Sin Cara ruptured his patella tendon on a botched spot.
• Wade Barrett caught Randy Orton with a Wasteland after Orton RKOed Cody Rhodes to win the traditional five-on-five elimination match.
• Mark Henry and Big Show worked a pseudo-amateur wrestling match early on in their World Championship tilt.
• Big Show hit Henry with a top-rope elbow drop but only won via intentional disqualification.
• After the match, Show Pillmanized Henry’s ankle.
• CM Punk’s personal ring announcer for the evening was Howard Finkel.
• A Colt Cabana chant broke out toward the beginning of the CM Punk/Alberto del Rio match.
• CM Punk won the WWE Championship with the Anaconda Vice and then followed it up with two leaps into the crowd.
• The Rock defeated The Miz with the People’s Elbow.
• After some post-match posturing, The Rock hit John Cena with the Rock Bottom to close the show.

General Observations

• Best sign spotted during the show open: “Too many limes! Too many limes!” Too awesome for words.
• The ring re-entry spot after Morrison’s lackluster barrel roll where Ziggler hit him with that spiffy neckbreaker through the ropes was probably my favorite spot of the night.
• Someone smuggled in an air horn. Even with it being blown once, that’s fucking admirable.
• Morrison’s clothesline is probably the worst in the business.
• So, is Alicia Fox a furry?
• From the back, The Rock looks like Brock Lesnar, only tanner.
• Best ring gear of the night: Kofi Kingston’s Stay Puft Marshmallow Man with dreadlocks tights and kneepads.
• WWE’s home market cheered vociferously for Cody Rhodes eliminating Mason Ryan with his finisher. If that doesn’t tell them anything about their current direction, they’re deaf.
• Kingston may have had the sneakiest good performance of the night for things other than his actual wrestling, since he also sported a fly Luigi-from-Super Mario Bros. 2-style jump on his last ring-in.
• So, did the person laying out Show/Henry think he was laying out Daniel Bryan/Dolph Ziggler?
• I’m pretty sure the only guy who didn’t get a chant tonight during Show/Henry was Vince Young.
• Big Show with the total play to get the Internet smarks to like him for his workrate. First a DDT, then a superkick then the flying elbow? I was almost expecting him to win the title tonight with Tiger Driver ‘99.
• Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez tonight showed how to use a manager with that sequence going from RR punching Punk to Punk chasing him around the ring to del Rio hitting Punk with the dropkick from the ring. Also, it was probably del Rio’s best job working the arm since getting to WWE.
• Del Rio trying to get out of the vice with that nose hook was fucking sweet.
• Punk’s reaction in MSG AND the way he engaged the crowd with those “Lambeau Leaps” after his win are proof positive that he’s officially arrived.
• I LOVED R-Truth going off on pigeons. Also, Truth seems like the kind of guy who WOULD yell at pigeons.
• Cena giving his T-shirt to Betty Skaaland shows he’s still one of the best people in wrestling.
• Rock still has it, just in case no one noticed.
• I loved Cena going all mat wrestling after the crowd started dogging him with the “You can’t wrestle!” chants.
• “This ain’t about R-Truth and Miz.” — Booker T. Well Book, it never was about them, but thanks for realizing it now, after that point was hammered home for the last month.
• To be completely fair to Book though, his digs at Rocky during commentary were absolutely brilliant. Don’t be fooled by the general obvious statements or overdramatization. Stuff like this is why Booker’s the man.
• The main event tag totally had the feeling of an old school tag. Great feel.
• I didn’t have a problem with Miz jobbing to the People’s Elbow because the move is literally so over I could hear the raw cheers all the way from New York.
• I did have a problem with the post-match angle, only because it was so boring.

Match of the Night
Alberto del Rio (c) vs. CM Punk, WWE Championship Match - I struggled between giving the nod to this match or to the opener. I think I went with this one because unlike in the opener, both guys were excellent, whereas Ziggler totally outshone Morrison. Yeah, JoMo was okay, but why give bonus points to him for just being okay when we’re used to utter shit?

From the opening of the match, there was some really fun gamesmanship going on here. Howard Finkel as Punk’s ring announcer not only harked back to the nostalgia of WWF events at Madison Square Garden in years past, but it was a great synergy to combat del Rio’s pomposity with the equivalent of a WWE folk hero. It might have been more effective if the WWE writers were better at building the match, but hey, we needed more casual racism instead of attacking del Rio’s self-serving opulence. Oh well.

