Top 5 Survivor Series elimination matches

The Survivor Series was built on the concept of elimination matches where teams of wrestlers who normally didn’t work together all the time would come together in order to battle a team of opponents made up of their mortal enemies. After looking back at the pay per view’s top “traditional” matches, here is a look at Survivor Series’ best elimination-style tag team matches.

Many of the elimination matches over the years haven’t been real solid in-ring wrestling wise, but are always a treat for the match combinations. For the sake of brevity I am only going to rank and briefly talk about five matches, but here some honorable mentions that are worthy of checking out if you have not done so previously:
- Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage (co-captains), Hillbilly Jim, Koko B. Ware & Hercules v. Akeem & The Big Boss Man (co-captains), Haku, Ted DiBiase & Terry Taylor – Survivor Series ‘88
- The Ultimate Warriors: Ultimate Warrior (captain), Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart & The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty) v. The Heenan Family: Andre the Giant (captain), Haku, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan & Arn Anderson – Survivor Series ‘89
- The Dream Team: Dusty Rhodes (captain), Koko B. Ware and The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) v. The Million $ Team: Ted DiBiase (captain), The Undertaker and Rhythm & Blues (Honky Tonk Man & Greg Valentine) – Survivor Series ‘90
- Dean Douglas, Razor Ramon, Yokozuna & Owen Hart v. Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, Davey Boy Smith & Sid in a Wild Card match – Survivor Series ‘95
- Kurt Angle (captain), Chris Benoit, Hardcore Holly, Bradshaw & John Cena v. Brock Lesnar (captain), Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, A-Train & The Big Show – Survivor Series ‘03
- Randy Orton (captain), Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho & Maven v. Triple H (captain), Batista, Gene Snitsky & Edge – Survivor Series ‘04

#5 – The Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan & Tito Santana v. Rick Martel, Ted DiBiase, The Warlord and Power & Glory (Hercules & Paul Roma) in the Grand Finale Match of Survival – Survivor Series ‘90
In what was a great concept that was only used once in Survivor Series history, all of the winners of the night’s elimination matches would meet in a final main event match to determine the “ultimate survivor.” Representing the heroes where WWF Champion Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan and Tito Santana, who were all sole survivors in their own matches. Representing the villains were “Million $ Man” Ted DiBiase, who was the sole survivor in his bout and Rick “The Model” Martel’s entire team known as The Visionaries, who had outlasted The Vipers team of Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Superfly Jimmy Snuka and The Rockers earlier in the night. The Visionaries were the first team in Survivor Series history to have every member survive.

Having the heroes come into the match with a decided numbers disadvantage added more drama to the match. Santana eliminated The Warlord in mere moments to start the match, only for DiBiase to rebound by eliminating Santana right after that. This led to the real story of the match, with the two company’s super powers (Hogan and Warrior) battling the odds. Not surprisingly Hogan and Warrior tore through the opposing team in quick fashion and established what everyone already knew; these two were the top stars of the day. It was probably also the seed that was supposed to build to a Hogan-Warrior rematch for the upcoming WrestleMania VII, but plans changed and the two men wouldn’t meet again until 1998…in WCW.

Hogan, Warrior and Santana prepare for the Grand Finale Match of Survival

#4 – Team Austin: Booker T, Shawn Michaels, Rob Van Dam and Bubba Ray & D-Von Dudley v. Team Bischoff: Chris Jericho, Christian, Scott Steiner, Mark Henry & Randy Orton – Survivor Series ‘03
This match was built to determine the fate of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s future on the RAW brand. If the Austin-assembled team won the match then Stone Cold would remain co-General Manager on RAW. If Eric Bischoff’s team won, then he would remain sole GM of the show. Build to the match saw the two GMs announce and build their teams sporadically over a few weeks in order to build suspense. When Austin acquired Michaels to be his fifth man it planted the seeds for a great match-up.

A video package detailing the Austin-Bischoff rivalry:

The match picked up into something fantastic in the end. Michaels was left all alone three on one against Jericho, Christiana and Orton. It was the type of situation that Survivor Series was built upon. Michaels, always the great consummate underdog, dropped Christian with Sweet Chin Music and was able to catch Jericho with a small package to leave things one-on-one against Orton, his main rival at the time. But thanks to a parting chair shot from Jericho and interference from Orton’s Evolution stablemate Batista, Orton was able to get the pin on Michaels.

Team Bischoff won the match and Austin was off of RAW…for a few weeks. So while the match doesn’t serve a lot of long-term impact it is a great testament to how to properly play off the elimination aspect of a match like this in order to build drama.

