Survivor Series 2008 Recap and Results
- The show starts off with Jim Ross talking about Jeff Hardy's hospitalization earlier today. It is still not known whether he will compete tonight.Team Michaels (Shawn Michaels, Cryme Tyme, Rey Mysterio, & The Great Khali) vs. Team JBL (JBL, The Miz, John Morrison, MVP, & Kane) - MVP pinned JTG but then was eliminated by the Great Khali a few seconds later. Kane was then eliminated by Rey Mysterio after he jumped off the shoulders of Khali. Miz pinned Shad after hitting the Reality Check to make the match 3 on 3. A 619 and splash off the top rope by Mysterio eliminated the Miz. The two captains fought with each other outside of the ring. Shawn was able to get in before the 10 count but JBL wasn't. A few seconds later, Shawn hit Morrison with the Sweet Chin Music to get the win for his team. Survivors: Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio and the Great Khali
RAW Divas (Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, Candice Michelle, & Jillian) vs. SmackDown Divas (Michelle McCool, Maria, Maryse, Victoria, & Natalya) - Kelly Kelly pinned Victoria. A few seconds later, Maryse eliminated Kelly Kelly. Mickie James eliminated McCool after hitting a DDT. Maryse then eliminated Mickie a few seconds later. Michelle pinned Natalya after hitting a spear. Maria pinned Jillina with a victory roll making this match 2-on-2. Maria was quickly pinned by Candice via a Northern Lights Suplex. Candice then tapped out to a leg lock by Maryse. Beth Phoenix hit the Glam Slam on Maryse to get the win for her team. Sole Survivor: Beth Phoenix
- Matt Hardy talks about his brother being hospitalized. He says that his brother was hit in the head by a blunt object. He says that he doesn’t know how this happened or if his brother will be competing tonight.
Casket Match: Undertaker vs. Big Show - Big Show had a chance to win this match but got into an argument with the referees about closing the casket because he didn’t want to touch it. A few minutes later, Big Show found himself in the casket. He escaped but was freaked out. When he had the Undertaker immobilized, he turned the casket over and tried to leave. However, the Undertaker was able to summon flames at the top of the ramp to stop the escape of the Big Show. The druids came out and brought a new casket to the top of the ramp. Big Show stood the casket up and was eventually whipped into the casket and lost the match. Winner: Undertaker
- Backstage, the Bella Twins and Colon Brothers are flirting with each other. They are approached by the Gobbledy Gooker. They believe it is Charlie Haas. Charlie Haas shows up as himself and then the Boogey Man reveals himself to be the Gooker.
Team Batista (Batista, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, & Matt Hardy) vs. Team Orton (Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, William Regal, Mark Henry, & Shelton Benjamin) - Punk immediately hit the knee kick and Go to Sleep to eliminate Regal. Shelton pinned R-Truth with the Pay Dirt. Orton pinned Kofi after he hit the second rope DDT. Rhodes pinned Punk following a DDT. Henry pinned Hardy with the World’s Strongest Slam to make it 4-on-1. Batista hit a spear on Henry to get the elimination. A Batista Bomb was used to eliminate Shelton. When Batista had Rhodes up for the Batista Bomb, Orton tagged himself in. The ref wouldn’t count the pin on Rhodes because he wasn’t the legal man. When Batista turned around, he was hit by the RKO to get eliminated. Survivors: Randy Orton & Cody Rhodes
- It is officially announced that Jeff Hardy will not be in the WWE title match.
