WWE Survivor Series Wargames Recap & Review

It's time for another round of recapping and reviewing pro wrestling events! Tonight we are live from my favorite baseball stadium, in one of my favorite cities in the world, Petco Park in lovely San Diego California. I don't have predictions or much of an intro because I did come to the show a bit late, and also I don't watch WWE's weekly shows so I'm not fully on top of all the stories coming into this show. In spite of that, I've got my leftover Thanksgiving Japanese Curry ready to go. With that being said, let's watch some Rasslin'!

Women's Wargames Match -- Team AJ def Team Becky: I’ll be honest, I didn’t start the show until after I got done watching Vanderbilt kick the piss out of Tennessee, so I missed the first parts of this match. I picked it up when Becky was making her entrance so rating this one will be a little bit weird. As with all of these types of matches, they are basically just everyone getting their shine with some spots and time wasting until all of the entrants are in. Once that happens, then you get your major storytelling moments and start building towards the finish. Nia Jax came in and slammed everyone around until Rhea Ripley came out with her gear inspired by Art the Clown from the Terrifier movies. Hot take: The first Terrifier movie is legitimately terrible and I have little interest in watching the two sequels. Rhea and Iyo hit a fun spot on Kairi Sane with a trash can. Lash Legend is out next and now the match can officially begin. Hot take: Lash Legend should have been called up way sooner because she looks like a fucking mega star. Although she had Alexa Bliss in a hangman’s chokehold before throwing her in such a way that Alexa’s head hit a trash can, so maybe not. Granted those things are about as sturdy as tin foil, but still. Nia and Lash do their powerhouse thing in the baby faces before tossing Iyo from one ring to the other onto all of the other faces. The heels surround Rhea and start beating her down. Asuka goes for the mist but Charlotte saves Rhea and Lash gets the blue mist instead. By actual Japanese wrestling logic, the blue mist is supposed to make you fall asleep, but this is American wrestling logic, so it all just does the same thing for the most part. The baby faces get back up and Iyo climbs to the top of the cage. AJ tries to get a trash can up to her but can’t. Rhea gets AJ on her shoulders and takes her up to within reach of Iyo. Iyo puts the trash can on and swantons all of the heels, but Becky is smart and backs away. She then gets destroyed by a ton of finishers from the baby faces. AJ Lee locks in the Black Widow and Becky taps to end the match. Baby faces get a moment to pose as fireworks go off. Hard to judge the entire match, but from what I saw, it was a fun match. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆.

We get a segment where Michael Cole announces all of the celebrities in attendance. Then he reads an ad for the Air Force right before War Pigs by Black Sabbath kicks in. I couldn’t make this shit up because it would be too on the nose.

Intercontinental Championship -- Dominik Mysterio def John Cena: This is it for big match John on PPV. With John Cena and Hiroshi Tanahashi both retiring within a month of one another, I don’t know what to do. It’s a sad time, man… Dirty Dom is out with Raquel and Roxanne. His music ends and the production team lets the moment breathe. Maybe a bit too long. But eventually the crowd starts chanting for John Cena and his music hits. He comes out in Padres colors and walks both sides of the entrance stage area to high five fans. He does his thing with cameraman Stu and Stu’s son before running to the ring. I’m not afraid to admit that I did get a little emotional remembering some guy coming out to wrestle Kurt Angle on an episode of Smackdown all those years ago. I’m also not afraid to admit that I used to be the biggest John Cena mark ever back in the day. It’s weird that it started raining inside. After championship introductions, the bell rings and we get some rasslin. It looks like they’re setting up for an international spot, but Dom gets the ref's attention and Roxanne trips Cena from the outside to start the heat. That’s a good twist on the most common spot in wrestling. After some more heel shenanigans, Dom hits a three amigos for a two count and soaks in the moment with the crowd before continuing the heat. As Dom works over Cena on the outside, the crowd starts a “Culero” chant directed towards him. Dom stands on the barricade and goes for a hurricanrana but something went wrong and he ends up getting folded directly on his neck. It looked nasty. The medics are called out and they check on Dom with the ref. Roxanne and Raquel beat up on Cena and set him up in the ropes. Dom pops up and hits a 619. He then hits a frog splash from the top, but the ref won’t count the pin. He gets on Dom for faking the injury and then sends the ladies to the back. This is some good pro wrestling ass pro wrestling. After this Cena hits most of the 5 moves of doom, but Dom counters. Cena counters him into an STFU, but Dom gets the ropes. He tries the old Eddie Guerrero boot spot, and gets Cena down for another frog splash. Cena kicks out at two. Dom gets his boot back on and takes an Attitude Adjustment for a near fall. Cena goes for some shoulder tackles but Dom drops down and Cena takes out the ref. Judgment Day runs out to also beat up John Cena. SuperCena makes his return as he counters the Judgement Day’s top rope attacks and hits Finn and JD with a double AA. Dom grabs the belt and goes to hit Cena with it, but gets an AA for his troubles. Cena calls for another ref, but gets a significantly better outcome as Liv Morgan comes out instead. She decks Dirty Dom and jumps into Cena’s arms. The camera zooms in on her face as her expression changes. She low blows Cena, who sells to the ropes. Dom hits a 619 then Liv hits Cena with the belt. Dom hits a frog splash as Liv rolls the ref back in for the 1-2-3. Dirty Dom is once again your Intercontinental Champion and now he has Liv back as well. Some guys have all the luck. Overall this was a fun match with some fun psychology. I was very sports entertained by this one. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆. After the match, Cena gets his moment with the crowd and a “Thank You, Cena” chant breaks out before the show fades to the next segment.

