When I was a kid, there were Five Big Events every year, and then a smattering of In Your House shows. I was devastated when they cancelled the King of the Ring pay per view, leaving us with what is now referred to as “The Big Four”. But are there still four? The Royal Rumble has it’s gimmicky aspect that will forever set it apart; Summerslam is the Biggest Party of the Summer and has become a weeklong event in itself; WrestleMania is an economic powerhouse that can help raise over $30M for any local economy. Then there’s the second oldest in this set of siblings: the Survivor Series. Maybe it’s just me, but the Survivor Series has begun to feel like any other event. Just the same as your Cyber Sundays or Beware of Dogs. Or Beware of Dog 2.
So how excited is everyone for the Thanksgiving-season classic this year? Well after the announcement that it would be headlined by a 5-on-5 ‘series match’ featuring Team Cena vs. Team Authority, I’m admittedly curious and perhaps ignorantly optomistic. Ever since seemingly abandoning the original elimination formula in the late 1990s, the WWE has continued to include one or two of the classic-style matches, only to be met with lukewarm praise. Regardless of the hiccups of the previous 15 years (excluding the Elimination Chamber in 2002) I think this could be a better than average event. With only one heavyweight title and no one heading to the Scottrade Center in St. Louis to defend it, the WWE might be be forced into an “eggs in one basket” situation where they stack their main event with the top ten stars in the company. And while we see our fair share of multiple person matches on Raw and more than our share on Smackdown, an elimination style match with the possibility to go a solid 25-30 minutes featuring some of the biggest stars of this generation, might be a match we look back on with great appreciation. But that’s assuming it has some guys we don’t mind watching 5-10 years from now.
Team Cena is almost impossibly predictable, and I’m attempting to see how it could go any other way. I suspect Cena will tag alongside his brothers in neon the Uso’s, as well as the Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler. I also fully expect Randy Orton to play a pivotal role in the overall storyline, and the question over which team he will side with is something that we could be asking ourselves every week for the next month. Or it’s something they’ll answer right off the bat and I’m wrong. In any case, the statement made by Randy Orton when he RKO’d Seth Rollins on Raw, leaving him at the feet of Triple H, cannot be redacted. So I’m going to say Randy Orton is the fifth man on Team Cena. Team Authority however, is a little bit more difficult to figure out. Of course you’ve got Mr. Money in the Bank Seth Rollins, as well as the Demonic Director of Operations Kane. But who else? Can we expect Triple H to lace up his boots and take to the ropes… At the SURVIVOR SERIES? No matter who leads the team, whether it be Rollins or H, there are still two OTHER spots available, and if the Usos have Cena’s back, WWE logic means the Authority needs to recruit a tag team.
The tag team division is kind of stale at the moment, and that might be due to the same teams wrestling the same teams every week, not to mention the Usos holding the belts for over 165 days and only ever defending them against Rybaxl and the Wyatt Family. I digress. If the Authority wants to match strengths against what could be considered the WWE’s number one tag team, they really need to rack the roster to find the perfect fit. This is not the type of environment to inject Dustin and his little brother Cody and their ambiguously androgynous comic book escapades into. I enjoy them just as much as I enjoyed the Bushwackers or even the Bodydonnas, but this match needs to be taken seriously if it’s going to be a plausible main event. And while the Miz and Mizdow are becoming increasingly over, that’s due to their own humorous misadventure, thus hindering them from becoming part of Team Authority. Triple H needs to find a dominant team with real heat and a bad ass edge. A duo that won’t only come to the Authority’s aid in battle against Cena, but will join the Authority to carry out the tasks once handled by the Shield.
Enter the Ascension. Before any of you smarks and naysayers start losing your lunch over my assertion that now is the time to call up the most dominant tag team in NXT’s short history, just give me a moment of your time to make my case: The Authority needs a team that is brash and bold, something the Shield was at one point. Someone who can stand alongside Kane and Seth Rollins and perhaps even Triple H and not look like they were an afterthought. There isn’t one team on the main roster that can fill that position, even if you start pairing random people up Battle Bowl-style. There isn’t one team that can draw the sort of heat the Ascension can without becoming a joke. Not to mention how RACIST they’ve been to Hideo Itami? If they can carry that over to the main roster, there isn’t anyone who can touch them, aside from perhaps the presumably disbanded Wyatt’s. The Ascension is the epitome of what the WWE wants in a tag team, and who better to bring that model of excellence to the masses than The Authority? The faction that always knows what’s best for business.
