10 Coolest WWE Survivor Series Teams Of All Time

Pro wrestling is really, really cool, and we know this.

If I was a wrestler, my matches would suck because I'd be in constant awe of myself. I'd take a timeout after each move to run around the ring, just high-fiving fans and going "Did you see that? No but did you

see

that?" I'd vault the commentary table to watch my own replays. I'd constantly be fighting the urge to tear my shirt off in celebration - and yes I'd be wearing a shirt, because even in this fictional scenario

I've

invented, I can't permit myself to have a good body. Seriously, I'm eating a sharer bag of M&Ms as I write this. They were on sale, but I'd have still bought them if they weren't.

Wrestlers exist on a far more chilled level, at least the ones I've met. They plan complex, crowd-popping matches backstage, and never once stop to say "Dude, we're going to look

so

badass out there." They drive cars and take naps and eat chicken without constantly reminding themselves that they are Awesome Famous Fighty-Folk.

Professional wrestlers are, in essence, the anti-Drake. Drake is so painfully aware that he's a famous rapper, his every move is soaked with self-consciousness, but I feel that's another article for another time. For whatever reason, wrestlers aren't constantly in a state of "check me out; my job is awesome" - and it's therefore our job to determine just how kickin' radical they are.

But what's more kickin' radical than one wrestler? That's right:

five wrestlers

- ie. a traditional Survivor Series team - and because we've reached that time of year, it's time to determine the most kickin' radical Survivor Series team of all time.

[N.B. - The most kickin' radical amount of wrestlers is actually 30 wrestlers, because of the Royal Rumble. I'm sure you knew that already. This has been an incredibly long intro, and I'm sorry.]

10. Team WWF - 2001

Where better to start than with the team that

saved wrestling

. Without Vince McMahon's expertly-assembled squad of The Rock, Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho, and Big Show, maybe we'd have pay per views themed around 'On A Pole' stipulations. Maybe NXT would be named 'The Power Plant', and would feature the world's best sub-six-foot wrestlers being taught to job out by Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan.

Maybe Vince Russo would be a former WWE Champion

.

Let's talk about Team WWF's performance itself, and how they ended The Alliance's attempt to take over the wrestling world.

Really, The Rock does a lot of the work here. Big Show is the match's first elimination, after the heels decide to hit him with all of their finishers in turn (a genius move, in hindsight). Kane is pinned after a 'flying thrust kick' from Rob Van Dam, seemingly forgetting that his gimmick is literally 'Indestructible Monster-Man'.

Undertaker goes down at the hands of Austin, and I love watching Austin beat Undertaker regardless of the circumstances, so I have no particular complaints here.

Jericho gets jealous and attacks The Rock, almost costing Team WWF the whole shebang - which is

peak

petulant Y2J behaviour and I love it. Thankfully though, for

all of our sakes

, Rocky's able to come through as the big hero, defeating Stone Cold and giving me school playground bragging rights over the WCW kids.

9. The All-Americans - 1993

This team is preposterous and wonderful, for two major reasons:

• The presence of The Undertaker. This is before the Phenom went through his American Badass phase, so he had no real business turning into a flag-waving patriot - but WWF clearly didn't give a damn about that, and said "let's have him do it anyway!". In fairness, in the build-up to the match, he didn't wave the flag - he had it emblazoned on the inside of his coat, leading to a wonderfully cheesy reveal.

Seriously though. An undead zombie mortician suddenly decides to love America because it's November and there aren't enough uppercard babyfaces. Speaking of unconvincing patriot gimmicks...

• If you need me to tell you who won an early-90s PPV match between 'The All-Americans' and 'The Foreign Fanatics', you've clearly clicked on the wrong website and know nothing about wrestling. However, even I'm startled by the brazenness of WWF's unimaginative booking in hindsight. Hogan had recently walked out, so Luger was shoehorned in as the company's next big USA-lovin' megastar. He was also big and blonde; it's basically the same thing, right? Never mind the fact that he was still very new to the company, having only debuted in January of the same year. And especially never mind the fact that he began as an uber-arrogant heel, only to suffer an emergency turn for the good of America.

