5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Survivor Series 2016

Ups...

5. Nattie Feigns Ignorance

Nikki Bella Natalya Daniel Bryan
WWE

Your first inclination might be to blame Carmella after Daniel Bryan found Nikki Bella knocked loopy backstage before the women’s elimination match. Nikki claimed she was attacked from behind and was unable to compete, but despite the fact that she’s been feuding with Carmella for the past few months, it probably wasn’t her.

Enter Natalya, who lost a match to Nikki to be the SmackDown team captain and thus was relegated to being the team’s coach. Nattie was a little too eager to volunteer to take Nikki’s spot in the Survivor Series match, thus getting what she ultimately wanted.

What made this work (and saved it from being a negative) was the fact that the announcers didn’t try to over-explain it or even play dumb. They said nothing and moved on to the fact that Nattie was filling out the team. Leave it to Bryan or someone to learn the truth on SmackDown to kick off that new feud.

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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.