5 Questions: WWE Survivor Series 2017 (RAW vs SmackDown Live, AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar)

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1 – Can The Shield create the same magic 5 years later?

This questions may look familiar as it’s the exact same question I had before TLC. Well as we still haven’t seen the return “match” for The Shield, the question is still relevant and luckily, the outlook seems much better this time around. Last month the returning faction was scheduled to face a hobbled-together mashup of upper-midcarders. Now they’re scheduled to face maybe the only other faction in WWE’s recent history that can rival The Shield in popularity. The New Day are a proven unit, holding the WWE Tag Team Championships longer than any other team in history and they are a proven commodity, hosting last year’s WrestleMania. This is as close as we’re going to get to “stable warfare” in the current WWE climate and with the talent each group boasts, this match could be extraordinary.

2 – Can the Ruthless Aggression Era still deliver – in the ring and out?

Kurt Angle. Triple H. Shane McMahon. Brock Lesnar. John Cena. Randy Orton. The “Ruthless Aggression” era of the WWE is a vastly underrated era of WWE programming. Coming almost directly after the “Attitude Era”, “Ruthless Aggression” gave us Cena, Batista, Evolution, the “Beast” and the “Wrestling Machine”. Now, some 10 years later, that era is headlining one of the big four events of WWE’s year. In 2005, no one would question whether Angle and Lesnar could deliver. HHH and Cena were headlining every arena in the country with Randy Orton right on their heels. In 2017, on a vastly different roster, are these the right men to headline the show? Sure, they’re still the biggest names WWE has to offer but are they still the best?

3 – Will AJ Styles Prove He Should Be “Considered” A WWE Legend?

I truly believe that those of us who have witnessed AJ Styles’ career from Ring of Honor to TNA to Japan and now to WWE consider AJ Styles a living legend in this business. For the longest time (go look at my past articles if you don’t believe me) I’ve said that Styles is TNA’s Shawn Michaels. The man was infallible in the ring, an incredible performer that consistently had the best match on whatever card he was on. But now he’s IN the WWE and we all know that nothing you do in this business matters unless you do it for the WWE. Now AJ has that chance, facing (arguably) WWE’s biggest star of the last 5-10 years. Styles has already proven himself with John Cena. Now he gets to show the WWE Universe what they were missing for all of those years he wrestled “down South”. A win over Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, I feel, would solidify AJ Styles as the best in the business and a future WWE Hall of Famer. Hell, a loss might even do that! One way or another, we are getting to witness two of the biggest names never to have stepped into a ring together, WRESTLE! This is not a Rock/Hogan situation. Styles and Lesnar can go. The only question that remains is how good will this match be?

4 – Can “The Usos versus The Bar” be as good without Ambrose & Rollins?

When the card was originally taking shape, the highlight of the build was the matchup between the red-hot Usos and the newly reformed Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins. Once weeks progressed, it was obviously that a New Day/Shield match was in the works and now the Usos would be battling The Bar, Sheamus and Cesaro. While it is disappointing that we’re not seeing Usos/Shield, I’m not sleeping on Sheamus and Cesaro. Their matches with Ambrose and Rollins over the Raw Tag Team titles have been a highlight of the summer and The Usos are a similar team. Will The Bar have the same chemistry with the brothers from SmackDown Live?

5 – Can SmackDown Live do ANY to make them the “A” show?

While a lot of this year’s Survivor Series hype has been around RAW vs SmackDown Live, this isn’t the first time Survivor Series has been hyped this way. Hell there even used to be a PPV based around this exact same idea called Bragging Rights! The story always revolved around SmackDown believing they are the best WWE show while RAW obviously disagreed. And at every event, SmackDown would win, proving once again that “anything can happen in the WWE.” And once again SmackDown would slip back down the hierarchy to play a supporting role to the flagship show, Monday Night RAW. Will this year play out any differently? If it does, will that make the results any better?

 

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