Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialSuperstars Missing from WWE Survivor Series 2016 Card

Superstars Missing from WWE Survivor Series 2016 Card

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Outside of the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, no event on the WWE calendar allows for more people to be added to the card than Survivor Series, but even with three elimination matches this year, there are still some wrestlers left with nothing to do but sit in the back and watch the action unfold.

For whatever reason—lack of importance, no storyline in place for them, or a multitude of other possibilities—everyone listed below has not been advertised to compete in any capacity at the fall classic.

The Midcarders

Let’s get the least surprising people out of the way first. There’s only so many spots available for the Survivor Series teams, so not everybody could be invited to play. When you’re looking to cut wrestlers from the list, you’re naturally going to look at the lower-card guys first, which explains the absence of people like Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, Darren Young, Jinder Mahal, Titus O’Neil, and Curt Hawkins.

Three names that I thought at least had a chance to be in the running for the Survivor Series teams, though, were Neville, Apollo Crews and Jack Swagger. Neville’s been mostly ignored ever since his injury, but every so often, WWE puts him out there and reminds us he exists and isn’t completely forgotten about. Recently, Jack Swagger moved over to SmackDown and appeared to be getting a bit of a renewal to his credibility, but his feud with Baron Corbin definitely seems to be well over and done with. When it comes to Apollo Crews, he sadly has had a severe downgrade in his momentum ever since joining the main roster. In NXT, he seemed poised for big things, but the past few months, he’s been lucky to lose a match on Raw or SmackDown. More often than not, he isn’t seen or heard from at all, and it doesn’t look like that’s changing any time soon. Why that’s the case is up for debate, but to rectify that situation, all it will take is a few wins and several consistent weeks of showcasing him and people will be back on the bandwagon in no time. Not being selected as a member of Team SmackDown isn’t the worst thing in the world, but not having anything else to do at all as a backup plan should be quite bothersome to those who were hoping he’d be a bigger deal by now.

The Tag Teams

The only tag team on the Raw side of things to be left out of the mix for Survivor Series is The Golden Truth, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In all honesty, Goldust and R-Truth could be swapped with The Shining Stars and nobody would really notice or care. They’re both completely useless joke teams who stand no chance at making a difference in the match and will be eliminated fairly early on.

SmackDown, however, has a much longer list of tag teams who will be sitting this event out. Granted, they’re all very similar to The Golden Truth in terms of credibility as they’re all on the jobber scale, but it’s interesting to note that every team on Raw except one was able to fit on their side while SmackDown still has four left to pick from. The Headbangers and The Spirit Squad are not officially on the roster, so that explains why they were passed over, and The Ascension hasn’t been in the running to do anything but lose since pretty much the moment they jumped ship from NXT. The Vaudevillains have had problems being booked as anything but jobbers ever since Simon Gotch’s fight with Sin Cara and had perhaps the worst performance in the qualifying round than any other team. It’s no surprise these are the five teams we ended up with and I can’t imagine the leftovers competing at all.

The Women

When it comes to Paige’s suspension, Summer Rae’s injuries and how Emmalina has yet to make her debut/return, those women not competing for Team Raw make sense, but I’m still perplexed about the choice to put Alicia Fox on the team over Dana Brooke. I mentioned before how I’m a fan of Fox, so it doesn’t bother me so much as it confuses me. Dana has been featured so much more prominently over the past few months than Alicia, so why is she not on Charlotte’s team? My guess is this will come into play somewhere along the lines to balance out Natalya’s presence as “team coach” where Dana Brooke will make an appearance even though she isn’t a scheduled competitor.

On the SmackDown side of things, the only woman not to have a role in some capacity is Eva Marie, but she’s been missing in action since her suspension several months ago. Although her forced time away has finished, she’s been keeping busy filming movies and doing photoshoots. Supposedly, she has another film on her work schedule, so it may be a little more time before she steps in the ring—or, rather, walks down the entrance ramp and then backs out of a match. Don’t expect to see her even mentioned at Survivor Series, let alone showing up.

The Main Eventers

This is the most interesting batch of superstars out of the bunch. Despite all the time devoted to the Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt feud that has spilled over onto Kane and Luke Harper, those latter two are not factored into any matches at all. Sure, they can do something in the men’s elimination match to interfere on behalf or in conflict to Orton and Wyatt, but considering how rare that happens during these elimination matches, I wouldn’t expect it, particularly out of Kane.

I’m a little annoyed that Baron Corbin was written out of the event, too, as he needed to have the boost that would have come with being on Team SmackDown. Since they took him off the card with an injury angle, the chances he will do anything at all are slim to none. Hopefully, WWE has something in store for him immediately following Survivor Series to make up for this.

The Undertaker made his long-awaited return to SmackDown as part of a tribute of sorts to Survivor Series’ 30th anniversary and the 900th episode, but he’s essentially a WrestleMania-only attraction now, so it’s no surprise to see him off the lineup. He did say WrestleMania won’t define him anymore and he’s back to “dig holes and take souls” but there was nobody set up in advance to wrestle him at Survivor Series and quite literally zero time to set something up, as the show ended before JBL could even finish saying goodbye.

Above all things that make me curious, though, is the exclusion of Rusev and Dolph Ziggler. This situation with the Intercontinental Championship is definitely perplexing, as it crosses two brands and four wrestlers. Now that The Miz is the new champion, he’s usurped Ziggler’s spot on the card and will be facing Sami Zayn, but The Bulgarian Brute—who lost the opportunity to challenge for the title—and The Showoff himself have nothing else to do. Will it spontaneously turn into a Fatal 4-Way the night of the show? Will Rusev and Ziggler have a random match thrown onto the pre-show just to utilize them in some way? They’re far too important to ignore completely and unless they have prior commitments elsewhere to take care of on the same day, it would be tough to imagine WWE just pushing them off to the side while lesser names compete.

Out of those wrestlers not currently scheduled for the event, who do you think should be added to the card? In what capacity would you use them? Tell us your booking ideas in the comments below!

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