Three matches are set for next week’s WWE Raw, including a bout to decide the advantage for the men’s WarGames match set for Survivor Series.
One member of the team featuring Brock Lesnar, Drew McIntyre, Logan Paul, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed will take on either Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Jey Uso, or Jimmy Uso in a match that will determine the order of entry advantage for the Survivor Series WarGames battle.
Reigns and Lesnar returned on Monday’s Raw from Madison Square Garden to join their respective sides ahead of WarGames.
The first quarterfinals bouts in The Last Time is Now tournament deciding John Cena’s final opponent will also take place on the Monday, November 24 Raw.
After advancing past the first round on this week’s show, Gunther will take on either Bronson Reed or Carmelo Hayes on next week’s Raw. Solo Sikoa will face either Penta or Finn Balor in another quarterfinals matchup on November 24. Reed vs. Hayes and Penta vs. Balor will take place this Friday, November 21 on SmackDown.
The announced Raw lineup for next week:
WWE Raw, Monday, November 24 —
Men’s WarGames advantage match: Participants TBA
The Last Time is Now quarterfinals: Gunther vs. Reed/Hayes winner
The Last Time is Now quarterfinals: Solo Sikoa vs. Penta/Balor winner
With last weekend’s Saturday Night’s Main Event now over, WWE is setting its sights toward Survivor Series: WarGames.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque revealed the official poster for the November 29 PLE on social media today. The poster highlights The Vision, who are likely to feature in the men’s WarGames match with Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed competing.
A show so big and a match so brutal, it could only be held in a stadium.
“A show so big and a match so brutal, it could only be held in a stadium,” Levesque wrote. “You don’t rise to the moment…you survive it.”
The competitors for the men’s and women’s WarGames matches have not been announced yet. Despite Seth Rollins being injured and no longer part of The Vision, plans are still for Breakker and Reed to lead a team against a babyface squad featuring new World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk and Roman Reigns.
WarGames has been the theme of Survivor Series ever since Levesque took over as head of creative. He first brought the legendary Dusty Rhodes creation to WWE in 2017 while booking NXT.
Petco Park in San Diego — the home of Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres — will be the venue for Survivor Series. The show is taking place on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend and will stream live on the ESPN app in the United States and Netflix elsewhere.
It’s a brand new We’re Live, Pal with Andrew Zarian and I, also available for free on YouTube by clicking above.
We opened up the show talking about Tony Khan’s comments toward fans about the upcoming Continental Classic at the AEW Full Gear post-show press conference.
We also discussed:
The fallout from AEW Full Gear
Thoughts on Swerve vs. Hangman and the MJF show-long storyline
The reception to Full Gear from some of the fanbase
The Intercontinental Championship will be defended at WWE Survivor Series: WarGames.
The Miz won a four-way number one contender’s match on Monday’s Raw to earn a shot at Gunther’s Intercontinental title at Survivor Series: WarGames set for Saturday, November 25.
Miz pinned “Big” Bronson Reed after Reed missed a Tsunami in a four-way also involving Ivar & Ricochet to earn the title shot at Survivor Series. Ivar had Ricochet pinned simultaneously, but Ricochet kicked out at two while Miz held on to his cover on Reed to cement the win.
Ivar attacked Miz after the match and a bout between the two is set for next Monday’s Raw.
Zoey Stark won a number one contender’s battle royal on Raw to earn a shot at Rhea Ripley’s Women’s World Championship at Survivor Series and the first two bouts are now official for the event.
The current lineup:
WWE Survivor Series: WarGames, Saturday, November 25, 8 p.m. Eastern time on Peacock & WWE Network —
Intercontinental Champion Gunther defends against The Miz
Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley defends against Zoey Stark
Stark won a battle royal to determine the new number one contender for the Women’s World Championship. After eliminating Raquel Rodriguez together, the final two in the ring were Stark and Shayna Baszler. The two ended up on the apron where Stark took out Baszler with two superkicks and a DDT to win the battle royal.