Women's World Championship -- Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. Nikki Bella: Nikki Bella is out first, then I found out that WWE Supercard is apparently still a thing. La Primera is out next, and is still the coolest fucking person in this company. Alicia Taylor once again delivers fantastic championship introductions and we get down to the action. Nikki jumps Stephanie immediately and we’re straight to the heat. Not for long though, as Vaquer takes over. She gets in a bit of offense before Nikki powders to the outside. Stephanie is on top for a bit longer but misses a knee drop on the apron allowing Nikki to take over. At this point I need to do something I don’t like doing. I’m never one to criticize people who made it to a level far beyond anything I did in the business, but this crowd doesn’t give a single fuck about Nikki Bella. They are dead pretty much any time she’s on top in this one. What makes wrestling great is when the crowd feeds off the wrestlers in the ring, then the wrestlers feed off the crowd and that back and forth creates the thing that makes wrestling truly special. This match is the opposite of that. Anyway, after some more back and forth, Nikki hits a TKO but Stephanie gets her foot on the rope to break the pin. A few moments later Stephanie hits the knee drop thing on the apron she tried earlier and all I can say is ouch. That looked fucking brutal. She then does her Devil’s kiss to Nikki on the announce table. She rolls Nikki in the ring and hits another. Look, we all know exactly why that move is as over as it is, but I hate that with how good she is in the ring and how cool she is overall, it’s like the only thing she’s known for. Anyway she hits a corkscrew moonsault off the top for the win. The match itself was not very good, but it wasn’t terrible either. The crowd’s complete lack of a reaction to anything Nikki Bella did certainly didn’t help anything. ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆.

Every time they show shots of the stadium, it makes me want to go back to the Gaslamp area of San Diego. Someone buy me some tickets to a Padres game and I’ll pay for the Taqueria Los Chuchys after.

