Welcome to The Wrestling Brain…
2016 was a fun time to be following WWE we had the debut of AJ Styles, a Cruiserweight Classic tournament and a brand split that made both Raw and Smackdown feel different, important and must-see, and it was the draft in the summer of 2016 that led to an incredible Men’s 5vs5 Survivor Series bout that featured the then top stars of Raw and Smackdown, and the whole brand supremacy that gets shoved down our throats in recent years actually felt real, Smackdown at the time was gaining popularity through the likes of AJ, Ambrose, Wyatt Family and heck even Heath Slater was getting over and to a good proportion of the fanbase it was the “A” show.
Raw at the time was also pretty enjoyable we saw the rise of Kevin Owens backed by Chris Jericho, the emergence of Braun Strowman and what at least I thought was a promising face run from Seth Rollins.
The two shows would come to a head at Survivor Series as the Raw team which featured Rollins, Reigns, Strowman, Owens and Jericho took on WWE Champion AJ Styles, Ambrose, Orton, Wyatt and Shane McMahon in what in my opinion is one of the best 5vs5 matches ever.
Although I do have a small issue about it, and that is this, how on earth are 4 of those 10 competitors no longer with the company, and this isn’t meant to be an attack on WWE or the wrestlers but seriously in that one moment we had 10 individuals who were all as over as one another and I include Shane because this was obviously pre ‘best in the world’ and it felt refreshing to see him back, but where did it all go wrong.
I’m going to start with probably the biggest name in this match who’s since left the company, Chris Jericho. Y2J would be in or around WWE for another year, he’d feud with Owens over the United States Championship at Wrestlemania but would soon find himself in NJPW at the start of 2018 and that’s where his time in WWE pretty much came to an end, he’d do an odd appearance here and there but by the end of that year he’d practically signed for AEW and as they say, the rest is history.
But honestly, if you told me 5 years ago that Jericho, a guy who even considered himself a WWE lifer would be in a different company let alone one that hadn’t even been created yet is mind-blowing. I always imagined him as someone who’d be a part-timer coming back to WWE in between tours with Fozzy until he wanted to call it a day, because let’s face it that’s what he’d pretty much been doing up until his departure in 2018 for the best part of 7 years. However, WWE’s loss was AEW’s gain as personally, I’m not sure if AEW would’ve succeeded in the early days if it weren’t for Jericho’s name value that he instantly brought to the product.
The next name I’m going to bring up is Dean Ambrose, seriously how can you up mess up someone like Dean Ambrose, along with Rollins and Reigns, Dean was going to be at the forefront of WWE for another decade. 2016 was an odd year for ‘The Lunatic Fringe’, he had that match that promised so much but delivered so little against Brock Lesnar, then a few months later he’d finally get to the top of the mountain by becoming WWE World Heavyweight Champion in that memorable moment at Money In The Bank where he cashed in on former Shield buddy Seth Rollins, then within a few months of that his reign came to an end against AJ Styles which in hindsight was the right call.
However as we headed into 2017, Dean would find himself back amongst it on the Raw roster and once again reforming with Rollins and Reigns, an injury would set him back during 2018 and he’d return to feud with Seth but it was a pretty unspectacular, then at the start of 2019 Dean was gone and Jon Moxley was back. Looking back at Dean’s time from that Survivor Series match to the point of him leaving was tough as honestly, bar a couple of tag matches with Seth it was pretty rocky and whilst it was fraught with injuries it just felt once again that because they were all on the same brand together, they just couldn’t keep The Shield apart from one another, which surely though was the meaning of the brand split?
It was cool seeing Dean going out on his own as a singles star without either Seth and Roman close by, and it was working the stuff he was doing by himself was getting over and really from when the Shield split, the fans favourite was Dean so again it’s mind-blowing that the rocket was never strapped all the way on him as he should’ve been a bigger star than he was in his time. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again WWE’s loss was AEW’s gain and signing Mox was a huge coup for what was then an upstart company and much like Jericho he brought name value but he’s also bought himself freedom and we’re getting to see a different side to him to what we’d be able to get in WWE.
Braun Strowman is the third person in this match who’s no longer signed to WWE, his release surprised me immensely as it always seemed that he was going to be treated as the next big thing, and he was a wrestler that Vince would instantly gravitate towards, however, come to the end of 2017, Braun’s character began to change and became quite comedic, you had the tag match at Wrestlemania with him and Nicholas becoming champions then fast forward a year he was facing off against Colin Jost and Michael Che from SNL, really from that point onwards, I felt he was doomed and even a World Title run in 2020 didn’t really save him as his character had been so hampered.
Bray Wyatt alongside Randy Orton were the two survivors in this match as they last eliminated Roman Reigns. I believe post-2016 brand split Wyatt was the best incarnation of his character and the booking he was receiving was evident of that, He, Orton and Luke Harper were an entertaining trio that would produce captivating TV every week. As some of you may be aware I’m not Bray’s biggest fan, but that was more down to how inconsistent his booking was during his time in the company, which actually made this period quite refreshing. Bray’s push would continue into the first few months of 2017, which included a brief stint as WWE Champion but it came to really a shuddering halt at Wrestlemania 33 when we had the long-awaited matchup between him and Orton and the whole maggots stuff, which still to this day annoys me greatly because it was just not needed, there was excitement for those two to clash, so all those shenanigans really hurt what was an excellent feud, plus as a side note, in my opinion, it should’ve been a Triple Threat featuring Harper as well.
From there on Bray would have a few characters changes over the following months but nothing ever truly substantial, but as we rolled into 2019 The Fiend was born, and honestly at first I liked it, it was different it was a throwback back to yesteryear gimmicks, unfortunately, though it was ruined in my eyes by October 2019 following the now infamous Hell In A Cell match against Seth Rollins, then add what occurred in Saudi Arabia against Goldberg and really it was difficult to take the character serious again, but doesn’t that all sum up Bray’s tenure in the company, so many excellent and unique characters from The Eater Of Worlds to The Fiend, all of them had the potential for Wyatt to go onto being WWE’s next big star, but down to bad booking he never really got to that level and stayed there for long enough to truly be treated like the star he could’ve been.
And I think that’s a link we’ve seen between Ambrose, Braun and Wyatt, all 3 men at different times in the last 5 years have had moments where you could point out and say oh that’s it, let’s strap the rocket on that guy and make him the next star, and for whatever reason, they just didn’t and now it’s too late, we’ve even seen it happen to other superstars, use the recently released Keith Lee as an example, that monster performance at Survivor Series 2019 should’ve been a sign that this someone special but instead 24 months later he’s gone, and another company can reap from the reward of him no longer being in WWE.
In conclusion and I apologise for the long rant of sorts I’ve not written one of these for ages, but here goes I love that 2016 Survivor Series Men’s Match, it’s still one of my favourites and unless anything better comes along it’s not changing anytime soon, but definitely if you told me 5 years ago that close to half of this field that featured the top stars of the company would no longer be in WWE I wouldn’t believe you and ultimately I simply put it down as “The Land of Missed Opportunity”
Anyway, feel free to follow me on Twitter @callumowen98 and check out the latest SLTD Roundtable Podcast where we discuss this Sunday’s Survivor Series PPV and breakdown the latest releases in WWE.
Recent Comments