10 Things WWE Suddenly Wanted You To Care About (After Programming You To Hate Them)

5. Survivor Series

Baron Corbin
WWE.com

"We think Survivor Series is obsolete," Vince McMahon told investors on a 2010 conference call. "It worked many, many years ago. It was one of the original four, but it's outlasted its usage," he said, justifying its year-to-year plunge of 26.3%.

Vince only hastily dreamed up the concept (imported from Japan) as a last-ditch measure to remove Jim Crockett Promotions from the pay-per-view arena. And he was right: the event had lost its lustre. The episodic TV model had weakened the novelty of seeing name stars collide without stakes, and many of the traditional tag matches were glorified exhibitions that were not elevated by careful, shared universe storytelling nor any sequential purpose. WWE aimed to phase the event out, but the failure of Bragging Rights put paid to it.

WWE is still asking the public to care about the retooled version of the pay-per-view that is indebted to the Bragging Rights brand warfare concept. Every November, all of a sudden, the stars of each show begin to show a bit of pride. The stars of RAW and SmackDown compete head-to-head every week in 2019, but an October draft may yet ask a great deal of the Universe.

"I've only been on SmackDown for a month, but let me tell ya: it's way better than RAW, which sucks!"

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!