5 wrestling rumors we hope are true and 4 we hope aren't: former Universal Champion quietly turned heel, details on 'backstage mess' at WWE SmackDown tapings revealed

#3. Hope is true: Why WWE kept Big E and Lars Sullivan away from WWE Survivor Series

Two superstars seemingly in line for a push

Big E and Lars Sullivan are two superstars who WWE seems to be focusing on with an eye towards the future. While Sullivan's push has also come with a few out-of-ring controversies, Big E has been having a fairly smooth transition in his solo run on SmackDown.

These two superstars were also notably absent from WWE Survivor Series. According to Dave Meltzer on WOR, Big E was removed from the pre-show Battle Royal, and WWE felt no need to put either man in this match on there. The company also didn't want them to be involved in the clean sweep defeat that the SmackDown men's team suffered. Sportskeeda's Vatsal Rathod wrote:

Dave Meltzer also stated that since WWE is planning to push both Big E and Lars Sullivan, they wanted to protect both of them instead of having them compete on the pre-show. This could also explain why neither of them was on Team SmackDown for the pay-per-view as the plan was for RAW to get a clean sweep and WWE possibly didn't want to make Big E and Lars Sullivan look weak.

We hope this is true because it's better for WWE to protect superstars they intend to push without ruining their momentum.