WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2024 Predictions: Wrestling Inc. Picks The Winners

WWE Survivor Series is here again, and for the third straight year, that means it's the season for war. This Saturday, the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Colombia plays host to WarGames, with the standard pair of titular matches along with three singles title contests. While WWE Champion Cody Rhodes is strangely absent from the announced proceedings as he prepares to defend his own title against Kevin Owens at Saturday Night's Main Event, Survivor Series has no lack of star power. The defending champions (Bron Breakker, LA Knight, and GUNTHER) are all definitive faces of WWE's current era, while the WarGames matches themselves include the likes of Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Jey Uso, and Sami Zayn, a list capped off by the previously unthinkable pairing of Roman Reigns and CM Punk.

None of this wealth of talent makes Survivor Series any easier to predict, which is unfortunate given Wrestling Inc.'s recent collective picks record. Granted, we did okay at AEW Full Gear, coming out of the evening at 7-2, but that's not good enough for any kind of realistic turnaround by the end of 2024. With December on the horizon, our record stands at 132-28-7, still at 81% hit rate. If we want to improve on that, we need sweeps, and it absolutely starts at WarGames! Nevermind the fact that at least one of these matches was extremely divisive and there's far less overall consensus here than we had for Full Gear. Maybe that's a good thing. Regardless, let's get to the picks!

While every other match on the Survivor Series card managed to secure at least two-thirds of the WINC staff vote, we are almost evenly split on the result of the women's WarGames match. The reason probably has something to do with the fact that the women's division is approaching a massive turning point as we prepare to wrap up 2025. The title reigns of Liv Morgan and Nia Jax have gone on about as long as you'd reasonably have expected them to go on, if not more so, and Tiffany Stratton continues to linger with her briefcase, ready to cash in at any moment. We have not one but two new midcard women's titles on the way, while Jade Cargill's injury has thrown the tag title scene into uncertainty. The injury appears to be resulting in Bayley replacing her — which instantly turns the babyface team into a cauldron of distrust and potential betrayal, since Bayley has recent personal history with both Bianca Belair and IYO SKY. That said, it's not as though the heel team is a united front; the group is a hodgepodge of Morgan's Judgment Day faction on "Raw" and Jax's royal court on "SmackDown," and while the bond between Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez seems strong, Jax, Stratton, and Candice LeRae are a potential powder keg. Add to this already complex mixture the fact that the division is about to see the returns of both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, and there are just too many moving parts for anyone to make a truly informed decision, because there are just too many different directions WWE could be going with all this.

With that in mind, the narrowest possible majority of WINC staffers are going with the babyfaces, and it's a sensible choice. Between "NXT" and the main roster, Paul Levesque has booked all five women's WarGames matches in WWE to this point; of those five, only one saw the heels come out victorious, and that was back in 2020. "Bianca Belair's team of babyfaces wins women's WarGames" has become an annual November tradition since Levesque took over main roster creative, and we're not expecting that to end this year. Well, most of us aren't. Barely.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

United States Champion LA Knight is putting his gold on the line against a recently-returned Shinsuke Nakamura, and 67% of us here at WINC believe "The Mega Star" is coming out on top. The match was announced via a graphic on "WWE Raw" on Monday; many who went with Knight believe the build to this match hasn't been anywhere near enough to justify Nakamura winning the title — at least not yet.

The build here hasn't been nonexistent, but it's been pretty sparse for a match on one of the "big five" premium live events for WWE (we were all pretty surprised that this made the PLE card in the first place). Nakamura returned on "SmackDown" and beat down Knight in the ring just two weeks ago; last week, he appeared in a video package on the tron to distract Knight before his title defense against Legado del Fantasma's Santos Escobar. After Knight's victory, Nakamura appeared in the ring once again to beat down the champion. And ... that's about it!

