5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Survivor Series 2023 (Results & Review)

2. Santos Picks Up Big Win

WWE Survivor Series 2023 Dragon Lee Santos Escobar
WWE.com

When it was announced on SmackDown that rising phenom Dragon Lee was replacing the injured Carlito in challenging Santos Escobar at Survivor Series, there was an uneasy feeling that perhaps Santos would be looking up at the lights Saturday night.

Instead, Escobar overcame an extremely game Lee to pick up a big win just weeks after turning heel on Rey Mysterio and the entire LWO. More notably, Santos did it himself without cheating or taking any shortcuts. There was speculation that he could employ some backup – perhaps Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo would be called up from NXT to be his new running buddies – but that obviously did not happen.

WWE made an interesting call in sending Dragon Lee out there to lose cleanly on a PLE, but the two meshed well, and the super-hot crowd really added something to the match, with fans chanting “A**hole!” at Santos and rallying behind Lee throughout.

And that explains a lot of why this worked. Escobar got a more impressive win over Lee in a more action-packed match than he likely would have had against Carlito, and Dragon got increased exposure in front of a packed arena.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.