WWE has four massive shows a year and on Sunday, it was time for the final one on the calendar, Survivor Series—a staple in WWE since 1987 that is anchored by the traditional Survivor Series elimination matches. Nowadays though, the pay-per-view has an added twist. It's the one night of the year that Raw and SmackDown Live go head to head. Four champion-versus-champion matches, two traditional Survivor Series matches, and The Shield vs New Day to start things off. Strap yourselves in for a wild ride.
5. Always Have A Hot Opener
Can you remember a Survivor Series pay-per-view packed with more talent than this one? The card for Sunday night was huge from top to bottom. So huge that one of the biggest matches of the night, The Shield vs The New Day, was the first of the night. WWE tends to open pay-per-views with hot matches to get the crowd warmed up, but this one was next level. It was a long one, as you can imagine, and in all fairness took a little while to get going. Once it did though, it lived up to the expectations. New Day began to dominate proceedings thanks to a strong showing from Big E but as expected, The Shield rallied for the win. Led by The Big Dog, The Hounds of Justice won the momentum back and eventually pulled off the win putting Team Red ahead very early on.
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4. Nobody Is Ready For Asuka
In the first of two traditional Survivor Series matches, five of Raw's women pitted themselves against five of SmackDown Live's. The first shock of the match came early on as Becky Lynch was rolled up by Bayley and eliminated first. Then, Tamina put in a really good showing which was a very pleasant surprise and she even won out over fellow powerhouse, Nia Jax. The shining star of the match and the sole survivor come the end of it was thankfully Asuka. Asuka not only eliminated Carmella but also took out Natalya and Tamina despite having no teammates left to back her up.
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3. Charlotte And Alexa Are What's Right With Women's Wrestling
No disrespect to Natalya, but the prospect of her versus Alexa Bliss wasn't exactly headline worthy. Replace Nattie with Charlotte Flair, however, and you have yourself a highly anticipated match. Flair and Bliss are two of the most talented women in the WWE locker room today and WWE is clearly very aware of that. Both champions delivered in their Survivor Series match too. One of the reasons Bliss is so good is her ability to look credible despite the fact she is a lot smaller than most of her opponents. That talent came into play on Sunday night. For large parts of the match, The Goddess looked to have The Queen beat. Flair mounted a comeback though, and once the Figure Eight was locked in, that was all she wrote.
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2. AJ Styles Really Can Have A Great Match With Anybody
Charlotte's title win wasn't the only late switch of course, and AJ Styles victory over Jinder Mahal less than two weeks ago won him the opportunity to face Brock Lesnar. An unmitigated dream match that most fans probably didn't realize they even wanted until it was booked. The Phenomenal One is touted as being able to have a great match with anyone, and considering his and Lesnar's very different styles that were certainly put to the test at Survivor Series. Mission accomplished for Styles though, even if he didn't pick up the win. During the early goings Styles was decimated by The Beast and things didn't look good for Styles fans. The WWE Champion didn't fade into the night though. A few Phenomenal Forearms and a Calf Crusher got him very much back into the match. As we've learned in 2017 though, it only takes one F5 to bring things to an end, and that's exactly what happened on Sunday.
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1. It's All About The McMahons
Despite the sheer amount of incredible talent in the night's 10-man main event and the number of potential matchups we could see, somehow the McMahon family still managed to take center stage. With brothers-in-law Triple H and Shane McMahon on opposing sides, you knew they were going to clash, but what happened between them to end the match was baffling. Prior to that though, there obviously had to be a fair few eliminations. The NXT talent were the first ones to go, aside from Finn Balor who actually got a minor push midway through the match. Eventually, we were left with Shane vs The Game, Braun Strowman and Kurt Angle. Angle looked set to make Shane tap, that was until Triple H turned on the Raw GM and gave him a Pedigree. Was he aligning himself with Shane? No, because then he Pedigreed Shane and finished off the match. A very strange ending. At least Strowman took out The Cerebral Assassin post-match so in fairness, it wasn't all about the McMahons, but really that just made things more confusing.