Stew’s WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2024 Review

Does Survivor Series start at 6pm EST tonight? That’s weird. Glad I did not miss any of it when I decided to see, at 5:30pm, when the Pre-Show was on.

What was I doing leading up to Survivor Series, you ask? Trying not to cry my eyes out as I watched The Wild Robot. What a powerful movie! It’s definitely near the top of the standings on the year. If you have not seen it, I absolutely recommend it.

Oh hey, William Regal is back! They dusted him off from being strictly behind the scenes (I have heard tale that he wasn’t allowed to be on TV due to the stipulation of his previous deal with AEW) to talk to Cathy Kelly and announce “WARGAMES!”. Nice, nice, nice. It would be great to see him back on TV with some regularity going forward.

Speaking of which, I’m so excited for WWE to debut on Netflix in about a month. I never get to watch Raw since I don’t have cable. It will be nice to watch some weekly WWE TV, especially leading into the first ever WrestleMania I will be attending live! I’m still so excited to say that aloud. It’s going to be great! And I’ll actually get to be watching the weekly product en route. Great stuff!

Okay, enough of that. Let’s get into the show proper! With the Women’s WarGames match kicking off the show!

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6:05pm: Okay, the show has not started yet, but I’m already SUPER tired of “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. It’s a great song, but I’ve heard it about 50 times during the pre-show through now.

6:08pm: They are running down the rules for the WarGames matches, and I have always hated the “WarGames does not OFFICIALLY begin until everyone is in the ring!”. No, the match begins when it begins. What they mean is that the match can’t officially END until everyone has entered the match. Why don’t they just say that?

6:10pm: Iyo Sky is being introduced now, and I like that they just randomly turned her babyface out of nowhere for this match. Makes me wonder why they didn’t have Kairi Sane take Jade Cargill’s spot in this match. Did WWE just quietly dissolve what was left of Damage CTRL?

6:13pm: After all the heroines are introduced, Bayley nominates herself to go in first for her team.

6:16pm: Nia Jax is starting the match off for her team, which has to be somewhat of a shocker. She can’t be most known on her team for her stamina.

6:22pm: With Nia Jax in control, Bayley gets some help in the form of Naomi. Naomi has been wearing a pointed Dollar Tree “Happy Birthday” hat during her entire time inside the waiting cage. She finally dumps it when she starts wrestling Nia Jax. The crowd chants “Happy Birthday” to her.

6:24pm: Nia Jax uses a toilet seat and lid as a weapon against Naomi. Then Naomi turns it around and uses it on her. Classy stuff. I hope it’s disinfected.

6:25pm: Tiffy seems ready to enter the match to help Jax, but Candace LeRae undercuts her and sneaks out of the waiting cage to get into the match.

6:28pm: I thought these were supposed to be five minute intervals? But everyone is coming in at 3 minute breaks. Maybe I’m just misremembering. Anyway, Bianca Belair is in next to help her team out.

6:31pm: This time, Tiffany Stratton gets to enter the match proper without LeRae to interfere. It’s Tiffy Time!

6:34pm: Iyo Sky is in next, and she immediately finds a trash can. Corey Graves says “This is unique”, as if she hasn’t done this spot TWICE already. Iyo should get new moments; she is too talented to repeat spots!

To be fair, she doesn’t get to do the trash can dive, as Candace intervenes at the top of the cage, and they wrestle their way back into the ring. The garbage container stays perched at the top of the cage in case it is needed later, though…

6:38pm: Raquel Rodriguez is out next. She fishes a table out from under the ring, but does not bring it into the match with her.

6:39pm: Raquel and Nia do stereo tosses into the cage of Bianca and Bayley. The power offense continues, as they lay out the entirety of the good girls.

6:41pm: Rhea Ripley enters the match with her whole team down. She brings in the table that Raquel did not.

6:42pm: Rhea has been wearing a goat/demonic mask during her time in the waiting cage. She continues wearing it during the match itself. It looks… dangerous as hell. Someone’s going to lose an eye on that thing.

6:44pm: Liv Morgan’s time has come, and she teases bailing on the whole affair, but instead just goes and gets a baseball bat. Rhea takes the protective devil mask off to tease Liv into coming in swinging.