#3 – Team WWF: The Rock (captain), Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho & The Big Show v. Team Alliance: Stone Cold Steve Austin (captain), Kurt Angle, Booker T, Rob Van Dam & Shane McMahon – Survivor Series ’01
There have never been two more star-studded teams opposing each other at Survivor Series. Five former World Champions on the WWF side, three former World Champions on the Alliance side, a future World Champion in Rob Van Dam and the owner’s son made for the definition of an all-star game. This match would mark of the end of the truly abysmal “WCW invades the WWF” storyline that should have been a license to print money, but only ended in failure.

Despite the storyline surrounding the match, the in-ring action itself was pretty phenomenal. The final four saw Rock and Jericho face off with Angle and Austin, for decidedly “WWF” guys fighting over the fate of the already dead WCW and ECW brands. After Jericho submitted Angle and Austin pinned Jericho it left a ten minute stand off between the top two WWF guys at the time, Rock and Austin. Rock and Austin went into their own greatest hits package before Angle returned and re-joined Team WWF by clocking Austin. The Rock then dropped Stone Cold with a Rock Bottom for the win for his team and the World Wrestling Federation.

By the next night on RAW virtually all remnants of the InVasion were erased. Austin was back as a hero. Angle and Jericho were villains and the WCW World Title was simply renamed the World Heavyweight Championship. But this ten man match was arguably the high point of the entire six month storyline.

#2 – Strike Force (Tito Santana & Rick Martel) (co-captains), Jacques & Raymond Rougeau, The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith & Dynamite Kid), The Young Stallions (Paul Roma & Jimmy Powers) & The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair & Jim Brunzell) v. The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) (co-captains), Demolition (Ax & Smash), The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff & Boris Zhukov), The Islanders (Haku & Tama) & The New Dream Team (Dino Bravo & Greg Valentine) – Survivor Series ‘87
At the inaugural Survivor Series the event featured two ten man tag team matches involving all the top singles stars of the day, a ten women’s tag team match and this crazy twenty man, ten team elimination match, where if one team member was eliminated then his regular partner would leave the match as well. At the very least it provided for a crazy visual with twenty men surrounding the ring plus all the assorted managers on the Hart Foundation’s team of villains. Plus in this era of the WWF, the majority of the company’s best in-ring workers were in the tag team ranks so it was bound to be a great match-up.

The pure spectacle of a match like this made it a must-see, but the innovative tandem offense and eliminations made it all the more entertaining. However the real surprise was that The Killer Bees and The Young Stallions, the two teams lowest on the hero team totem pole were the ones who survived, with the Bees pinning Tama of the Islanders to win the match for Team Strike Force. What made the finish even more surprising was that Strike Force were the WWF Tag Team Champions and neither the Bees nor the Stallions received a Tag Title shot or much of a push on television because of this victory. In fact both teams remained lower card cannon fodder for the entire following year.

#1 – The Powers of Pain (The Warlord & The Barbarian) (co-captains), The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith & Dynamite Kid), The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty), The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) & The Young Stallions (Paul Roma & Jimmy Powers) v. Demolition (Ax & Smash) (co-captains), The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers (Jacques & Raymond), The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard), The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff & Boris Zhukov) & The Conquistadors (#1 & #2) – Survivor Series ‘88
A year later, WWE once again did the ten-team combination once again, with even better results. The overlying storyline was that of the Powers of Pain, a monster tag team of face painted warriors constantly challenging Demolition, the face painted WWF World Tag Team Champions. There were also established rivalries between The Rockers and The Brain Busters and both The British Bulldogs and Hart Foundation had issues with The Fabulous Rougeaus. And as a trivia side note, this is the one and only match where Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart ever teamed up on the same side.

Ultimately the match came down to Demolition and The Conquistadors against The Powers of Pain. Mr. Fuji, Demolition’s manager, had spent the manage interfering and trying to get Demolition to do things his way. His interference backfired and Demolition were counted out consulting him. With that loss Demolition attacked Fuji and cemented their babyface turn. The Powers of Pain helped up Fuji and signaled their new partnership. The match took a backseat to the storyline, which was academic at this point anyways. A leg trip from Fuji on one of the masked Conquistadors allowed Barbarian to get the easy pinfall. The Conquistadors were a pair of masked “jobbers” who rarely ever won a match and their participation was only there to round out the teams evenly.

With this double turn Demolition now become heroes and the Powers of Pain became villains, with Mr. Fuji as their new mouthpiece. It added a new layer to the teams’ long-standing rivalry and kept things fresh. It was one of the most successful double turns in wrestling history, and saw Demolition become one of the first “cool babyfaces,” where they didn’t change their act one bit when switching fan allegiances.

Demolition and Mr. Fuji hype up the Survivor Series