Survivor Series 2025
Survivor Series, the Fall tradition and the WWE’s second oldest pay-per-view event, is in the books. The broadcast ran more than three hours and 15 minutes, but still only had a total of four matches on the card, which created a few flat points throughout the viewing experience. I understand that specifically in the era of TKO, the days of the runtime of a PPVs being two hours and 45 minutes on the dot are over, but I’m still going to say it as long as it remains relevant, the number of commercials and video packages over the course of the night take away a lot of the momentum during the card.
That being said, it speaks volumes about the power of even the diminished momentum of the WWE brand to be able to bring the Survivor Series franchise to a stadium and move somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 tickets with only four bouts on the line-up. Just for the viewers at home, it would be questionable if such a show is worth the $30 ESPN subscription to watch it, but somehow a stadium of fans paid the notoriously astronomical TKO ticket prices to be there live.
As usual, the show opened and concluded with the war games matches. There’s an argument to be made that two of those gimmick matches on the same card is over killed, but if it’s going to be scheduled for the same show, it makes sense to take the bookend approach to at least attempt to avoid them overlapping as far as the presentation. The women’s war games was fine for what it was, the action was decent and it had a few solid moments, particularly with the Iyo Sky dive off of the top of the cage, but the gimmick itself can tend to get tedious because of the staggered entrances for the structure of the match. That’s one of the reasons that putting two of these on the same PPV can be repetitive and thus less effective overall. From an action perspective, this was yet another example of why the female division has been so consistent with quality performances the past several years. Asuka is an MVP, Iyo is one of the best in-ring workers in the entire business, Kairi Sane brings a very solid skill set to the table, and the same can be said for Rhea Ripley, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte as well. I understand that Lash Legend is a project from outside of the pro wrestling realm with her accomplished sports background, but she was sloppy and borderline dangerous in some of the spots in this contest. I’m not sure if AJ Lee’s return is as big as some have tried to make it to be since she had a relatively brief tenure on the main roster before she was gone for a decade, but it made sense to showcase her with the winning submission based on the crowd reaction.
The Intercontinental title match was decent, but it was extremely clear that they were working a very safe match to avoid the slightest possibility of Cena getting injured before his retirement bout in two weeks in Washington, DC, which was the smart move. His sendoff is theoretically the culmination of everything he did since he announced his retirement plans last year so his final bout is exponentially more important in the grand scheme of things than the second match of an extended Survivor Series card. Because of that, the in-ring action for this contest was nothing spectacular or noteworthy. However, the finish, which saw the return of Liv Morgan from injury, was very well done. This angle put Liv back into the fold as a major character on Raw, Dominik gets a boost for beating John Cena to win the IC title back, and the way the angle was presented created a memorable moment when Liv cost Cena the championship.
Stephanie Vaquer beat Nikki Bella to retain the Women’s championship in a match that went just over 10 minutes, but dragged to seem like it was longer than that. This isn’t necessarily meant as knock on Nikki, but this was basically Vaquer wrestling circles around her and it was clear that she couldn’t quite keep up with her opponent. That’s not to minimize Nikki’s star power, as the Bellas still maintain a noticeable level of popularity from their reality show years ago, but I think it’s fair to say that Vaquer’s work is more in-ring based, and Nikki is more entertainment based. That doesn’t mean one is better than the other, that depends on the perspective and the scenario, but rather to point out that it was somewhat of a styles clash. Vaquer retained the belt after an incredible spinning moonsault to get the pin.
The main event was the men’s war games match and to be completely honest, it was somewhat underwhelming until the finish. At one point during an attempted doomsday device, Bron Breakker fell directly onto his head, and it’s probably a small miracle that he was able to continue the bout. Similar to the women’s cage match, this went 40 minutes, and after such an extended show with only three matches before this, there wasn’t enough action to truly pick up the pace to a level that you’d expect for a worthwhile main event of one of the “big four” pay-per-views. Punk and Cody bled, which added to the intensity of the match, but the bout was so long that the crimson disappeared by the conclusion. This match just didn’t have the moments or the match-ups with the potential combination of participants that could’ve made it more memorable. In fact, it might be on the opposite of the spectrum, depending on how the mystery angle unfolds in the future. Eventually, a masked man climbed the cage and attacked CM Punk, setting up for Bron Breakker to get the victory for The Vision stable.
Obviously, the reveal of the masked man will be the intriguing part of this storyline. Since the mystery wrestler used the curb stomp, it was implied that it was Seth Rollins, who legitimately is on the sidelines after shoulder surgery. Besides the fact that Rollins is still recovering from the injury, it would be too obvious for it to be him after it was implied that it was Seth during the show. Truth be told, management can put whoever they want under the mask to play the role until it’s time to reveal who it is. By keeping the masked man ambiguous, they keep their options open for the potential surprise in the future. My initial thought is that it could be revealed to be Chris Jericho, who is expected to officially leave AEW when his contract expires at the end of the year. Sure, in reality, Jericho can’t actually show up until 2026, but again, the office could have anyone play the role to imply that it was Jericho the entire time for storyline purposes to set him up with something important for his return to the WWE. All things considered, Jericho would be a logical choice, as he already has history with a few of the members of the war games team. He had a lengthy rivalry with CM Punk years ago, and he also had a feud with Cody in AEW that could at least be referenced for a storyline in the WWE.
Regardless of who it is revealed to be, at least right now, the masked man is the narrative of Survivor Series. That being said, if you look at this show in a vacuum, there wasn’t a lot of meat on the bone in terms of substance to go along with the promotional sizzle of the tradition of the event. Maybe I’m missing something, but there just wanted enough action to go along with the typical TKO pyro and ballyhoo at this pay-per-view. I could be wrong, but I just don’t think a show that is three hours and 15 minutes and only has four matches provides enough action for the viewing audience. Somehow, the cost to watch these events has increased, but the amount of in-ring action seems rather limited. Make no mistake about, the Survivor Series is a valuable historic commodity for the WWE brand, and the tickets sold for the stadium event proves that, but all things considered, this might be considered a rather forgettable pay-per-view.
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Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
