Wrestling Inc. picks the winners

The WWE Survivor Series is here again, and for the third year in a row, that means it’s the season for war. This Saturday, Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia hosts the WarGames, featuring the standard pair of title matches along with three singles title contests. While WWE Champion Cody Rhodes is strangely absent from the announced affair as he prepares to defend his own title against Kevin Owens at Saturday Night’s Main Event, Survivor Series is not lacking in star power. The defending champions (Bron Breakker, LA Knight and GUNTHER) are all definitive faces of WWE’s current era, while the WarGames matches themselves include the likes of Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Jey Uso and Sami Zayn, a roster rounded out by previously unthinkable pairing of Roman Reigns and CM Punk.

None of this wealth of talent makes Survivor Series any easier to predict, which is unfortunate given Wrestling Inc.’s recent collective voting record. Granted, we did okay at AEW Full Gear, coming out of the night 7-2, but that’s not good enough for any kind of realistic turnaround come the end of 2024. With December on the horizon, our record stands at 132-28 -7, still at an 81% hit rate. If we want to improve it, we need sweeps, and that definitely starts at WarGames! Keep in mind the fact that at least one of these matches was extremely divisive, and there’s far less general consensus here than we had for Full Gear. Maybe that’s a good thing. Anyway, let’s get to the picks!

While every other match on the Survivor Series card managed to secure at least two-thirds of the WINC staff vote, we almost equally divided by the result of the women’s WarGames match. The reason probably has something to do with the women’s division approaching a massive turning point as we prepare to wrap up 2025. The title reigns of Liv Morgan and Nia Jax have lasted about as long as one could reasonably expect them to to continue, if not more, and Tiffany Stratton continues to linger with her briefcase, ready to cash in at any moment. We have not one but two new midcard women’s titles on the way, while Jade Cargill’s injury has thrown the tag title scene into limbo. The injury looks set to result in Bayley replacing her – instantly turning the babyface team into a cauldron of mistrust and potential betrayal as Bayley has a recent personal history with both Bianca Belair and IYO SKY. That said, it’s not like the heel team is a united front; the group is a mash-up of Morgan’s Judgment Day faction on “Raw” and Jax’s royal court on “SmackDown,” and while the bond between Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez seems strong, Jax, Stratton and Candice LeRae are a potential powder keg. Add to this already complex mix the fact that the division is seeing the return of both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, and there are just too many moving parts for anyone to make a truly informed decision because there are too many different directions WWE could be taking with all of this.

With that in mind, the narrowest possible majority of WINC employees go with babyfaces, and it’s a sensible choice. Between “NXT” and the main roster, Paul Levesque has booked all five women’s WarGames matches in WWE to this point; of those five, only one saw the heels win out, and that was back in 2020. “Bianca Belair’s team of babyfaces win the Women’s WarGames” has become an annual November tradition since Levesque took over the head creative roster, and we don’t expect it to end this year . Well, most of us aren’t. Button.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

United States Champion LA Knight puts his gold on the line against a recently returned Shinsuke Nakamura, and 67% of us here at WINC believe “The Mega Star” is coming out on top. The match was announced via a graphic on “WWE Raw” Monday; many who went with Knight believe that the build-up to this match has not been nearly enough to justify Nakamura winning the title – at least not yet.

The build here hasn’t been non-existent, but it’s been pretty sparse for a match at one of the “big five” premium live events for WWE (we were all pretty surprised this made the PLE card in the first round). Nakamura returned on “SmackDown” and beat Knight in the ring just two weeks ago; last week he appeared in a video package on the throne to distract Knight before his title defense against Legado del Fantasma’s Santos Escobar. After Knight’s victory, Nakamura re-appeared in the ring to knock down the champion. And … that’s about it!

