WWE Survivor Series 2019 will take place on November 24 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT live on the WWE Network with the kickoff show beginning at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. Here are some duel match card predictions for a PPV well known for brand supremacy.
Monday Night Raw. Due to its longevity and plethora of main event caliber talent for almost thirty years, this brand has been well known as the ‘flagship show.’ With a 4-3 victory against SmackDown in Survivor Series 2017 and a clean sweep 6-0 victory against SmackDown in Survivor Series 2018, expect this brand to try their best to maintain their stature as the number one brand in the WWE.
SmackDown. Due to being overlooked for two decades, this brand has been continuously referred to as the ‘B-show.’ Needless to say, this brand has a chip on their shoulder, and that chip must be very salty from the shellacking it took from Raw at last year’s Survivor Series. With the new Fox deal in business, expect this brand to utilize that momentum to redeem themselves, acquiesce the bragging rights they so desperately need, and prove why the ‘B’ in ‘B-show’ stands for best.
NXT. Due to its in-depth storytelling and outstanding in-ring performances, this brand promotes itself as the ‘No B.S. show.’ With its strong attraction towards hardcore wrestling fans, it is a brand with nothing to lose and everything to gain for their official debut at this year’s Survivor Series. The tables have now turned because Raw and SmackDown must not only focus on each other but must also focus on a ‘rookie brand’ that looks forward to taking names, making statements, and grasping those imaginary brass rings. This exposure should also help with their ratings competition against AEW on Wednesday Nights.
Nonetheless, four star-studded matches have been announced thus far: (1) Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Rey Mysterio for the WWE Championship, (2) United States Champion AJ Styles vs. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong, (3) Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. NXT Women’s Champion Shaya Bayzler, and (4) Raw Tag Team Champions The Viking Raiders vs. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day vs. NXT Tag Team Champions The Undisputed Era. The men’s and women’s 5-on-5-on-5 Survivor Series matches are also scheduled to happen at this event.
With that being said, it’s time to go to war and plunge into a slur of surprises for November’s PPV with my illustrious colleague, Kevin Parvizi. Let’s now predict the WWE Survivor Series 2019 card, starting with the Tag Team Champions match.
– Intro by Mark Justice.
Raw Tag Team Champions Viking Raiders vs. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day vs. NXT Tag Team Champions The Undisputed Era [Tag Team Champion War]
Kevin Parvizi: Before The New Day won the SmackDown Tag Team Titles for the seventh time, I thought this was a no-brainer. I mean, how on earth could two tag teams that nobody really cares about, The Revival and The Viking Raiders, justifiably defeat a stable as renowned as The Undisputed Era?
But now that the greatest stable in WWE history has been added to the match, things get a little more complicated. Defeating The New Day is a HUGE deal, especially since they recently had a WWE Champion in their ranks.
The New Day’s addition to the match makes this more than must-see; it also gives The Undisputed Era a chance to add a massive win to their resumes. Adam Cole’s stable is quite literally a big part of WWE’s future, and as much as his NXT Title reign has put over the stable, a win over The New Day (and The Viking Raiders) would be that much more impactful for the stable’s stock as a whole.
Prediction: NXT Tag Team Champions Undisputed Era
Mark Justice: There is a plenitude of naysayers who felt that The Revival would be a better fit than The New Day in this match. Unfortunately, their dreams were crushed when The New Day dethroned The Revival on SmackDown last week. However, this title change was actually provided as a consolation prize for Kingston losing the WWE Championship to Brock Lesnar in record time as well as a tribute to Xavier Woods as he recovers from his debilitating achilles injury.
Besides, both The New Day and The Revival are equivalently talented in tag team wrestling, and either of them would be remarkable fits as SmackDown Tag Team Champions for this match. The New Day is a popular tag team in the WWE and thereby deserves to be on the card just as much as they do.
Although The New Day is the most tenacious tag team, the Viking Raiders are dominant and The Undisputed Era are tremendously cunning. When it comes to winning triple threat matches, the most cunning tag team has an advantage so don’t be surprised with a sneaky victory by O’Reilly and Fish if they somehow steal a pinfall after one of the other tag teams does all the heavy lifting during the match.
Prediction: NXT Tag Team Champions Undisputed Era
Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler [Women’s Champion War]
Kevin Parvizi: This match has the potential to be one of the best in Survivor Series history. Becky Lynch, Bayley, and Shayna Baszler are all at the top of their games and in the midst of one of the best title reigns that each of their championships has ever seen.
You can’t go wrong with picking any of these three women as winners, but I’m going to go with Shayna Baszler. WWE will want to keep her invincible aura during her lengthy title reign, because everyone wants to know who will finally take the title off “Shayna Two-Time”.
Mark’s suggested finish sounds like a good one, especially since WWE would probably prefer to have a heel Bayley submit over Becky.
Prediction: NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler
Mark Justice: All three of these champions are at the cusp of greatness and this match would be a good call to steal the show. Their invasions from week to week have been stellar, thereby eliciting a very exciting build-up.