WWE Championship Match: Champion Triple H vs. Vladimir Kozlov - The fans were very unhappy and greeted this match with Boring, TNA, and We Want Hardy Chants due to the very slow pace of this match. Triple H hit the pedigree and both men were out of it. Vickie Guerrero then came out and said she was going to give the fans a triple threat match and was excited when she announced to the crowd that "He is here". Edge came out and hit the spear on Triple H. Jeff Hardy came out and attacked Edge. Hardy grabbed a chair, tried to hit Edge and accidentally hit Triple H with the chair. Kozlov went after Hardy and was hit in the head by the chair. Edge then speared Hardy and pinned Triple H to win the title. Winner and new champion: Edge
World Heavyweight Championship: Champion Chris Jericho vs. John Cena - The story of this match is John Cena’s return from neck surgery. Cena was indecisive in his moves because he feared reinjuring his neck. That allowed Jericho to gain advantage of this match and work over John’s neck. John eventually overcame the punishment to his neck and his fear of doing moves and eventually hit the FU to get the win and the championship. Winner an new champion: John Cena
What does this event mean for the future?
On the RAW side of things, very little was settled. The feuds between Orton & Batista and JBL & Michaels are very far from being finished and I would assume that Jericho will get a rematch for the title.
SmackDown was the exact opposite. With Edge winning the title the way he did, it appears that he started two new feuds with Triple H and Jeff Hardy. Being that he is outnumbered, he will need some help and I have a feeling that his help will be arriving from TNA in the form of his old tag team partner Christian Cage.
Overall Thoughts
This show was pretty bad, especially on the SmackDown side of things. The casket match was overbooked to a point where calling it lame would be an insult to that word. As far as the WWE Championship match, an exciting two minutes does not make up for the absolutely hideous match put on between Triple H and Kozlov. The action on RAW was a little better but not enough to save this show. Even Michael Cole referred to Cena’s win as winning ugly.
Match Results
- Traditional Survivor Series Match: Shawn Michaels, Cryme Tyme, Rey Mysterio, & The Great Khali beat JBL, MVP, Kane, The Miz, & John Morrison
- Traditional Survivor Series Match: Beth Phoenix, Candice Michelle, Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, & Jillian beat Michelle McCool, Maria, Victoria, Natalya, & Maryse
- Casket Match: The Undertaker beat The Big Show
- Traditional Survivor Series Match: Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Shelton Benjamin, Mark Henry, William Regal beat Batista, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, Matt Hardy & R-Truth
- WWE Championship Match: Edge beat Champion Triple H and Vladimir Kozlov to win the title
- World Heavyweight Championship: John Cena beat Chris Jericho to win the title
Photo: © 2008 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
They don’t call him the ultimate opportunist for nothing… Hardy vs. Edge at Royal Rumble?
Probably, We will have a Fatal Four way or Triple Threat match for the WWE title at Armageddon. The, Hardy vs Edge at Royal Royal. However, we already know the outcome of those matches, Edge. Since Hardy is not considered a Wrestlemania main event material, so he will have to wait at least after backlash (also know as Wrestlemania’s leftovers like leftovers after Thanksgiving) to get another real shot. At this rate, Hardy will never be WWE champ. That is pretty sad.
Hardy wins over Edge at Mania.
Who knows? Maybe Hunter will want his WWE title back at ‘Mania 25.
This is starting to get frustrating (the whole Hardy push without giving him the Title)… the guy has been over with the fans for a year now (this all started in SS’07) and WWE risks his credibility everytime they put him in a title match and the guy doesn’t win… at least this time there’s Edge and his opportunism as an excuse, but like you say, at this rate he’ll be champ at Survivor Series 2011.
And yeah, the Taker vs. Big Show match is something the WWE, Taker and Big Show should be ashamed of… I don’t remember seeing such a lousy match in a PPV…
Why the weird angle with Jeff Hardy? If he really had been passed out, why bring him in again?
If it wasn’t, it was completely tasteless to play off off his real-life personal problems. In addtion, their work almost glamorizes people dealing with drug abuse—not a good thing when adolescents are a major part of your viewing audience.
Also, why bring Jeff in at the last minute—was that even planned, or only to avoid the chants of ‘TNA’ and ‘BORING’.?! And giving Edge the title out of nowhere when he wasn’t even booked for the match is crazy.
