Hours ahead of WWE Survivor Series 2019 tonight, we still have a lot of blank spots. In fact, we have a whole team that’s missing! While we heard who the five women who will be repping NXT in the Survivor Series matches are, Team NXT for the men’s side is still entirely unknown.
That will continue to be the case until we get to the Kickoff Show later tonight. The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, someone who has for years worked closely with NXT behind the scenes and has recently become a figurehead for them on Raw and SmackDown, will be on the pre-show panel. And it’s been announced that he will be naming the five men who will be donning the black and yellow t-shirts and repping the brand.
While we can’t say for sure who Shawn Michaels is going to name, there are some very likely candidates.
It’s almost impossible to imagine that Tommaso Ciampa isn’t the captain of Team NXT, particularly after he managed to defeat NXT Champion Adam Cole and the rest of the Undisputed Era last night. And if he’s on this team, there’s really no way he couldn’t bring his partners Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic with him.
Sadly, the much hyped fourth man who helped them to this victory in WarGames is busy tonight… after all, Kevin Owens will be part of Team Raw instead! This leaves two spots open, but one of them is a pretty obvious one to fill.
Matt Riddle has been a constant presence in the NXT invasions on Raw and SmackDown. He’s been particularly allied with Keith Lee, and from the teases, it was pretty clear that originally he was going to be part of that WarGames team. He came up short to Finn Balor last night but he’s nonetheless one of the best, most exciting workers in NXT with a very unique style. He’s a non-plussed, laidback figure that really helps define their image as the cooler version of WWE. And he’s incredibly popular as well, the RVD of his age in more ways than one… so he’s a pretty easy pick for #4 on this team in my estimation.
That fifth spot, however, is where this gets interesting…
Do they dip in and get Finn Balor on their side, in spite of nobody having any clue where he really stands? He’d be a huge name and it’d work in a lot of ways, but might risk taking away from his allure and mysterious vibe to see him shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of babyfaces.
Killian Dain and Damian Priest would be good, but they’re honestly pretty similar as workers to Lee and Dijakovic, you’d like a more diverse team.
Maybe they take to the up-and-coming crop and pick up someone like Swerve Scott, Angel Garza, Cameron Grimes or Bronson Reed? It’d be a nice spotlight for any of those men… Cruiserweight Champion Lio Rush would give the team something they don’t have, as he’s probably the fastest man in all of WWE.
But then, you could always take a cue from the women’s team and look overseas… there you might have your answer, and my personal pick for the fifth man: WALTER!
He’s already had run-ins with Raw’s team captain Seth Rollins. And while he’d make for a third big man on Team NXT, his style of ruthlessly hard strikes and technical leanings make him a very different kind of competitor than either Lee or Dijakovic.
All I know is that I’ll be here to let you know as soon as Shawn Michaels makes his announcement!