6:46pm: Candace, Nia, Tiffy, and Liv launch a 4-on-1 assault on Rhea with Liv’s ballbat.

6:48pm: Tiffy and Iyo climb opposite ends of the cage, Iyo to get her trash can. Iyo puts the can on and hits the Over-The-Moonsault! Tiffy, on the other end, takes out the other competitors with a senton bomb.

6:50pm: Tiffy goes digging in a second garbage can and pulls out her Money In The Bank briefcase. She teases cashing in, but seems confused as to who to cash in on–both Liv and Nia are on the ground in front of her–but Raquel Rodriguez yells at her. Then Iyo Sky blasts everyone with a fire extinguisher to end the moment. During the confusion, Rhea handcuffs Rodriguez to the top turnbuckle.

6:55pm: Rhea hits a top-rope Riptide through a set up table and then pins Liv Morgan, much to the dismay of the trapped Raquel Rodriguez. Ripley gets revenge on Liv Morgan! Will this storyline continue? Or will they finally move on from one another? We will see, but I’m hoping Liv’s title reign continues for a while and she doesn’t just drop the belt back to Rhea. That would feel regressive!

7:04pm: We move on now to Shinsuke Nakamura vs LA Knight, and Nakamura has a new iteration of his theme song, this one darker and less sing-along-to-able, as it were. I am reminded that we learned on the pre-show that a WWE championship has NEVER changed hands in Vancouver, BC, Canada. That’s wild! But it’s been over twenty years since they have held a PLE in the city.

Tiffy did not cash in. I don’t see GUNTHER or Breakker losing, so Shin is likely Vancouver’s best chance of seeing a title change. Do it, Shinsuke!

7:08pm: Shin’s eye makeup in his new persona is great. It looks like burns or scarring. Good work to whomever does that look on him. Very foreboding stuff.

7:15pm: LA Knight just casually hits a variant of the Burning Hammer for 2. IS NOTHING SACRED?!

7:16pm: I find myself very distracted by all of the advertising in the ring. They went from a blank canvas to the Prime bottle logo. Now they have video games ad spots in each corner of the ring, too. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is coming, guys! Will Sonic and friends defeat Shadow The Hedgehog?!

7:19pm: Shinsuke wins the match clean without even being reduced to going to the black mist. Weird. This was actually a really good match that felt like it just… ended. Very out of nowhere in its resolution, and it felt like they had another five minutes or so to go.

7:22pm: Post-match, we get a backstage vignette ad for True Classic T-shirts that ends with a pants-less Otis walking around backstage with his junk blurred out.

7:23pm: AND WE ARE BACK TO PLAYING WAR PIGS. Sigh. This is apparently a cover by T-Pain, but whatever. It’s too much!

7:25pm: Our other secondary title is on the line next, with Bron Breakker defending the Intercontinental championship against Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser. Right after these commercials!

7:30pm: The IC strap is the only thing standing between Sheamus and the grand slam. I was unaware he had never won it, personally, but I guess it makes sense. Can he ascertain it tonight?

(All signs point to No)

7:39pm: Pretty standard triple threat match fare to this point, with one guy constantly being down so that the other two can wrestle. Nothing really break the mold here. Decent hard-hitting encounter, but nothing above and beyond.

7:45pm: Sheamus dodges a Spear from Bron, and Breakker runs face-first into a chair. Brogue Kick! 1, 2, and Kaiser pulls the referee out of the ring when I bite HARD that Sheamus might win the title!

7:48pm: After Sheamus and Kaiser match up for a while, with Kaiser working over Sheamus’ ribs with the shillelagh, Bron ends up hitting both men with Spears and pins poor Sheamus.

7:53pm: MORE WAR PIGS, this time back to the Black Sabbath original. Come on, guys.

Anyway, GUNTHER vs Damien Priest is next up after the Peacock commercials.

8:01pm: The story here is being played that GUNTHER has lost confidence since losing to Cody Rhodes at Crown Jewel. Meanwhile, for whatever reason, Priest is more confident than ever. Can Priest ride that momentum to a victory over the faithless GUNTHER?

8:10pm: Minutes into the match, and we have abandoned the pre-match story in exchange for GUNTHER dominating an injured shoulder of Priest. Oh well!

