WWE Survivor Series is less than two weeks away and we already have a major card shakeup. If you were looking forward to seeing CM Punk in 10-man elimination action than you are out of luck. If you were looking for a WWE championship main-event then it is your lucky day.
[adinserter block=”1″]The new match was announced on a taped WWE Monday Night RAW this week. The Team Punk vs. Team Foley concept has been thrown out. The new main-event will now feature CM Punk vs. John Cena vs. Ryback in a Triple Threat Match. Whether this is an improvement or not comes down to your personal tastes.
The storyline for the change on camera makes a lot less sense than the off camera story. The WWE story is that Vince McMahon felt that Vickie Guerrero was protecting Punk by placing him in a match without his title at stake. McMahon also felt that Ryback was screwed out of the WWE title at Hell in a Cell. How Cena fits into this is anyone’s guess? Why Vince didn’t just outright fire Vickie is also anyone’s guess? In case you haven’t figured out, logic is no longer a requirement in WWE creative.
Off camera the story is a lot more logical. According to Dave Meltzer on his F4WOnline.com podcast, Vince was impressed with early Direct TV numbers for Hell in a Cell. Vince now believes Ryback is responsible for drawing those numbers and wants to capitalize on his new drawing card. Quite frankly I think the WWE would have been better off sending Vince out there on Monday and giving that story to the audience than the tale they came up with in the creative meetings.
WWE fans will still get a 10-man, five-on-five traditional Survivor Series match. This time it will be Dolph Ziggler captaining a team against Team Foley. The new Survivor Series match is Team Ziggler (Dolph Ziggler, Team Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow), Alberto Del Rio, and Wade Barrett) vs. Team Foley (Kofi Kingston, Team Hell No (Kane and Daniel Bryan), Randy Orton and TBA). Guerrero replaced Punk as team captain with Ziggler. Wade Barrett replaces The Miz who quit earlier in the show.
This is quite a shakeup to say the least. Dolph Ziggler finds himself a winner and a loser in this new scenario. Ziggler loses out on having a high profile match with Cena on a WWE pay per view. However, I think it is a bigger win for Dolph. Ziggler won’t have to take a high-profile loss en route to the WWE world title. Ziggler now gets to be the focus of the Survivor Series match as team captain. More importantly, the WWE can save Ziggler vs. Cena for another spot when it will matter more for Ziggler.
[adinserter block=”2″]The new match also throws a big wrinkle into my CM Punk vs. Mick Foley WrestleMania theory. Maybe they move towards a Foley vs. Ziggler match which could be a lot of fun. The big question here is if Vince is so blown away by Ryback’s HIAC numbers, does he put the title on him at Survivor Series and shakeup everything? I’ll say this. The new match certainly adds a lot more intrigue to the show than the previous headliner which was extremely easy to predict.
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