My time at Survivor Series

[Guest creativename]

Here's a summary of what's below:

*Show's win killed the crowd. I mean absolutely destroyed it. To use a tired phrase, it "sucked the emotion out of the crowd." Only Angle saved it, and even that took a while.

*HBK was very, very over.

*Lesnar was uber-insanely over.

*RVD/Booker/Kane not being in the final 2 for the Chamber pissed people off.

*Steiner was very over.

*Angle was very over (as a mega-face).

*Hundreds of people left early during the last portion of the Elimination Chamber. Very surprising.

 

Survivor Series report:

 

The Heat match was alright, but the crowd was real loud for Golddust. I had no idea he was that over as a face. New Yorkers rooting for a homo-erotic character? What the hell?

 

The opener was great. Really got the crowd into it. Crowd went totally bonkers for D-Von. (Actually, lots of people were chanting "D-Von" long before he came out. Smart crowd.)

 

The cruiserweight match was good, but the crowd went DEAD when Kidman came out. I knew he wasn't over, but my god, that silence was shocking. Crowd got excited for the Shooting Star Press though. Just like fans...using a guy just for his death-defying finisher and then dumping him

 

When Lesnar came out...OH. MY. GOD. The place went off the charts. It was unbelievable. The loudest they got all night was right after the F5. They would never get so loud again. Even Big Show's entrance pop was huge, which shocked me.

 

The crowd was totally pissed off about that match though. They actually popped pretty big when Big Show won, I think because they didn't expect it at all. However the crowd went completely dead for a good half hour afterwards--and the reason was very obvious too, no disputing that it was because Show won. People were like "what the?". Nothing would get them excited, until the Angle woke them up. And they were dead even for the first half of that match. Pro-Angle chants all over the place though. They were rooting like mad for Angle against Rey, which surprised me. I would say Angle was the 4th most over face of the night, behind Lensar, HBK and Steiner.

 

After the Lesnar match, there were lots of sporadic "Let's go Lesnar", "Lesnar" and "We want Lesnar" chants throughout the night, during the slow points of pretty much every match. It was a lot of different people doing it too, throughout the entire arena. You could tell that a huge number of people were just in complete shock and real pissed that he lost that match.

 

Another thing that surprised me was Edge's miniscule pop. Not much reaction at all. Crowd was also begging for him to tap out to the Ankle Lock and Crossface. And there was sh*tloads of booing after Edge pinned Benoit. There was a decent pop when he speared him, but after the pin only booing. People were seriously pissed off. Once again, color me surprised.

 

Lots of "Shut the Fuck up" chants for Nowinski. Matt Hardy's entrance pop was pretty big, but of course they razzed him a lot later after his taunts. People were chanting for Tazz to interfere, since he's from Brooklyn and all. The place was shaking for Steiner. He was equally as over as Lesnar (but of course, it was his first appearance, so you can't really compare the two fairly). Virtually everybody in the crowd (including myself) chanted his catchphrases with him. I guess the fact that everybody knew them from the commmercials helped

 

Everyone laughed when Jericho gave HBK crotch chops.

 

And the most stunning thing of the night...hundreds of people got up and left during the main event. People just got up and left, especially after Kane was gone. HBK was hugely over...but there was a lot of anti-HBK sentiment too. Lots of "Y2J" chants during the match. Crowd was hot after HBK won, but a good portion had already gone home, and I heard a bunch of different groups complaining about how much it sucked that HBK and HHH were the last two guys. They were really surprised (why? didn't they see the build-up?).

 

Biggest Pops:

*Lesnar (the crowd was really into this guy. I'm talking Hogan/Austin/Rock/Macho Man level pops. Unreal.)

*Steiner (A big pop is expected for a comeback; this one was both loud and prolonged.)