Nakamura hasn't been used well within WWE for years, and he's also using the same feud techniques in the feud that he's used for awhile now (he does have some cool war paint-esque makeup this time, admittedly). He hasn't been US Champion in more than five years, and even his recent feuds with Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins didn't result in him winning anything so substantive as a title belt — why would anything have changed so much that he would immediately get a title reign? And even if he did, one would think (as most of us do) that such a thing would come at the end of a feud, not the beginning. We expect Knight will walk away from Survivor Series still United States Champion — but he'll still have to watch his back.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Bron Breakker heads into Survivor Series at a numerical disadvantage this weekend, defending the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Ludwig Kaiser and Sheamus in a triple threat. Breakker will be making just the second defense of his second reign with the title, looking to extend it beyond 75 days — his initial defense against Sheamus was halted by an interfering Kaiser earlier this month. But the Wrestling Inc. staff still expects Breakker to walk out of Vancouver title reign intact, with a huge majority (91%) predicting him to win the triple threat. Similar to the US title match on the same card, this bout just doesn't feel like an important enough moment for a title change, especially so early into Breakker's second reign.

Sheamus is entering his fifth attempt at the one title he needs to win the WWE Grand Slam since coming close against GUNTHER at Clash at the Castle 2022. He lost a rematch to the now-WWE World Heavyweight Champion on a subsequent "WWE SmackDown" before once more falling to defeat in a WrestleMania 39 against GUNTHER and Drew McIntyre, and finding his latest attempt stifled once more by Imperium — this time Kaiser rather than GUNTHER. For Kaiser, this is an opportunity to prove his worth after "The Ring General" called on him to stand on his own two feet. He has yet to win a singles title, having only held the NXT Tag Team Championship alongside Giovanni Vinci, and this weekend will be just his second attempt at one; he lost his maiden title shot to United States Champion LA Knight in August. Similarly, Kaiser failed to earn any percentage of the vote for this match; Sheamus was the runner-up with 9% of the vote.

Written by Max Everett

Almost all of us think GUNTHER is walking away from Survivor Series: WarGames with the World Heavyweight Championship still securely around his waist, even though "The Ring General" hasn't exactly been on the top of his game around Damian Priest lately. GUNTHER's confidence has seemed rather shaky since losing to Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes for the Crown Jewel Championship in Saudi Arabia, and the last few weeks, he's let Priest walk all over him, both physically and on the microphone. However, 91% of us here at WINC don't believe it's enough for GUNTHER to lose the gold.

Our confidence could be mostly due mostly to his impressive Intercontinental Championship reign that lasted a record 666 days before losing at WrestleMania 40. It doesn't seem likely that WWE is going to want to take the title off him after setting him up for success in such a massive way. While Priest has previously been a solid World Heavyweight Champion, it was he who lost the championship to GUNTHER at SummerSlam. "The Ring General" has only held the championship for a total of 114 days as of this writing, and it just seems too soon for the belt to change hands.

It's possible WWE booked this SummerSlam rematch to make GUNTHER look stronger following his loss to Rhodes at Crown Jewel, but as of right now, that hasn't been the case on "Raw." Very nearly all of us believe that GUNTHER needs to — and will — have a strong showing at Survivor Series to make himself seem like a credible monster and a credible heel once again. We don't think it's time for Priest right now, though it very well could be in the future after GUNTHER stacks up a few more months with the title.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The New Bloodline have been a dominant force on WWE television in recent months, even getting a big win over Roman Reigns and The Usos at Crown Jewel, but the OG Bloodline is bringing two very important wild cards to their team on November 30. Not only will the team be made of the original trio of The Bloodline that terrorized WWE for the better part of the last four years, but they'll also have Sami Zayn, who has been involved in every main roster WarGames match so far, and former WWE Champion CM Punk, who has been recruited by Paul Heyman to help. For star power alone, 76% of the Wrestling Inc. staff think that the original Bloodline will have the upper hand on Saturday, WarGames advantage be damned.

Solo Sikoa, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Jacob Fatu are a strong unit, but still new to the pressures of WWE, especially considering how little success Sikoa has had in world title make-or-break moments. Fifth man Bronson Reed has run through WWE like a wrecking ball, but his recent feud with Seth Rollins made the physically imposing star look fallible. There's too many doubts to truly say that it is time for a changing of the guard, as it looks likely that the Original Bloodline will remind everyone why there's no improving on success.

Written by Ross Berman