Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Survivor Series 2006, emanating from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (a largely unknown and unimportant American city which gained some fame in the 90s from an indy promotion that some people running this site might have some vague memories of), embraced the elimination tag team concept more than recent editions of the show had, as this match included several classic Survivor Series elimination matches instead of the one or two at most that we had gotten for years prior to this.
The Undercard
The show opened with a traditional tag team elimination match pitting the legends team of Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Sgt Slaughter, and Ron Simmons (who took the place of Roddy Piper, who had to bow out to get some emergency surgery), with Arn Anderson in their corner, against Spirit Squad members Kenny, Mikey, Nicky, and Johnny, with Mitch in their corner. This was your basic angle where you have a bunch of disrespectful young guys (in this case, the Spirit Squad) picking fights with older, established guys so they can make a name at their expense. For some reason, the Spirit Squad reminded me a lot of the Cobra Kai from Karate Kid. This was one of those matches WWE has from time to time where they trot out the old guys for a match where the wrestling is secondary (even more so than usual) and it’s all about saying “Hey, look who’s wrestling! My dad watched him when he was young.†Simmons was eliminated early on when Mitch grabbed his ankle from ringside and he rolled out of the ring to chase him and got himself counted out, but after getting beat up by Arn Anderson, Mitch got ejected for pulling Slaughter’s ankle, prompting Simmons to say damn, give Mitch a Dominator, then drag him to the back. The ref then ejected Arn Anderson from ringside for attacking Mitch. With all those people tossed, we get back to the action. Slaughter had Nicky trapped in the Cobra Clutch, but Johnny came in from behind with a spinkick to eliminate him. Dusty came right in and hit the big elbow to eliminate Nicky, but Kenny rolled him up a few seconds later to eliminate him, leaving Flair 3-on-1. Flair, living up to his nickname as the dirtiest player in the game, eliminated Mikey with his feet on the ropes, then caught Kenny in an inside cradle to eliminate him, and finally tapped Johnny to the figure four to be the sole survivor. Flair won the match, but the entire Spirit Squad came back out after the match and laid Flair out, but Flair’s partners were nowhere to be seen. Dusty was probably sitting in the back going “Break my leg, huh? HAHAHAHAHA…†while Slaughter was at the buffet and Simmons was saying damn, but that’s just conjecture on my part.
The second match saw Chris Benoit defend the United States Title against Chavo Guerrero. This was the latest chapter in the angle Eddy Guerrero was involved in for over a year after his death where first Rey made his run to the World Title at Wrestlemania so he could “do it for Eddyâ€, then Chavo turned on him because he didn’t appreciate Rey using Eddy’s death to make a main event name for himself (which is something a lot of people, myself included, said at the time), and now went to Benoit getting involved to a)fight for Eddy’s memory while b)punishing Chavo and Vickie Guerrero (who had joined Chavo as his business manager) for dishonoring Eddy’s memory. I always felt bad for Chavo because he’s a good worker, but he just never had that “it†and nobody ever cared about him unless Eddy was involved. Okay match if nothing to write home about. Chavo had adopted Eddy’s frog splash as his finisher by this point, but it didn’t look anywhere as good as Eddy’s, and he hit it on Benoit but only got two. Benoit was whipped into the ropes and bumped into Vickie, who was up on the apron and got knocked to the floor, but Benoit countered a rollup into the Crossface for the win.
Up next, Lita defended the Women’s Title against Mickie James in what was Lita’s final match. Lita’s longtime rival Trish Stratus had retired as Women’s Champion a couple of months before this, after which Lita claimed the title and now intended to retire as champion as well. This was pretty much the match where the torch was passed from the Trish/Lita era to Mickie James as lead women’s babyface. You gotta love the Philadelphia crowd, who were chanting “she’s a crack whore†and then “she’s got herpes†at Lita while Jerry Lawler was cracking jokes about Lita’s diaphragm having an odometer on it. Lita wasn’t breaking her ass on her way out the door, but still put on a good enough match that saw Mickie kick out of Lita’s moonsault and come back with a spinning DDT to pick up the win and send Lita out a loser. Lita demanded Lillian Garcia come in and tell the fans to applaud “the greatest Women’s Champion of all timeâ€, but instead they just booed her, after which Lita went off on the crowd and did the “How can you treat me this way after all I’ve done for you, you people are so disrespectful†speech which must have been very therapeutic for her since I’m absolutely convinced this is how she really feels. As if the farewell she got from the crowd wasn’t bad enough, Cryme Tyme came out with a box full of Lita’s personal effects that they had stolen from her locker room earlier in the night. They took Lita’s various personal items such as her tube of Monistat 7 and her dildo, and sold them to creepily eager ringside fans, while selling a pair of her panties to JBL, who took a whiff and made the “Ew, her area stinks†face. Not quite the sendoff Trish got, but a mildly entertaining exit nonetheless.
After that we got our next elimination match, as Triple H and Shawn Michaels of Degeneration X teamed with the Hardyz and CM Punk to take on World Tag Team Champions Randy Orton & Edge, Johnny Nitro, Cruiserweight Champion Gregory Helms and Mike Knox. Knox was joined by his valet Kelly Kelly, and not only Kelly but the announcers as well would constantly beat us over the head with two facts about Kelly: she’s only 19, and she’s an exhibitionist. Triple H played into this by coaxing her up onto the ring apron to exhibit herself, but when Mike Knox objected, Shawn Michaels superkicked and eliminated him to start the match off. From there, it was straight downhill for Rated RKO’s team. Knox was quickly followed out the door by Johnny Nitro, who tapped out to CM Punk’s Anaconda Vice. Punk, incidentally, was over huge in this match, the crowd was really behind him and there was a theory floated around at the time that Triple H had him in this match to build him up just so he could get knocked back down a week later at the tragic December To Dismember PPV, but again, just conjecture. One Twist Of Fate/Swanton combo later and Hurricane was gone as well, leaving Rated RKO alone to carry the fate of their team. Shawn hit the superkick on Edge to leave Orton 5-on-1, and even though Orton tried to run away, the entire babyface team came after him and threw him back in the ring where he ate a superkick and a pedigree, and that was all she wrote for Orton, who had been the sole survivor in his elimination match for three years running, but failed to continue that streak in 2006.
