411’s WWE Survivor Series 2021 Preview

Hello 411 guys, gals, enbies, and everyone else! Welcome to 411’s WWE Survivor Series preview! I’m Jeremy Thomas, and surprisingly, WWE still has a big enough roster to present their Survivor Series. (Insert your own joke about surviving the budget cuts here.) In all seriousness, WWE presents its traditional November PPV this weekend as the Battle for Brand Supremacy comes to Peacock and WWE Network. The company has been dealing with a lot of bad buzz over the past few weeks so a PPV is just what they need to help build them back up a bit, especially one with the nostalgia of Survivor Series behind it. We have a solid set of matches here, so let’s just jump right in and take a look.

25-Man Dual Brand Battle Royal

The Dual Brand Battle Royal returns this year, though this year it’s been upped to 25 participants as opposed to last year’s 18 in order to honor The Rock’s 25th anniversary of his debut. As with most battle royals, we have a ton of participants that don’t have any real chance to win and maybe two to four that could actually pull it off. While an out-of-nowhere choice like Ricochet wouldn’t shock me given how over he is and how that would pop the crowd, this honestly comes down to Sami Zayn, AJ Styles, or Cesaro in my book. Zayn is sort of an outside shot between the three of them because his conspiracy character only gets stronger with losses, so he’s insulated from any loss. With Styles and Cesaro, this is a matter of how they want to book the brand war (because this is technically part of the brand supremacy thing). Based on that and how I see this all playing out, I’m going to go with Cesaro. His match with Roman Reigns earlier this year means that he has a certain credibility, and Styles doesn’t lose much by taking a loss to him especially in a battle royal. Predicting any battle royal is always a crap shot and I am probably wrong, but I see Smackdown winning this one.

WINNER: Cesaro

RK-Bro vs. The Usos

One thing that I do appreciate about Survivor Series is that we get matches like these, which is a relatively fresh bout. In WWE’s sea of rematches, this is somewhat of an island of paradise. I will acknowledge having not been a big Riddle fan and I was skeptical of RK-Bro, but it’s played very well. I’m still not a huge fan of him as a solo guy but his interactions with Orton are gold, and they’ve had a very entertaining run so far. And The Usos, while still obviously Roman Reigns’ lackeys, have avoided the failure of other similar lackey tag teams from the past (think Legacy) because they’re treated seriously as competitors and not only cannon fodder. That puts us in an interesting situation where these two teams are pretty well matched, as opposed to the clear odds favoring the Raw team. A loss by the Usos is always good to add a touch of drama to Reigns’ match (“Will the Bloodline be swept on this show?”) but I’m going with the minor upset as the Usos cheat to win and take down RK-Bro, likely by pinning Riddle.

WINNER: The Usos

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damian Priest

The battle of the secondary champions should be a barn burner of a match if given enough time to get there. Nakamura and Priest are two guys who can absolutely go in the ring, and they also have a clash of styles that should be fun to play off of. When it comes to how it plays out though, I think this one is pretty easy to pick. Listen, we all love Nakamura but he hasn’t been doing a lot for a long time. He has a good thing going for his career in his pairing with Rick Boogs; it’s the kind of thing that may keep you safer than others because it makes you over with the crowd in an undeniable way. But he’s also just sort of there on Smackdown, holding down the Intercontinental Championship fort. Meanwhile, Priest has been in a little bit of a holding pattern for the last few weeks but is obviously someone that WWE wants to continue to put over. This should be an exciting, hard-hitting affair but this will also be a match that sees Priest go over.

WINNER: Damian Priest

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair

Here we have a Rorschach test of feuds. Whether you believe the apparent off-screen issues between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair is a worked shoot or not could probably be part of some Buzzfeed personality quiz, because I think no matter what side of the fence we’re on, we’re all projecting a lot onto this whole thing. I am of the opinion that this is not a shoot that WWE is trying to massage into a work, because Vince McMahon is nothing if not always trying to take bad press and turn it into good press. That whole belt drop segment was too authentically awkward to be a work, and I don’t believe WWE would be remotely okay even in this situation with Lynch making even a vague reference to the sexual misconduct allegations against Ric Flair from the Plane Ride from Hell. And yes, Lynch could have done that unprompted but she also knows that’s a low blow that neither Flair would appreciate.