After the match, Ripley was was being interviewed when Stark confronted her, saying Ripley needed to be paying attention to her. Stark pointed out that she would have pinned Ripley at Crown Jewel if it wasn’t for Nix Jax. Ripley brought up that it was her who laid out Stark with a riptide off the turnbuckle.
Prior to the battle royal, Becky Lynch was making her entrance when Xia Li laid her out with a spinning kick. After commercial break, it was revealed that Lynch would be unable to compete in the battle royal as a result of the attack.
Here is the lineup for Survivor Series WarGames:
Women’s World Championship: Rhea Ripley defends against Zoey Stark
WarGames is officially returning for this year’s Survivor Series.
During Crown Jewel on Saturday, WWE announced that WarGames will be taking place at Survivor Series later this month. WWE has yet to reveal any of the participants who will be taking part in the men’s and women’s WarGames matches.
Survivor Series is just three weeks away. The event is taking place from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois on Saturday, November 25. It will stream live on Peacock/WWE Network.
In 2022, WarGames made its WWE main roster debut at Survivor Series. The decision to use WarGames on the main roster was made by Paul “Triple H” Levesque after he took control of WWE creative.
Originally created by Dusty Rhodes in Jim Crockett Promotions, WarGames was a signature match of the NWA/WCW. It was revived by Levesque in 2017 for NXT. WarGames matches took place in NXT every year from 2017 through 2021.
The men’s WarGames match at last year’s Survivor Series saw Roman Reigns, The Usos, Solo Sikoa & Sami Zayn defeat Sheamus, Ridge Holland, Butch, Drew McIntyre & Kevin Owens. In the women’s WarGames match, Bianca Belair, Becky Lynch, Asuka, Alexa Bliss & Mia Yim defeated Rhea Ripley, Bayley, IYO SKY, Dakota Kai & Nikki Cross.
In 1987, Jim Crockett Promotions and booker Dusty Rhodes were looking for an attraction for the July 4 show at the Omni in Atlanta.
In the 70s, depending on where you lived, cage matches, Battle Royals, a long-built-up unique world title program, or Texas death matches were that attraction you could put on a major show and draw people who may only come to a show once, or a few times a year.
In time, they were starting to lose their juice. Rhodes took a series of concepts. There was the gang warfare, a coin toss from football, the cage match but with a top to it to prevent people from climbing out, and the finality of top guys submitting which at the time was very rare (so rare that fans would still chant “You quit” at Tully Blanchard for his submitting in a match three years earlier) the two-rings from the two-ring Battle Royals that Paul Boesch and Verne Gagne used to add juice to the typical Battle Royal, and staggered entrances that was the impetus for Pat Patterson’s creation of the Royal Rumble a few months later.
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Sunday News Update
We’ve got two shows up from this weekend. Garrett Gonzales and I went over the news of the week from WWE and AEW in depth on our Friday night show. Bryan and I talked Survivor Series, Smackdown and lots of thoughts on War Games on last night’s show. Bryan and I will be back again tomorrow night.
Some notes from last night’s show. The show was a legit sellout, and really it was pretty much sold out from day one. After production moved in, they put a few hundred more tickets on sale the last day or two, which scalpers bought immediately and then put on sale for the public. It was the largest pro wrestling gate ever in Boston and broke seven figures. It was the most-watched Survivor Series ever but with it being on Peacock which has over 15 million U.S. sub subscribers as compared to nine million last year and one million that the WWE Network had, it was a given going in it would break that record. I’ll have a story on War Games, its history and what did and didn’t work in the matches, on the Sports Illustrated site tomorrow.
Brian Kendrick was backstage producing. Not sure if this was a tryout or a new hire. PW Insider reported it as a tryout. It is notable that he was about to start in AEW when it became a thing of controversy regarding him claiming the holocaust wasn’t real and he was dropped. For some reason, with WWE, I saw nothing at all regarding that subject and his being hired. The only thing we heard was that it was a surprise to most people, including those at NXT who know him, that he was back.
