Survivor Series 2016 results: Wyatt Family wins for Team ‘Smackdown’

A long, tense, dramatic, and surprising Survivor Series match between the men of Raw and Smackdown ended with the blue team celebrating their only win and avoiding a clean sweep of the night. The Wyatt Family ended the match standing tall after Randy Orton played a crucial role and Bray Wyatt made the final two pinfalls. This was despite a brief and dramatic SHIELD reunion that saw Dean Ambrose join forces with Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins put A.J. Styles through the announcer table with the trademark Triple Powerbomb.

We got a clash of heavyweight champions to start the match, with Raw’s Kevin Owens and Smackdown’s A.J. Styles squaring off. Things went back and forth for the two teams, with Chris Jericho and Dean Ambrose spending time in the ring as well before Shane McMahon was tagged in to a big pop from the crowd. He worked Jericho over for a while before he brought in Roman Reigns to massive boos, which quickly turned into a duel between Reigns and Ambrose.

Eventually things broke down into a brand-on-brand standoff, with Braun Strowman tagging himself in. The fighting went outside the ring, with a huge splash from Kevin Owens knocking most of the roster down. Shane O’Mac tried to follow it up with an aerial assault of his own, but he was caught and thrown back into the ring by Strowman, who followed him in and proceeded to beat the Smackdown commissioner until Ambrose and Styles came in to rescue him.

The pair battling for the World Heavyweight Championship on Smackdown were able to send Strowman out of the ring and saw off the response from Reigns and Seth Rollins, but their tempers flared and the teammates attacked each other, despite McMahon trying to keep the peace. That gave Strowman the opening he needed to just about tear Ambrose in half and make the first elimination in favor of Raw.

That lead to a tense and strange moment. After Strowman laid waste to much of the remaining Smackdown team, he found himself standing in front of Bray Wyatt. The charismatic leader of the Wyatt Family tried to use his influence as the man who brought Strowman into the WWE over a year ago to turn the giant against Team Raw, and for a moment it looked like he had after Strowman grabbed Jericho for a chokeslam — but then Jericho was thrown aside and Wyatt found himself victimized instead.

Strowman started working over Wyatt, but after clearing one of the announcer tables, the newest Wyatt Family member, Randy Orton, came flying in out of nowhere to snap Strowman down with an RKO. He and Bray set Strowman up on the table — and Shane O’Mac dragged himself up to the top rope to launch himself into the air for a flying elbow to put Strowman through that table.

That led to another spell of chaos, but the whole time the referee was starting a count on Strowman, who had been outside the ring. It looked like the huge man was about to make it back just in time, but he suddenly stopped short as he tried to climb back into the ring — and as the referee counted him out, the camera panned down to see a pair of hands holding Strowman’s leg in place. That turned out to be Smackdown mascot James Ellsworth, who was promptly dragged out, thrown around, and chased up the ramp by Strowman, who made a point to throw Ellsworth off the entrance stage and through a pair of tables before he left.

After a brief period of control for the Raw team, Kevin Owens found himself incensed at A.J. Styles to the point that he dragged out Chris Jericho’s infamous List and hit A.J. in the back with it repeatedly — earning a disqualification. That lead Jericho to freak out and gather up the remains of his List, leaving himself wide open to a wicked RKO from Orton.

That put Team Raw in dire straits, with just Rollins and Reigns left — hardly a cohesive unit — with Team Smackdown still working with Styles, Shane McMahon, Orton, and Bray Wyatt. Shane tried to work over Reigns after an impressive outburst against Rollins, even countering a Superman Punch, but a vicious spear appeared to hit McMahon so hard that he was knocked clean out in the ring, forcing the referee to eliminate him.

Reigns and Rollins did their best to stand tall against the three remaining Smackdown members, even trying to work a two-man powerbomb on Orton through the table before Styles came flying in to break it up. As Styles crowed his superiority in the ring, Dean Ambrose came sprinting back down the ramp and unleashed on Styles, beating on him in the ring until the assembled referees forced him away, then coming back outside the ring until security dragged him away. Then his former SHIELD brothers Rollins and Reigns decided to step in, clearing the way for Ambrose to get back at Styles — and setting up their trademark Triple Powerbomb through the table — which let Rollins eliminate Styles with ease while Ambrose strolled back up the ramp.

That set up an interesting finish. The last four men in the ring were two members of the current Wyatt Family on one side for Smackdown — Bray and Orton — and two former SHIELD brothers on the other -- Reigns and Rollins — for Raw. The SHIELD and the Wyatts had some incredible clashes over the years, with Reigns and Wyatt having more great matches since then.

The fight between the four was, predictably, great. They went back-and forth, with Luke Harper popping up to cause a distraction as the old rivals went toe to toe. Rollins was eliminated when Randy Orton popped up out of nowhere to snatch Rollins out of the air with a jaw-dropping RKO, and with Reigns trying to overcome the Wyatts on his own, it was Orton again coming up huge, sacrificing himself by shoving Bray out of the way to eat a spear. That let Bray come back in with a huge Sister Abigail, and three seconds later it was the Wyatt Family celebrating a huge win for Team Smackdown.