WWE Survivor Series 2024 preview: Punk makes Roman Reigns look strong again

WWE Survivor Series takes place tonight (Sat., Nov. 30) from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It begins at 4 pm ET with the free Countdown show, which runs for two hours on YouTube, WWE.com, and various other social media outlets. That leads right on into the PPV at 6 pm ET, which you can stream from a number of devices if you have a subscription to Peacock in the United States and WWE Network everywhere else.

CM Punk makes Roman Reigns look strong again

The Bloodline civil war comes to a head tonight at War Games when CM Punk joins up with the OG Bloodline in a battle of survival against Solo Sikoa’s Bloodline and Bronson Reed. For those readers who are unfamiliar with what a War Games match is, you can catch up on all the rules right here.

Roman Reigns went on hiatus following his loss to Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. During that time, Sikoa made swift moves to force Jimmy Uso and Paul Heyman out of The Bloodline, add the Tongans and Jacob Fatu to the mix, and proclaim himself to be the new Tribal Chief.

That’s the battlefield Roman returned to at SummerSlam when he prevented Sikoa from winning the Undisputed WWE championship from Rhodes. Reigns and Sikoa have been going at it since then, but the OTC needed help to deal with the numbers game on Solo’s side.

Jimmy returned and convinced Roman to try to work things out with Jey, while Sami Zayn also offered his services to return to the family for this war. They struggled to find a fifth man, though, until The Wiseman made his surprise return and brought CM Punk into the fold as the final member for an undisclosed favor in return.

So, how exactly can Solo’s team stop the reunited OG Bloodline at War Games? Well, Fatu did earn his team the War Games advantage by defeating Jey in a singles match. There’s also the fact that Roman and CM definitely do not like each other. This stems back to a decade ago when Punk’s “make Roman look strong” story swept over the internet and contributed to the fan backlash against Reigns at that time. If these two top stars can’t work together at War Games, the OG Bloodline may fall apart and be forced to surrender to Solo Sikoa.

CM Punk claims that he is joining this war out of loyalty to Heyman. That means his job tonight is to ultimately make Roman Reigns look strong again by standing tall with him as winners inside the double cage at War Games. Is that how things will play out, or will a wild card like Seth Rollins show up to screw up both teams’ plans? You’ll have to tune into Survivor Series to see which version of The Bloodline wins this civil war.

The rest of the card

Here are the four remaining matches that are also advertised for Survivor Series:

War Games: Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, IYO SKY, Bayley & Naomi vs. Nia Jax, Liv Morgan, Candice LeRae, Raquel Rodriguez & Tiffany Stratton

Of course Rhea Ripley wants to go to war with Liv Morgan after the women’s world champion tried to take everything away from Rhea during her revenge tour this year. Liv and Raquel tried to take Rhea out for good by breaking her face with a baseball bat in the NXT parking lot, but Ripley returned just a few weeks later wearing a protective mask and ready to tear Morgan to pieces. Liv also has IYO breathing down her neck as the new number one contender to the world title.

The other drama going on here is the backstage mystery attack on Jade Cargill that forced Bianca’s team to replace her with Bayley. Bayley earned that spot by helping Belair defeat Nia Jax to win the advantage in this War Games match.

Will Liv and Raquel try to injure someone else on the team before the match begins in order to neutralize that advantage? Will the babyface team implode regardless due to past issues between Bayley, IYO SKY, and Belair? Is tonight the right time for Tiffany Stratton to cash in her Money in the Bank contract, given that Liv Morgan and WWE Women’s Champion Nia Jax may be incapacitated at some point during this war? Will we find out who attacked Jade?

GUNTHER (c) vs. Damian Priest for the World heavyweight championship

GUNTHER lost his mojo after falling to Cody Rhodes in Saudi Arabia earlier this month. Damian Priest made sure to rub that failure in GUNTHER’s face while asserting that he’s going to take the world title back from the Ring General at Survivor Series. GUNTHER tried to ambush Priest backstage but he failed at that too, which only made his self-confidence issues get worse.

WWE has essentially tried to do as much as possible to make it seem like Damian has a good chance to win this match, even though betting markets aren’t buying it one bit. Is that because Finn Balor is lurking somewhere in the shadows ready to make sure that his former stablemate in The Judgment Day never holds this belt again?

LA Knight (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the United States Championship

The megastar needed a new challenger after he defeated Carmelo Hayes and Andrade at Crown Jewel. Enter Shinsuke Nakamura, who returned to WWE television for the first time since April to lay out Knight. Shinsuke has gotten the better of LA all month long, and that includes blasting him with the Kinshasa as well as blinding him with black mist. Can Knight make the necessary adjustments in time to beat Shinsuke and retain his mid-card gold at Survivor Series?

Bron Breakker (c) vs. Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser for the Intercontinental championship

When someone new wins the Intercontinental championship, it won’t be long before the Celtic Warrior comes knocking on their door, because it’s the one title in WWE that has eluded him throughout his career. Sheamus and Bron did indeed fight over the belt earlier this month, but the finish was ruined by Ludwig Kaiser, who has been a thorn in Sheamus’ side for a while. Now all three men will fight about it with the title on the line at Survivor Series.

Summary

Let’s face it, the undercard title matches are fine and all, but Survivor Series is all about the two War Games matches. The Bloodline civil war in particular is the most highly anticipated WWE main event since WrestleMania, and that was true even before CM Punk joined the fight. I’d argue that CM and Roman on the same team is a more compelling dynamic to watch than Reigns’ partnership with Cody Rhodes from last month at Bad Blood. The Bloodline story pretty much always hits a home run, and there is no reason to think things will be any different tonight at Survivor Series.

What will you be looking for at Survivor Series?