Ricky Steamboat had his first match in more than a dozen years in Raleigh, NC tonight teaming with FTR against Jay Lethal & Brock Anderson & Nick Aldis managed by Arn Anderson. The Big Time Wrestling show also has Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson in the final Rock & Roll Express match ever at Dorton Arena, plus Matt Hardy vs. Crowbar Devon Storm, a Jimmy Valiant Boogie Man Jam Battle Royal plus The Steiners, Kane, Lex Luger and Teddy Long appear as guests.
We’re looking for your thoughts on Survivor Series, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
We’re also looking for reports from tonight’s WWE house show in Portland, ME and the Ricky Steamboat headlined show in Raleigh, NC tonight to [email protected]
The only thing this past week in boxing , pro wrestling or MMA to crack the Google search list was Survivor Series which was the seventh most searched term in the country with more than 200,000 searches. The number is normal level for a B show although Survivor Series is usually an A show. The previous show with Logan Paul did 300,000.
Road Dogg, Molly Holly and Alundra Blayze (Madusa) have all been announced for Tuesday’s NXT show in regard to announcing the wrestlers in the two Iron Survivor matches on the 12/10 special.
AEW has an ROH Final Battle PPV show from Arlington, TX, also on 12/10, and UFC has a PPV show on 12/10, so that will be a crazy day. AEW has two weeks to promote the ROH show with Chris Jericho vs. Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH title with Castagnoli having to join the JAS if he doesn’t win the title as the stipulation. That will be an afternoon show which may be more difficult for PPV than the usual prime time evening time slot. There were teases of FTR vs. Gunn Club and Mercedes Martinez vs. Athena for the tag and women’s titles. The latter from TV basically looked like it was happening although not officially announced.
Jr.: TJP & Francesco Akira b Tiger Mask & Robbie Eagles
Heavy: Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi b Tetsuya Naito & Sanada
Aussie Open is in first place in the heavyweight with three wins while Naito & Sanada, Archer & Suzuki, Nicholls & Haste, Goto & Yoshi-Hashi and O’Khan & Henare have two wins.
In the junior, Austin & Bey are first with four wins, TJP & Akira, Zayne & Lindaman, Bushi & Titan and Yoh & Rush all have three wins.
New Japan has a junior heavyweight tag team tournament show live on New Japan World at 4:30 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning from Nagano with Ryusuke Taguchi & Clark Connors vs. Kushida & Kevin Knight, TJP & Francesco Akira vs. Sho & Dick Togo, Tiger Mask & Robbie Eagles vs. Alex Zayne & Lindaman, Bushi & Titan (who have been great all tournament) vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki and Lio Rush & Yoh vs. Ace Austin & Chris Bey.
The 1/4 AEW show in Seattle has a ticket special that you can get four tickets for $80 using the code AEWSEASON.
The Miz will be on NBC’s The Wheel shows from 12/19 to 12/23 and 12/26 to 12/30. He will be one of six celebrities helping contestants win money. He will also be on Pictionary soon. (thanks to Brian Henke)
A correction from Friday. We had listed that the Stardom in Showcase show yesterday was the first Showcase show on PPV, but that they had other Showcase shows on PPV. (thanks to Shannon Walsh)
Biaggio Ali-Walsh, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, fought MMA Friday night at the PFL show at the Hulu Theater. He looked very good, knocking out Tom Graesser in :45 in an amateur fight that opened the show.
Impact wrestling has received new physical belts. Top Rope Belts, which made the new belt, sent out a tweet showing heavyweight champion Josh Alexander with his new belt, Knockouts champion Jordynne Grace with her new belt and Heath & Rhino with their new tag team title belts.
WarGames has entered the WWE main roster. And the results are mixed.