And a casket match in 2008 is so 1980 Saturday Night Main Event.
The WWE title match was ridiculous!!! Giving Edge the title was total B.S.
On the other hand I’ll give it to you Eric, Batista lost, but he will get revenge. I’m glad Taker won the casket match, but I think that his feud with Show isn’t over yet.
With all of that being said, I have 2 questions. 1. Who do think will be champ after ‘Mania. for both brands? 2. Do you think that Show will fight Taker again?
To do a quick comparison, last year’s Survivor Series saw Undertaker compete in one of the best Hell in a Cell matches since the turn of the century, with Edge making a surprise return to cost Undertaker the title. This reignited the conflict between the two men and led to a great main event match at Wrestlemania 24.
This year Undertaker was in one of the worst and most poorly done gimmick matches of his career (and that is a big statement) and Edge made a surprise return to steal the WWE championship. Not that i have anything against Edge once again taking up his ultimate opportunist angle, but instead of following an epic battle, it followed an inconcievably bad match and an even worse publicity stunt.
It seems like all the effort that the WWE put into improving this year’s Summerslam (since Summerslam 2007 was a return-filled-fiasco) been balanced out by making Survivor Series crappier. Damn that karmic retribution crap.
Anyway, my point is, with Survivor Series being one of the best events of 2007, Survivor Series 2008 may be the worst PPV of the year.
What a disgrace! I am getting really disgusted with pro wrestling. I am not a 10 year old kid and don’t expect to be treated like one. WWE is forgetting whom their real fans are and catering to newbies and tee shirt sales. Give me a break!
If this crap continues, they will be back on saturday mornings and they can kiss pay-per-view bye-bye!
I just want to thank everyone for expressing their opinion on the site about the show and Hardy situation.
One of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten over the past few months has been about why Hardy hasn’t gotten the title. In light of last night’s events, I wanted to sleep on it to try and gain some perspective as to why Hardy hasn’t won the title and it has finally come to me. After a good night’s sleep induced by replaying the Kozlov-Triple H match in my mind, it finally dawned on me.
When news of Hardy’s incident broke yesterday morning, everyone was fooled by it and thought it was a legitimate story. I had the story on the site as a legitimate piece of news for several hours until I updated it and not a single person commented or emailed me saying they thought it was a fake story.
The reason for that is because no one would be surprised if Jeff was found dead in a hotel one day. The WWE is rightfully very leery of putting their most important title on someone that we all have such low expectations for.
Here are my answers to the questions posted to me in these comments.
1 - I have no idea of what the title situation is going to look like in the next few months but as a total guess I’d say that Edge defends the title against HHH & Hardy at Armageddon. Just like the 3-way at last year’s show, Edge gets the win from some outside interference. Hopefully that interference will come in the form of Christian Cage.
2 - Since I’m getting asked WM questions, at this point my guess is Michaels vs Batista vs Cena for the WHC and HHH vs Undertaker for the WWE Title. The guys from Texas (Michaels & UT) will win both matches.
3 - I really hope we have seen the last of Show vs Taker for the time being. I can see UT getting a beat down soon from La Familia and taking a few months off before coming back for his WM push. He looked really bad last night and I would assume that he is need of another break to rest his knees which were part of the reason he was gone this Summer.
4 - I can’t figure out why Hardy came out during last night’s match. He looked good enough to be fighting last night despite that ridiculous looking bandage on his neck.
5 -Tassi, I totally agree with your post and couldn’t have said it better myself.
6 - I agree with everyone about the pr stunt being totally classless. The only reason it had people believe it to be true is because other wrestlers have been found dead in their hotel rooms. This stunt was totally classless and they went lower than I thought possible.
This show was weak. I watch wrestling as entertainment because I know its fake. I did not get anything other than these WWE writers need to be lost of a job.
Taker match was bad. Big show punchs and acting was screaming fake.
Triple H match will go down as one of the worst matches he put on in his career.
