WWE: What does NXT’s victory on ‘Survivor Series’ mean?

When WWE announced that NXT would be part of Survivor Series this year, fans were equal part excited and apprehensive, not knowing how the black-and-gold brand would be treated at the pay-per-view. When the dust cleared on Sunday night, no brand looked better than NXT.

Including two previously unannounced matches on the preshow, there were seven matches involving all three brands on Sunday night. WWE kept a scoreboard, and the rotating announcer crew (as members of all three brands switched matches behind the desk) constantly referred to who had the most wins in the night. And at the end of the night, NXT had won four of the seven matches, Smackdown had won two, and Raw had won just a single match.

If the total scoreboard wasn’t enough, the way that NXT won truly made the brand shine. When the main show started, the first match of the night was the women’s team survivor series match. Nobody looked better than Rhea Ripley in that match. While Team NXT used somewhat underhanded tactics to win, she pinned Sasha Banks to secure the win for her team. This caps off a week where she pinned Charlotte on Friday and helped her team get a 4-on-2 victory in War Games at NXT: Takeover.

Roderick Strong beat AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, though that match was won with craftiness, as he threw Styles out of the ring after Styles hit Nakamura with a Phenomenal Forearm, and then pinned Nakamura himself. Then, in the main event, Shayna Baszler won her triple-threat match cleanly, by forcing Bayley to tap out.

Even in matches that NXT didn’t win, people involved were given a major spotlight. Team Smackdown ended up winning the men’s match. However, at the end of the match, one person was left from each team. For Raw it was Seth Rollins. For Smackdown it was Roman Reigns. For NXT it was Keith Lee. Despite the former Shield members teaming up against him, he was able to fight them off. Not just that, he pinned Rollins cleanly to eliminate him. Then he hit Reigns with a Spirit Bomb for a near fall, before Reigns eventually put him away. It’s hard to see how he could have gotten a bigger rub, short of winning the match.

Here’s the real question now: What does NXT’s victory mean? Even though the past few years of Survivor Series have featured “scoreboards,” by the next week it didn’t mean anything. Sometimes the final scoreboard wouldn’t even matter by the next night. With the addition of NXT, does anything really change? It’s quite possible that the main reason for this was simply to spotlight NXT and get people to watch on Wednesday night. If so, while it’s hard to say mission accomplished before we see viewership for the next few weeks, it’s hard to imagine more people won’t watch. Could that be helped even more if we see people from NXT continue to show up on Raw and Smackdown to celebrate their win and claim that they are now the A-Show?

The results from Survivor Series:

-Shayna Bazler beat Bayley and Becky Lynch after forcing Bayley to tap out to the Kirifuda Clutch. After the match, Becky attacked Shayna and stood tall.

-Brock Lesnar beat Rey Mysterio to defend his WWE title. Rey's son Dominick got involved in the match, including the two of them hitting a double-619 on Lesnar. However, Lesnar kicked out of the eventual pin, and then caught Rey Mysterio with an F5 for the win.

-Team Smackdown won the men’s team match after Roman Reigns speared Keith Lee for the win.

-Bray Wyatt successfully defended the Universal Title, beating Daniel Bryan with the Mandible Claw. Finally Daniel Bryan started doing the Yes chant again during the match, but once again The Fiend would largely no-sell Bryan's offense and eventually got the win.

-Adam Cole beat Pete Dunne to retain the NXT title. This was another strong showcase match for the brand, which finished with Cole countering the Bitter End into a Panama Sunrise, and following that up with a Last Call for the win.

-Roderick Strong beat AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura as he stole the pin after Styles hit Nakamura with the Phenomenal Forearm.

-Team NXT won the women’s team match. Rhea Ripley pinned Sasha to win the match. Earlier in the match, Candice LeRae and Io Shirai had seemingly been injured and were taken backstage. At the end of the match, both returned to help Ripley win. Also during the match, Asuka sprayed Charlotte with mist, leading to Charlotte being pinned, and Asuka left the match without being eliminated.

-The Viking Raiders beat The New Day and the Undisputed Era after they pinned Bobby Fish.

-Lio Rush successfully defended the cruiserweight title against Akira Tozawa and Kalisto (representing Raw and Smackdown, respectively).

-Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler (representing Smackdown) won a tag team battle royal that also included The OC, The Revival, The Forgotten Sons, The Street Profits, Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins, Tyler Breeze and Fandango, Lucha House Party, Imperium and Heavy Machinery.

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