With Becky Lynch and Bayley positioned at the pinnacle of the women’s revolution, it is very easy yet remiss to overlook NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Bayzler. As evidenced by her key invasions on both Raw and SmackDown, it is clear that she is a trailblazer in every sense of the word; on top of that, she is extremely dangerous and would be tough to beat in any match she partakes in.
With Becky Lynch conquering Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania and Bayley catching Charlotte Flair off guard with her new dark gimmick, they would be tough to beat as well. However, each of these superstars must be protected, and the best-case scenario is for Shayna Bayzler to make Bayley pass out rather than tap out to the Kirifuda Driver submission hold.
Prediction: NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler
Women’s Survivor Series Match [Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT: 5 vs. 5 vs. 5]
Kevin Parvizi: SmackDown is absolutely winning this match, and it has everything to do with their captain.
Sasha Banks lost to Becky Lynch at Hell in a Cell and isn’t in the title picture, but she still feels like the biggest deal in WWE right now. By engineering a masterful WWE Survivor Series 2019 win for Team SmackDown, Sasha can make a statement to the rest of the WWE Women’s Division that she is “The Boss” who runs the landscape of wrestling.
As Mark will mention, SmackDown has inexplicably never won the Women’s Elimination Match at Survivor Series, and this is the year they break the streak. And you can bet Sasha will be in the spotlight, gloating in the aftermath of the victory.
Prediction: Team SmackDown [Women’s]
Mark Justice: Since the brand split commenced in 2016 and Survivor Series revived its brand war theme, Team SmackDown for the Women’s Survivor Series match had never been successful. In the past three years, Team Raw had always won the Women’s Survivor Series match.
With Sasha Banks now being the team captain, this could be the year they get rid of that dry spell. Since Banks has not had the greatest momentum since returning to in-ring competition, she could really use this win to boost up that momentum. In fact, a high caliber superstar like herself should be the sole survivor for this match.
Despite defeating them on SmackDown last week, it is understandable that her team might be perceived as weak compared to Team NXT. However, the endurance and tenacity of Banks should help her carry her team to a close yet definitive victory.
Prediction: Team SmackDown [Women’s]
United States Champion AJ Styles vs. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong [Mid Card Champion War]
Kevin Parvizi: It’s anyone’s guess as to who wins this match, even if Roderick Strong is notably lacking in star power compared to AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, who have been in massive world title matches on NJPW’s and WWE’s biggest shows in their careers.
That said, Strong stands to benefit the most from this match, since he’s been the best wrestler of the three since late 2017. I know that sounds almost sacrilegious to say given that Nakamura and Styles are actual legends of the industry, but anyone who has followed Strong’s work closely on NXT and 205 Live will back me up on this.
Sami Zayn might be the X-Factor here for Nakamura, and I think Nakamura gets the upset. He is going to turn in another brilliant Survivor Series performance after last year’s barnburner with Seth Rollins, and he’ll Kinsasha Strong in a final sequence that is sure to get the crowd off its seat.
Prediction: Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura
Mark Justice: From a booking standpoint, it is quite evident that the weak link or ‘third wheel’ in this triple threat match is Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura. However, the desirable thing about this match is that all of these superstars have back up.
United States Champion AJ Styles has Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura has Cesaro and Sami Zayn. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong has Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish.
With triple threat matches being no disqualification, there is bound to be interferences at ringside. Henceforth, with an equal playing field of interferences, the most established champion should win the match and his name is AJ Styles. Don’t expect AJ Styles to not become the best mid-card champion on the roster today when Gallows and Anderson already became the best tag team in the world.
Prediction: United States Champion AJ Styles
Men’s Survivor Series Match [Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT: 5 vs. 5 vs. 5]
Kevin Parvizi: I consider this to be the defining match of WWE Survivor Series 2019 if we’re talking about its immediate fallout. This match is an opportunity for NXT to establish supremacy over Raw and SmackDown as a way of generating more hype for its weekly show that goes head-to-head with rivals AEW.
And the key to this match is Finn Balor, who returned to NXT as additional star power for the Black and Yellow brand. Balor is one of the greatest NXT Champions in history, and he surely has designs on picking up the championship at some point in the near future. But before that, he needs to hold his grudges aside and use his renewed vigor to lead his team to a defining win over the men’s main roster Survivor Series teams.
Balor will do exactly that, producing a Survivor Series performance for the ages alongside Matt Riddle and Keith Lee, who are both future world champions on the main roster.
With a win here, NXT will show the wrestling world that they are on par with any roster in wrestling, especially since Shayna Baszler and The Undisputed Era will also walk away with massive wins.
Prediction: Team NXT [Men’s]
Mark Justice: So far, the Raw and SmackDown teams have been made official. The NXT Men’s Team is yet to be announced. It will most likely consist of Finn Balor, Keith Lee, Matt Riddle, Dominik Dijakovic, and Johnny Gargano. However, since Gargano is reportedly injured, he could be replaced by Isaiah ‘Swerve Scott.’
