Road to Survivor Series 2009 - Part One

The night after Summer Slam, Arn Anderson (with his new title of WWF Commissioner) opens RAW in the ring and brings out the new tag team champs – Division One (Swagger, Nemeth, Kelly). Restocking the tags has been Arn’s top priority, we are reminded, since his announcement at Silver that WM 26 would be a Tag Team Wrestlemania – with a tag match, for the first time ever, as the main event.


He puts over D1 as young and hungry and athletic – puts them over as graduates from The Underground – says they are exactly who WWF fans want to see as the new tag team champs. He then readies to announce their challengers, at Survivor Series, in Washington DC….

He’s cut off by WMD’s music. Coming down the aisle is Leviathan. He’s wearing a pink polo shirt with an upturned collar.

This is odd – as he’s been a superman babyface in his most recent incarnation, and he just returned from a long injury layoff last night to clean house after Cena’s victory over HHH-M.

He doesn’t do a superintense, screaming promo – he does real world late period heel Batista. The fans are going to cheer him, those who are inclined to cheer him, so it’s going to happen in stages. He’d been gone long enough, since the beginning of the year, that his change in attitude will be understood as based on the time off. He big times the young champs a little bit – is a little patronizing in demeanor. And he backslaps his former manager, and early career mentor Arn. Leviathan assumes WMD will be the number one contender – since he’s now back from injury and Survivor Series is in his hometown. Arn tells Leviathan that’s not exactly what he has planned – Leviathan flashes some surprise and anger – and then the Miz’s music hits.

The Miz was the primary victim of the housecleaning last night, as he and Hunter are partners. He’s full of braggart heel vinegar, the announce putting over whenever possible his growth under the veteran tutelage of Helmsley. He gets in Leviathan’s face – says WMD shouldn’t worry about the titles – they should worry about Hunter and the Miz kicking their ass.

Leviathan smirks. He’s gonna do a lot of smirking.

Before he can respond – Defiance, the full crew, comes down the ramp. Orton. Ted, Jr. Dean.

Defiance had it their way for a full year – from Mania to Mania, right up until the postmatch returns of Swagger and Regal – and there are some receipts being collected now. They lost to D1 at Summer Slam, then both Orton and DiBiase lost singles matches. Important for Defiance to have something to complain about, to rub against – here, Orton can snap at Arn how unfair it was that he and Ted had to wrestle twice last night – while their singles opponents, Regal and Cody, were fresh. Orton says he might start RKO’ing everyone in the ring if he doesn’t start getting some consideration.

And that leads to Undertaker/Cody coming to the ring. ‘Taker appeared for the first time since Silver last night – so those who are inclined appreciate seeing him as he immediately goes nose to nose with Orton, looking to intimidate him – Orton fumes in that way that he does – and the Taker then turns to Swagger/Nemeth and makes the sign for the belt around his waist.

Arn retakes control. Says in the main event tonight there will be a ten tag team battle royal – last surviving team – they go to the Survivor Series to meet D1 for the straps. They can do a full brawl in the ring as they hit the commercial.

That battle royal gets us 3 of the 8 Survivor Series matches.

The winners of the battle royal are Regal/Finlay – and they will meet D1 at Survivor Series.

Regal/Finlay spend most of the build down in developmental on the Underground, training with the Hooligans (Sheamus and McIntyre) to prepare for the match. The primary story to be told is that they are old warhorses – there’s a lot of time for them to tell stories, for them to casually hang out. I’ve mentioned this before in relation to the Finlay/Regal dynamic. There was a moment on real world RAW during the Funk/Foley tag team, where they showed them sitting in the seats before the show, no crowd, some noise in the background, but just very casually hanging out and being old war buddies together. And that’s the Regal/Finlay dynamic I’ve been working to express – they’re Funk/Foley – they’ve beaten each other to death and then gone out drinking. They’re frenemies. I’m looking to replicate that with the young Hooligans. Here, there should be a sense that Finlay/Regal are near the end. They spend time with the kids in developmental, see how much younger, more athletic they all are – Fit and Regal are highly self aware, they see their place in the universe – and spending this time with the Hooligans really drives home the importance of the moment – the number of title shots in the future are significantly fewer than the number of title shots in the past. They should be a cryptic “there is no tomorrow” thread that runs through their discussions. There’s a moment where Arn appears in the Underground late in the build and he sits in on one of these conversations – the 3 guys sharing stories (Fit, Arn, and Dean ran the company for awhile before Fit returned to the ring) and then Arn saying that he’s out to make the tag ranks more competitive – more athletic – younger. Arn says he’s been retired over a decade now, that guys like Regal and Fit – there’s only room for so many of them in the WWF.

