Whether four-on-four or five-on-five, the traditional Survivor Series tag team match tends to give us some memorable moments.
In the early days of PPV,WWEhad its Big Four system down.
Here are what I consider to be the most memorable eliminations inSurvivor Serieshistory.
Were going in chronological order here.
Because if anyone needed to be protected, its Hacksaw for some reason.
So if you were ever wondering, Savage, Steamboat, and Roberts were the original survivors.
Not a bad trio to start it off with.
Simple enough, right?
Problem was, Hogan didnt even last to the end.
Hogan was very upset over this and was forced to leave.
The only other person on his side by this point of the match was Bam Bam Bigelow.
In the other corner, you had Andre, King Kong Bundy, and One Man Gang.
Things were not looking good.
Already fatigued, Bam Bam was able to defeat Bundy.
Just as well, since Bundy was on his way out of the company.
It took a lot out of Bam Bam and he got manhandled by the Gang.
Luckily, he was able to roll out of the way of a top-rope splash and pin him.
The outlier in the Hogan era was Bad News Brown, who was like the prototypical Steve Austin.
He didnt like anybody and he didnt trust anybody.
He just wanted to beat down anyone in his way.
Hed do the same thing a year later when part of the Big Boss Mans team.
Originally, he was supposed to be on Ted Dibiases team in 1990, but left the company instead.
If someone was eliminated, so was their regular tag partner.
The 1988 version was built on the Powers of Pain representing the faces against Demolition representing the heels.
As the list of competitors shrank more and more, there were two surprises.
One was that jobber tag team The Conquistadors were still in action.
The other was that Mr. Fuji accidentally-on-purpose caused Smash to fall out of the ring and get counted out.
It was a double-turn as Demolition attacked Fuji and The Powers of Pain revealed him as their new manager.
That left The Conquistadors vs.
Neither was known for having much in terms of stamina, so what to do?
Simply put, WWF had Andre fight off Warriors teammates during the entrances.
He beat up Jim Neidhart, slammed Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty into each other, then awaited Warrior.
Running at full speed, Warrior ducked Andres attacks and returned with three clotheslines.
The final clothesline knocked Andre out of the ring, where he fell unconscious and got counted out.
The Ultimate Warriors team included Legion of Doom and Kerry Von Erich.
The other team was Mr.
It was a protective measure…for Smash and Crush.
Well, he was already gone.
The Ultimate Warrior pretty easily finished him off early on with a shoulder tackle and big splash.
After being tagged in, Undertaker shrugged off attacks by both Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart.
Neither had an answer to Undertakers invincibility, so Koko tagged himself in.
He decided to use his speed by dashing across the ropes and diving at the newcomer.
Undertaker moved out of the way and shoved Koko into the ropes.
Years of dominance started in this very moment.
Thats why Undertaker got counted out in the middle of his first match.
They didnt want to have him interact with Hogan and Warrior just yet.
Ted Dibiase, though?
He was fine for main event fodder.
In his initial match, his final opponent was Bret Hart.
If only we could have had a full-on feud between the two.
Over twenty minutes had passed and only two guys had been eliminated.
The six remaining wrestlers started brawling inside the ring as the referee lost control.
As everyone traded fists with their rivals, Piper bested Flair and knocked him out of the ring.
The fighting continued and finally the ref had had enough and disqualified everyone for what was essentially a count-in.
The Rockers and Bushwackers teamed up against The Nasty Boys and The Beverly Brothers.
Towards the end, the Beverlys and Bushwackers were out of the equation.
Michaels was too close and got hit with the legs during the setup of the move.
During the confusion, Brian Knobbs rolled him up for a pin.
Afterwards, Michaels threw a huge fit at his partner and stormed off.
RANDY SAVAGE ELIMINATES DIESEL (1993)
Randy Savage did pretty well in his finalSurvivor Seriesappearance.
ESPECIALLY considering it was months before the memorable Diesel god run atRoyal Rumble 1994.
Owen was already on the roster, so that meant one-off appearances by Bruce and Keith.
The match was exceptionally boring, but had one important moment.
With the three knights defeated, Michaels had to fend off against all four Harts.
A weakened Bret walked cross the apron while Michaels whipped Owen right into him.
Michaels lost shortly after by cheesing it to the exit, but the damage had been done.