Del Rio is very much celebrated as a character, but the man has quietly become one of the best wrestlers on the roster. It was on display here in spades as El Patron worked Punk’s arm over early and often. There was the single-arm DDT early, del Rio’s signature codebreaker to the arm, ramming the arm into the ringpost. The heel antics were superb too. It seemed like on every pinfall attempt, del Rio was yanking Punk’s tights, even to the point where Punk’s bare ass was shown to the crowd on the final one.

But Punk, as always, had a flair for the moment. The segue he had from del Rio’s advantage into the anaconda vice was just perfect. And the several leaps into the crowd after the match? Yeah, those were a propos, because he and del Rio scored a touchdown with that entire match. The only thing that would have made it better is if they actually were in Green Bay, but I think they’ll settle for Madison Square Garden.

Overall Thoughts - WWE, as always, has a knack for delivering with pay-per-view, at least with content. All the matches, save the divas crap fest, were solid at least, and even the divas match had a cool spot with the Super Glama-Slam. So many people had their game faces on, from Ziggler in the opener to The Rock in the main event. The traditional Survivor Series match started out rocky, but it really developed into something fun and impactful by the end. It was just full of cool spots and big moments.

That being said, what holds this back from being a truly great event is the fact that really the feuds that didn’t have resolution to them didn’t have cool moments to propel them forward. Big Show Pillmanizing Mark Henry was good synergy and worked well with Henry’s actions in starting it, but it came off so flat after the intentional DQ ending. The main event angle really didn’t further any dissension between The Rock and John Cena. The Rock Bottom that came after was just a coda that probably felt like it was part of the post show that aired accidentally. Hell, even Zack Ryder coming in and cleaning house on Ziggler felt a bit off. I don’t know. Those things may seem minor when reading about them, but as they came off live, they were really down notes on an otherwise good to great pay-per-view.

Results

• Dolph Ziggler retained the United States Championship over John Morrison
• Beth Phoenix defeated Eve Torres
• Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes were the sole survivors in the traditional five-on-five match
• Big Show defeated Mark Henry via disqualification, Henry is still World Heavyweight Champion
• CM Punk defeated Alberto del Rio, CM Punk new WWE Champion
• The Rock and John Cena defeated The Miz and R-Truth, Rock pinning Miz

TH writes The Wrestling Blog and broadcasts The Wrestling Podcast. You can find him on Twitter, or at various other spots around the Internet. He also loves Chikara, and quite frankly, thinks you should too.

Edited by Jason Mann.

It’s no secret that my interest in wrestling is at a low point right now. I haven’t written a single thing about WWE since The Muppets hosted Raw, I fell asleep during the Raw a week before that, I haven’t been watching Smackdown, and I haven’t watched a PPV since SummerSlam. It’s telling that I’m more excited about the new WWE 12 video game than the actual WWE show. I would rather tell my stories in my own head than deal with what WWE has been throwing out there.

But tonight, I’m going to throw down $60 to watch Survivor Series and I’m genuinely excited about it. For all the complaints about WWE’s product right now, and there are dozens, they are doing something genuinely new tonight: The Rock is wrestling. That is something that hasn’t been seen in almost eight years.

When the majority of WWE shows end with “tag match where the good guys win” or “John Cena stands tall,” at least it’s something different. Granted, tonight’s show is going to end with “John Cena stands tall … now with added Rock!” but at least we get to see The Rock lace up his boots again, something even a year ago I said would never happen.

For better or worse, this is a big deal. Criticisms of The Rock being bigger than every other WWE superstar, despite not being a full-time WWE superstar since 2001, are valid. He casts a big shadow. WWE just hasn’t been able to create someone with that kind of appeal since, with the possible exception of John Cena. Cena’s not as big as The Rock, but Rock was around in a much different period, and the rose-tinted glasses prevent people from remembering how polarizing The Rock was during his time at the top. 

So yeah, it’s a sad commentary on WWE’s star-making abilities in 2011 and after WrestleMania 28, I’m sure The Rock will disappear for a long time (“never leaving again!”), but tonight is still huge. It’s The Rock in the ring for the first time since 2004, and it’s really just a teaser for what is sure to be one of the biggest WrestleMania main events in history. Even for a guy that’s completely bored with WWE right now — I’m ready to be electrified.

Razor is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of Kick-Out!! Wrestling. It’s pretty difficult to miss him on Twitter, trying to be clever in 140 characters or less. You can also check out Kick-Out’s Facebook and Tumblr pages, because there just aren’t enough social networking sites out there.

Edited by Jason Mann.