8:16pm: After two unsuccessful tries with the battered arm, Damien is finally able to hit a Razor’s Edge, but only gets two. He then starts trying to hit South Of Heaven, but the arm won’t let him! GUNTHER survives!

8:22pm: A wild Finn Balor appears and hits a mini-Coup De Grace on the outside. An annoyed GUNTHER smashes Balor, then tosses Damien into the ring. Powerbomb. Modified Sleeper. And the match is over. Are we setting up a Triple Threat between all three men at the next big show? Could be! I’d like to see that.

8:27pm: They are playing War Pigs again. I can’t even find the heart to capitalize my astonishment this time. They have War Pigs’ed me into submission. I will just let this happen. Generals gather and all that good stuff.

8:29pm: The members of the men’s War Games match get Sunday Night Football player introductions. Might as well do that, sure. People with the more expensive Peacock get to see how we got here. I, however, get more Liberty Mutual commercials.

8:36pm: The new Bloodline all come out as a singular unit, and Tama Tonga will start the match for us.

8:40pm: The OG Punkline all come out to individual entrances–even Jimmy comes out separately from Roman–and Jey Uso kicks things off for his side.

8:51pm: After mostly being taken advantage of, Jey Uso finally gets in control with a few seconds to go until the entrance of… Big Bronson Reed! Reed tosses a bunch of chairs into the ring, but Jey starts chucking them back into his face. On the third throw, Reed just slaps the chair out of the air, causing an audible “Shit!” out of fear from Jey.

8:54pm: Jimmy Uso becomes the first reinforcements for Jey Uso! He gets into the ring and he and Jey regain control because that is how these WarGames matches always go. There is definitely a formula.

8:57pm: Tonga Loa appears to be the next man into the match, but Solo waves him off and sends Jacob Fatu in instead. So this is Tara Tonga, Bronson Reed, and Jacob Fatu vs The Usos. Not a great match for the twins! This match is definitely not holding off on the big guns for the bad guys’ side.

9:00pm: Roman stops CM Punk from entering the fray and directs Sami to head out instead. Commentary teases fractures between Roman and Punk. They keep talking about how Heyman has promised Punk a boon for helping out the OTC in this match, but Roman has no idea what that favor is.

9:03pm: It’s Tonga Loa time. Kind of a disappointing entry at this point of the match, but he gets the crowd into it by snatching some tables from under the ring and throwing them into the cage.

9:06pm: With the penultimate entrance from the OG Bloodline, CM Punk shoulders Roman out of the way and takes the spot. Punk fishes a toolbox from under the ring and clobbers all of Solo’s men with it to take a temporary swig of momentum. Unfortunately for Chick Magnet, Jacob Fatu no-sells a bulldog onto the toolbox and starts beating Punk down.

9:10pm: With his soldiers already in control in the ring, Solo Sikoa’s spot comes up.

9:12pm: After the Usos and Sami get destroyed by the Bloodline, Punk gets his next. Then Solo padlocks the War Games cage so when Roman is legal to enter… he can’t.

9:15pm: Roman climbs his way into the match and splashes onto the new Bloodline, thus… *sigh*… “starting” the match.

I still hate that, and I hate saying it even worse!

9:16pm: Reigns and CM get into a stare down, and this causes Paul Heyman to charge ringside and implore them to work together. He channels his inner William Regal and yells “WARGAMES!”. This is what causes the bell to ring and WarGames to begin.

Or “begin”.

WHATEVER!

9:19pm: Roman accidentally Spears Punk, and we all need a new pep talk from Paul Heyman, I think.

9:22pm: Punk saves Roman from a Tsunami from the top of the cage. Reigns gets up first and offers a hand to pull up Punk.

9:25pm: Despite having seen Bronson Reed send himself through a table buy missing a splash from the top of the cage, Jimmy Uso tries the same thing, but he hits the splash onto Jacob Fatu!

9:26pm: The good guys regroup and surround Solo Sikoa. Solo eats multiple superkicks from the Usos, a Helluva Kick, a GTS, and then finally a Spear, and that’s obviously enough for three. The OG Bloodline wins!

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That was a typically entertaining WWE PLE. Especially the main event and the opener. Honestly, the three title matches in the middle all had their mild issues, but the WarGames matches made up for those.

Until next time… take care!