Guys, this is going to shock you, but Lex's team wins - with the man himself, Hogan 2.0, as the sole survivor. Yes he celebrates with a big Star-Spangled Banner. Of

course

he does.

8. The Dream Team - 1990

Dusty Rhodes' 'Dream Team' may have lost, but let's give them some credit. They had to deal with the debuting Undertaker, who was a total unknown quantity at this point.

There's no way Koko B. Ware could have known the new kid would go on to craft the most amazing WrestleMania undefeated streak, not even as the Phenom spiked his head into the canvas less than two minutes into the match.

There's no way Dusty Rhodes could have known he was angering one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time when he attacked his manager, causing Undertaker to leap out of the ring and

batter

him all the way up the entrance ramp to the back.

There's no way the guys could have known these things, but they certainly knew one thing:

That together, they were capable of taking the best Survivor Series team photo of all time

.

Just look at it up there. Have you ever seen something so majestic? I would follow any of those men into battle*, and three of them are wearing visibility-decreasing eyewear.

[*On second thought, I would not follow Jim Neidhart into battle - but I would happily have him in my ragtag Hollywood squadron as a crazed bezerker/demolitions expert.]

7. Team Faye - 1995

Unlike the last team, Bertha Faye's assembled badasses actually won their Survivor Series match - and cemented themselves as the best women's team in the history of the PPV in the process.

Alright, alright, there are a couple of challengers. Both Raw and SmackDown's women's teams from 2016 were pretty damn impressive, benefitting from the presence of Charlotte Flair, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and so on. Similarly, the Jumping Bomb Angels wowed everyone at the inaugural Survivor Series in 1987 - busting out moves that wouldn't look out of a place in a fast-paced modern contest.

However, when it comes to sheer ass-kickery, I have to go with Team Faye from 1995 - and it's not because of Bertha herself.

Aja Kong decides to uncork a bottle of puro brutality on the poor babyfaces lined up before her, eliminating all four members of the opposing team in just over 10 minutes. It's borderline obscene.

6. The Heenan Family - 1989

This team's opponents are actually included later on in the list, so let's not focus on the match itself right now. Let's instead take a look at that awesome heel lineup.

Spoilers: the team photo above is not representative of The Heenan Family's final form - there is one drop out and replacement, but try not to be too disappointed. I understand; what could be better than Andre, Haku, and both Brain Busters taking some poor babyfaces to town. Nothing, right?

Wrong

, humanoid! That's right, despite Tully Blanchard having to sadly drop out, his place was filled by none other than Bobby Heenan himself. In a masterstroke, the Weasel survived until the final two - squaring off against none other than the Ultimate Warrior. Hey, modern-day WWE -

that's

how you book an evil non-wrestler getting his comeuppance.

5. Team DX - 2006

This group is the Epic Meal Time of Survivor Series: impossibly exciting, but ultimately lacking in class. You wouldn't begin a suave night in Las Vegas with a gigantic lasagne made of pizza and Big Macs. You wouldn't prepare for a badass Hollywood bank heist with a big pile of bacon, just a huge pile of bacon. You'd have an expensive steak and maybe a glass of whisky. DX, CM Punk, and the Hardy Boyz are not steak and whisky. They're five monster trucks welded together. They're one of those big robots from the Power Rangers.

Team DX also lose points for their 5-0 clean sweep. A dominant victory might be the most badass outcome in regular sports, but it's far from the most awesome result in pro wrestling - lagging behind several other finishes including narrow victory and heartbreaking, heartbreaking defeat

[see Flair, Ric - WrestleMania 24]

.

[See also Flair, Ric - WrestleMania 18]

4. Team Orton - 2009

Quite often, a piece of fiction is only as good as its antagonist -

Othello

's Iago;

Matilda

's Miss Trunchbull;

Survivor Series 2009

's Team Orton.

