Triple H makes an entrance - Bryan Bedder/Getty ImagesRoss W Berman IVSun, November 30, 2025 at 10:03 PM UTC·6 min readWWE Survivor Series: War Games was a slight affair, with just two War Games matches and two title matches. A new Intercontinental Champion was crowned, and The Vision seemingly gained a new, mysterious member.
We've already broken down what happened on the show, over on the results page, and the team has already put together their loves and their hates from Saturday's big show. All that's left is to weigh the participants, in and out of the ring, in the balance, and see who came out a "winner" and who came out a "loser." I will try to avoid the literal definitions of those terms, as winners can look like losers, losers can look like winners, and I'm not above pointing at a random guy who wasn't even in the ring and saying "Loser!"
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThere were plenty of winners, from Stephanie Vaquer to John Cena, and there were plenty of losers, like the 46,000 people who packed the stands. Without further ado, here's who looked good and who looked bad at WWE Survivor Series: War Games 2025.
Read more: Wrestlers Immediately Axed After A Match
Losers: The Fans
The Survivor Series crowd celebrates the end of the Women's War Games Match - Triple H/TwitterLet's get this out of the way at the top: If you paid live event ticket prices for four matches and a lot of commercials, then I'm sorry, but you got "got," as they say in the carnie business.
Now, I understand that people can do what they want with their hard-earned cash, and it's also very hard to have a "bad" night in the eternally mild and warm San Diego breeze, but I barely felt like I got enough for my $30 ESPN subscription. So I can only imagine how people who paid three digits, or possibly even a price with a comma, to sit in the stands and stare at a cage for four hours. I said this in the Loved and Hateds for "SmackDown," there needs to be a middle ground between the 7-hour death marches that AEW puts on and the 4-hour infomercials for WrestleMania that WWE puts on. Where is the major North American promotion that will give me 6-8 solid matches at a relatively quick clip?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt wasn't a bad Survivor Series, but it feels like the event could use a Day 2 like SummerSlam and WrestleMania get. War Games is a poor substitute for the Royal Rumble, but the show was structured as if they were. It was maddening, and it made me feel for the fans in the crowd.
Winner: Stephanie Vaquer
Stephanie Vaquer makes an entrance - Etsuo Hara/Getty ImagesWWE is not shy when they seem to really like a talent, and Stephanie Vaquer beat Nikki Bella. Bella has come back to WWE this year, mostly to help bolster champions like Becky Lynch and Vaquer, but after her loss to Lynch, it was looking like maybe Vaquer would be sacrificed on the altar to salve the WWE Hall of Famer's ego, but not so. Nikki Bella came back to do business, and WWE sees big business in the former CMLL star.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementVaquer made a lot of waves by signing with WWE so soon after showing out at AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door, but her status on "WWE NXT," while prominent, didn't exactly seem like the global spotlight that Saturday's win over a women's legend did. Liv Morgan also returned, so Vaquer's days may be numbered, but proving a reliable champion over the last few months has clearly bolstered Vaquer's stock in the company.
With the Royal Rumble and the Road to WrestleMania coming up, it will be interesting to see how WWE capitalizes on Vaquer's momentum. She's on track to join Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan as one of "Raw's" top stars, not just of the women's division, but any division.
Loser: Men's War Games Participants
Brock Lesnar yells - Elsa/Getty ImagesI need everyone involved in the Men's War Games match to take a good, long look in the mirror because Saturday's match was an abomination. Dusty Rhodes is spinning in his grave. While the WWE version of War Games already has plenty of alterations to the original conceit, there have been established rules, like exiting the cage counts a forfeit, that were simply ignored and disregarded, making the match feel like a bunch of geeks wandering around, cosplaying a WWE match. Jey Uso ran his theme song back in the middle of the 40-minute embarrassment.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI can get over the addition of pinfalls. I can get over the lack of a roof. But WWE's version of War Games has been sanded down to such a point that it is almost impossible for any kind of catharsis, especially in the wake of AEW's gruesome twist on the match. I understand that WWE is a kid's show, but there is still a level of coherence and professionalism that children's performers have that the men who closed out Survivor Series simply didn't. It reminded me of that Royal Rumble with Brock Lesnar and Shane McMahon, where it felt like all the nonsense backstage was bleeding out into unspoken restrictions and silent animosities. I will be fascinated to read the book about all the bull**** that went on to lead to the match, but the match itself was a dud that made everyone involved look bad.
Winner: John Cena
John Cena gets powerbombed - WWE.comJohn Cena's final PLE match was, much like the last couple of months of his retirement tour, a masterclass in putting as many people over as possible. What could've been a simple win for Dominik Mysterio saw Cena share the ring with Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez, both of whom performed modified versions of moves from Cena's arsenal (the Code Red and the spinout powerbomb), and also served as the return of women's star Liv Morgan.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI'm not saying he moved heaven and earth for these women, but if you had asked me how many women Cena would've put over in his final PLE match, I would've guessed 0, possibly 1, what with WWE's restrictions on intergender matches.
We're about to head into Cena's final match, which will likely be all about him and whoever wins the Last Time Is Now Tournament. This was Cena's last chance to take as much of the "Raw" roster on his shoulders as possible and move along the storylines that will be running when he takes his final curtain. Cena's reputation is one of professionalism, first and foremost, and the display on Saturday was one last chance for him to do something bigger than himself.
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Read the original article on Wrestling Inc.
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