Top 5 traditional Survivor Series matches

#1 Survivor Series 2001 - Team WWF Vs. The Alliance

The rivalry match came down to these two icons.

Although this match took place in November 2001, it was the culmination of a series of events starting on Raw nearly eight months prior when Shane McMahon told Vince McMahon he had purchased WCW from under his own father.

While we know they faced off at WrestleMania X-7, it seemed that this match was the end of the feud. That was until WCW Champion Booker T interfered in the King of the Ring in June and attacked Stone Cold Steve Austin, (the catalyst for the pay-per-view Invasion the following month).

Several months of chaos between the two teams had followed which ultimately lead to a ‘Winner-take-all’ in a traditional Survivor Series elimination match, where the losers had to disband.

The Alliance had Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Booker T and Shane McMahon representing them, whilst the WWF had The Rock, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Kane and The Big Show.

The teams were stacked with talent - with the exception of Shane McMahon, all of the participants were former World Champions in the WWF, WCW or ECW. While there was in-team fighting with both sides prior to this match, it appeared that everyone had put their personal problems to the side for one night.

During the match, the Alliance had found themselves with a 4-on-2 advantage against Team WWF, with the two remaining members, The Rock and Chris Jericho who had their own personal feud for the WCW World Championship title.

However, despite their own problems, the duo rallied and eventually found themselves on a 2-on-1 advantage only needing to eliminate Stone Cold - but a sneaky roll up led to The Rock and Stone Cold squaring off once again.

From here, Jericho then betrayed The Rock by attacking him before leaving the ring. However, it was ultimately Angle’s betrayal of The Alliance which gave Team WWF the win.

Whilst it can be argued that the WWF may have jumped the gun ending it without the likes of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Goldberg being a part of the Alliance (who all appeared on the show within the next 18 months), it is hard to ignore that the brilliance of the storyline leading up to this match and the quality of the wrestling ranks top in Survivor Series’ thirty year plus history.

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