WWE Survivor Series 2017 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

What we learned, what we took away and what the future holds for the superstars of Monday Night RAW and SmackDown Live following Sunday night’s WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view.

As one of the “Big Four” pay-per-view events in WWE, Survivor Series has long been host to plenty of great moments and matches, and Sunday night in Houston was no different. While there were certainly some things that didn’t quite live up to the hype, there was plenty to be excited about as Monday Night RAW took on SmackDown Live in a battle for brand supremacy.

The main show had seven matches on the card — it had to be an odd number to decide a clear winner — and the lineup featured a great mix of champion vs. champion battles, traditional Survivor Series elimination matches and a fantastic grudge match to kick off the show. We’ll certainly get to all of those in just a moment.

The kickoff show featured three matches, including the only championship match of the night as WWE Cruiserweight Champion Enzo Amore took on Kalisto in a largely forgettable bout that looked very sloppy at times. Enzo retained the title, and WWE looks intent on keeping him as the cornerstone of the division for the time being.

The first match of the night was apparently thrown together not long before the show started, and Matt Hardy has to be thinking how much he needs that “Broken” gimmick back as he took on Elias. Without the gimmick and with Jeff being on the shelf with an injury, Matt is just sort of stuck right now, and this was quite evident as Elias went over clean in a pretty average match.

The final match on the kickoff show was a SmackDown Live battle as Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, who are clearly having to take their punishment right now after being sent home from the European tour, took on Breezango. Owens and Zayn cut a nice promo before the match started as they discussed being left off of the main show, and while it was clear they were setting something up for later, you could see a little bit of real anger come through. The fact that Breezango took them to the limit before they eventually came out on top was a clear sign that they’re going to spend a little time digging themselves out of that hole. The match was good enough to get the crowd into things before we got to the main card as the highly-anticipated six-man tag kicked things off.