Big news for WWE Survivor Series 2019 coming out of WWE Crown Jewel.
Traditionally, during years where the brand extension is active, Survivor Series is known for it’s Raw vs. SmackDown brand warfare. Last year, Raw comically defeated SmackDown 7-1 in a series of interbrand matches. It was meant to be 8-0, but a weird snafu saw SmackDown’s team win on the Kickoff, so they opted to say the Kickoff didn’t really count and showed the score as 7-0. This humiliation was put on the brand largely to fuel Shane McMahon’s heel turn.
This tradition has dated back to the 2005 incarnation of the event, headlined by the first-ever Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown 5-on-5 Survivor Series match. Funnily, SmackDown featured a much deeper team on that night and ended up winning.
Now, this year, the battle is back on… but a third party has been brought into the fray.
Survivor Series 2019 will be Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT.
In a move that I’m sure they’re hoping will boost NXT ratings and make bigger stars of their roster, NXT has been added as a third faction in the oncoming war. While no matches have been announced and it’s not totally clear how this will work out, the video promoting this has Seth Rollins repping Raw, Roman Reigns representing SmackDown, and Adam Cole championing NXT.
Some sort of multi-way Survivor Series elimination match seems likely to me. The Undisputed Era and Finn Balor might be involved in that, but it should be noted that, judging by implication, they will already be taking part in WarGames the night before. That one would be one hell of a weekend for them, to say the least.
This can also go deeper. Champion vs. Champion matches have become a staple of the event in recent years. NXT’s titles can easily get involved in this. Are we looking at Bayley vs. Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler? Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles vs. Roderick Strong? Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish vs. The Viking Raiders vs. The Revival/New Day?
I can’t help but think we’re looking at a lot of triple threats in some capacity here.
Will any titles actually be on the line during this event?
I suggested earlier that Rey Mysterio and Brock Lesnar for the WWE title seemed likely and I feel like that’s probably happening. The Fiend being a part of a Survivor Series team would be a terrible idea, I wouldn’t want him just standing on the apron with everyone else, he should probably be defending his title instead himself.
Adam Cole on the other hand feels more likely to be on a Team NXT than anything else to me. But a Fiend vs. Lesnar vs. Cole triple threat isn’t entirely impossible, I suppose… that would certainly be a unique one to say the least.
I’m a little concerned at getting NXT involved in Raw or SmackDown booking, but I can’t help but think they’re only doing this for NXT’s benefit. So I can’t imagine they’ll be trying to make them look bad here, they’ll have to get some key victories in this skirmish.
You can see the video confirming this below:
https://twitter.com/coupdebanks/status/1189972550299709440