Neither match was bad, let’s point that out to begin with. Everyone worked hard, and both matches had some cool spots. The men’s match had a dramatic ending that worked really well. But I see these matches and think about the WarGames matches from the past, particularly in WCW in the early 90s. These matches were paced much better, had blood, and had an intensity that these matches just didn’t have.
Both matches at Survivor Series on Saturday at times felt like they were doing the same exact match, just with different weapons. It doesn’t help that I’ve seen so many weapons matches in the last couple of months, all with the same weapons, the question I had after watching both matches is why is simple: why should I care about weapons in a cage match when I saw them not in a cage match last month? Or the month before? These matches are meant to feel special, and all it really felt like was the same WWE weapons match, but there were two rings instead of one.
The men headlined Survivor Series this year, and while the match was perfectly fine, the highlight of the show (and this match) were the interactions between Roman Reigns, Jey Uso, Sami Zayn, and the Bloodline in general. This storyline is clearly the hottest thing in the company right now, and each step they take is very well done. The show-long storyline of Reigns questioning whether or not Zayn could be trusted, and the eventual Zayn betrayal of Owens, officially cementing himself as a ride or die Bloodline member, was very well done. It saved what otherwise was a pretty mediocre show.
Women’s WarGames had some cool spots, and some cool teases (when will they do Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch?) but my thoughts on both matches are pretty much the same: well worked, cool spots, not bad by any means, but nothing that made me feel like I was watching something special.
Best match of the night would be the three-way match between Seth Rollins, Austin Theory, and Bobby Lashley for the United States title. It was a well-executed match with a crowd (who was largely uninterested in a lot of this show) reacting well to Seth Rollins, who probably is in line for a babyface run, if he isn’t a babyface already. The finish was very clever, with Rollins being pinned by Theory after Lashley speared Rollins as he was going for the falcon arrow. Theory is getting Triple H’s push now as opposed to Vince McMahon’s push, so the rehab continues.
AJ Styles and Finn Balor wrestled a match that was so memorable I forgot to put it in the first draft of this review, and only was reminded about it after double-checking the card. Not to say this was a bad match, as it was well worked between two guys who are excellent pro wrestlers. But that’s the problem: these two wrestlers are capable of having a way better match than what went down at Survivor Series. They wrestled for what felt like a long time in front of a dead crowd, then AJ won. They’ve had way better matches in the past, so to say this match was a disappointment would be an understatement.
The only other non-WarGames match on the show was Ronda Rousey successfully defending the title against Shotzi. Nothing about this match worked. The build was just pathetic, hardly making Shotzi look like a worthwhile opponent to Rousey. Then the match went down, where a lot of the stuff they did looked bad in front of a very disinterested crowd. The most notable moment of the match, in fact, was probably when fans started to chant for Sasha Banks, which was immediately drowned out by the WWE production crew. I am hoping there are better ideas for the SmackDown women’s division going forward as this Rousey run so far is hardly setting the world on fire.
As far as the main roster goes, we’re going to go two months (!) without a major event, with Royal Rumble taking place on January 28. By then, we’ll get a clearer picture of what WrestleMania look like. Will we get Bianca vs. Charlotte and Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch? My guess is yes. How about The Rock vs. Roman Reigns? Seems unlikely, but maybe! We will see in two month’s time.
Theory defeated Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley in a three-way match to win the title for a second time at Saturday’s Survivor Series WarGames event. The finish had Rollins lay out Lashley with the stomp, then went to superplex Theory off the top rope. As Rollins lifted up Theory for the falcon arrow, Lashley then speared Rollins. Theory then rolled over and covered Rollins for the win.
Rollins had held the title for 47 days, defeating Lashley on the October 10 edition of Raw.
The feud between the three began several weeks ago, when Lashley destroyed Seth Rollins in what had originally been a match for the title. Theory used this as an opportunity to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase. However, Lashley returned and attacked Theory, costing him the match. Since that match, Theory has gone on to say that losing the briefcase was the best thing that has happened to him, adopting a more serious persona in the process.