Up next we had a First Blood match between the Undertaker against Ken Kennedy in yet another instance of the young guy looking to make his name at the expense of the older star. In this case, Kennedy beat up Undertaker and bloodied him, and in return the Undertaker did the gimmick where blood came pouring down on Kennedy from above, which I don’t think would count as a legitimate way to win in an actual First Blood match, though I don’t think anyone’s ever tried. I give credit to WWE for trying to get some new people over in 2006 like the Spirit Squad, Kennedy, MVP, and Punk, but due to injuries (in Kennedy’s case) and shortsighted, inept booking (Punk, MVP, and especially the Spirit Squad, who all spent years in developmental only to be given a stupid gimmick, buried, and then released) they never went where they could have and probably should have. Michael Cole mentioned that Undertaker debuted 16 years earlier as a member of Ted Dibiase’s Million Dollar Dream Team, which is wrong: Dibiase led the Million Dollar Team against Dusty Rhodes’ Dream Team, but I don’t know if the problem is that Cole didn’t do his homework or that I’m such a mark that I noticed an error like that.
Anyway, this was before Kennedy began spending more time on the sidelines than in the ring, and he was getting a monster push where he had already beaten five former World Champions since his debut earlier in the year, and he intended to make Undertaker number six. They started by brawling all over the floor, but eventually made it back in the ring where Kennedy slowed Undertaker down with a couple of low blows. He rolled out to the floor where he was attended to by MVP, whom he had thrown to Undertaker and Kane recently, came down to check up on him, but ended up throwing him back into the ring to take more punishment from Undertaker. MVP grabbed a chair and swung it at Kennedy, but accidentally hit Undertaker and busted him open, giving Kennedy the win. After the match, Undertaker went wild on Kennedy, repeatedly beating him in the face and busting him open, then giving him a Tombstone, and then beating on him some more.
Following that bloodbath, we got our final elimination match as ECW Champion Big Show, Finlay, MVP, Test, and Umaga took on Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Bobbly Lashley, Kane, and WWE Champion John Cena. There really wasn’t any serious buildup to this that I recall, just one of those Survivor Series matches where they throw a bunch of guys together in an elimination tag to fill time. The unusual thing about it was this time around, they did it with top guys. Anyway, Umaga was undefeated here, but got disqualified only a couple minutes in for going nuts and attacking the babyfaces with a TV monitor. From there, everybody was getting eliminated right and left until it came down to Cena and Lashley against Big Show and Finlay. Lashley pinned Finlay with a spear, and then Cena gave Big Show an F5, which is even more impressive than when he did it in 2003 because Show had put on quite a bit of weight since then.
The Main Event
All this brings us to the main event, as King Booker defended the World Title against former champion Batista. As you might recall if you read the 2005 Survivor Series retro column, Batista suffered a major muscle tear in his back shortly before Survivor Series, but insisted on toughing it out and continuing to wrestle rather than get it taken care of. He was able to do okay for a while, but then tore his bicep as well, and at that point they decided enough was enough, stripped him of the World Title, and put him on the sidelines for several months. He finally came back in the summer of 2006, and immediately made regaining the title his goal.
Booker T, in the meantime, had been on a roll for several months, beginning with his victory in the King Of The Ring tournament to claim the crown and rechristen himself King Booker, then went on to defeat Rey Mysterio for the World Title at the Great American Bash. The interesting backstage story to this match was that Batista and Booker had gotten in a backstage fight in September or so of that year, with Booker getting the better of Batista, but I don’t believe that was played up at all on television. Booker defended the title against Batista at Summerslam, but got himself disqualified when Sharmell jumped on Batista just as he was about to go for the Demon Bomb. To prevent a repeat of that situation, Smackdown GM Teddy Long came out before the match and announced that if Booker got himself counted out or disqualified, he’d lose the title.
As for the match itself, it was nthing special except for one really funny sign in the crowd that said “Triple H is holding my sign down.†I got a good chuckle from that one. Batista jumped Booker on the floor on his way to the ring and dominated most of the early part of the match, but a distraction from Sharmell allowed Booker to take the advantage with a thrust kick. The advantage didn’t last long until Batista came back and hit the Demon Bomb, but Booker was too close to the ropes and used them to break the count. Sharmell slipped the World Title belt to Booker, but Booker missed when he tried to hit Batista with it and Batista got ahold of the belt and used it to knock Booker out and regain the World Title.
Final Analysis
This wasn’t a bad show, but it wasn’t particularly memorable either as Batista winning the title was the only important thing to happen here, and even that was pretty pedestrian. A lot of matches on this show had little to no buildup and affected almost nothing going forward. The wrestling was okay, but all the matches felt rushed. Nothing special to recommend on this show.
Thanks for reading, and we have just one more to go! I’ll be back soon with Survivor Series 2007, but until then all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com or you can find me on Myspace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Take care, and I’ll see you all soon.
