Survivor Series last year was supposed to consist of a match between Brock Lesnar and Jinder Mahal. They were the Universal and WWE Champions at the time. But a WWE Championship win by AJ Styles in Manchester weeks before the event caused a big change.
AJ Styles was still the WWE Champion and then Lesnar won the Universal Champion once again. This set up Styles vs Lesnar at Survivor Series. Then everything seemed to change on the go-home SmackDown Live before the Survivor Series event.
AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan took each other to their limit. Then when all was said and done, we had a new WWE Champion and he was a heel, Daniel Bryan.
Now it looks like the Champion vs Champion match at Survivor Series will be Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan — just like Paul Heyman wanted in the first place.