The man advantage has been decided for Saturday’s WWE Survivor Series WarGames.
Drew McIntyre and Sheamus defeated The Usos in a tag match on Friday’s SmackDown to earn the man advantage in Saturday’s men’s WarGames match at Survivor Series.
Playing off a storyline teasing dissension between Sami Zayn and The Bloodline, Zayn inadvertently caused a distraction in Friday’s tag bout allowing Kevin Owens to interfere in the match and leading to Sheamus pinning Jey Uso.
The card for Saturday’s pay-per-view was finalized at the top of Friday’s SmackDown with the return of Becky Lynch, revealed as the final member of Bianca Belair’s WarGames team.
Here is the lineup for Saturday’s Survivor Series:
Becky Lynch is back, and will be inside WarGames this Saturday.
Friday’s SmackDown opened with Bayley and the rest of her WarGames team in the ring, demanding Bianca Belair reveal the fifth member of her team. Belair came out and introduced the fifth person, who ended up being Lynch. The two teams immediately started brawling, with Rhea Ripley facing down Lynch at one point. Ripley and the rest of her team backed off as Bianca’s team stood tall on the apron.
Lynch had been out of action since SummerSlam, when she dislocated her shoulder in a match against Bianca Belair. On the Raw following SummerSlam, Lynch turned face and congratulated Belair on retaining the championship. Later backstage, however, she was attacked by members of Damage CTRL, writing her off of television.
Here is the updated lineup for Saturday’s Survivor Series:
The final member of Bianca Belair’s WWE Survivor Series WarGames team will be revealed on this Friday’s SmackDown episode.
Belair announced during a promo on Monday’s Raw that the final member of her team will be revealed on this week’s SmackDown show, the night before Saturday’s Survivor Series event in Boston.
Already announced for Belair’s team are Belair, Michin, Alexa Bliss, and Asuka. They will face Bayley, IYO SKY, Dakota Kai, Nikki Cross, and Rhea Ripley in the women’s WarGames bout on Saturday.
A tag bout on next week’s WWE SmackDown will decide which team gets the man advantage in the men’s Survivor Series WarGames match.
Drew McIntyre and Sheamus will team against The Usos on the November 25 SmackDown episode, with the winning side earning the advantage in the men’s WarGames bout set for Survivor Series the next night.
The men’s WarGames match was made official on this week’s SmackDown, as McIntyre, Sheamus, Kevin Owens, Butch, and Ridge Holland will face Roman Reigns, The Usos, Sami Zayn, and Solo Sikoa at Survivor Series.
Three additional bouts are set for next week’s SmackDown.
In the SmackDown World Cup semifinals, Braun Strowman will take on Ricochet, plus Butch faces Santos Escobar.
A tag team contest with SmackDown Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler vs. Shotzi and Raquel Rodriguez is also set for next week’s show.
Next week’s lineup:
WWE SmackDown, Friday, November 25 —
SmackDown World Cup semifinals: Braun Strowman vs. Ricochet
SmackDown World Cup semifinals: Santos Escobar vs. Butch
WarGames advantage match: Drew McIntyre & Sheamus vs. The Usos
Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler vs. Shotzi & Raquel Rodriguez
Damage CTRL’s WWE Survivor Series WarGames team is set following Monday’s Raw episode.
Rhea Ripley will join the team alongside Nikki Cross, and Damage CTRL’s Bayley, IYO SKY, and Dakota Kai in the Survivor Series WarGames match on Saturday, November 26.
Ripley, Cross, Bayley, SKY, and Kai will face a team comprised of Bianca Belair, Asuka, Alexa Bliss, Mia Yim, and one competitor still yet to be announced.
A match to determine which side will start with the one-person WarGames advantage will be held on next week’s Raw episode.
Here is the current Survivor Series WarGames lineup:
WWE Survivor Series WarGames, Saturday, November 26, 8 p.m. Eastern time on Peacock & WWE Network —
