WHEI Survivor Series (2018)

The logo for WHEI Survivor Series 2018

 LWL

 205 Live

 NXT UK

**WHEI Survivor Series (2018)** was a professional wrestling pay per view produced by War Hawks Entertainment Inc. for the Raw, SmackDown, LWL, 205 Live, and NXT UK Brands. It took place Saturday, January 12, 2019 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. It was the third pay per view to include multiple brands in Season 3. It was the first event in the WHEI Survivor Series chronology. As well as the ninth pay per view of season 3 overall.

## Background

The card consisted of matches resulting from scripted storylines that play out on the WHEI's Raw, SmackDown, LWL, 205 Live, and NXT UK brands. Storylines played out on the War Hawks' weekly shows on Twitch *Monday Night Raw*, *Friday Night SmackDown Live*, *LWL: Lethal Wrestling Legends*, *205 Live*, and *NXT UK*. Wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters as they built tension that lead to a match or series of matches heading into the event.

Survivor Series is considered one of WWE's premiere events, and as such is also considered one of WHEI's, making up the "Big Four" along with SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and WrestleMania. The main attraction of the event is an elimination tag team match dubbed "Classic Survivor Series Matches". Every year has at least one, with later years adding more depending on the theme of the event.

Ever since the reintroduction of the brand split, Survivor Series has always been about brand superiority. When announcing that they would finally be doing their own version of the event the War Hawks clarified they would do the same.

It was announced that all champions from every brand who had a corresponding champion on the other two shows would face each other at the event. Save for the tag teams as in WWE 2K18 you cannot do triple threat tag team matches. To compromise, they are having a Classic Survivor Series Match between the male NXT UK and 205 Live Champions with the winning team's tag team champions being added to another Classic Survivor Series Match for the tag team champions.

In addition to the champions matches, the WHEI Women's Tag Team Champions will face off against the soon to be named new singles women's champions in a fatal 4 way match to determine who is the superior secondary women's champion.

After Xia Brookside defeated Millie McKenzie at Evolution to win the WHEI NXT UK Women's Championship General Manager Nic Nitro announced Millie would get her rematch at Survivor Series as the only title to be defended at the event.

Also at the event there will be two other Classic Survivor Series Matches. One for the men, and one for the women. It was announced that, provided none of them were champion heading into the event, Ironman and Juggernaut would captain one of the men's teams while Steph and Guardian would captain one of the women's teams. However since Guardian won the Women's Hardcore Championship at Evolution she would take part in the Fatal 4 Way instead.

On November 11, Ironman chose Killian Dane of Sanity to represent SmackDown with him while Juggernaut picked Randy Orton to represent Raw with him to fill out their side of the Men's Survivor Series Team. On November 18, one week before the pay per view, during the real life Survivor Series predictions, Steph named Xerios as her team captain, and told him should he lead the team to victory, he would get his revenge on Matt Hardy for The Hardys' attack on DeathTrap a few weeks before as well as allowing him to pick the stipulation. She also told him he would get a Championship Match regardless, but should he beat Hardy, he would be allowed to pick the stipulation and title he would go after. She also challenged him to pick his own team. Later that day, Xerios announced his team as Andre The Giant, John Cena, and Seito, claiming that Seito was "a partner he could trust" as opposed to Springtrap, who had yet to win a match as a team with Xerios in season 3.

On November 11, Steph picked Hannah to represent LWL with her, her husband on the other hand, picked Sanity's Nikki Cross, Kaitlyn, Becky Lynch, and Alexa Bliss to represent SmackDown for the Women's Survivor Series Match. The following week Raw Co-General Manager Guardian chose Emma and Madison Rayne to represent Raw for her half of the team.

## Event

### Pre-show

The pre-show opened with a Classic Survivor Series Match between Team 205 Live ("Gentleman" Jack Gallagher, Akira Tozawa, Kofi Kingston, & Xavier Woods) and Team NXT UK (Dave Mastiff, Marty Scurll, Primate, & Jimmy Havoc). Havoc was the first one eliminated early in the match following a running dropkick in the corner by Gallagher. After a long period of time with no eliminations and great back and forth between both teams, Primate went for a Spear only be countered by Woods, who then pinned him to eliminate him. Soon after Mastiff was eliminated by Tozawa following a Deadlift German Suplex. Shortly thereafter, Scurll was eliminated by Kingston following a Trouble In Paradise for a clean sweep for his team.

