On Saturday November 25, WWE presented the 37th annual Survivor Series pay-per-view from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. The event was given the name Survivor Series: Wargames because of the Wargames matches held. The event sold over 17,157 tickets, a nearly sold out crowd.
The event began with the Women’s Wargames match, a match where two teams of four or five members compete in rings that are enveloped by a giant steel cage. The match starts with two competitors at first but at different time intervals a new member of each team enters the rings, the match does not officially begin until every member has entered and ends when someone is pinned or submits. The teams consisted of Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, Shotzi, and Becky Lynch, going against the team of Damage CTRL consisting of Bayley, Asuka, Iyo Sky, and Kairi Sane. There was some discontent between team members Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch during the match, but they put aside their differences to win with a pinfall on Bayley.
The second match was between Gunther, the intercontinental champion, and The Miz for the title. The Miz won a Fatal Four Way match on Monday Night Raw to earn himself the No. 1 contendership. The Miz put up a good fight but could not put away Gunther even after hitting him with his signature Skull Crushing Finale. Gunther preformed a splash from the top rope and then applied a Boston Crab maneuver for the submission retaining the title.
Next was a Lucha Libre style match between Santos Escobar, former member of the LWO (Latino World Order), and Dragon Lee, a fill in for LWO member Carltio. The match was fast paced and had high flying action from the both, but finished with Escobar hitting a Hurricanrana and his Phantom Driver for the pin.
In the semi-main event match for the women’s championship, the champion Rhea Ripley representing The Judgment Day took on Zoey Stark. Zoey Stark is a new up-and-comer on the main roster who won a Battle Royale to get a one on one match for Rhea’s title. Zoey may have had the speed advantage but Rhea has more size and power. After hitting an illegal headbutt she hit her Riptide signature move for the pin.
The main event of the night was the Men’s Wargames match between the teams of Cody Rhodes, Jey Uso, Sami Zayne, Seth Rollins, and Randy Orton going against the Judgment Day made of Damian Priest, Finn Balor, “Dirty” Dominick Mysterio, JD McDonagh and Drew Mclyntire who is not an official member of the Judgment Day but sided with them. When announcing that Randy Orton was the last member of Cody’s team, his teammates were worried because Orton has not been around since getting injured last year and feared that he would not show up. But at the last minute he appeared and back in his top condition. After a long brutal fight Cody was able to hit his Cross Rhodes on Damian Priest getting the win for his team.
Only moments after the grueling match ended however music played and out came CM Punk, a true wildcard that nobody expected. The crowd erupted into a roar of cheers for their hometown hero who hadn’t been in the WWE since 2014. Local TAMUT student Michael Wells said this about the event “My favorite match was the men’s war games match. Seeing Cody Rhodes standing tall as the winner like his father Dusty who invented the match decades ago was great to see… CM Punk was just icing on the cake.”