WWE finally fixes 38-year Survivor Series problem hidden in plain sight

John Cena’s retirement run will take centre stage at Survivor Series on Saturday.

Cena’s penultimate WWE match and appearance takes place at the marquee event at Petco in San Diego, California as he meets Dominik Mysterio for his Intercontinental title.

WWE

As one of WWE’s biggest annual shows, however, it’s perhaps little surprise the event itself arrives with more history, controversy and baggage than almost any other WWE show on the calendar, long predating Cena and the current cohort.

Survivor Series has always carried a certain weight, not least because some of the company’s most infamous real life moments unfolded under its banner.

Is Survivor Series WWE’s most controversial event?

The most notorious of all came in 1997 with the Montreal Screwjob, when Bret Hart’s WWE career ended in controversy after an off script finish that fractured relationships, reshaped the industry and left fans stunned.

Eight years later, The Undertaker suffered a genuine scare of his own when a pyro malfunction left him burned during his entrance, a moment that lives in the memories of those who witnessed it from just a few feet away.

In truth, Survivor Series has a controversial past that few have recognised. Across one of wrestling’s biggest boom periods, the 90s, women were barely seen at the event.

The divide is startling. While male stars dominated the headlines and main events, female performers fought for scraps of visibility on one of WWE’s biggest nights of the year.

WhatCulture notes that in the entire decade of the 1990s, only three Survivor Series events featured women’s matches, proof that the event’s treatment of women lagged far behind the wider product of the era.

The record of highlighting women’s talents at the event was shocking enough by the time Survivor Series 1995 staged a rare women’s elimination match, pitting Alundra Blayze’s team against Aja Kong’s. Up to that point, women had only appeared at the very first Survivor Series in 1987, with nothing in the seven editions that followed.

The mid 1990s offered only the faintest glimpse of what women’s wrestling could become, though even that was a vast improvement on the near zero representation seen earlier in the decade.

Three years later, the 1998 event featured a Women’s Championship bout between Sable and Jacqueline, a match remembered as much for its novelty as its quality. The unmistakable sight of Sable powerbombing Marc Mero was a true Attitude Era staple.

WWE

Twelve months after that, Survivor Series 1999 featured two major women’s moments: an eight woman tag match and Chyna defending the Intercontinental Championship against Chris Jericho, making it one of the only shows of the decade where women appeared in more than one match.

Those three shows were the exception rather than the rule. The majority of 1990s Survivor Series cards did not include women at all. No elimination matches, no title bouts, no showcase moments. While male stars like Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker and Mankind defined an era, the women of WWE were largely boxed out of one of the calendar’s biggest nights.

Fast forward to Saturday and the landscape could not look more different. Women have now held a pivotal place on Survivor Series cards.

In 2019, Bayley, Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler headlined the show as its main event, their triple threat even keeping Brock Lesnar off the top spot in the billing.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing. Even last year, the event boasted a men and women’s WarGames match, but then three further all-male bouts with no further women’s offering.

In 2025, Survivor Series arrives with a four match line-up, split evenly between men and women, reflecting more than ever decades of progress both inside and outside the ring.

Getty

WWE

The card features a Men’s WarGames match and a Women’s WarGames match, placing both divisions on equal footing in one of WWE’s most chaotic and prestigious formats.

Cena will defend against Mysterio in one of the night’s marquee singles matches, while Stephanie Vaquer puts the Women’s World Championship on the line against Nikki Bella in a high profile title bout of her own.

Why this year’s Survivor Series could rewrite history

This year’s event is not simply balanced. It is symbolic. A show that once struggled to find room for women now presents them as equals on the card.

For long time fans, the shift feels overdue. For newer ones, it might be difficult to imagine a time when women were almost entirely absent from the show.

But for those who lived through the 1990s, the contrast is impossible to ignore.

Survivor Series may finally be ready to make history for the right reasons.