After Monday Night RAW, we had found out that Triple H would be replacing green giant Jason Jordan for the 10-man elimination tag team match at the main event of Survivor Series. The fans went crazy when he came and were happier when he kicked Jordan’s guts and pedigreed him to the mat. With him out of the way, we had a star-studded main event, full of some of the WWE’s oldest competitors. Both teams combined for an average age of 40.5, which in sports, is old as dirt. Thankfully, in the world of sports and entertainment, the shelf life of a wrestler can last much longer, but their hay days tend to end around that time. If it doesn’t, they might just want to move onto bigger or better things, meaning this main event alone, is both a sign of good and bad things that may potentially come.
Let’s take John Cena and Kurt Angle as two examples. John Cena, “the face that runs the place,” is now 40-years-old and has just recently become a part-timer. This is not necessarily due to physical issues, but rather because his success in the company has brought him opportunities in movies, shows, and other media ventures he won’t be passing up. Kurt Angle is 48 and significantly smaller than in his last run with the company in 2006. He also has had 4 surgeries on his neck. He was a phenomenal wrestler but has been clearly brought in for nostalgia purposes. The fans love old faces that gave them ageless memories, but that’s where the problem arises, and it’s not just present in the main event.
If you look at the most important match from November, you have the world champions from both Raw and SmackDown going at it one-on-one, with Brock Lesnar, the Universal Champion, taking on AJ Styles, the WWE Champion. Both of them are 40, with Lesnar being the epitome of a part-timer. Although AJ Styles is one of the best wrestlers in the world even now, he has a family to take care of, so he’ll probably be looking for safer means of bringing home the bacon sooner than later. The point is that the most important matches right now, in 2017, have the oldest wrestlers and part-timers, which shows the rest of the roster is basically still green. Now the PPV will probably be dope, and the rest of this year before Wrestlemania might be great too with the current roster, but afterward, what is to come?
With all the stars in their 30s and all the rising stars being placed further behind in PPVs, it feels like in a few years I will be back to not watching wrestling like I did a few years back, and I probably won’t be alone. With all these top stars probably leaving, with the growing plethora of opportunities for these guys being constantly thrown at them, they will probably become part-timers. The rest of the roster may not be put over in time to avoid this stage of a drop in viewers.
Thankfully, the Women’s Division is full of younger, and arguably better talent, to take over more slots in the shows and future PPVs. But, that will probably take time too. The division has one belt and limited TV time, especially in comparison to the men, so they might not be pushed well as a whole either. There aren’t even tag team titles for them (which is a whole other argument to be made), which makes them all individuals and any of their stables kind of pointless. In essence, the main attractions for this PPV go to show that the WWE has something solid set up for the near future but not in the long run. If more superstars are pushed, perhaps there will be less to worry about, but that is yet to be seen.