Fit and Regal have been grizzled veteran babyfaces for awhile, and Fit’s always been a face in his WWF run; they served as mentors for D1 earlier in the year which both served to transition Fit/Regal into the mentor role for the Hooligans that has been firmed up and gives us something to play off of in this program. And with that backdrop – after a successful D1 tv match, they are jumped by the Hooligans, who hit their finish on Nemeth (this doesn’t come from nowhere – the Hooligans did this to Defiance at Summer Slam – and then did it again on Defiance at the aforementioned RAW battle royal; further, D1 are the heroes of The Underground – the first graduates to win belts – and Mike Rotunda, the head trainer, puts them over as the goal to shoot for – Sheamus and McIntyre believe they’re better than Swagger and Nemeth and it gnaws at them to have D1 shoved down their throats. So when they attack D1, it resonates in the Underground.

Regal and Finlay enter, one assumes to stop the Hooligans – but instead they viciously stomp D1 out – all four men really putting it to D1.

Regal and Finlay will cut promo on RAW, saying they like D1, they’re good kids and great wrestlers – but this is the WWF, there are no friends, they’ve been wrestling all their lives – and there is absolutely nothing they won’t do to keep their hearts beating another day, nothing they won’t do to cradle tag team gold.

Two other tag matches. WMD v. HHH-M/Miz will be the opening tag. Hunter and Shawn feuded with WMD back in 2008, Hunter took Leviathan out with the sledgehammer at the top of the year – Cena beat Hunter at Summer Slam in the match where Leviathan returned. The story told here is really the continuing character development – Leviathan grows increasingly full of himself, Cena tries to motivate him with full, rip-roaring Cena-like motivational speeches. Hunter and Miz are still mismatched, but Miz continues to endear himself to the veteran Helmsley, and Hunter enjoys Miz’s full on heel deviousness. It’s a program of Hunter/Miz acting like heels, Cena is full on white meat babyface, and Leviathan gets cockier and cockier.

The other tag match is a four way elimination match. “The surviving team” Arn says, playing off the name of the event “the surviving team will go to the Royal Rumble and face either D1 or Regal/Finlay for the tag team titles”

The four teams – Young Money (which was the last team eliminated in that RAW battle royal, and gets a push in this stretch, with Killings finally healthy) Defiance (eliminated at the battle royal after attacked that second time by Hooligans – Orton is told he cannot appear at the Underground for retribution – Hooligans don’t work on the main roster, Orton says that’s ridiculous and shows up anyway (cause they’re Defiance, so they have to defy authority sometimes)– they attack Hooligans and are backed down by the entire developmental crew (including Justin Gabriel, Wade Barrett, Zach Ryder, and Heath Slater). Arn punishes them in some way – okay, he bars Malenko from the ring at Survivor Series, that’s what he does. Undertaker/Cody and DMW are the other two teams. That feud, which existed earlier in the year when DMW told the Taker he had to choose between staying in their loose longterm alliance and keeping this budding mentorship with Cody – gets rejuiced at that battle royal when DMW goes right after Cody at the bell, dumping him over the top to eliminate he and the Taker. The DMW part of this is easy – they lost their belts at Summer Slam, they want them back – and if the Taker and his little buddy are in their way – then he can take a Double Chokeslam. The Undertaker/Cody story is the continued growth of young Rhodes – he was Mikey Whipwreck in 2008, but proved his mettle in continuing to come back after getting ass kicking upon ass kicking by BIG (Bradshaw’s stable). Undertaker took the summer off, and Cody’s mentorship was taken over by his big brother Dustin – Cody beat Ted, Jr at Summer Slam – but seemed to credit the Dead Man more than Dustin – and now Dustin’s been nudged aside with the Dead Man’s return. Dustin will be in their corner at Survivor Series, but the relationship between he and the Taker is a little edgy.