Men's Wargames Match -- Team Punk vs Team Lesnar: Before we get started with this one, I just want to point out the hilarious, “Brock got a weird case, why is he around” sign that someone in the crowd has. Also the team of Punk, Cody, Roman, and The Usos is fucking stacked. The cages lower as the Judas Priest featuring Ozzy version of War Pigs plays. Once again there is advertising for the US Air Force all over this show and I would like to direct everyone to, ya know, all of the lyrics of War Pigs. Cult of Personality hits and Punker is out first for his team. Instead of going through the door, Punk goes to the top of the cage to pose to the crowd before climbing down into the left ring. Bron Breakker is out first for the heel team. Much like with all multi person matches, at some point it will become impossible to recap, so we'll see how this match goes. Punk and Bron lock up and Bron starts overpowering Punk immediately. Punk gets some offense in, but Bron is just too much. The back and forth between the two is quite good, but then Drew McIntyre comes out to help beat down on Punk. This goes as expected until Cody comes out to even the odds. He climbs the cage and hits a big crossbody on Drew. He fires up on Bron but then accidentally(?) elbows Punk, who came up from behind him. The two faces get back on the same page and hit Bron with a Doomsday Device. Bron lands straight on his neck which looked fucking terrifying. Hopefully there’s no injuries that come from that. Cody and Punk stay on top until Logan Paul comes out. He hits Punk with a pretty cool running crossbody from one ring to the other. Him and Cody end fighting their way up on to the top of the cage before Bron smashes Cody’s leg with a chair, forcing him back down to the ring. Drew, Bron, and Logan use the chairs and cage to beat down Cody and Punk. Jimmy Uso is out next and he grabs the trademark Slim Jim table from under the ring. Around this point there is so much happening that production missed a few big spots. Big Bronson Reed is out next for the heels. He hits several top rope splashes on the baby faces. The faces are outmatched, but then Jey Uso comes out, taking his damn sweet time getting to the ring. Once he’s in, he cleans house with some athletic offense. Him and Jimmy hit some super kicks on everyone, then a 1D on Logan. He tells production to play his music and the whole stadium Yeets with him. Say what you want about him, brother is OVER as fuck. The baby faces are dancing to the beat but are cut off by the unmistakable guitar riff of Brock Lesnar’s music. As Good Ol’ JR would say, business is about to pick up. Bork proceeds to send every damn body to Suplex City, before dishing out F5’s like they were rolls at Thanksgiving dinner. The crowd swells with excitement as the timer counts down to the entrance of the OTC. Roman makes his way to the ring to confront his biggest rival. Brock meets him on the ramp and eats a few Superman punches for his troubles. Roman goes for a fourth, but Brock catches him and F5’s him through the announce table. Brock then drags Roman into the ring and the match can officially begin. Punk and Cody both hit Brock with their finishers before both pinning him, but the pin is broken up by Logan from the top rope. Paul Heyman slides some brass knuckles into the ring to Logan. He hits everyone and sets up Roman. Roman spears him and takes the knuckles. I’m pretty sure a Roman Reigns Superman punch with brass knuckles might literally kill someone in kayfabe. Jey gets Brock up so Roman can spear him through the Slim Jim table, Brock gets Jey on his shoulders, Roman spears both through the Slim Jim table. Everybody starts eating spears from Roman and Bron. After Punk hits Logan with a GTS, a mystery person wearing all black climbs into the cage. He gives Punk a super kick and a curb stomp then leaves. Bron destroys Punk with a spear and the heels win. It’s implied that our mystery person was Seth Rollins, but that will remain to be seen. Overall it was a very fun match and there is the intrigue of the identity of the mystery person. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆. After the match the heels leave and the faces are in the ring. Roman helps Punk up and they both watch Cody rise to his feet. Cody has some words for Roman and there is some major tension between the three. Cody has a tense stare down and a few final words with Roman as the show fades out. It sounded like Cody was saying “I got you” but it was hard to tell.

Overall it was a fun show. The two Wargames matches and the Cena/Dom match were all entertaining. The Bella/Vaquer was fine, but was brought down by the crowd just being dead for most of it. Even though AEW has WWE beat for in ring action, WWE smokes AEW in watchability of their PLE/PPV/Whateverthefuckthesethingsarecalled. Survivor Series Wargames only had 4 matches, but the flow of the show was so much better than Full Gear. And also that part where it wasn’t 6-7 hours of wrestling. This was a solid 3 hour and around 15 minutes of good sports entertainment. The best way I can describe it is by bringing up the differences between watching College Football and the NFL. I enjoy college football far more, but goddamn is it a slog to watch games sometimes, whereas the NFL is significantly more watchable because they nail their 3 hour time windows most of the time. My guy Tony Khan could learn from how WWE paces their shows. I swear to God bro, an AEW PPV that was 6-7 matches over the course of 3 hours would be fucking mind-blowing. I am seeing quite a bit of negative sentiment towards the show, particularly the ending, but I enjoyed it. Then again I don’t watch any of WWE’s weekly shows, so I am kind of out of the loop as to what most of the storylines here are and how this match affected those. Anyway, it was a solid show. Thank you for reading and always remember, don’t let the bastards grind you down.