3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2025 - Results & Review

3. A Match As Good As Her Promo

WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2025 Stephanie Vaquer Nikki Bella
WWE

Nikki Bella always deserved credit for coming back for one final run in WWE, but from the jump, it was obvious that someone who wasn’t even the best wrestler in the Divas Era should have been booked carefully. A tag run with a “young lioness” would have been an ideal way to hide her shortcomings and disguise this nostalgia run in plain sight.

Instead, WWE has booked her in a bunch of singles matches that have underwhelmed. We’re well past the “she’s getting her timing back” period, and it’s fair to judge her on the body of work… and Saturday’s Women’s World Championship match against Stephanie Vaquer was a massive disappointment.

Criticism has to fall on WWE creative for not anticipating this and booking smartly. They’ve clearly figured out how to book a John Cena match with bells and whistles to distract from his shortcomings, so why not do the same with Bella? Simply run a six-minute sprint with Nikki blindsiding Vaquer and beating her down aggressively, hitting her finisher, and La Primera kicking out, coming back, and vanquishing Nikki.

Instead, we got 12-plus minutes (felt like 20) of Bella hitting a move, walking around the ring, punching, gesturing to the fans, spinebuster, preening some more. Vaquer tried to sprinkle in some hope spots, but fans were silent for much of this snoozer, only coming alive for – you guessed it – the Devil’s Kiss. Glad to know one of the best wrestlers in the company only gets a reaction from 45,000 fans when she bounces on the mat repeatedly.

Just an utter failure that did La Primera no favors and was nothing more than a bathroom break match – and a disappointing one at that.

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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.