With three Harts surviving, Owen returned from behind the curtain to start some conflict with Bret.
Owen was sick of being in his shadow and saw his loss as making him look bad.
This development had years of consequence to it.
Those people are monsters and you should cut them out of your life.
Their opponents were Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastion Booger, and The Headshrinkers.
Angrily, he would grab each balloon and pop them with a bite.
This turned out to be his undoing, as one of the balloons was filled with water.
Taken aback from the water exploding into his face, Samu was rolled up by Luke and eliminated.
RAZOR RAMON SURVIVES THE TEAMSTERS (1994)
In a five-on-five battle, The Bad Guys vs.
The Teamsters went a pretty long while before hitting an elimination.
But, oh boy, once it started, there was no stopping.
Diesel was brought in and annihilated Fatu, The 1-2-3 Kid, and Sione with Jackknife powerbombs.
That meant Razor Ramon was up against the entire heel team.
Diesel was kind of tired and wanted to tag out, but Shawn Michaels insisted he take down Razor.
Diesel reluctantly went with it and took down Razor with a boot and a Jackknife.
Now Michaels wanted to tag in and Diesel went along with it, irritated.
Michaels also wanted Diesel to hold up Razor so Michaels could nail a superkick.
Diesel did so, but Razor moved away at the last second and Diesel ate Michaels boot.
Infuriated, Diesel got back up and decided that he had finally had enough of Michaels bullshit.
Oh, and a couple days later, Diesel won the title at a house show.
Once the midcard faces killed enough time, they finally tagged Undertaker in to face Jerry Lawler.
Lawler, understandably, tried to tag out.
Even more understandably, all of his partners backed off and left him to die.
Undertaker made very short work of Lawler and then cut through the rest of the team.
Yep, Undertaker pinned Kane and Triple H in the same minute.
At least one of the matches was notable for introducing us to smiling blue-chipper Rocky Maivia.
This pineapple-looking youngster and his flailing arms were teamed with Jake Roberts, The Stalker, and Marc Mero.
He ended up the sole survivor.
His final two opponents were Goldust and Crush.
In this situation, nobody was ever as big aSurvivor Seriesvaliant underdog as Vader.
In other words, Vader had to pretty much BE his team.
Wrestlings funny like that.
He was just a total dick.
Big Boss Man decided to cheese it, losing by count-out.
The entire match was less than a minute and a half.
The climax came atSurvivor Series, where it was winner take all.
That overkill was enough to keep Big Show down.
As for the overkill a moment later when the remainder of Team WWF spammed their finishers on Shane?
That was just fun.
These two went at it for roughly ten minutes, which is forever inSurvivor Seriestime.
Rock put Austin down for good with a Rock Bottom and WWF was saved.
Not only was the story finished, but there was some new direction mixed in there.
The two of them worked together to bring down The Big Show in the final moments.
Shortly before that was an even better elimination moment as Chris Benoit got the better of Brock Lesnar.
RANDY ORTON ELIMINATES SHAWN MICHAELS (2003)
Wrestling is many things, but its rarely poignant.
The ending of Team Austin vs.
Team Bischoff was one of those times.
Each authority figure had a team of five to represent them.
The loser had to quit and ride off into the sunset.
Halfway into the match, things werent looking so optimistic for Stone Cold.
Michaels got past Christian with a superkick and caught Jericho with a cradle roll-up.
Afterwards, Jericho smashed him in the face with a chair.
Michaels was a tired, bloody mess when fending off Orton, but he wouldnt say die.
Michaels was depleted and Orton made the pin, ending Austins tenure as an on-air regular.
Austin entered the ring and kneeled before what was left of Michaels.
Michaels weakly placed his hand on Austins arm and Austin turned his head to it.
SHAWN MICHAELS ELIMINATES MIKE KNOX (2006)
Team DX vs. That said, the opening minute was downright hilarious.
What made it so brilliant was Michaels goofy confusion over the whole ordeal.
So were doing good, then?
He took out Mark Henry and Shelton Benjamin, leaving Cody Rhodes and Orton.
Batista turned around into an RKO and that was all she wrote.
RANDY ORTON ELIMINATES MARK HENRY (2009)
Listen, this list is like 50% RKOs.
Can you blame me?
