Happy Wednesday Everyone!
I’ve decided to try another rebooking arc, with this one being my most ambitious to date, as I’ll have six shows to book on the road to redoing WWE WrestleMania XXXII, which is often seen as one of the lamer Mania events of recent years.
Over the course of this Six Part rebooking arc, I’ll be going all the way up to and including Mania XXXII, and hopefully by the time we get there I’ll have something that is of better quality than what we got in real life. There’s every chance I’ll come up with something even worse of course, but then that’s half the fun really isn’t it?
We’re starting with Survivor Series 2015 this week, which ended up having a tournament for the WWE Title after Seth Rollins got injured. We’ll keep the tournament aspect of the show in place and see what we can do to start laying the foundations for Mania XXXII.
The real card for the event can be viewed below;
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=132917&page=2
So starting out we’ll be making a change by doing the Quarter Final matches at Survivor Series, whereas in real life it was just the Semi Finals and Final that took place. I did this more because it makes the struggle of the eventual winner all the more epic and it means we don’t have to book as many non-tournament matches to clog up the rest of the card, thus making the overall show more focused on the eventual goal of crowning a new Champion.
This does mean that we won’t get to have a traditional Survivor Series bout on the show, but there is still a Survival theme being that someone has to go through three matches to become the WWE Champ.
Opening Match
WWE Title Tournament Quarter Final
US Champ Alberto Del Rio Vs Adrian Neville
8 Minutes
Neville wasn’t yet the psychotic Heel Cruiserweight Champ, so he can be the high flying babyface here who gives ADR a run for his money before eating a clean pin. Rather than having to qualify, Del Rio can be given a BYE to this stage, with the idea being that The Authority of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are trying to stack the deck with competitors they are in favour of. Losing in a competitive match and eliminating some people in the earlier rounds on TV should hopefully give Neville a bit of a rub from his time in the tournament, even if he doesn’t go any further following this bout.
Match Two
WWE Title Tournament Quarter Final
Alexander Rusev Vs Roman Reigns
8 Minutes
Rusev is the next Heel to be given a BYE, with the idea being that The Authority wants Reigns out of the tournament nice and early by giving him a difficult opponent right from the beginning. Roman is going to need to wrestle a few times tonight, so we’ll have Rusev do most of the work whilst Reigns sells until it’s time for a Spear OUTTA NOWHERE for the win.
Match Three
WWE Title Tournament Quarter Final
Intercontinental Champ Kevin Owens Vs Dolph Ziggler
8 Minutes
Owens is another Heel who has been given a BYE, whilst Ziggler will have had to go through the rigmarole of qualifying matches on TV prior to making it to Survivor Series. Like the opener, Ziggler isn’t winning here but he will by no means be made to look like a chump, as he’ll have a good go until Owens is able to catch him with a Powerbomb to advance. This will be our one “distraction finish” of the night, as I want to do Miz Vs Ziggler at the December pay per view so we’ll have Miz get involved somehow leading to the finish. We’ll have had Ziggler eliminate Miz in an earlier round of the tournament, which is why Miz is costing Ziggler a match now, because he’s a petty Heel.
Match Four
WWE Title Tournament Quarter Final
Wade Barrett Vs Dean Ambrose
8 Minutes
Barrett is the last Heel to get a BYE, whilst we’ll make a point of Ambrose having particularly nasty matches on TV to qualify. Barrett can target Amrbose’s mid-section with his trademark punches so that he’s good and softened up, but eventually Ambrose will find a way to fight back and put Barrett away with a big Lariat to advance. His mid-section will be in poor shape going into the Semi Final’s though.
Match Five
WWE Women’s Title
Champ: Charlotte Flair Vs Paige
12 Minutes
Rather than waiting for Mania to ditch the Divas belt, we’ll just do it here and bring back the Women’s belt so it’s nice and established by the time we get to the big event. I think this was the feud where Paige mentioned Charlotte’s brother as a way to hype up the match, which I think we can all agree was horrible, so I’ll nix that here and keep it more based around Paige wanting the belt and not stooping to those levels. Charlotte can pick up a clean win following a hard fought battle before celebrating with her friend Becky Lynch whilst Paige slinks away
Match Six
WWE Title Tournament Semi Final
Alberto Del Rio Vs Roman Reigns
10 Minutes
Del Rio will not have had to qualify on TV whilst Reigns will have fought qualifying matches on TV as well as a tough match with Rusev, so he’ll again be mostly on the defensive here. Del Rio can target Reigns’ arm in preparation for his arm based submission hold finisher, but Roman will eventually survive that and find a way to win by getting a Superman Punch with his good arm. He will clearly be hurting ahead of the Final though.
Match Seven
WWE Title Tournament Semi Final
Kevin Owens Vs Dean Ambrose
10 Minutes
Just as how Reigns has his arm damaged in the previous bout, Ambrose has his mid-section hammered some more in this one following the earlier beat down from Barrett. Despite this, Ambrose will manage to counter a Powerbomb attempt from Owens and will eventually deliver some Dirty Deeds to the IC Champion in order to advance to the Title match. Owens will not be best pleased though and will give Ambrose both a Powerbomb and a Frog Splash after the bout, leaving Ambrose coughing up blood and in lots of pain ahead of the Final.
