#<- i mean like its not the worst thing ovw has ever done it just irritates me like come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[termagax]

like i guess this is cool. whatever. i dont like the color palette very much and i have some Opinions on this thing they keep doing to him but whatever.

[giant-goldfish]

you’ve given us duvall thoughts, let us know what you think about the marvellous miss pickman!! (apart from, ofc, Wife & The Best)

i dont have anythibg interesting 2 say shes just. idk! ive never seen a character like her. every single thing she says or does n the little gestures all blow my mind bc theyre all so on purpose. both on jacks side as a player who has such a clear idea of who she is & on pickmans side as a person who knows what she is n what her goals are. like it literally leaves me breathless w every single line out of her mouth ever since her introduction when jack chose 2 have her rolling cigarettes. like its all SO purposeful it drives me insane no other character is like this. shes so confident in her place in the world. both in the hierarchy of the heart & just being comfortable in her own skin yk? does not give a shit abt what any1 says really. even when she does its only bc it already fits in w her idea of the world & her place in it. i love the contrast btw being the big angry tank who shoots at things 20 times her size n pushes heretics down the stairs & also being possibly the most concerned w morality n implications (in her own realm of rules n priorities obviously. thats the best part) & thinking out all her actions b4hand even if she does it silently. like comparing pickman & my previous alltime favorite fatt character audy (literally least surprising fact abt me) theyre both big n silent n have big shotguns. but when audy just does not care abt most things (like they do. they do care both 4 their friends & 4 l&d feelings but yk. they will push ur wife out the spaceship) pickman cares SO MUCH even if she wouldve pushed a wife off a spaceship. she wouldve gone thru an entirely different thought labyrinth 2 decide if its the best course of action & also if its justified (QUICK detour 2 mention her sapodilla entrance interview where she talked abt the worst thing she ever did n how she justified it 2 herself. theres such a religious undertone 2 everything she does but like. who is her god? despite being a shape priest (her drawing maps ep still mostly stands imo) she does not pray to trains. but she does pray and she does believe she will b punished when she fails. GOD she has such a clear moral compass n general code 4 herself its killing me) anyway i mentioned her extremely strict extremely fluid vision of the world n her place in it abt 100 times. can i talk abt her gender real quick. that post thats like we need more female characters like this n its pics of the iasip dudes & the ovw aussies. its not just that shes very large or """masculine""" (means nothing) shes just so casual abt. her existence in general? nothing she does is masculine or feminine shes just fully pickman. jack is the only 1 who could pull that off this well. but also yes she is very large and i think when u pat her it sounds like when u slap a big dog. & every time i think of her my brain turns 2 mush n she just sits there in the empty mindspace until she decides im done thinking of pickman

[fromtheringapron]

WWE Survivor Series 2006

Date: November 26, 2006.

Location: Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Attendance: 15,400.

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler (Raw), Michael Cole and John Bradshaw Layfield (SmackDown!).

Results: 

1. Survivor Series Elimination Match: Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Ron Simmons, and Sgt. Slaughter (with Arn Anderson) defeated The Spirit Squad (Kenny, Johnny, Nicky, and Mikey) (with Mitch). Flair was the sole survivor. 

2. WWE United States Championship Match: Chris Benoit (champion) defeated Chavo Guerrero (with Vickie Guerrero). 

3. WWE Women’s Championship Match: Mickie James defeated Lita (champion). 

4. Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team DX (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, and CM Punk) defeated Team RKO (Edge, Randy Orton, Gregory Helms, Johnny Nitro, and Mike Knox) (with Melina and Kelly Kelly). All of Team DX survived. 

5. First Blood Match: Mr. Kennedy defeated The Undertaker. 

6. Survivor Series Elimination Match: John Cena, Bobby Lashley, Kane, Rob Van Dam, and Sabu defeated Big Show, MVP, Test, and Finlay (with Armando Alejandro Estrada). Cena and Lashley were the survivors. 

7. World Heavyweight Championship Match: Batista defeated King Booker (champion) (with Queen Sharmell).

My Review

I remember ordering Survivor Series 2006 on pay-per-view being weirdly hyped for it. I don’t know why; I just saw a lot of potential in the card, I guess. Sure enough, the show fell well below my expectations and I quickly disavowed it and never rewatched it again until recently. So how do I feel about it in 2020, our year of the Lord? Well, it’s not horrendous or anything, but it’s still not good. Some important-ish things happen and I still think there was potential here for this show to be so much better; it just feels like not a whole lot of effort was put into it.

