WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2025: Draws & Duds

WWE Survivor Series goes to war for the fourth straight yr this Saturday, as San Diego plays host to the 2025 edition of WarGames! It is a show with a ton of star power, and not only in the boys’s and girls’s WarGames matches — Nikki Bella is wrestling in her first world title match since 2018 in an effort to dethrone Women’s World Champion Stephanie Vaquer, while newly-crowned Grand Slam Champion John Cena defends his men’s Intercontinental Championship against the person he took it from, AAA Mega Champion “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio.

So where the WINC staff’s hype levels heading into Survivor Series? As at all times, it depends which match you are talking about — and as you may see, we do not at all times agree amongst ourselves! Where are we at with the WarGames builds? How are we feeling about Dominik Mysterio getting two John Cena matches? And most significantly — no really, where are we at with the WarGames builds? These are our biggest draws and largest duds for WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2025!

The involvement of AJ Lee and Becky Lynch is sufficient to classify the Women’s WarGames match as an excellent Draw. Each heel and babyface WarGames teams are set, with the team of Lynch, Nia Jax, Lash Legend, and The Kabuki Warriors set to tackle Lee, Rhea Ripley, IYO SKY, Alexa Bliss, and Charlotte Flair. The additions of Lee and Lynch to an already star-studded lineup takes this rom a surprisingly middling match-up to 1 worthy of the primary event.

This yr’s WarGames construct has been a snoozefest. Sure, WWE attempted so as to add intrigue with Flair’s WarGames “will-she-won’t-she” angle, but otherwise, WarGames has been underwhelming — shocking, considering the talent involved. There just have not been many exciting developments this yr: the experienced SKY, Ripley, Flair, Asuka, and Bliss were write-ins for the match, and recent faces Legend and Jax are only not sufficiently big draws. Mix the “seen-it-before” line-up with “been-there-done-that” segments, and you’ve got an underwhelming WarGames construct.

Enter: Lee and Lynch. While Lynch is acquainted with WarGames, Lee is braving the double-ring set-up for the primary time, and this shall be her first activity since her return and subsequent mixed tag match with CM Punk, Seth Rollins, and Lynch. The Lee/Lynch story is hot straight away, and Survivor Series advantages massively from their combined participation, which spices up what would otherwise have been very much a can-miss WarGames match.

Written by Angeline Phu

It was one thing to spend one in every of John Cena’s last appearances finally making him the Intercontinental Champion. That makes a ton of sense. Extending the feud with Dominik Mysterio and running a rematch at Survivor Series? Makes significantly less sense.

Beyond the incontrovertible fact that we’re now giving two of Cena’s last matches to Dirty Dom, let’s consider the potential outcomes here. Door #1: Cena retains. I’d have two complaints — first that one in every of WWE’s only promising young stars has now been served as much as Cena twice in a row, second that the rematch was pointless aside from the San Diego of all of it. And yet, I’d actually call it the higher of the 2 outcomes, since it results in Cena defending (and presumably losing) the title at Saturday Night’s Principal Event in his last match.

Nonetheless, I feel it’s much more likely Mysterio retakes the belt at Survivor Series, setting Cena up for a title-free last match that he could potentially win. If that is not happening, why book this match? Why not have Cena replace Jimmy Uso on the boys’s WarGames team? I do not see any reason to book the match other than to modify the title back, which is the true bummer of the thing. His transient run with the one belt he never held might have been a fairly poetic story for Cena to exit on; if he loses the title, it was principally just one other box to envision, and he’s free to win his retirement match in the event that they want him to, which I at all times hate. And if he retains the title … why was this match booked? Who was on the market clamoring for Cena/Dom 2? Just have him lose the title in his last match to the winner of the tournament, which provides the tournament more prestige, and for those who just had to present him a title defense between at times, give the match to someone more interesting than “the previous champion.” Cena/Dom 2 is a lose-lose scenario.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