Then Ortons team stormed the ring and in the confusion, attacked Henry from behind.
Henry let go of the hold and stood a bit dazed for just a second.
Thats not even Henrys most embarrassing loss on this list.
He had the disadvantage as he had to face CM Punk and Orton alone.
Against Punk, he was treated as being an equal.
If he could survive, there would be nothing left to last long against Orton.
All the while, Orton stood outside the ring, watching intently.
Kofi caught Punk with a roll-up and eliminated him.
Orton dashed to the ring, but Kofi saw this coming a mile away.
Del Rio helped Drew McIntyre take out MVP, then made Chris Masters tap to a cross armbreaker.
Well, Big Show didnt appreciate that and stood up in fury.
No longer legal, Del Rio got in Big Shows face and let the smarm flow.
Big Show responded with a punch to the face.
Ortons able to hit the move out of nowhere, no matter how fresh his opponent is.
In his 2011 match, he was able to take out both Ziggler and Hunico with RKOs.
Hunico even got the rad mid-air RKO counter.
Orton prepared the move on a dazed Barrett and Cody dashed right for Orton.
Orton looked back and forth real quick and instinctually RKOd Cody.
That gave Barrett enough time to take advantage by grabbing Orton and finishing him off with the Wasteland.
Good team player, that Cody.
Although Seth Rollins was behind Jey Usos elimination, Romans spear cut through everyone else.
Jimmy Uso, Cody Rhodes, and Goldust each went down, making their numbers advantage worthless.
The final opponent was Rey Mysterio and his loss was special.
He sprinted into the ropes, bounced, and was immediately met with impact from Romans spear.
It was so fast youd think it was a glitch.
Rusev sold the situation the best by gesturing like he couldnt believe this shit.
Rusev beat the hell out of Dolph Ziggler and placed him on one announce table.
Triple H tried to get him back to his feet, but Rusev knocked himself out.
Across the ring, Big Show saw Seth Rollins, Luke Harper, and Kane standing ready.
To his side was John Cena, groggy and trying to stand.
On the floor was Dolph Ziggler, exhausted and half-conscious.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Big Show cut his losses by suckerpunching Cena.
As an offering, Big Show allowed Rollins to easily pin Cena.
Big Show then walked over to Triple H and offered him his hand.
He placed Zigglers hide over Rollins and let the original ref make the count.
The company had no intent on pushing Ziggler and instead credited Team Cenas victory to Cena and Sting.
Their team was going strong, though.
Despite losing Barrett, the heels were able to take out Jimmy Uso, keeping it even.
Big E wasnt happy, but continued to wrestle until getting splashed by Jey Uso.
That made him a dangerous addition to TeamRaw.
What would it take to remove him from the match?
The group effort began with Randy Orton surprising him with an RKO into a table.
Even still, Braun got up and made his way to the ring.
With only a couple seconds left on the refs count, Braun realized he couldnt lift his leg.
The ref counted to ten and Braun was out of the contest.
Ellsworth tried to run for it, but Braun caught up to him and outright mauled the poor guy.
To finish him off, Braun threw him off the ramp and through a table.
Meanwhile, on theRawside, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins were working fine as a team.
Ambrose returned late into the match for the sake of attacking AJ.
Security swarmed Ambrose, but Roman and Seth knew this was the kind of crazy they needed.
It was a natural one-off reunion where everything fell into the right place amidst the chaos.
Rollins quickly rolled AJ back in for the pin, natch.
Best Orton stuff in years.
Roman, being Roman, was strong enough to be a threat against the two.
Orton was still trying to prove his trustworthiness to Wyatt and that led to a killer ending sequence.
Roman had Wyatt stunned and prepared for the spear.
The Orton/Wyatt alliance overwhelmed Roman, just like they would in the followingRoyal Rumble.
This would be thrown right out the window if said opponent disrespected her.
Take AsukasSurvivor Seriesdebut, where she found herself in the ring with Carmella.
Carmella was doing well enough, but made the mistake of smacking Asuka in the face.
As it should be.
Man, she was so cool when they cared about her.
His real misstep came when he decided to knock Braun Strowman off the apron and onto the floor.
Braun wasnt really hurt by it, but he was very, very annoyed.
That left Braun Strowman and Nakamuras good luck started to peter out.