*HBK (Every time he was shown on the Titantron the crowd cheered)

*Angle

*RVD/Booker T

*D-Von

*Lawler (Tons of "Jer-ry" chants. I tried to get a "pervert" chant going, but it didn't take )

 

Biggest Heat:

*Nowinski and Hardy. They were the only ones to get real heat, other than Storm and Regal (but their heat wasn't so big).

*RVD and Booker T being eliminated.

*Anti-Lesnar losing chants all thru the night.

 

Nobody else got real heel heat; pretty much everybody else got either cheers, mixed pops, or no reaction.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Kane and HHH should have been eliminated first - just a symbolic gesture from the WWF saying "ok, that era is dead now - let the healing begin". RVD, Booker, Jericho, HBK is all they would really need. Booker out, then RVD, and leave it with Jericho vs. HBK. That would have made it a lot more, well, exciting.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Kane and HHH should have been eliminated first - just a symbolic gesture from the WWF saying "ok, that era is dead now - let the healing begin".

But you see...therein lies a problem....

 

I don't think the WWE thinks that era is dead yet.

 

Until HHH is too crippled to wrestle, too mute to talk, and too impotent to "influence" Stephanie McMahon...then you know the era with him isn't over yet.

[Guest creativename]

Oh, I'd like to add a couple more things:

 

*The three-way tag match become relatively heatless after Angle and Benoit were eliminated.

*Everyone laughed when Bischoff claimed that the Elimination Chamber was 10 tons.

*Brock's music is great live. When that music played, the whole crowd just got this feeling like "The Champ is coming out to play". I thought his music was pretty generic when I first heard it, but it's definitely grown on me...much like Brock himself, I guess.

 

[Edit: Well, I guess that was three more things, but whatever ]

[Guest Kamui]

I was there at section 218 so I'll add a few things here:

 

-My section was probably the loudest in the pro-Angle chants- my brother and I were holding up a "Benoit & Angle- Next Tag Champions" double-sign, and pretty much everytime my brother held up the Angle portion, the people in front of us started chanting "Let's Go Angle!" with us.

 

-The crowd died for the rest of the tag match because, quite frankly, it sucked for quite a while there. They booed when Angle & Benoit were eliminated, yeah, but the marks still would have gotten back into it if Edge & Rey and The Guerreos had done something to get them back into it, but they didn't for quite a while.

 

-Your anaylsis of the Main Event is okay, but not entirely accurate. HHH had his fans as well- I saw plenty of people wearing/buying HHH shirts or holding the signs/foam signs, so it's not like the entire crowd was against him- even Jericho, an uber-heel, had his fans in that match. Seems like everyone did.

 

-Duo

[Guest nikowwf]

I agree with almost everything you said in your report. Good report.

 

Show winning did suck the life out of the show for quite a while.

 

Oh, and did the wait between the Tag match and the Main event feel so long at home too? It was SO long....

 

Brock was so insanely over. I want to hear all the "THE CHANTS ARE PIPED IN ON SMACKDOWN) people about that. His pop was huge, and people were really pulling for him to win, more than any other face.

 

niko

[Guest creativename]

-Your anaylsis of the Main Event is okay, but not entirely accurate. HHH had his fans as well- I saw plenty of people wearing/buying HHH shirts or holding the signs/foam signs, so it's not like the entire crowd was against him- even Jericho, an uber-heel, had his fans in that match. Seems like everyone did.

I don't recall saying HHH didn't have his fans. Of course he did. And HHH's entrance is AWESOME live. Really gets your heart pounding. However after the instant he appeared, which got a big pop, and the water spitting, he didn't get any cheers or boos or anything--something else which surprised me.

 

There were lots of competing "RVD" vs. "Y2J" chants though. It was pretty cool; they were transitioning into one another, kinda like the "Rocky" vs. "Hogan" chants, but on a smaller scale.

[Guest Caliban]

Was that the first time they turned the lights off for Lesnar's entrance? It was awesome...

 

I heard something about a "Free Booker T" chant, what's that all about?