The 2024 Survivor Series: WarGames was the 38th annual Survivor Series and took place on Saturday, November 30, 2024, at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This was the third annual Survivor Series based around the WarGames match, a team-based steel cage match where the roofless cage surrounds two rings placed side by side. Candidly, I’m not a fan of the WarGames format… but I’ll get into that a little later.
(All photos courtesy WWE.com)
Survivor Series: WarGames (2024) Results
Women’s WarGames Match
Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, Naomi, Iyo Sky, and Bayley defeated The Judgment Day (Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez), Nia Jax, Tiffany Stratton, and Candice LeRae by pinfall. As I said in my intro, I’m not a fan of the WarGames format. The problem with the format is you just have to wait SO LONG for anything of substance to happen. Yes, you’re getting action the entire time, but until all members are in the ring, the match doesn’t even officially ‘start’.
The other reason I don’t really like the format is that it just sort of feels like they’re throwing large teams together. With the exception of Rhea and Liv there’s really not a ton of compelling stories here between the folks involved. There was a really nice spot where Tiffany Stratton threaded to cash in on BOTH champions… but nothing came of it.
All in all a good way to open the show and it had some really good high spots. Everyone worked hard but I still had a hard time caring.
Shinsuke Nakamura Defeated LA Knight For The WWE United States Championship
Back at SummerSlam we got to see LA Knight win his first singles title in the WWE. I still don’t ‘get’ LA Knight and I’ve never really been a big fan of Nakamura. That said, this was a solid match between the two. I do have to say I like this version of Nakamura probably more than previous iterations.
Bron Breakker Defeated Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser To Retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship
This was far better than I thought it would be. And I’m not even sure why I thought it wouldn’t be good cause I really like all three of these guys. Sheamus continues to impress me the longer his career gets, Breakker is a throwback to his dad and uncle (which is a very good thing) and Ludwig Kaiser wrestles like a much bigger man.
Bleacher Report had this to say, and I couldn’t agree more:
This bout relied more on the power and intensity of all three competitors to make it fun to watch. Sheamus is a living legend, Breakker is a future world champion, and Kaiser is one of the most reliable hands in WWE. They meshed well to put on a physical contest.
Gunther Defeated Damian Priest To Retain the World Heavyweight Championship
I’m absolutely loving this heel champion Gunther. He’s a bad ass that just goes about his day and hits people as hard as he can. The chops and slaps he dishes out are epic. Priest is really growing on me as of late, though I have to say this feud seems like it’s been dragging on for quite some time. Not a huge fan of the outside interference from Finn Balor but it’s leading to an inevitable Priest / Balor program which should be interested.
Men’s WarGames Match
Roman Reigns, The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso), Sami Zayn, and CM Punk defeated The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, Tama Tonga, and Tonga Loa) and Bronson Reed by pinfall. I have the same issue here with the men’s match that I did with the women’s. The difference here is they played with that unofficial match time much better here with the Roman vs. Punk antics coming out of the cage.
The Bloodline story has been going for several years at this point and it seems to be fizzling. The New Bloodline just isn’t up to the star power of the OGs and until they re-insert The Rock into the storyline it’s tough to really get me to care. I’m sure we’ll get a match between Roman and Solo for their necklace… meh.
The insertion of Punk here is intriguing, as is the ‘promise’ that was mentioned between Punk and Heyman as he exited the cage. I can only imagine that’ll come into play around WrestleMania time, most likely making Heyman make a tough choice between Roman and Punk.
Survivor Series: WarGames (2024) – Final Thoughts
Survivor Series is considered of the ‘Big Four’ WWE events of the year and it continues to be the forth most special in my book. It’s not that it’s a bad event, but it really suffers from the contrived matches and when you throw WarGames into the mix it’s sort of a slog to get through.
The U.S., Intercontinental and World Title matches were good to great and would have fit nicely on any PPV card. Sadly they serve as rest matches between the two WarGames matches so they won’t get the due they deserve.
That being said, this was an decent show for the most part, though not one I’ll rush to return to. Even the two WarGames matches didn’t feel like anything was settled with ‘the good guys’ winning both. With the Rumble looming large, the move to Netflix and the last year of John Cena’s career, it’s almost the greatest time of year to be a wrestling fan – WrestleMania season is almost upon us!
Did you watch the Survivor Series: WarGames (2024)? Let me know what you thought in the comments below!