It will be difficult to say that the Men’s WarGames match, presumably the primary event of this yr’s Survivor Series with that very tag line, is to be considered anything but a draw. Even when there are some very valid complaints and “Dude, seriously?” features to the match – namely the inclusion of Logan Paul and Brock Lesnar. Still, those complaints focus on the immorality of booking people of their ilk – a subjective opinion, strokes and people and all that – and it is not as if Paul jumping off of something tall or Lesnar throwing people around throughout the double steel cage doesn’t come off as a fun time. It’s just that, as I’ll stress for the last time, neither do they should be within the match – argue all you would like, they do not – nor are they objectively higher than the array of talent WWE has at its disposal. 

Nevertheless, the match continues to be going to be a draw, because skilled wrestling has never been one to reward good ethics. It is a WarGames match pitting CM Punk, the World Heavyweight Champion, Cody Rhodes, the WWE Champion, The Usos, one in every of the best tag teams of all time, and Roman Reigns, arguably the most important name on the roster, against the team of Bronson Reed and Bron Breakker, the much-availed “Way forward for WWE,” Logan Paul, a divisively controversial web star, Drew McIntyre, the “Chosen One” who returned to take all of it, and Brock Lesnar, legitimately a brilliant athlete and, although marred for those with valid ethical objections, stays some of the decorated names of all time. 

As it could end up, stacking your top names in a match the event is known as for ranks as a draw on this author’s opinion. Are there things I would do in another way if I were in charge? Sure. Considering the names within the match, has the construct been lacking? Absolutely. But for higher or for worse, for those who were to ask 100 WWE fans what they were looking forward to when all is claimed and done, it could likely be the boys’s WarGames match. And it’ll probably be fun in any case.

Written by Max Everett

The longer you concentrate on the boys’s WarGames match, the less sense it makes, making this a transparent dud for the show, despite how exciting all of it may very well find yourself on the conclusion. The match was solidified with just below two weeks to go until the event, and it’ll be World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk teaming with Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, Jimmy and Jey Uso, and a newly returned Roman Reigns to tackle The Vision’s Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed, Logan Paul, Drew McIntyre, and an also recently returned Brock Lesnar.

It was Lesnar to return first on the November 17 edition of “WWE Raw,” and after “The Beast Incarnate” tore through a number of the babyface team, it was Reigns to return to confront him. Nonetheless, Reigns initially told The Usos back at Crown Jewel when he lost his match against Reed, he didn’t need to see them “until Christmas.” Perhaps Reigns got his holidays fallacious, and really meant Thanksgiving. It’s likely the storyline shall be that Reigns couldn’t watch his family get beaten down by Lesnar, and that is why he needed to make his return, but with how dramatic the road about not seeing the Usos for awhile was, it doesn’t make much sense. Reigns and Punk even have history, making this decision quite odd.

Jimmy’s inclusion within the match also leaves loads to be desired. He’s teaming with a bunch of former and current world champions, and it appears like this spot on the “Avengers”-esque team must have gone to John Cena. While the argument might be made that WarGames could also be too tough for Cena at this point, the star just won the Elimination Chamber earlier within the yr, and he could easily be the last man within the WarGames cage to guard him.

McIntyre’s inclusion just appears like it’s for the sake of giving him something to do, because the poor guy cannot get any victories in the case of big matches today, and he was just defeated by Rhodes at Saturday Night’s Principal Event. Paul also appears like he got here out of nowhere, and his work with Punk where the champion actually trusted him for a minute wasn’t WWE’s best work and it made the World Heavyweight Champion seem silly.

The boys’s WarGames match could also be a dud when it comes to leadup to the show, but a minimum of the teams were solidified well before the premium live event, as the identical cannot exactly be said for the ladies’s bout. There are just a few gaping holes in the alternatives for participants which can be pretty glaring when you concentrate on their motivations, but a minimum of the in-ring motion shall be interesting.

Written by Daisy Ruth