Those are the 3 tag matches at Survivor Series 2009.

WWF Tag Titles: Division One v. Regal/Finlay


Elimination Number One Contender’s Match: Young Money v. Defiance v. DMW v. Undertaker/Cody


WMD v. HHH-M/Miz

3 down. 5 to go. Part 2 of the Road to Survivor Series 2009 will come before the end of the month.

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Summer Slam 2009

Summer Slam 2009 - Los Angeles

Your announce is Joey/Striker/Josh

Dark - (Tatsu d. Noble, Sydal d. Benjamin)

The ring is green in tribute to Misawa, who died in this stretch; there's a clip package at some point during the evening.

The show opens with the go home Fight Night clip of Matt Hardy ramming Shane Helms's surgically repaired neck into the retaining barrier as explanation for why their scheduled match will not take place tonight - babyface announce expresses disgust at what's happened to Hardy - here he is, ending his brother's career at Silver - and now almost certainly ending his boyhood friend's career just Friday night.  Heel announce says it's focus - Matt has never been WWF Champion despite multiple attempts, and he owns the greatest number one contender power ever given - anytime he wants he can cash in the power to wrestle for the strap - could be tonight - Matt Hardy could come to the ring literally right now and demand to wrestle Chris Jericho for the WWF Title - he doesn't need to worry about Shane Helms.  Further - he is sending a message to the rest of the WWF; Shane Helms spent the summer talking about Matt Hardy, running him down, criticizing him - Matt Hardy showed Friday night that talking about him has consequences.  Striker tells Joey that maybe he should watch his own mouth. 

(someone else cut promos on Hardy this summer - so this is setting something up.  Hey, how about some matches?)

1. Winner Gets the Shot:  Division One (Swagger and Nemeth, with Kelly) d. Defiance (Orton and DiBiase, with Malenko)
-Arn Anderson is the new figurehead GM; he's set a full refurbishing of the tag ranks as his number one goal; so his first PPV opens with a long, hopefully good, tag match.  DiBiase joined Defiance at the Rumble after losing his Contract Match to Swagger, the two having had a year long feud in developmental (which you could watch at wwfu.com - otherwise known as the Underground - or see recaps of that run during WWF programming, called Notes From the Underground).  Nemeth was Swagger's only friend in developmental, as he had sort of a superclean, superachieving reputation that alienated him from the boys (DiBiase was far more popular, even though he was more of a pain in the ass to head trainer Taz). Nemeth's got a mini-me thing maybe with Swagger...he clearly looks up to him; he's now dating Kelly, Swagger's sister - who was with DiBiase before the Rumble swerve.  Nemeth feuded with Defiance in the build to Silver; then gave way to the Fit Finlay return (Fit had been gone a year, taken out by Defiance at 24).  Orton beat Fit at Silver - but the babyfaces, led by a returning Regal (taken out by Defiance in '08) and Swagger came in to clean house postmatch.

But here it's the babyfaces - Swagger hits the gutwrench powerbomb on DiBiase - and D1 goes over - they get the shot against DMW later in the evening - and that means both DiBiase and Orton will have singles matches later in the evening. 
Could be there are some receipts coming due for Defiance tonight, Joey notes.
2. John Cena d. HHH-M (w/Miz)
Cena and Leviathan (Batista) took from Hunter and Shawn at WM24; at the top of '09, Hunter took out Leviathan with the sledgehammer, he's been out since.  Hunter joined Miz in the build to Silver - and they remain together, doing a largely comedy veteran/kid act that's also designed to give Miz a little credibility.

Here - Cena goes over, Miz enters postmatch for a heel beatdown - that's interrupted by a Leviathan superman return - he gets the music and the fireworks and he hits his moves and shakes the ropes and he and Cena hit their muscle poses.  They clean house. Weapons of Mass Destruction is back!