Anyway, whether this is a work, a shoot, or a worked shoot, let’s get into the match itself. This, much like the next match we’re about to discuss, is between one person who is a perfectly fine champion and another who is a face of the company. In this case, that’s obviously Flair and Lynch in that order. There is no reason to have Lynch lose this match when she’s the hottest thing going in the women’s division again, even if her heel character isn’t getting quite the reaction WWE wants. It’s not like anyone loses anything in these brand supremacy matches so Charlotte doesn’t really take a hit here with her loss. Lynch picks up the win to score one for Raw.

WINNER: Becky Lynch

Big E vs. Roman Reigns

I love everything about Big E. being WWE Champion. I think that his run has been enjoyable thus far and that he’s done a great job of staying to who he is as a character while also progressing beyond the funny midcard big guy, and I hope that at least his run lasts through WrestleMania (it would be a crime if it didn’t). That said, he’s up against Roman Reigns. We really don’t even need to discuss at this point how much Reigns is the biggest thing in WWE except to say there is no way he is losing until probably WrestleMania, barring incredibly unforeseen circumstances. This is one where I think the win remains important for Reigns, because he needs to carry that win streak through to (assumedly) a match with Lesnar at the big PPV. As such, I figure this will be a pretty typical Reigns vs. credible opponent match. Reigns will do a lot to put E. over and it will look close several times, but ultimately Reigns prevails — likely due to Heyman or the Usos’ involvement. Nothing wrong with that.

WINNER: Roman Reigns

Women’s Survivor Series Match
Belair, Ripley, Morgan, Carmella & Vega vs.
Banks, Shotzi, Baszler, Natalya & Storm

The Survivor Series-style matches are of course always the highlight of these PPVs, hitting that nostalgia sweet spot. This year most of the drama has been created by the shuffling of the teams on both sides, with Sonya Deville and Adam Pearce pulling people from teams and replacing them at their leisure. I don’t think this has had the heat-adding effect that WWE hoped they would do, but in this match’s case it’s giving Toni Storm a match at the PPV so I’m not going to complain too terribly much. On paper these are both teams that could do quite well, with a mix of talent that’s bubbling under and veterans who can carry the work rate. Smackdown has the “can they get along” aspect of Shotzi and Sasha Banks, plus the alliance of Shayna Baszler and Natalya, to give them a storyline for the match. But really, this seems pretty strongly weighted toward Team Raw. Rhea Ripley is someone WWE can book as a credibly dominant competitor, Belair still has a lot of fan support despite her coming out on the losing end to Becky Lynch, Liv Morgan is on her way up with a match coming up against Lynch and Carmella and Zelina Vega are also part of this match. The smart money for me is on Team Raw winning this battle, with Morgan surviving to give her a bit of a boost for her match with Lynch and Belair also surviving to keep her strong.

WINNER: Team Raw (Belair, Morgan survive)

Men’s Survivor Series Match
Rollins, Balor, Owens, Theory & Lashley vs.
McIntyre, Hardy, Woods, Corbin & Sheamus

I’m honestly less enthused about the men’s Survivor Series match than I am the women’s match, despite liking almost all of these guys. I think this has plenty of opportunity to deliver, but there just isn’t a lot of heat going on here. Team Raw is full of guys I generally like, and I appreciate Austin Theory being part of the match even if I didn’t love the whole last-minute insertion. Someone tell me how Pearce apparently wanting this to have been all former champions works when he took out Rey Mysterio and put in Theory? Anyway, on the other side we have some strong performers in McIntyre and Woods, Hardy who can always pop a crowd no matter how much he loses, Sheamus who can bring the intensity, and Corbin who will always be in the mix no matter how much we may wish otherwise. WWE is going to need a competitor to step up against Reigns and McIntyre seems to be the next likely guy, so I’m going with Team Smackdown winning with McIntyre as the sole survivor.

WINNER: Team Smackdown (Drew McIntyre survives)

And that’s all we have for WWE Survivor Series! This is far from the most exciting Survivor Series in recent memory but we have a few matches that have every opportunity to deliver and if nothing else, it should be a fun (if somewhat meaningless) show. Thanks once again for reading, and remember that we will have live coverage of the show courtesy of the one and only Scott Slimmer right here on 411mania.com. I’d better run before I get a text from Johnny Ace telling me — oh, man, budget cuts? Really?