WWE Survivor Series 2022 DVD Review feat. War Games

Title: Survivor Series 2022
Producer: WWE
Running Time: 188 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 1
Studio: Fremantle Home Entertainment
Released: January 9 2023

(Thanks to Fetch Publicity for arranging this review.)

This is our DVD review for WWE Survivor Series 2022. And it’s the latest DVD review for our site. So, let’s see what we think of Survivor Series 2022!

War Games!

Now, the big draw of this show was the first-ever main roster appearance of the War Games match. It was way back in 1987 that the NWA/JCP introduced the concept of a two-ring cage with survival as the aim. Somehow, it would be decades before WWE adopted and refined the match. Triple H, in particular, was and is a huge War Games fan. Therefore, once he achieved creative control of the main product, War Games was bound to make its inaugural appearance. But was it a success?

Survivor Series 2022 Under Card

After an intro narrated by Ozzy Osbourne, we had the opening women’s War Games match. A lot of effort went into this ten-woman encounter, which lasted well over half an hour. And various stories are either enhanced, concluded, or rekindled along the way. However, something still feels missing which prevents this from becoming a modern classic for the women’s division. Meanwhile, AJ Styles and Finn Balor put together a strong outing themselves, though again it lacked that extra oomph to go down as a memorable encounter.

Ronda Rousey’s SmackDown Women’s Championship defence against Shotzi instigated the ridiculous Twitter behaviour to demand her release. Ironically, Rousey wasn’t the performer making the errors here, but some fans clearly don’t want Ronda in WWE under any circumstances. Elsewhere, Theory rebounds from his controversial MITB cash-in failure to defeat both Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley. Their United States Championship is rather exciting and is arguably the best match of the show.

Main Event Of Survivor Series 2022

The men’s War Games match headlines the show, and fittingly Roman Reigns is present to head up the Bloodline. However, the real story is Sami Zayn, whose loyalty towards Roman and his old frenemy Kevin Owens is the sub-plot of the bout. Ultimately, Zayn decides that he has new friends now with Roman and co. Indeed, after taking out KO, The Bloodline finally accepts Zayn … for now. That Sami and KO were mortal enemies so often over the years apparently didn’t influence his decision here.

More notable is the fact that, like the opener, this War Games match didn’t really sizzle. It had its moments, and the fans were invested. But it didn’t feel like a match that I would want to replay again and again. It’s concerning that neither War Games match truly stood out, considering how long we’ve waited for it in WWE. I do like the concept, and I did enjoy the initial War Games matches in NXT along with the classics in WCW. Perhaps it’s because of an over-reliance on weapon spots that we’ve seen in similar matches on many occasions. Even with the storytelling in the main event, things weren’t particularly gripping, which is strange for a supposedly barbaric encounter.

Survivor Series 2022 Summary

So, to answer the earlier question: I feel that War Games was only mildly successful here. I’d like to see them give the stipulation another chance, and perhaps the 2023 matches will exceed these bouts. But overall, I felt that while the card was always worth watching, it was a “just okay” PPV overall. And that means that this show on DVD is just okay as well.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10 – Okay