Views From The Turnbuckle: Survivor Series Preview, Predictions, Analysis And More

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Wrestling Inc.

While it will always be grouped into being one of the WWE's "Big Four" PPVs, the truth is that over the last few years, Survivor Series has become just another PPV for the WWE. All "Big Fours" in sports have that one event that just does not match up with the other three. College Football has the Orange Bowl, Golf has the PGA Championship and Tennis has the Australian Open. Survivor Series is the longest running PPV in wrestling behind only Wrestlemania, but despite its long tradition, it has fallen behind events like Money in the Bank in excitement for a lot of fans.

Just because Survivor Series is not what it once was, it still is a WWE PPV, and with that come a series of title matches. The main event is up in the air, as either John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship, or Randy Orton vs The Big Show could close out the show.

I personally believe that Big Show vs Randy Orton will be the main event, but I would not be surprised to see Cena go on last, as the WWE has reportedly wanted to elevate the WHC back to being equal to the WWE Championship, and having the WHC close a show would be a step in the right direction.

Randy Orton has put down Daniel Bryan for now, and will defend his WWE Championship against The Big Show this Sunday. The feud between Show and Orton is really more about Show vs Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, with Randy Orton once again kind of being a side-character in the feud, despite being the WWE Champion.

A lot of criticism has been lofted towards the WWE because Big Show just does not seem like a main event face anymore. Show is over 40 now, and his never-ending series of face and heel turns have left his character into a type of purgatory. Fans cannot really feel invested in Big Show's character, because there is a tremendous chance that his character is going to change in just a few short months.

Rumors have been circling that Big Show was chosen to work with Randy Orton because the WWE felt that they needed a superstar in the main event who was "larger then life." Show is certainly large, but he is not necessarily the most over face in the WWE. Show's best tactic to getting a good crowd reaction has been to use the not-so-large Daniel Bryan's "YES!" chant. I don't expect Big Show to totally replace Daniel Bryan, but rather just to keep Bryan's seat warm for when Bryan comes back to challenge Orton once again, perhaps even at Wrestlemania.

A lot of fans consider this match to a very predictable affair, with Orton dethroning the Big Show. If Daniel Bryan was not allowed to be the WWE Champion, why would the less-popular Big Show get to hold the belt? I do think however, that there is a good chance that Big Show actually walks away from Survivor Series with the WWE Championship. Nobody expected Daniel Bryan to win at Night of Champions, but lo and behold he pinned Orton to become the WWE Champion again. I think the WWE tries and throw the fans a curveball by having Show win at Survivor Series, but he will probably drop the title back to Orton the following night on Raw or the week after.

John Cena has returned to once again conquer the realm of Smackdown. Cena will work with Alberto Del Rio once again, this time defending the WHC in his "hometown" of Boston. I say that because Cena is not technically from Boston, but an affluent rural suburb about an hour outside of the city. Anyways, the WWE likes to think that Cena is more over in Boston then he is anywhere else, which as a Bostonian myself, can personally attest to not being true. Ideally, the WWE would like to have Cena and Boston be like Punk and Chicago, but that will probably never happen. Cena just is not as appealing to Boston as Punk is to Chicago, not to mention that Chicago is a much larger city and has a lot more wrestling fans then Boston does.

Anyways, Cena and Del Rio are working the same storyline that they did at Hell in a Cell. Cena has an injured arm, which should leave him especially vulnerable to ADR's cross-armbreaker. At HIAC, they worked this same bit, although Cena's arm was considered to be in worse shape then than it is now. If Del Rio was not able to beat Cena at HIAC, what chance does he stand to dethrone Cena when his arm is healthier? Cena defeats ADR after withstanding the cross-armbreaker for god-knows-how-long, and powering through with an Attitude Adjustment.

Daniel Bryan and CM Punk will form an intriguing tag team to take on the Wyatt Family in what should be the most exciting match of the night. The match is an important step in the Wyatt family's progress as characters. Now that they are feuding with arguably the two top faces in the company, they are really starting to be utilized to their lofty potential as a dominant heel force.

The match should be a good one, with the undersized Bryan and Punk fighting valiantly against the monstrous Harper and Rowan. I think that the Wyatt's will come out on top, possibly due to Bray Wyatt's interference, and that opens up a nice door for the Wyatts. By defeating the team of Punk and Bryan, it shows just how good the Wyatt family can be, and that they can beat anybody at any time. It also sets up an exciting match for the next PPV, TLC, with a likely stipulation being a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match.

Because the WWE never seems to realize that they should have a tradional Survivor Series match till the last minute, the team of The Usos, The Rhodes and Rey Mysterio will take on The Shield and The Real Americans under the traditional elimination tag rules. I see the faces winning this match, if only because the WWE wants to get Rey Mysterio back into the picture and having him get the pinfall victory after a few 619s looks like the right way to go.

Big E Langston will defend his newly won Intercontinental Championship against the former champion Curtis Axel. Axel was perhaps the worst IC Champion of all-time, and the WWE seems to be really high on Langston right now, so this match should be academic. Langston comes out on top with an easy win in under ten minutes.

With Total Divas returning to television recently, the WWE will capitalize on their marketability any time they can, so seeing them thrown into an extensive 7 on 7 tag team elimination match is not that much of a surprise. The teams are the women who are on Total Divas against the women who are not, which kind of makes zero sense from a face/heel standpoint, but I don't think the WWE wants us to think that much about this match. A 7 on 7 match is a great way to sneak both Eva Marie and JoJo into a PPV match, even if both of them are clearly not ready for that kind of role. The Total Diva's win when Natayla forces AJ Lee to tap out to the Sharpshooter.

The pre-show match features Kofi Kingston taking on the King of the Pre-Show, The Miz. The Miz's heel turn was actually a pretty solid move, as god knows his face run was not doing anything. It would be dumb to have Miz turn heel and lose his first PPV match as a heel again, so he picks up the win over Kofi.

Survivor Series feels like just another PPV for the WWE this year, and although that doesn't mean the show will be bad, the build-up and a lot of the matches do not have me very excited for the show. Hopefully the WWE will surprise us and have a really entertaining show, but I tend to doubt it.