On a night where brand supremacy was on the line for the fifth year in a row and a 30-year run was put to rest, WWE provided a mixed bag of quality action and head-scratchers.
WWE Survivor Series 2020 was fittingly themed around the 30-year anniversary of The Undertaker’s debut. Despite no titles being on the line, the action-related plot of the event saw “The Best of the Best” from Raw and Smackdown colliding.
Four matches pitted champions against champions as Sasha Banks went toe-to-toe with Asuka, Bobby Lashley battled Sami Zayn, The Street Profits collided with the New Day, and Roman Reigns warred with Drew McIntyre. The remaining matches on the main show saw the best non-championship competitors from each brand face off in traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series elimination matches for bragging rights.
With that, here’s what WWE got right and wrong at this year’s Survivor Series event:
Wrong: Team Raw sweeping Team SmackDown in the Men’s 5-on-5 Elimination Match
To date, SmackDown has not—if so, then very rarely—emerged the victor in the brand supremacy battle since the concept re-emerged in 2016. It is clear that Raw is valued over SmackDown, hence the former being referenced as the “flagship” show despite the latter being the better of the two brands quality wise. Was it really necessary for the Raw men’s team to sweep the SmackDown men’s team though? No.
Seth Rollins was visibly disassociated from the entire encounter, culminating in him offering himself as a sacrifice for the first elimination in the match ala a Sheamus Brogue Kick. From there, it only went from bad to worse for SmackDown. Kevin Owens and King Corbin were eliminated in relatively quick succession, leaving Otis to get eliminated by Braun Strowman and Jey Uso as the sole survivor for SmackDown.
Uso mounted an impressive superkick-happy comeback with the overarching story being his need to impress his cousin, Roman Reigns. Uso was seemingly on the verge of making a dent in Team Raw’s numbers but fell victim to a Spirit Bomb from Keith Lee to give the 5-0 sweep to Raw.
Given the bruisers on Team Raw in Sheamus, Lee and Strowman as well as Uso being part of one of the best stories on SmackDown all year, Uso being the sole survivor at a numbers disadvantage wasn’t a difficult outcome to predict. However, at least one or two eliminations in the process of Uso’s offensive frenzy might’ve generated hope for what would’ve been the greatest comeback in Survivor Series history. Instead, SmackDown looked decidedly subpar to Raw.
Right: The Street Profits defeating The New Day
This was a battle between an all-time great tag team and a team that has reigned as tag team champions for nearly all of 2020. The match itself was among the best of the night and as long as The Street Profits don’t get added to the long list of nonsensical, premature WWE tag team breakups, we could be in for more treats akin to this performance in the near future.
Backstage segments with Big E planted the seeds of doubt as to whether Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins could defeat a team consisting of a former WWE Champion and a highly underrated veteran. Realistically, WWE could’ve went either way as The New Day beating The Street Profits could’ve told the story that the latter needed more seasoning to overcome a ten-time title winning tandem, but the SmackDown Tag Champs winning was the right call.
The Street Profits have been on an incredible run and has added some much needed consistency to the tag team division in the wake of hotshot title reigns. Triple crown and all, they needed this victory to cement themselves as the right-now, rather than the future of the tag team division.
Right: Sasha Banks defeating Asuka
In what was another quality champion vs. champion match at Survivor Series, SmackDown Women’s Champion, Sasha Banks defeated Raw Women’s Champion, Asuka via roll-up.
Asuka and Banks feuded with each other over the summer for the Raw Women’s Championship, with Banks’ sole victory coming via countout before Asuka bested her to regain the title and again in a Lumberjack match.
Asuka has also been either Raw Women’s Champion or in the title picture for the majority of the year. Given Banks’ incredibly short title runs and having only one successful defense to this point, she needed a win to further establish herself as a champion. Banks is still fresh off a feud-of-the-year candidate against Bayley at Hell in a Cell while Asuka wasn’t even featured on the show and hasn’t done much of note on Raw lately.
The nature of the victory protects Asuka’s status as the alpha woman of the Raw roster, but the hope going forward is that Asuka will be back in the foreground as Raw’s champion
Wrong: The handling of the Women’s Survivor Series match
The intent of this match was to build sympathy for Lana as after a couple of minutes of in-ring action, she was forced by Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler to stand idly by for the remainder of the match. The execution, though, was confusing to say the least.
Lana playing victim to Jax and Baszler has been a common theme on Raw for the last few months, along with the table breaking. Nonetheless, for Team Raw to have willingly operated at a 4-on-5 disadvantage against a more cohesive unit and emerged victorious only adds to the parity issues between Raw and SmackDown, especially given the clean sweep earlier in the night.
The last three eliminations in the match were all in-definitive as Baszler was disqualified for ignoring the rope break on a Karifuda Clutch to Bianca Belair while Belair and Jax were simultaneously counted out. By default, Lana was the sole survivor.
There are some positives to take away from the match however. Peyton Royce pulled a surprise elimination over Bayley that creates intrigue over how this could positively impact her trajectory going forward. The Riott Squad entertained with their frequent tag exchanges to bring down Jax, and Belair emerged as the star of the match, taking on the Women’s Tag Team Champions without fear or allies.
It’ll be interesting to see how Baszler and Jax react to Lana being the one to secure the victory for Team Raw.
Right: Roman Reigns defeating Drew McIntyre
Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre are both on incredible runs as the World champion of their respective brands. McIntyre has been one of the MVPs for WWE in 2020 and Reigns’ “Tribal Chief” persona has made him look better than ever.
Under normal circumstances, Reigns calling Drew McIntyre a secondary titleholder and then beating him might’ve made McIntyre look weak. The way it was pulled off actually makes sense and keeps both men on massively forward paths.
It took multiple Spears, a low blow, and interference from Jey Uso to make McIntyre vulnerable enough for a Guillotine Choke from Reigns. Notably, the match was ended via referee stoppage rather than McIntyre submitting which allows the WWE Champion to name multiple factors as asterisks on Reigns’ win.
McIntyre falling short to Reigns will generate more hype over who can be the first man to beat the Universal Champion since his SummerSlam return and also sets the stage for a rematch between the two juggernauts.
Wrong: No real stakes involved
Survivor Series as a concept with elimination matches and Raw vs. SmackDown can only drum up so much interest if there is nothing at stake. No championships were on the line nor were there any championship implications—at least on the surface—created from the show.
Placing the Draft right before Survivor Series is questionable as many of the competitors fighting for their brand had only recently switched shows and without an incentive, wouldn’t have any logical reason to fight on behalf of Raw or SmackDown.
Survivor Series serves as WWE’s version of The All-Star Game but in a company where storylines rather than win-loss record dictate future opportunities, it’s hard to comprehend what the benefits or detriments that winning or losing are to the performers.
Commentary did make a few callbacks to previous Survivor Series events such as Keith Lee’s breakout performance last year and Drew McIntyre’s elimination at the hands of Roman Reigns fueling his turn-around, but it will take more than singular performances to enhance the show’s perception as the bottom of the Big Four.