Since I first sat down to watch Konnor and Viktor, I immediately began drawing similarities to previous teams that have come before. When I see them perform any number of their signature double team maneuvers, I think of the ECW duo The Eliminators. Their cryptic gear and ancient nuances remind me of Bradshaw and Farooq–The Acolytes. And their storied stay atop the mountain is most reminiscent of Ax and Smash of Demolition. But perhaps a more striking similarity is to the most successful tag team of all time: The Legion of Doom. Like the renowned Road Warriors, the Ascension combine a fast paced strong style with classic team work, ring psychology and a devastating finishing move that takes two men to complete. In addition to their work, the hulking Konnor and the smaller yet equally powerful Viktor bear a slight physical resemblance to Animal and Hawk, in that they combine each team members strengths to mitigate his partners weaknesses. If the Ascension is the WWE’s answer to a stagnant tag division down the road, it would make sense to introduce them in a prominent way. Entering the arena with the King of Kings, the Big Red Machine, Mr. Money in the Bank and competing with the likes of John Cena is the rub of a lifetime. Though some say they don’t deserve it, I believe they’ll run farther with the opportunity than anyone else possibly could.
But what happens after Survivor Series has come and gone and the Ascension remains? There’s any number of directions one could go with a team as seemingly versatile as this, but ideally we might see Seth Rollins leading his own “Anti Shield” type group, comprised of himself and the similar looking Konnor and Viktor. That could very well be an off-shoot of the Authority much the way The Shield was, and could serve as the lapdogs that deal with Stephanie and Hunters dirty work. They’d be a shoe-in for tag title gold, which if apart of the Authority, could help legitimize that group as a true wrestling faction and not just random bad guys cutting promos in front of WWE 2K15 posters. The possibilities are endless for the Ascension and perhaps putting the WWE Tag Team Championship around their waists, might be the shot of adrenaline the division needs, just the way Brock Lesnar’s win over Cena created interest in the main event.
Aside from the creative aspects involved, which most certainly outweigh anything else in my mind, it just seems to be time to bring the Ascension to the main roster. Konnor’s history with the WWE dates back to 2005, while Viktor is already a 15 year veteran of the business. Even if you aren’t a fan of the way they work, or their style, or their Goldberg-esque push, you can’t deny that these men have put in their time and paid their dues. It would seem one of the hardest things to teach is the WWE lifestyle–the grueling hours of travel combined with the nonstop 300+ shows each and every year. They seem to be ready, and whether they do it at Survivor Series or not, these are two very capable and seasoned wrestlers that need to either be called up or cut loose, so they can make better money than they do down in developmental.
And it isn’t just the time one puts in, because at this point it’s a matter of creative redundancy. What’s left for the Ascension to accomplish down in Florida? They held the gawdy angular NXT Tag titles for 364 days! They’ve entered into a feud with Hideo Itami and Finn Balor that couldn’t possibly go beyond the next NXT Live Event, from what I’ve read. It’s also important that the WWE doesn’t “jump the shark” so to speak, with the Ascension. The term “strike while the iron is hot” also comes to mind. What sort of impact can Konnor and Viktor make if the Ascension makes their debut immediately after doing the job at Takeover? With how the more casual WWE Universe fans have been responding to the likes of Bo Dallas and Adam Rose, I wouldn’t take any chances on a lackluster debut for a team you spent nearly two years manufacturing. If they want Konnor and Viktor to make a mark in the world of sports entertainment, then give them the chance at the very same event which saw the debut of both the Undertaker and The Rock.
No matter what the main event might turn out to be, whether it’s just as I predicted or completely off, I truly think that this Survivor Series could be, at the very least, intriguing. I mean… The champion won’t be there, and they’ve already determined a number one contender, and a Money in the Bank winner. The only thing they can possibly do to give us our money’s worth is have a great undercard and a star studded main event. I just hope to see the former NXT Tag Team Champions there, as I truly think they are the best option and this is the prime event to bring them up. So agree or disagree, that’s my opinion and I think it’s a good one.
“You love me, you hate me, you’ll never forget me.” -Diamond Dallas Page
