A lot has changed in WWE over the course of the past couple of months. Now that Vince McMahon is out and Stephanie McMahon, Nick Khan, and Triple H are leading the charge, a number of released wrestlers have returned, and most fans would agree the on-screen product has improved. A number of rules and traditions Vince stuck by for years have also been ousted already.
Certain words being banned from TV and name changes, for example. Doudrop recently revealed she has already talked about changing her name back to Piper Niven with The Game. Some fans might have hoped that Triple H demonstrating he isn't scared to change what Vince had in place for years would mean the Survivor Series formula would get an overhaul this year.
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Survivor Series is one of the longest-running WWE PPVs on the calendar, but the Raw vs. SmackDown format it has taken for the past half a decade has grown stale. Any hopes that would be changing under Triple H were thwarted on SmackDownt this week, though. At least for now. Michael Cole took a quick sidebar on Friday night to advertise ticket info for the show, using the same language to sell Survivor Series that WWE has been using for years.
Hardened WWE fans will be able to recite that language word for word, and may well have let out an exasperated sigh when they heard it on SmackDown this week. "The one night a year Raw and SmackDown go head to head." Apparently that will be the case once again once November rolls around, and the logo that accompanied Cole's announcement was red and blue, another clear indicator that nothing will be changing.
Another sign that might have had some fans hopeful WWE would be deviating from the usual Survivor Series path this year was its unified champions. The cornerstones of a modern-day Survivor Series PPV are champion vs. champion matches. With both World Titles on the same man, and one tag team holding both sets of Tag Titles, something will have to give before the PPV rolls around if it really is going to stick to the same formula.
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