Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of WWE Survivor SeriesWarGames 2025, a name almost as long as this show felt to the majority of the Wrestling Inc. staff! We might as well just get right into it, because the WINC crew did NOT love this show (though as always, we came up with enough things we enjoyed to fulfill our quota) and we have some stuff to say about almost every match. Shout-out to Stephanie Vaquer vs. Nikki Bella for being the one match that we're not going to cover at all; congratulations, you were inoffensive!
As always, for all the details on what actually happened on the PLE, check out our Survivor Series results page, especially if you missed the show. If you want to know WINC's opinions (you know, more so) here are three things we hated and three things we loved about WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2025!
The fact that a recently-returned AJ Lee was going to be competing in her first-ever WarGames match was enough to make me love this, but the fact that she was the woman to get the victory in the match, over Becky Lynch, nonetheless, really cemented things for me. After making "The Man" tap at Wrestlepalooza during their mixed tag match involving CM Punk and Seth Rollins, Lee pulled out yet another submission victory with the Black Widow on Lynch.
Sometimes, the best part about a WarGames match is when a feud is set up, or one continues, and the latter is one of the only things this opening match tonight really did. When Lee entered the match for her team when Lynch was already in the ring, Lynch had the perfect expression of almost sheer terror when she heard "Let's Light It Up" hit. She immediately went to the cage door to attempt to keep it shut, and instead of fighting her, Lee scaled the cage, which isn't something I expected to see from her, but I loved it.
The pair fought initially when Lee got in the ring, but they weren't the entire focus of the match until the end, which I also loved, when the other women let Lee lock in the Black Widow to get the victory. I also thought Lee worked perfectly amongst the other women of today in the match and didn't look out of place in the slightest.
Lee getting the victory just felt right after everything she did to get women's wrestling to where it is today, far enough for us to be witnessing women's WarGames matches in WWE. I'm excited to see where her feud goes with Lynch, and for Lee to eventually shut down this current gimmick of Lynch's that is grating on my nerves.
Written by DaisyRuth
When Lash Legend first came onto the "WWE SmackDown" scene, I wrote an entire piece on how she was just another "WWE NXT" star destined for a mediocre main roster run, based entirely on her coalition with Nia Jax. After being traumatized (dramatic, but whatever) by the precipitous drop of Carmelo Hayes, I was quick to assume that Legend was doomed to forever be the second fiddle to Jax never destined to become a first chair of her own within the large, sometimes-cacaphonous orchestra of WWE.
After seeing Legend's performance in Saturday's Women's WarGames match, however, I have to issue a formal apology. She's going to be alright.
Saturday's Women's WarGames was stacked with talent. Of course, you have a huge spectacle in AJ Lee, who entered that devilish double-ring structure for the first time. You have Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, two of the original Four Horsewomen. You have multi-time world champions in Alexa Bliss, Asuka, Nia Jax, and Rhea Ripley. It would have been so easy for Legend to just bleed into the background in fact, I expected her to. Her coming out last almost felt like an afterthought, like WWE only just remembered that she was in this match, and they needed to send her out quickly to officially start WarGames.
In a sea of competent and high-performing competitors, Legend killed it. She brought a certain brute edge that nobody had not even Ripley. Like, she was swinging Bliss with such reckless abandon that I thought Bliss' spine would tweak and twirl into itself, like a cord. She had the gumption and gall to chokeslam the Charlotte Flair (14-time world champion and 5'10" Charlotte Flair), and while it wasn't the best chokeslam, by any means, it did the job. Legend shone alongside Jax the mentor I was so sure would bury her by association alone as they both military-pressed SKY. Legend sold Asuka's mist so well, with her howls of pain being a highlight of what was otherwise a slow, nothingburger night. While everyone else felt like they were playing the wrestling game safely, with muted sells and microexpressions, Legend came out guns ablazing. From the moment she stepped in that ring, it was a full send for Legend.
Was it a perfect performance? Not necessarily. There are several women in that ring who could out-wrestle her, technique-wise. What made Legend stand out was her passion. You could feel it oozing from her every move every big, bold, flamboyant move that mirrored the spirit of professional wrestling. For someone with a not-wrestling background, that is impressive. You can feel the passion Legend has for this medium. For that, she has a bright future on the main roster.
Written by Angeline Phu
John Cena said he wanted to elevate talent during his retirement run, and that's been amping up as his dates dwindle down, to now only one remaining, but I didn't ever really think that would mean he'd be elevating women along the way. I'm not saying that Cena is a bad person by any means when I say that, he's just not exactly ever been an intergender wrestling kind of guy. Tonight, however, during his Intercontinental Championship loss toDominik Mysterio, the integration of not only Judgment Day's Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez, but a returning Liv Morgan, was one of the most enjoyable parts of the night.
The match was pretty overbooked, with Finn Balor and JD McDonagh running down to interfere, as well, but Mysterio's faked injury, which I didn't love initially, led to Rodriguez and Perez mixing it up with Cena in the ring. Rodriguez hit Cena with aTejana Bomb, which was crazy impressive, seeing her get a man Cena's size up like that, and Perez hit an even more impressive Pop Rox on the former "Doctor of Thuganomics." Cena certainly helped those moves along a little bit, but they were executed so well, you wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't know professional wrestling.
While I would've loved a Morgan surprise return at the Royal Rumble, I thought this worked really well here. She and Mysterio swerved Cena, and while Morgan didn't hit any kind of impressive move, just a simple low blow to end things, her tactics were perfect for her character. After jumping into Cena's arms after taking out Mysterio, the crazy look in her eyes with her arms around the then-champion was captured perfectly by WWE cameras.