Semi-Main
The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper and Erik Rowan) w/ Braun Strowman Vs The Brothers of Destruction (Undertaker and Kane) and NXT Champ The Demon Finn Balor
12 Minutes
Balor is just in for the night from NXT here in order to give this match a special feel, and also to give him a rub by teaming up with Taker and Kane. Bray and Taker will get to do their thing for a bit until it turns into heat on Kane. Balor can get the hot tag and run wild until it’s time for Undertaker to come in and put Rowan away with a big move. Undertaker gets the win at Survivor Series, but Balor gets a moment to shine and Bray doesn’t have to eat a pin. Done correctly, this should be a fun match that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Main Event
WWE Title Tournament Final
Roman Reigns Vs Dean Ambrose
12
Reigns is carrying an injured arm here whilst Ambrose will have his ribs taped up, putting both at a big disadvantage and leading to a, likely, gruelling bout as they try to work through their respective injuries in order to claim the WWE Title. When all is said and done, Ambrose shockingly is the one to prevail, as he dodges a Spear attempt from Reigns and catches his Shield brother in a roll-up for the three count.
Following the bout, Reigns will be disconsolate, but he will still congratulate his friend on his victory. However, before the pay per view can end, Triple H will walk down to ringside and face off with the two former Shield members. As they are distracted by Triple H, suddenly Ambrose will collapse to the mat due to a an attack from behind by Sheamus, as the Money in the Bank holder will clobber the new WWE Champ with his briefcase. Reigns and Sheamus will stand-off, with Reigns refusing to let Sheamus cash in, at which point Triple H will nod to Sheamus and Sheamus will nod back, before offering the case to a confused Reigns. After some words from Triple H, Reigns will accept the briefcase from Sheamus and hand it to the referee, just as Ambrose is starting to stir. Triple H will be able to sanction the transfer of the case, and the end result will be Reigns cashing in with a Spear to become the new Authority Champion. Confetti will fall as Reigns, Sheamus and Triple H all celebrate together, whilst a barely conscious Ambrose will wonder what has happened before slowly coming to the realisation and glaring at all three with a burning desire for revenge.
In Conclusion
As a show I think this achieves a few things. First off, it gets Reigns in the role of a Heel and means we won’t be fighting the fans on that front anymore. We also give the fans a reason to be sympathetic towards Ambrose and now we can build to Ambrose getting another shot at winning his belt back. We’ve shown that Ambrose is a match for his new nemesis, but Reigns also managed to make it all the way to the Final on his own stead before turning Heel at the end, so it’s not like he hadn’t earned his place in the Title match. He’s a jerk for how he back doored his way into holding the belt, but it’s not like he isn’t good enough to hold it either, which is an important distinction. He’s a Heel that took a shortcut when he perhaps wouldn’t have needed to if he’d just earned himself a rematch the hard way, which just makes him even more of a Heel for doing so.
Ambrose can now chase Roman to Mania, but we can put obstacles in his way in the form of The Authority and The League of Nations. There’s also an added storyline wrinkle of Sheamus doing business with The Authority to give up the briefcase and likely wanting something in return from both Triple H and Roman, meaning there’s a reason to keep watching to see what happens next. Triple H will surely need to keep Sheamus and his buddies happy now, seeing as it’s thanks to Sheamus being a team player that Roman has the belt, and that might mean his attention isn’t placed as strongly on other allies he may have, thus potentially causing fissures.
Doing the Heel turn right at the end and Roman being just as confused as everyone else before selling out avoids the question of why The Authority went to the trouble of giving him such a hard task of reaching the Final when he was already on board. This will be presented as Triple H making the decision on the night, possibly after the Semi Final stage due to him thinking that Roman will be the more amendable of the two due to Ambrose being more of a loose cannon. The backup plan could always have been for Sheamus to actually cash in, but Triple H decided to try and coax Roman over to his side first because he knew he would be a strong ally and he meets the criteria for what The Authority considers “Best for Business”.
The next night on Raw we’ll have Roman in a suit giving his explanation, with it being that after going through such a hard path to the Final he decided that it would be better to be part of the system rather than fighting against it. We can also add an element that Roman feels that with his family lineage he simply “deserves” to be in the top spot more than a guy like Ambrose. “People like me don’t need to do things the hard way” could be a line that should generate some heat, as no one likes an entitled jerk who benefits from nepotism.
Elsewhere, we’ve got Charlotte and Becky as friends still, but we can build on that story as time progresses. We can move on from The Wyatt’s and Undertaker, but we’ve given Balor a rub for when he inevitably shows up as a main roster member when the time is right. We’ve also got an issue between Miz and Ziggler that needs settling, as well as the need to set up some challengers for Kevin Owens and Del Rio.
For next week, I’m going to drop the TLC gimmick for the December pay per view and try something else, which I’ll go into more detail when we get there. Please feel free to share your own ideas and what you think did or didn’t work here. I’m sure not everyone will be on board with how the Tournament ended up, but it’s a game of opinions as they say.
I hopefully will see you all next week for Part Two!