5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Survivor Series 2020

4. SmackDown Gets Shafted

Braun Strowman Otis
WWE.com

Someone who regularly watches SmackDown is going to have to explain why the blue brand was mauled in the men’s elimination match, looking like a bunch of jobbers against Raw’s dysfunctional squad.

Aside from Otis (and maybe briefly Kevin Owens), the rest of Team SmackDown did nothing of note until Jey Uso had a futile flurry at the end, when it was 5-on-1 and beyond hope. Otis got a couple of little showcase moments with Keith Lee and Braun Strowman, but that was it for him, and KO nailed a bunch of Stunners before being dropped by a Phenomenal Forearm.

The match made SmackDown look way inferior, and unless there was more at work here, this just didn’t make a lot of sense. Owens looked despondent, and Seth Rollins sacrificed himself just days after losing to Murphy.

It was bizarre, and while the match itself was fine from an athletic standpoint, it didn’t come across as a real “battle for brand supremacy,” just a curtain-jerker match with a bunch of nice spots.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.