WWE News: NXT Women’s Team at Survivor Series, Kevin Owens, Next Takeover Event, Undertaker Interview
The women’s elimination match is finally official for Survivor Series. For the past four weeks, we had no idea who was on Team NXT, but then it was revealed on the NXT Takeover post-show by captain Rhea Ripley. The NXT women’s team will be Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm, Candice LeRae, Io Shirai and Bianca Belair. I picked Team NXT in the women’s match in our preview and I’m sticking with that.
The NXT men’s team in the elimination match is still unknown. It will be revealed by Shawn Michaels during the two-hour Survivor Series Kickoff Show.
In other Survivor Series news, Pete Dunne won a triple threat match at Takeover last night, so Adam Cole will defend the NXT Title against Dunne tonight at Survivor Series.
That means the Survivor Series lineup looks like this.
No Holds Barred for the WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Rey Mysterio
WWE Universal Championship: “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
Men’s Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Raw (Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Kevin Owens, Drew McIntyre and Ricochet) vs. Team Smackdown (Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, “King” Baron Corbin, Shorty G and Mustafa Ali) vs. Team NXT
Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler
NXT Championship: Adam Cole (c) vs. Pete Dunne
United States Champion AJ Styles vs. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong
Raw Tag Team Champions Viking Raiders (Erik and Ivar) vs. Smackdown Tag Team Champions The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Big E) vs. NXT Tag Team Champions The Undisputed Era (Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish)
Women’s Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Raw (Charlotte Flair, Natalya, Asuka, Kairi Sane and Sarah Logan) vs. Team Smackdown (Sasha Banks, Carmella, Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans and Nikki Cross) vs. Team NXT (Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm, Candice LeRae, Io Shirai and Bianca Belair)
Survivor Series takes place tonight at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, streaming live on the award-winning WWE Network. There’s also a 2-hour Kickoff Show at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT as well.
* Kevin Owens appeared at Takeover last night as part of Tommaso Ciampa’s team. Does this mean that Owens is full time NXT now like Finn Balor? The answer is we don’t know, but we should know more tonight at Survivor Series, possibly more will be known on Raw and of course, Wednesday on NXT as well.
When Triple H was asked about Owens on their media conference call, he didn’t give a direct answer about what show he’ll be on. In other words, watch the shows to find out.
Owens tweeted this, which are the alphabetical order numbers of the letters N-X-T.
14-24-20 pic.twitter.com/ldTCkJPeKM
— Kevinn (@FightOwensFight) November 24, 2019
It seems to me that it would mean Owens is NXT now. They could easily substitute him on Team Raw tonight with a guy like Andrade or somebody else. They could go for a surprise name and put a returning John Morrison in that spot too.
* We also found out when the next NXT Takeover will take place. In past years, WWE held a Takeover event during Royal Rumble weekend, but this year they are changing things up.
As you can see there, it’s going to be Sunday, February 16 in Portland, which means it’s a 4pm start time locally and 7pmET for those of us in the east coast. Takeover events usually took place on Saturday nights, so it’s interesting to see them going for a Sunday start time. I think Sundays are more traditional for wrestling fans, so it should do well. There’s also a Takeover on Saturday, April 4 during WrestleMania weekend, so that means they will have less than two months before Takeover events.
The Raw and Smackdown rosters have PPVs around that date, but nothing is announced for February yet and it may remain that way. They have Royal Rumble on January 26, Elimination Chamber is on March 8 and WrestleMania is April 5. It doesn’t appear like there will be a February PPV this year.
* The Steve Austin “Broken Skull Sessions” interview with The Undertaker debuts on WWE Network tonight after Survivor Series, which will probably end around 11pmET or so. Maybe before that. Anyway, if you don’t see the interview live, it will be on-demand on WWE Network.
The interview will run for 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes) according to WWENetworkNews, who already has a review up.
Here’s a new preview clip with The Undertaker talking about his transition to the “American Badass” character that Undertaker used from May 2000 until November 2003. He returned as the traditional “Deadman” Undertaker in March 2004.
This interview is going to be so much fun to watch. I really look forward to watching it although I doubt I’ll see it before Monday. I’ll try to write a review about it too.