After twenty-two years and twenty-three editions of the event, WWE has decided to drop its second oldest pay-per-view, Survivor Series, off of its pay-per-view lineup entirely.

WWE plans to replace Survivor Series with an all new (most likely gimmicky) event, because in the words of Vince McMahon, “Survivor Series has become obsolete.”

This is a huge disappointment.

Survivor Series was WWE’s second oldest pay-per-view (after Wrestlemania), and saw many memorable moments, including the WWE debuts of The Undertaker, The Rock and Kurt Angle. And it provided the almost always fun, always interesting Survivor Series tag team matches, where teams of four or five wrestlers would face off, elimination style.

It was one of the more fun gimmick matches, since they could still focus on wrestling (they didn’t all of the time, but the potential was there) and it wasn’t too gimmicky, not to mention I think elimination style matches are fun.

But the Survivor Series match, like the Survivor Series event itself, is no more. Despite being one of the WWE’s “big four” pay-per-views, despite its legacy that the WWE has so openly touted for over two decades, Survivor Series has now been casually brushed aside to make way for something fresh and new.

True, Survivor Series was no Wrestlemania, and I’ve always found the Royal Rumble to be another superior pay-per-view concept. But to just entirely eliminate Survivor Series so nonchalantly seems disrespectful. Yes, it seems like the WWE is being disrespectful towards itself, by dumping one of its oldest and most storied traditions. And going about it so casually no less. They don’t even have a final event planned. Last November’s event was the last one.

It isn’t like we’re talking about one of the multitudes of throwaway pay-per-views the WWE has every year. This was one of the big four! Only Wrestlemania itself can claim an older lineage. The Survivor Series was an iconic event in WWE’s history, and they’ve thrown it away like yesterday’s newspaper.

The use of the word “obsolete” is what truly makes this a disappointment, it just shows how little McMahon, and more than likely the WWE itself, thinks of its own history. Yes, pro-wrestling can get ridiculous andat times, very stupid. It can be crude and offensive, but it can also be good entertainment when it wants to be. And while the WWE has had far more than enough of its fair share of idiotic moments, storylines, gimmicks and the like, it should still care about the factors of its history that it can take some pride in.

But I suppose the fresh and new are the focus of pretty much everything these days. Always catering to the new without giving a glance to the things that paved the way.

Even if they put on one final Survivor Series, and gave it a proper finale (or even an attempt at a proper finale for that matter), it wouldn’t be as bad as it is. But to just basically say that the idea behind it is obsolete old news and it’s time for something new and hip and that’s that is like the WWE delivering a cheap shot to its own lineage. It shows how little these things mean to the WWE itself.

WWE has already announced that they are ending the ECW brand and replacing it with “WWE NXT.” WWE mistreated their whole ECW brand from the start, and I never thought they gave it the proper chance. But WWE’s ECW was started to bank off of the success of the original ECW (which went belly up in 2001), and it lost any trace of its ECWness a while ago. So dropping the ECW brand is a little more expected (but still a shame, since, as I said, I never believe it was given the proper chance). But dropping Survivor Series WWE is dropping a big part of its own history. And why? Because it is old news, which in their eyes means irelivent. It doesn’t matter how much of an impact it may have had in the past, they decided it’s better to replace it with something new and “cooler.”

Whatever pay-per-view WWE comes up with to replace Survivor Series certainly has big shoes to fill, and I honestly don’t see it filling them. More than likely they’ll replace it with another pay-per-view revolved around a gimmicky weapons match or something. WWE stopped caring about tag team matches a while ago (only recently have they shown any reinterest in them), so why would they care about elimination team matches?

I have always hated the saying “Out with the old, in with the new.” And suddenly I am reminded why.