After Battleground, The Big Show became The Authority's number one enemy. When Randy Orton won the WWE Championship at Hell in a Cell, the stage was set for a confrontation between the company's top heel and the giant he had helped torment. The only problem was that the fans didn't care. The main event of Survivor Series, pitting the two against each other, was slow and plodding, drawing a "boring" chant from the WWE Universe (think about how infrequently that happens to a PPV main event). John Cena and Alberto Del Rio had a disappointing match, as did CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and The Wyatt Family. Throw in a couple of terrible/meaningless midcard bouts, and you've hit rock bottom. The 2013 Survivor Series was the lowest-selling edition of the event in its 29-year history. Three of the show's matches finished in the top five in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter's "Worst Match of the Year" award polling, including the main event at #2 and the "Total Divas" versus "True Divas" Survivor Series style match at #1. For another perspective on how bad Survivor Series was, just seven months later, WWE returned to Boston's TD Garden for Money in the Bank 2014. That show was a solid outing with a great MITB ladder match and several other good contests - but it was also notable for a large sign in front of the hard camera which simply read "SURVIVOR SERIES SUCKED."
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