In terms of the winner, the question everyone needs to ask themselves is: From a business standpoint, why include NXT in Survivor Series for the first time ever if they are not going to win? NXT needs to compete with AEW on Wednesday nights and they need to be viewed on the same level as Raw and SmackDown.
With that being said, Team NXT needs to win this survivor series match in order to accomplish their goals of being considered the main roster and capturing the attention of the common-base fans.
Prediction: Team NXT [Men’s]
Adam Cole (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa [NXT Championship]
Kevin Parvizi: Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa is exactly the Survivor Series-worthy matchup that NXT needs on the card. Ciampa and Cole are two of the biggest names in NXT and can produce the character work and story-telling to create a match that more than measures up to the other title matches at the Pay Per View.
This title match would also be completely unpredictable because Cole and Ciampa would have an even chance at winning. There’s so little separating these two men in the ring, and even though Ciampa seems to have an advantage in the strength and pure wrestling skills departments, Cole can boast the numbers game.
Both men have no shortage of experience and guile, so this will be a nail-biter for the WWE fans in attendance.
Prediction: Adam Cole
Mark Justice: Survivor Series is billed as Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT. There is currently no match scheduled for the main card champions to go to war. Since the Universal and WWE Championships are on the line at this PPV, the NXT Championship should be on the line too.
If Adam Cole were to defend his NXT Championship, it should be against Tomasso Ciampa. Since he returned from injury, Ciampa has made it very clear that ‘Daddy is home for Goldie,” especially since he himself relinquished the NXT Championship and thereby never lost it.
With their War Games match at NXT Takeover being a non-title match, this title match should occur at Survivor Series. In terms of the winner, Tomasso Ciampa should win the title back so that he can fulfill the NXT Championship run he was never able to complete and continue his feud with Cole on the road to the NXT Takeover before WrestleMania.
Prediction: Tommaso Ciampa
Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Daniel Bryan [WWE Championship]
Kevin Parvizi: Daniel Bryan is a perfect throwback opponent for Bray Wyatt, so, Mark, great call here. I’d also love to see Bryan win simply to make the Universal Championship eco-friendly instead of blue.
Regardless of who Bray Wyatt faces at Survivor Series as “The Fiend”, he isn’t losing. WWE have so much invested in him on SmackDown with his powers to change title colors and beat Seth Rollins, who conquered The Beast Incarnate twice at WWE’s biggest PPVs this year.
Bryan put on a masterpiece with Brock Lesnar last year at Survivor Series and joined forces with Kofi Kingston to create one of the best WrestleMania matches of all time earlier this year, so it’ll be exciting to see how he can elevate Wyatt’s game at Survivor Series.
Prediction: Bray Wyatt
Mark Justice: Mental instability and passion. These are the two qualities Daniel Bryan possesses that got him involved with the Wyatt family in 2013 and has now gotten him involved with “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and the Universal Championship.
Bryan’s evasion of the ‘Yes’ movement is evident in this feud. He has now embraced the ‘No’ movement that he ignited during his heel run in 2011-2012. Many may then confuse Bryan’s actions on SmackDown last week as signs of remaining heel, despite his babyface turn with Roman Reigns last month.
However, this is not the case. Bray Wyatt was consistently playing the heel role by playing mind games with Bryan and mocking him with incessant ‘Yes’ chants on last week’s SmackDown episode. It is thereby safe to say that Bryan is either an anti-hero type babyface or a tweener for this upcoming championship match.
In terms of the winner of this match, it is quite obvious that Bray Wyatt is retaining the championship. He recently won the championship at WWE’s Crown Jewel and used his magic powers to make the title blue as a representation of the blue brand known as SmackDown. These are key signs that he is not losing the championship anytime soon, especially since WWE struck while the iron was hot after he dethroned the almighty face of the WWE, Seth Rollins.
Prediction: Bray Wyatt
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Rey Mysterio [WWE Championship]
Kevin Parvizi: I’ll add a little more meat to the bone than his prediction, but Mark basically has the gist of it. I mean, I assume everyone else understands that this is a sure-fire win for Lesnar. Even Dominick knows Lesnar will destroy Rey Mysterio.
But the whole point of this match is the same as Lesnar’s last two Survivor Series battles against Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles. Everyone in the arena knows Lesnar will walk away from it as the winner, but Lesnar’s selling will leave us all doubting his superiority for a fraction of a second.
Styles and Bryan had instant classics with Lesnar, who is at his best when facing smaller opponents where he can showcase his full skill-set in wrestling. Lesnar is one of the best wrestlers on this planet despite most of our feelings about him as champion, and his match with Mysterio has a chance to be even more special than his last two Survivor Series bouts, specifically because of our unique connection to the beloved Mysterio over the years.
Prediction: The reigning, defending, undisputed…oh wait, he’s never actually defended this title until now…Brock Lesnar
Mark Justice: Brock Lesnar wins lol.
Prediction: Brock Lesnar