Cena match pissed me off. He gets destroyed the whole match and then magically wins.
Please make Jeff champ, yes he had his drug problem but he is fine now. Why they keep turning away from the one guy who actually shows action and is loved by the fans.
As far as the TNA chants go. Like I said I watch wrestling for entertainment and TNA is the best show out there.
The Jeff story was indeed fake. If it was a real serious matter they would of went about it in a more perfessional matter.
WWE is walking a fine line. With stories such as Vince death by a limo explosion, Its getting out of hand.
All I have to say is I want to see a TLC match or a ladder match at the Royal Rumble between Jeff Hardy and Edge for the WWE title. That would make a great match to make up for this awful scam that the WWE has played on the WWE fans.
I completely agree with Lissy_star. It would be a better match than any we saw last night, and would be the perfect opportunity for Christian to make his shocking return and screw Hardy out of the win (since the WWE have become such huge fans of surprise comebacks).
i think edge is the biggest whimp ever, he is the biggest whinner ive ever seen, my grandson could kick his little white a..
Here’s my take on the Jeff Hardy situation. First, it was a very classless move. They made it sound like he had indeed reverted to his former destructive lifestyle. Later, however, they started to shed a little more light on the issue by having Matt Hardy comment that he was hit in the head by a blunt object. Then it was announced that Jeff wouldn’t compete. Unfortunatley, we had to sit through a horrible match between Kozlov and HHH before we got to the heart of the matter. Edge replaces Hardy, seems to have the match won, and then gets attacked by Hardy. But why? I think it will be revealed that Edge was the one that assaulted Hardy in his room which is why Jeff was so aggressively pounding Edge in the match. This was all just a shamless ploy to shockingly reintroduce Edge to his all too familiar role as the opportunist while trying to salvage as much of Hardy’s image as possible. They want us to cheer that Hardy didn’t revert to his old lifestyle. No, it was just that rogue Edge taking Hardy out of the match so he could take his place.
On a personal note, I have been watching wrestling for over 20 years, and I am shocked at how far down in the dumps the WWE has gone. They spent all this time building up Hardy after his fall due to personal issues and then imply that he fell again. The WWE even passed it off as a legitimate news story and not just a storyline twist! They wanted us all to believe that Jeff, hero to many, had started abusing drugs again or even worse, had died from an overdose. This move was a slap in the face to all WWE fans. I am extremely disappointed although not at all surprised.
li hate edge and christian .why is he [edge] covering himself in eddy wife .anyway l like haddyboys and may jeff recover soon.cena ,welcome back and thanks for beinin the champ.let the chain game begin
y’know, i must admit jeffs drug history was the first thing that came to mind when i read about his “hospitalization.” Everyone is right, that was low for the WWE to let everyone sit at home and wonder if they’ll ever see jeff again. But if he was hit with a blunt object, what was up with the bandage on his neck? And does anyone else think Edge looks stupid with hobo clothes and a Jesus beard?
I also wanted to say Welcome back John Cena. Congrats on the win. May the Chain Gang Soldiers March On!!!!!
Congrats CENA!!! THE CHAMP IS HEEERRRRREEEEEEE!!!!!!
YOU CAN’T SEE ME!!!!!
wow whay a disgrace! i have been watching wrestling since i was born. Ive never felt so betrayed by a general manager as i felt with vickie. she needs to be fired or else smackdown will and have lost so of its business. all she does is corupt the business so her husband edge wins and becomes champ again. I love Jeff Hardy and I hope he gets well soon!!!
Is it just me, or does everyone hate kozlov and his worst finishing move ever … a headbutt to the chest. WWE needs to realize that the fans don’t like him and should stop pushing him. All he can do is put on the worst interviews, make me want to change the channel, or put on the lamest/ most boring match ever.
so was jeff hardy really found unconscious? any update about jeff hardy can you send it to my email ***[edit: ****]***@yahoo.com please because i care about my jeff hardy thanks