The match overall certainly wasn't my favorite, but I loved the integration of the women. I also love that Mysterio is once again Intercontinental Champion, and the story moving forward with Morgan back in Judgment Day is going to be a good one.
Written byDaisyRuth
They did it. They got the Intercontinental title off of John Cena just in time for him to ride off into the sunset without the consequences that having a title might bring. They put it back on Dominik Mysterio, cementing Cena's title run as a token on the way out, really doing nothing for the title but a cool gesture for one of the company greats. But to paraphrase Avril Lavigne, why'd they have to go and make things so complicated?
Cena and Mysterio were wrestling precisely the sort of match the Cena retirement tour can be characterized by, Cena walking through treacle to get to the big-ish spots and run the motions before getting to his almost-a-dozen moves of doom. However, Mysterio went for what appeared to be an attempted hurricanrana, Cena falling backward with him in the reverse-electric chair position, dropping Mysterio to the floor on his neck. He turned out to be okay. But this being wrestling, no one knew whether that was the case for some time. The referee and officials checked on Mysterio at ringside, with him clutching his shoulder and neck to make it seem as though the match was coming to a premature end. Meanwhile, Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez took to the ring and hit their finishers on Cena.
Admittedly, one thought this was going to have been an audible called in the event that Mysterio was hurt. But it turned out that Mysterio was just faking it, rushing back to the ring and making the cover. The referee, rarely consulting the rule book, turned to Mysterio and told him that he wasn't going to make the count on account of the whole faking an injury thing and the match continued after he ejected Perez and Rodriguez from ringside.
Mysterio then tried to slipping-off-the-boot trick. It didn't work and the match continued. Cena knocked the referee over, Finn Balor and JD McDonagh emerged to attack Cena. It didn't work, Cena hit an Attitude Adjustment to the pair of them simultaneously, and the match continued. In fact, the match continued until a fifth name could make their mark on this Judgment Day rules match. Liv Morgan made her much-awaited return, looked poised to rejoin Mysterio. Sike, she hit Mysterio and aligned with Cena. She jumped up on Cena, wrapping her legs around him for a hug, gave the camera an ominous look behind his back. And, sike, she had rused Cena into thinking she was with him only to kick him the 'nads and hand Mysterio the title win. That was Cena's penultimate match in wrestling. One concluded with Cena falling for a trick he had no business falling for.
Written by Max Everett
"SmackDown" closed with a traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series match and it wasn't good. Not only that, it was pointless. It didn't do anything for the men involved, except maybe Talla Tonga.In hindsight,this match was an omen for the actual PLE.
Survivor Series has been one of WWE's Big Four shows of the year for decades now. This was just a run-of-the-mill PLE with only four matches. The show opened with the women's WarGames match. It wasn't bad, but it didn't live up to the expectations from former WarGame matches. The rest of the show followed suit and the men's WarGames match was very boring. The match was a routine main event in a cage. Everyone got in their spots. The match likely sets up some feuds for WrestleMania. Oh, and some hooded guy suspiciously nailed CM Punk with a curbstomp. Even a match inside a cage can have the routine interference that we've come to expect in a WWE main event. The only reason it didn't end in a DQ is because the match had a No DQ stipulation.
Dusty Rhodes invented WarGames in the 1980s, except his version had enclosed cages. WWE started using it in NXT in 2017 minus the roof. It was brought to Survivor Series in 2022. It's time to take a break from WarGames matches because Rhodes would be disappointed in what its become. Tonight's matches were lifeless and not entertaining, save for IYO SKY's annual trash can spot from the top of the cage. They've become meaningless and the cages being part of the match don't add too much excitement. I'd say go back to what they're good at with the traditional Survivor Series match, but "SmackDown" showed they're slipping there too.
Written bySamantha Schipman
There aren't very many rules in professional wrestling, given the performative nature of the contests staged, so it just feels like a massive b**** slap when the few ones that are still in place aren't enforced. Couple that sentiment with a match long established for a specific rule-set but aside from that, literally anything goes then the main event of Survivor Series: WarGames starts to come off as hastily put together without any actual care.
The match itself had its moments of entertainment even if it did follow a very tried and tired formula and end in perhaps the weirdest and worst ways imaginable after not a lot really happened. But it was painfully obvious that Brock Lesnar had arrived for a paycheck and didn't care about the match he was in, treating it the exact way as he would have done any other bout. Brock threw everyone around, F5'd everyone and very typically cleared the field before Roman Reigns made his entrance. It was then that Lesnar's, "I'm just here for the green, don't expect me to be keen," attitude shone through; the WarGames match can be won via pinfall or submission only once all competitors have entered the cage, or, if one member of a team decides that they aren't cut out for the fight and leaves, in which case they forfeit the match.
That has been the way of WarGames, that has been the entire draw of sticking people inside a steel cage the general gist that they cannot leave said structure. But it was not that waythisyear, andthisyear it was Lesnar's first WarGames match and he just so happened to face Reigns outside the cage, putting him through an announcer's table before dispensing him in the ring to get the match underway. And he was the only one that had been allowed to leave the cage up until that point.
Even commentary were confused by the proceeding, stumbling over an explanation that basically translates to: "That man is Brock Lesnar and he does what he wants." Which, at this stage in time, is a well-established precedent within WWE. Even now, as half-lidded eyes gloss over these words, fingers are working to make that justification down below. But it doesn't really come off well for the product. If feels weird to be saying this about Brock Lesnar of all people, but just keep it inside the cage for one night surely. Rules can be trivial, and they can be fun when they are broken, but when they are done so to the extent that scripted commentators have no idea how to explain it, it feels cheap and hollow.
Written byMax Everett
