7 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Survivor Series 2019

NXT 'wins' battle for brand supremacy; head-scratching booking loses.

Sasha Banks Rhea Ripley
WWE.com

On Saturday, NXT did what it usually does when there’s a TakeOver before a WWE PPV: throw down the gauntlet with some incredible wrestling and dare the main roster to beat them.

Sunday, WWE delivered a fairly enjoyable Survivor Series PPV that didn’t have any horrible matches and produced a couple really good ones. However, the two best ones featured NXT wrestlers prominently, so maybe there was a reason for that.

Overall, Survivor Series was hampered by the “brand supremacy” motif that now dominates the event. Either you love the inter-brand rivalry that only exists for about four weeks of the year, or you detest it.

Regardless, we got decent to excellent in-ring action with some questionable decisions from the writing team. None of these were cardinal sins, and while there are more “downs” listed than “ups,” that shouldn’t discourage you from checking out the PPV. But fair warning, there were plenty of moments where you had to question the booking choices made.

You get the feeling that WWE occasionally is just a couple steps away from putting on an outstanding show, but then makes 3-4 decisions that drop the event a few notches into the “decent” or “average” range. Someday, somehow, that’s gotta change.

For now though, let’s get to it…

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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.