The next match was a Fatal 4 Way between Women's Intercontinental Champion Beth Phoenix, Women's Hardcore Champion Guardian, and Women's Tag Team Champions Charlotte Flair and Mariya WGP. After an epic back and forth match between all four women, Charlotte took advantage of a distracted Beth who was too busy with Guardian and hit Natural Selection while Mariya allowed her to win.

The final pre-show match was between Xia Brookside and Millie McKenzie for the WHEI NXT UK Women's Championship in a rematch from Evolultion. After an excellent match between the two XIa hit a 3rd Codebreaker to win the match and retain the championship.

### Pre-liminary Matches

The show proper began with a triple threat match between European Champion Seth Rollins, Hardcore Champion Hangman Page, and Global Internet Champion Goldberg. After a highly competitive match between the three men Page took advantage of a downed Rollins to hit Goldberg with a Moonsault to win the match and bring SmackDown up 1-0-0 over the other two brands

This was followed by a triple threat match between Raw Women's Champion Asuka, SmackDown Women's Champion Paige, and LWL Leading Lady Champion Lita. After a back and forth match Asuka took advantage of Lita being out of the ring following a Paige Turner to put Paige in the Asuka Lock to win the match and bring the score up to 1-1-0 for the night.

After that was a Classic Survivor Series Match between Team Raw and 205 Live (Raw Tag Team Champions Savage & Canadian ("Macho Man" Randy Savage & Kevin Owens) and Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)) and Team SmackDown & LWL (SmackDown Tag Team Champions The War Hawks SmackDown Division (Will & Heath) and LWL World Tag Team Champions Breezango (Tyler Breeze & Fandango)). After a lengthy match where no one was eliminated Kingston was eliminated by McDaniel following a Detonation Kick. A short while later Owens was eliminated by Breeze by Submission when he locked him in a Single Leg Boston Crab. After another brief period Woods was eliminated by Fandango following a Rude Awakening Neckbreaker. Finally, after Will hit a Last Will and he kicked out, Breeze was tagged in and hit a Beauty Shot to eliminate him, win the match, and bring the score to 2-1-1 in favor of SmackDown.

Then was a triple threat match between Intercontinental Champion Samoa Joe, United States Champion Braun Strowman, and LWL Zodiac Champion Baron Corbin. After a quick but brutal match between three of the hardest hitters in the company Corbin sent Strowman out of the ring and hit Joe with an End Of Days to win the match and bring the score to 2-2-1.

Next was a triple threat match between Universal Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, WWE Champion Daniel Bryan, and LWL World Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles. After an epic and grueling match in which all 3 men hit their finishers on each other Bryan locked Styles in the Yes! Lock and forced him to submit to win the match and bring the score to 3-2-1 in favor of SmackDown.

The penultimate match was the women's Classic Survivor Series Match between Team Raw & LWL (LWL General Manager Stephanie Hudson-Lytle, Lady Hawks Member Hannah, Emma, & Madison Rayne) and Team SmackDown (Nikki Cross, Kaitlyn, Becky Lynch, & Alexa Bliss) Cross was the first one eliminated following a Michinokou Driver by Emma. After a long period where no one got eliminated Alexa hit Hannah with a BlissDT to eliminate her. During a brawl between Madison Rayne and Alexa where she tried to stop Steph from interfering Kaitlyn got caught in the ropes and couldn't get out before the referee counted 5 and got disqualified. This soon followed by Rayne being eliminated via another DDT from Bliss. Shortly thereafter Bliss herself was eliminated by Steph with a Last Ride. Following another Last Ride and kick out from Becky, Steph tagged in Emma who only dragged her to the middle of the ring and pinned her to win the match for her team and bring the score to 3-3-2.

### Main Event

The main event was the men's Classic Survivor Series Match between Team Raw & SmackDown (SmackDown General Manager Ironman, Raw Co-General Manager Juggernaut, Randy Orton & Killian Dain) and Team LWL (Xerios, Andre The Giant, John Cena, & Seito). If Team LWL wins Xerios gets Matt Hardy at End Of The Line in a match of his choice and a Championship Match of his choice at the Royal Rumble. Seito was the first eliminated following an RKO by Ironman. Cena was the next to go following a Super RKO from the top rope from Orton. Andre was the next person eliminated following being knocked out via an F-6 from Ironman. Not long after that Juggernaut was eliminated via knockout following a 450 Splash from Xerios. In the end, despite a valiant effort on the part of Xerios, the numbers game proved too much for him as Orton hit a final, emphatic RKO to win the match for his team and end the score at 4-3-3 SmackDown