Since 2017, WWE has made it a tradition on the Survivor Series pay-per-view to have the champions from Raw and SmackDown face each other as part of the battle for “brand supremacy.” Even with the addition of NXT into the equation at this year’s show, that tradition will continue, with one major exception. Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler is on the card, as is a battle of the midcard champions between AJ Styles, Roderick Strong and Shinsuke Nakamura and a triple threat tag match between the three reigning tag team champions. However each brand’s top champion — Brock Lesnar, Bray Wyatt and Adam Cole — are all defending their titles on the show in singles matches instead of facing each other.
In a media conference call on Wednesday, Triple H explained to ComicBook.com that a match between the three was initiall in the works, but things changed when the creative team decided to push forward with the feud between Lesnar and Rey Mysterio.
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“Those conversations, early in the process, took place. There was a lot of debate around things, but I think when you finally got to it, the Lesnar-Rey Mysterio story was so strong, how do you step away from that to go to something else? It almost feels like that one needs to take place now. And then once you did that it started to change the dynamic. Now it’s not brand vs. brand vs. brad, or however you want to say that, it changes the dynmaic so everyone kind of morphed into their own spots. The Fiend being what that is, it almost works cleaner to have it’s own unique storyline.”
With Lesnar facing Mysterio, Wyatt will defend his WWE Universal Championship against Daniel Bryan. Meanwhile Adam Cole, someone Triple H praised for being a consummate professional on the conference call, will take on the winner of Pete Dunne vs. Killian Dain vs. Damian Priest from NXT TakeOver: WarGames.
Check out the full Survivor Series card below.
- WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio (No Holds Barred)
- WWE Universal Championship: Bray Wyatt vs. Daniel Bryan
- NXT Championship: Adam Cole vs. (Pete Dunne/Killian Dain/Damian Priest)
- Men’s Survivor Series elimination match: Team Raw (Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Ricochet) vs. Team SmackDown (Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, King Corbin, Mustafa Ali, Shorty G) vs. Team NXT (TBA)
- Women’s Survivor Series elimination match: Team Raw (Charlotte Flair, Natalya, Asuka, Kairi Sane, Sarah Logan) vs. Team NXT (TBA) vs. Team SmackDown (Sasha Banks, Carmella, Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans and Nikki Cross)
- Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler
- United States Champion AJ Styles vs. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong
- Raw Tag Team Champions The Viking Raiders vs. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day vs. NXT Tag Team Champions Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish
