WWE has been refreshingly chaotic over the past several weeks, and Vince McMahon and Co. look to be totally embracing it. In yet another surprise, WWE just announced that John Cena will be the 5th and final member of Team SmackDownn for Survivor Series.
SmackDown’s Commissioner and captain of Team Blue, Shane McMahon, made the announcement via Twitter on Wednesday morning. Cena will be joining Shane, Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode in their 5-on-5 battle vs. Team RAW.
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Further proving #SDLive is the superior brand, I’m happy to announce @JohnCena will be the 5th member of Team Smackdown at #SurvivorSeries.
— Shane McMahon (@shanemcmahon) November 8, 2017
BREAKING: @JohnCena has been named the fifth and final member of #SDLive‘s Men’s team at #SurvivorSeries! https://t.co/9DmwJ0boXb
— WWE (@WWE) November 8, 2017
This comes as quite the jolt as it was all but confirmed that Cena was going to serve as the guest referee for the Brock Lesnar vs. Jinder Mahal match at the November 19th event. However, now that AJ Styles not only replaced Mahal as WWE Champion but as Lesnar’s Survivor Series opponent, WWE doesn’t need Cena to bolster the match. Instead, he’ll be exercising his rights as WWE’s only free agent and will battle for team SmackDown the name of brand superiority.
More: 5 Heel Turns That Could Happen at WWE’s Survivor Series
Survivor Series will be Cena’s first match since losing to Roman Reigns at September’s No Mercy. The 16-time WWE Champion has been tied up in Hollywood as he’s been filming a Transformer’s spinoff that’s kept him off WWE cameras, Originally it was thought that his acting obligations would keep him out of Survivor Series, but clearly, something has changed.
The Survivor Series card continues to swell with intrigue and has now reached a level of excitement it hasn’t seen in at least a decade. Kurt Angle, Shane McMahon, The Shield, John Cena, and The New Day will anchor a show that it getting more compelling by the second.
Bravo, WWE.
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