3. Cody Rhodes (w/Dustin) d. Ted DiBiase
Cody spent '08 doing a Mikey Whipwreck/Colin Delaney gimmick, getting his ass kicked by Bradshaw's stable.  But the Undertaker took him under his wing and by the end of Silver, he had earned some level of respect.  Taker's been gone all summer; Cody's been working with Dustin, the idea being that his veteran older brother will continue to provide Cody with seasoning.  DiBiase worked earlier in the evening, so that's also in play.

Finish comes when Defiance attempts a trademark spot - Malenko starts to come to the ring - normally, that means a referee distraction and then Orton appearing from somewhere near the ring to RKO the opponent and get Ted the win.  Here - Malenko hits the ramp - but is interrupted by the Bong.

Bong!

Malenko does the big bug eyed manager facial - and turns around right into an Undertaker chokeslam - when the focus turns back to the ring, Cody rolls up DiBiase for the win.

Cody briefly celebrates with his brother - but saves the big hug for the Undertaker (ever seen someone hug the Undertaker?)  He is momentarily startled - but then returns the hug.  It's nice.  Except for Dustin perhaps, who is left out of the moment. 

4. Steve Regal d. Randy Orton
-The Orton/Regal history was mentioned previously - they feuded in '08, Regal taking up for his frenemy Finlay - no Dean, no DiBiase - Orton's by himself.  Finish comes with that Defiance spot - just used against Orton.  Finlay starts to come down the ramp - pointing at Orton - Finlay's coming to get him some, and that draws the attention of the referee -- from the crowd come the Hooligans (Sheamus and McIntyre, they're in developmental, they're doing a young Fit/Regal gimmick where they are partners who occasionally beat the hell out of each other - they worship Fit and Regal) who hit their finish on Orton, allowing Regal the pinfall.

Regal, Fit, and the Hooligans celebrate postmatch.  Tough night for Defiance.  Orton fumes. 

5. Christian d. CM Punk (w/Maria)
-Okay, something important happens here.  If you're into the Counterfactual but just skimming along, you want to catch this. 

Punk's been the top heel for a few years, after beating Steamboat at Silver to blow off that feud, he and Maria spent the summer doing vignettes that lead to a decision to discuss marriage after Summer Slam.  Christian returned in a mask to win the tag titles with Edge, but that turned out to be a swerve to get Edge to let him to return to the WWF (he lost a loser leaves town to Edge years ago).  In the Montreal Match at Silver when Matt got Jeff to submit, sending him from the company, Christian chose to release his hold on Edge when his brother snapped his achilles tendon, giving up the opportunity that Matt now has to be the number one contender.

Maria essentially picked Christian out of a hat for Punk to go after to hotshot this match.

So - here's the angle.

Punk and Christian are outside, Punk holds Maria in front of him as a shield in that Savage/Liz spot, Punk's obviously done that as part of his chickenshit repertoire for years.  This time - Christian punches Maria in the face.

It's unintentional - it should be quick - Christian swings, Punk pulls Maria in front - Christian hits Maria.  Christian sells it as a complete mistake - and, if they can do it - it should be a shoot punch, like Jericho/Whisper in the real world.  Maria doesn't oversell - she drops but isn't knocked out - she sits up on the floor, tears in her eyes, hopefully we can see the swelling and the mark - Christian's pissed - Maria's pissed - Punk is out of his mind - he wants to stay outside and tend to Maria - but Christian goes back in the ring, and Maria tells Punk to get back in and not get counted out.

Punk's in a wild frenzy - the match breaks down - it should feel out of control - Punk and Christian throwing blows - Maria exits, as angry as she is hurt - Punk distracted by Maria's leaving opens him up for a shot that knocks him to the mat - Christian puts on a submission hold and it's fast.

Punk runs out of the ring to the ramp where Maria now is - they stand below the Titan Tron (which, if I haven't mentioned in awhile, is as big as it can affordably be - I'd like it to wrap around the entire arena) which plays the clip of Punk pulling Maria right in front of Christian's shot - so it appears clear that it was, effectively, Punk's fault that Maria got hit.

