Team SmackDown Announced for the Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT Survivor Series Match

This year’s Survivor Series pay-per-view will see all three of WWE’s brands battle for dominance as Monday Night Raw, Friday Night SmackDown and NXT collide in a series of matches. One such match will see a 5-on-5-on-5 elimination tag team match as five men from each brand face each other. Team Raw — Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre and Kevin Owens — was officially announced on Monday night just before Raw’s pretaped main event. Meanwhile the Blue Brand opted to announce their team’s lineup on Tuesday — Roman Reigns, King Corbin, Braun Strowman, Mustafa Ali (who has his full name back) and Shorty G.

No word yet on who will represent NXT, but the Black and Gold brand has seen plenty of its wrestlers invade the other two shows in recent weeks. Raw, which took place in Manchester, England and was taped last Friday, saw Seth Rollins take on NXT UK Champion Walter and the entire Imperium faction face Rollins, the Street Profits and Kevin Owens.

SmackDown might actually have the advantage when it comes to this match. Reigns rarely loses, and Strowman has led Survivor Series teams to victory in the past almost single-handedly. Meanwhile Raw’s team is comprised of three former NXT Champions, which could open the door for somebody on their team to turn and help NXT pick up the win.

Check out the full Survivor Series card below.

• WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio
• Becky Lynch vs. Bayley vs. Shayna Baszler
• The Viking Raiders vs. The New Day vs. Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish
• Survivor Series Men’s Elimination Match: Team Raw (Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton) vs. Team SmackDown (Roman Reigns, King Corbin, Braun Strowman, Shorty G, Mustafa Ali) vs. Team NXT (TBA)
• Survivor Series Women’s Elimination Match: Team Raw (TBA) vs. Team SmackDown (Sasha Banks, Carmella, Dana Brooke, TBA) vs. Team NXT (TBA)

Shorty G, formerly known as Chad Gable, spoke with ComicBook.com earlier this year and addressed the possibility of moving back to NXT, where he previously held tag team championship gold as one half of American Alpha.

“In this company especially, any opportunity that presents itself you would take advantage of,” Gable said. “But I do want to hammer home the fact that I want to take advantage of this opportunity on SmackDown as a singles guy, because like I said, on the main roster up to this point, I don’t think that I’ve had that chance yet. And so before I had to go saying, ‘Oh yeah, I want to go back to NXT,’ I want to like really give the Smackdown main roster thing a shot as a singles guy and prove that I can do it.

“But that announcement [NXT moving to the USA Network], it’s so crazy to think about, at least for a guy like me, especially because when I first got down there, they were still doing shows in Tampa at the old FCW arena, and there was 15 or 20 people in the crowd,” he added. “And that’s not exaggerating. You know what I mean? And I saw it blow up in a matter of a year where they were running the big building. And then when we did Barclays Center and that first show, the first big arena show. I mean obviously the story tells itself. Everybody knows what happened from there to become what it is now. It’s not too often you see things explode like that in such a short period of time.”