Survivor Series 2016 Preview: Part 1

With the exception of Goldberg vs. Lesnar, Survivor Series is all about Raw vs. Smackdown. The multi-person tag matches revolve around that theme. Even the two title matches revolve around that theme. I will talk about those two title matches today. I will also get into a side effect of this Raw vs. Smackdown theme.

With all this inter-brand fighting that is supposed to be happening, that has impacted the feuds going on for each brand. Or has it? You have still seen those issues the last few weeks. In a lot of cases, people on the same team have been fighting each other these last few weeks. These personal issues will obviously boil over at Survivor Series, but it seems to be a bigger issue at times than the actual Raw vs. Smackdown rivalry.

I do not like what is going on. Of course, it is somewhat unavoidable. The Raw and Smackdown superstars have not been appearing on both brands to help push these matches properly. So what are you supposed to do to kill time? If all these wrestlers acted like they really were on the same page as their team members, would there even be any matches? Certainly not many.

It just makes it hard to buy into the Raw vs. Smackdown rivalry. Both brands just look dysfunctional. Dysfunctional behavior was one of the irritating things about The Authority. They just looked terrible and hard to get into with how there would be this inconsistent unofficial feud within the group. Hopefully, this will just end this Sunday and everyone can move on.

What is something the WWE could have done to keep things fresh while still protecting what the common goal of these teams should be? Aside from having some guys from the other brand show up for singles matches or traditional 2-on-2 tag matches, they could have done some feuds exclusive to just Raw and Smackdown. Have some feuds that don't revolve around Raw vs. Smackdown. I am not talking about Lesnar vs. Goldberg. Those two part-timers aren't going to help since they don't wrestle on Raw. And I am not talking about lower-midcard filler with the likes of Bo Dallas. I mean meaningful feuds that would lead to a match at Survivor Series. The focus of these feuds would be clear. There would still be some infighting with some of these teams, but it wouldn't permeate the shows like I feel it has.

Onto the matches. Brian Kendrick defends the Cruiserweight Championship against Kalisto and Dolph Ziggler defends the Intercontinental Championship against Sami Zayn. Not only can titles change hands, they can change brands.

If one title changes hands, it just seems obvious that the other will change hands. I cannot imagine Smackdown ending up with two titles. They don't have space for it. They also are getting all those cruiserweights. Moreover, that just leaves Raw at a huge disadvantage. The whole point of having the cruiserweight division on Raw is that they had that extra hour they needed to fill. The cruiserweight division just made it easier, although they were doing okay in the few weeks prior to the division being born. I also cannot see Raw ending up with two titles. That would be unfair to Smackdown.

The titles will either stay where they are or switch shows. I think there is a good chance the switch happens. People have been talking about unifying certain titles. I will talk about that if the titles actually switch brands and Raw ends up with the two midcard singles titles. Until then, Zayn wins the Intercontinental Championship and Kalisto wins the Cruiserweight Championship.