This year’s Survivor Series has expanded on the “champion vs. champion” brand warfare of the last two events to include NXT’s title-holders in the mix.
However, since WWE doesn’t have an even distribution of belts across all the rosters, there are other titles left sitting out this event. The NXT Cruiserweight Championship has no counterpart for Raw and SmackDown, nor does the 24/7 title or the Women’s Tag Team Championship.
But there’s also NXT UK. They have no midcard championship, but they do have a top men’s title, a women’s title and tag team titles, yet they’re not allowed to represent their corner of the WWE Universe in these matches.
Obviously, the reason why is because WWE doesn’t want to overcomplicate things by putting more focus on a lesser brand (hence why 205 Live has no part in this, either). Plus, nobody likely really cares all that much, and it’s doubtful anyone made a stink about this to upper management, or it fell on deaf ears.
In a theoretical sense, though, how would this all play out if these Triple Threat matches at Survivor Series turned into Fatal 4-Ways with NXT UK’s champions able to join in on the fun?
That’s our next target for another edition of fantasy booking.
The Midcard Belts: Raw’s United States Champion AJ Styles vs. NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong vs. SmackDown Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. [No NXT UK Champion]
At the moment, there is no midcard title on the NXT UK brand. As such, this match wouldn’t be able to happen, or it wouldn’t be able to include the NXT UK side of things.
However, if there were a midcard title, let’s speculate on that.
God knows what they’d call the title. Pretty much every suggestion I’ve heard/seen strikes me as terrible, but that doesn’t mean WWE is ever impervious to bad ideas. Just look at the product week to week.
As far as potential champions go, I would think the top contenders would be Dave Mastiff, Ilja Dragunov, Jordan Devlin, Noam Dar and maybe Tyler Bate, as Pete Dunne is in the regular NXT.
While any of them could put up a fight against Roderick Strong or Shinsuke Nakamura, none of those would beat out AJ Styles. He would have to be the ultimate winner, unless WWE specifically wanted to give NXT UK a victory in one of these. Then, this would be the most likely match they’d score an upset, likely by beating Strong or Nakamura.
On a personal level, I’d rather that person be Bate or Dar. I like them more than the other options. But if I were to venture a guess, I’d say they’d give the edge to Devlin.
The Tag Team Belts: Raw’s Viking Raiders vs. NXT’s Undisputed ERA vs. SmackDown’s New Day vs. NXT UK’s Gallus
None of the NXT UK tag team champions so far, including Gallus, would stand much of a chance to beat out The Viking Raiders, The Undisputed ERA and The New Day.
Those three teams have far too much to work with for any of them to properly be beaten by a team virtually nobody cares about in comparison. That might sound harsh, but it’s an honest assessment. No poll for the WWE Universe would ever rank Mark Coffey and Wolfgang as the top of this match, even if it were taken in Scotland.
There’s a chance they wouldn’t be the ones taking the pin, as Erik and Ivar could pin Bobby Fish or something like that, but there’s no way Gallus would win. Avoiding being the direct losers of the match would be the closest thing to a victory they could manage to do.
The Women’s Belts: Raw’s Becky Lynch vs. NXT’s Shayna Baszler vs. SmackDown’s Bayley vs. NXT UK’s Kay Lee Ray
Kay Lee Ray sticks out like a sore thumb. There is absolutely no way she would be anything but the fourth ranked on this list.
Becky Lynch already is the featured player of the bunch, with Shayna Baszler ranking #2 due to her nearly unstoppable run. Bayley has been struggling to catch up as is, and she still has an insurmountable lead over Kay Lee Ray as far as clout, popularity and name brand recognition.
The inclusion of Kay Lee Ray in this match makes it all but a certainty that she would be the one to fall victim to Lynch’s Dis-arm-her or Baszler’s Kirifuda Clutch.
The Men’s World Title Belts: Raw’s Brock Lesnar vs. NXT’s Adam Cole vs. SmackDown’s Bray Wyatt vs. NXT UK’s WALTER
It seems WWE purposely avoided doing the men’s world title clash this year to keep Brock Lesnar and Bray Wyatt away from each other and/or to avoid having Adam Cole look small in comparison to The Fiend and Lesnar.
Both problems are screwed with this, and made even worse, as WALTER is another huge dude who would make Cole look small and WWE wants to protect.
That pretty much means it’s a guarantee Cole would have to take the pin from any of these guys, and I don’t think it would be WALTER. His inclusion would likely be inconsequential and they’d avoid doing much with him. As long as he didn’t get pinned or tap out, he could avoid the fall altogether and stay okay.
Between Wyatt and Lesnar, it’s tough. I could see a case being made for either of them to win. Lesnar is the most dominant of the bunch, overall, but he could be in the same territory as WALTER where he just needs to avoid losing.
In fact, that’s probably how things would go. WALTER and Lesnar would fight on the outside while Wyatt took advantage of a downed Cole and pinned him, giving SmackDown a point in the brand warfare tally.
What do you think would happen in this hypothetical scenario? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