If the show can’t shake its staidness, it’s certainly not done any favors by its main event. The feud between Batista and King Booker was WWE’s attempt at cashing in on the real-life heat between the two, but it never caught fire in translation. By all means, it should’ve worked. Batista was in his prime and Booker was enjoying one of the best stretches of his career yet it ultimately became a case of the two guys simply not meshing. Their match here is just a whole bunch of whatever to me. What should be the satisfying culmination of Batista’s year-long road back to the World Heavyweight title is instead anticlimactic. It feels more like an epilogue tacked on to a novel than an epic final chapter.

The most enjoyable part of the show is easily Team DX vs. Team RKO, which is a squash match single-handedly elevated by the charisma of its participants. Team DX —Triple H, HBK, CM Punk, and The Hardy Boyz — is often mentioned in the discussion of greatest Survivor Series teams of all time and that’s pretty difficult to argue against. It’s such an iconic group overflowing with star power that watching them share a ring together feels truly special. The Philly crowd is well-aware of the moment too and they don’t let it go to waste. A part of me would’ve wanted to see a more competitive match, and the potential was definitely there, but the trade-off is a surge of energy that’s much needed at the midpoint of the show.

The remainder of the card mostly ranges from forgettable to downright offensive. The other elimination matches here are fun sprints, but they embrace the worst qualities of the match’s modern iterations. Granted, I’m a traditionalist who thinks the elimination matches should always be the focus of the Survivor Series, but I do think at a baseline they shouldn’t feel like everyone is trying to get it over with as fast as possible and that’s the vibe I get here. Elsewhere, Chris Benoit and Chavo Guerrero square off over Eddie Guerrero’s namesake, whose death is still being sadly exploited for storylines a full year after the fact. The lowest moment, though, is the tasteless sendoff for Lita in her retirement match. In a way, there’s something admirable about Lita wanting to go out like a complete heel, but having her slut-shamed and her items put up for grabs in a “Hoe Sale” isn’t it, and it’s ultimately flat-out disrespectful to one of the most influential women in WWE history.

Overall, Survivor Series 2006 has all the ingredients yet it can’t bring them all together to make a great show. One look at the card may have you think otherwise but in the history of WWE’s Thanksgiving tradition, this is the equivalent of a fake colorful gourd you stuff in a cornucopia⏤it looks good, but don’t be fooled; the taste is underwhelming.

My Random Notes

I’d like to reject the notion that JBL was ever funny on color commentary. Maybe I’m alone here, but I find him super obnoxious? I get that’s he’s trying to channel Jesse Ventura; it’s just that he unfortunately translates that into yelling a lot without saying any good soundbites.

It’s hard to not look at Test here and feel sad. There’s the steroid bloat, yeah, but he just seems tired, almost like he’s phoning it in at some indy show.

Vickie Guerrero is pretty early into her heel run at this point so she’s nowhere near as over-the-top as she’d later become, but I do like her cold Real Housewives energy here. There’s that one moment in the video package where she says “Hi, Chris” so frigidly that I had to check my nose for frostbite.

Speaking of Chris, it’s already tough to stomach watching Eddie Guerrero’s death exploited for storylines, but it’s especially so to watch Benoit get involved when you know how badly Eddie’s death fucked him up. And, yes, I do have that Dark Side of the Ring episode on my mind. That was some seriously haunting shit. 

Fun fact: Ric Flair is undefeated in Survivor Series elimination matches, having been the sole survivor in two of them 15 years apart. The more you know!

Dusty Rhodes pinned Dolph Ziggler on a pay-per-view in 2006. Also the more you know!

A huge yikes @ the chair shot Taker gives Mr. Kennedy. No way that would fly now. Hell, it wouldn’t even fly less than year after this.

The Mickie James face turn truly happened outta nowhere, huh? I just remember there was one episode of Raw when she lost the Women’s title to Lita and — bam! — suddenly she’s a face, as if she wasn’t threatening Trish Stratus that she’d dismember Ashley Massaro less than six months prior.

I have little recollection of an MVP/Mr. Kennedy alliance, but it does seem like the most mid ‘00s WWE thing to happen. Remember when these two guys absolutely felt like the future faces of the company? The lost generation, indeed.

Alas, here we bare witness to the final days of The Spirit Squad. A night later, they’d be squashed by DX and literally sent back to OVW in a crate. To this day, I’ve never got the hate for them, other than it’s clearly a mid ‘90s WWF gimmick stuck in a mid ‘00s WWE. I used to think was the most obnoxious person on the roster, which I guess means they did their job well.