She pulls away from Punk - walking out - leaving him alone in the ramp.

Pause a few beats, so we can turn our attention from Punk back to the ring - where Christian remains, having gotten the victory - and then Matt Hardy appears from under the ring - laying Christian out with the Twist of Fate.

(don't talk about Matt Hardy.  Remember?)

6. WWF Tag Titles: D1 d. DMW (PAUL/Kane)


-DMW had all the makings of transition champions – and the announce really wants to stress we’re seeing a new era in WWF tag team wrestling with the crowning of Division One – here are two guys from developmental – WWF University – The Underground –and they have captured WWF gold. Swagger and Nemeth, both with (especially Swagger) stalwart amateur backgrounds, have really grabbed the opportunity – and when you consider the other tag teams in the division – Young Money, the LWO, the Flock, Regal and Finlay, Hunter and the Miz – the returning WMD – the Hooligans in developmental – Arn Anderson’s goal of returning the tag ranks to prominence – having a tag team oriented WM 26 – certainly looks like it’s coming to fruition.

They get the fall with whatever double team maneuver they’re going to use, something related to Swaggers doctor bomb one assumes – and they take the straps – winning the tournament and taking two matches at Summer Slam to seal the deal. A big night for the Underground – a big night for Division One.

7. IC Title: The Messiah Shawn Michaels (w/Flock) d. Rey Mysterio

-It’s Michaels’ 5th IC and 11th overall WWF belt, both records.

First goal here is just to have a Michaels/Mysterio PPV match (we haven’t done one yet) while there’s still time. I never got Michaels/Eddy and while there was Benoit/Michaels I was just about to pull the trigger on a long set up year long Michaels/Benoit program when, well, you know what happened.

Second goal here is Shawn’s got a program – he dropped the nickname, and the gear – he cut his hair – he’s a full blown messianic heel – he’s preyed upon the young Hart kids (all 3) who he scooped up from the Underground when they were dissatisfied with their spots (and with Jericho’s inability, even as champ, to get them out of those spots) convincing them to abandon their family heritage (like Michaels, they burned their gear – took old memorabilia and burned it – Michaels won’t allow them to use any Hart related maneuvers).

And Shawn doesn’t use his own trademark maneuvers – he’ll tease them – like where there’d be a kip up, he’ll roll off the ground – where he’d skin the cat, he’ll just slide out of the ring, he’ll go up to the top rope for an elbow drop and climb on down – and he’ll tune up the band for the superkick and the Hart kids will do some type of outside interference while everyone is distracted.  Just doesn't do them.  People boo.  He's a heel.

Hopefully, the outside intereference and the need for this story doesn't disrupt the match - 'cause I want to see the match - regardless, it's Michaels with the Flock aided pinfall.

Michaels leaves alone - allowing the Flock to attack Mysterio postmatch - save by the LWO - who, recall, are heels.  And they exit, as they have throughout the summer, protecting Mysterio.

8. WWF Title: Chris Jericho d. Montel Porter
-It's Jericho.  Clean.  In the best match they can have.  'Cause that's how it works.

#7 keeps the belt over the Greatest Intercontinental Champion of All Time.  Matt appears at the top of the ramp postmatch - will he cash in his shot - will he cash in his shot -- Jericho waves him - come on - come on - but Matt makes the sign for the belt - and then disappears backstage. 

Jericho's going to Survivor Series as WWF Champ for a full year - now, Punk held the ECW belt for almost two years - and never lost the WWF Title in that time (instead, throwing it down before regaining it much later) so he felt like the world champion for almost two years - but technically, the last WWF Champ who held the belt for a year was Benoit, he won at XX, lost at XXI.

Jericho reigns supreme at Summer Slam - the fireworks go off and the show ends.

I'll be back..what - September for the beginning of the build for Survivor Series 2009.  Between now and then will be real world Summer Slam 2010, and for many years, that's been a huge PPV for me - as it dictates changes I'll have to make in my Mania book.  Right now, I think both my planned IC and tag champs will need changed.  All part of the fun.  Thanks for reading. 

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