Nakamura hasn’t been used well in WWE in years, and he’s also using the same feuding techniques in the feud that he’s been using for a while now (admittedly, he’s got some cool war paint-esque makeup this time around, admittedly). He hasn’t been United States Champion in over five years, and even his recent feuds with Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins didn’t result in him winning anything as significant as a title belt – why would anything have changed so much that he would the same get a title government? And even if he did, you’d think (as most of us do) that something like this would come at the end of a feud, not the beginning. We expect Knight to walk away from Survivor Series still the United States Champion — but he’ll still have to watch his back.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Bron Breaker enters Survivor Series at a numerical disadvantage this weekend, defending the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Ludwig Kaiser and Sheamus in a triple threat. Breakker will be making only the second defense of his second reign with the title, looking to extend it beyond 75 days – his initial defense against Sheamus was stopped by an interfering Kaiser earlier this month. But the Wrestling Inc. staff still expects Breakker to walk out of the Vancouver title intact, with a large majority (91%) predicting him to win the triple threat. Similar to the US title match on the same card, this match just doesn’t feel like an important enough moment for a title change, especially this early in Breaker’s second reign.

Sheamus enters his fifth attempt at the one title he needs to win the WWE Grand Slam since coming close to GUNTHER at Clash at the Castle 2022. He lost a rematch to the now WWE World Heavyweight Champion at a subsequent ” WWE SmackDown” before once again falling to defeat at a WrestleMania 39 against GUNTHER and Drew McIntyre, finding his latest effort once again stifled by the Imperium – this time by Kaiser instead of GUNTHER. For Kaiser, this is an opportunity to prove his worth after “The Ring General” encouraged him to stand on his own two feet. He has yet to win a singles title, having only held the NXT Tag Team Championship with Giovanni Vinci, and this weekend will be just his second attempt at one; he lost his maiden title shot to United States Champion LA Knight in August. Likewise, Kaiser failed to earn any percentage of the vote for this match; Sheamus was second with 9% of the vote.

Written by Max Everett

Almost all of us believe that GUNTHER will walk away from Survivor Series: WarGames with the World Heavyweight Championship still safely around for life, even if “The Ring General” hasn’t exactly been on top of his game around Damian Priest lately . GUNTHER’s confidence has seemed pretty shaky since he lost to WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes for the Crown Jewel Championship in Saudi Arabia, and for the past few weeks he’s let Priest walk all over him, both physically and on the mic. But 91% of us here at WINC don’t believe that losing the gold is enough for GUNTHER.

Our confidence can mostly be attributed to his impressive Intercontinental Championship streak that lasted a record 666 days before losing at WrestleMania 40. It doesn’t seem likely that WWE will take the title away from him after setting him up for success in such a massive way. While Priest has been a solid World Heavyweight Champion in the past, he was the one who lost the championship to GUNTHER at SummerSlam. The “Ring General” has only held the championship for a total of 114 days as of this writing, and it just seems too soon for the belt to change hands.

It’s possible WWE booked this SummerSlam rematch to make GUNTHER look stronger after his loss to Rhodes at Crown Jewel, but right now that hasn’t been the case on “Raw.” Almost all of us believe that GUNTHER needs – and wants – a strong performance at Survivor Series to make himself seem like a credible monster and a credible heel again. We don’t think it’s time for Priest right now, although it may well be in the future after GUNTHER puts in a few more months with the title.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The New Bloodline has been a dominant force on WWE television in recent months, even picking up a big win over Roman Reigns and The Usos at Crown Jewel, but OG Bloodline brings two very important wild cards to their team on November 30. Not only will the team be made up of the original trio of The Bloodline that terrorized WWE for most of the past four years, but they will also feature Sami Zayn, who has been involved in every major WarGames match thus far, and former WWE Champion CM Punk, who has been recruited by Paul Heyman to help. For star power alone, 76% of the Wrestling Inc. staff believe the original Bloodline will have the upper hand on Saturday, WarGames advantage be damned.

Solo Sikoa, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa and Jacob Fatu are a strong unit, but still new to the pressures of WWE, especially considering how little success Sikoa has had in make-or-break World Championship moments. Fifth man Bronson Reed has run through WWE like a wrecking ball, but his latest feud with Seth Rollins made the physically imposing star look fallible. There are too many questions to really say it’s time for a changing of the guard, as it seems likely that Original Bloodline will remind everyone why there is no improvement in success.

Written by Ross Berman