Team Orton is perhaps the finest collection of villainy ever seen at WWE's Thanksgiving bonanza. Let's run down the lineup:

• Randy Orton - We're talking peak "No seriously guys, I'm done being pretty and arrogant; I've turned into an actual psycho" Randy Orton.
• CM Punk - Best known as a groundbreaking anti-hero, sure, but Punk can also play the role of callous lieutenant to perfection.
• Legacy - Ted DiBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes - Legacy are the ultimate '80s movie villains, the sneering rich kids who rose to the top via nepotism and privilege.
• William Regal - Wiliam F'in Regal.

That's pretty spectacular, and they also gave my boy Kofi Kingston his moment in the sun - before he made that

one

mistake that

one

time, and it turned out Randy Orton was also slightly unforgiving in real life too.

(For those unaware, Google 'Randy Orton, Kofi Kingston, stupid'. Kofi prepares to receive an RKO instead of a punt kick, and Randy completely loses his noggin.)

Sadly, Team Orton lose points for the lack of a badass team picture, but that's pretty minor. They put Kofi over huge, and Randy eliminated Mark Henry in like 30 seconds at the beginning with a big RKO. That's pretty dope, yo.

3. The Ultimate Warriors - 1989

Now we're talking, guys. The Ultimate Warriors, comprised of The Ultimate Warrior (obviously), The Rockers (one of the coolest tag teams of all time), and Jim Neidhart (who, as far as I can tell, seems to be there purely for the banter).

To me, this team is the original kickin' radical Survivor Series squad - the right blend of energy, muscle, and sheer 1980s awesomeness. Look at those colours; look at how Shawn and Marty have coordinated with Warrior, and look at how Neidhart doesn't give a single damn.

As for the match itself, let me remind you that Warrior eliminated Andre by knocking him out of the ring in

27 seconds.

I am convinced that this could be the single most epic moment in WWE history. Warrior takes out the most iconic heel of the decade in under half a minute, knocking him out of the ring

so hard

that Andre thinks "Nah, I'm done. There's just no way."

The rest of the match is akin to a really sugared-up kid smashing his action figures together, or somebody throwing paint into an industrial fan. Neidhart gets sadly taken out by Haku (no shame in that; he's the scariest man in the world), but Michaels gets revenge with an awesome flying crossbody. The Rockers are eliminated in very contrasting ways, and it sort of serves as a microcosm for their respective careers. HBK survives bravely for a quarter of an hour, before eating a sick Arn Anderson Spinebuster. Jannetty just gets rolled up. By Bobby Heenan.

Warrior decimates Anderson and Heenan to become the sole survivor, but you probably could have guessed that.

2. Team Austin - 2003

Sometimes a one-man team can be just as bodacious as a fully-functioning squadron. Now obviously Team Austin wasn't literally a one-man team, but you'd forgive Shawn Michaels for feeling 

furious

after this went down.

This 2003 bout saw Stone Cold's team face off against Eric Bischoff's heel representatives to determine control of Monday Night Raw, and it's a great example of HBK in full backs-to-the-wall mode. He struggles and survives while teammates fall limply all around him (D-Von gets eliminated by a Chris Jericho 

sleeper slam

, for God's sake). With Austin cheering the Heartbreak Kid on from ringside, Michaels takes out Christian with a preposterously nice superkick, pulls Y2J into a pinning predicament, and...falls at the last hurdle to Randy Orton.

So many elements combine to make Shawn and Friends' loss one the most gut-wrenching in Survivor Series history. Stone Cold doesn't even see his job slip away, kicking the crap out of Eric Bischoff on the entrance ramp in his charming Stone Cold way. Orton, all frat boy features and youthful arrogance, is the perfect antagonist - and he doesn't even beat an exhausted Michaels by himself. Batista interferes like some sort of cheap-ass final boss, planting HBK and dragging Randy on top for the win.

I feel a bit weird placing Team Austin this high, considering the fact I've pretty much written off the rest of the group as losers - but Michaels' individual performance is one of the most genuinely compelling Survivor Series moments of all time. He also bladed

way

too heavily, and that's always super tight.

1. The Alliance - 2001

I'll just preface this by saying it's okay, I know. I know the Invasion angle was generally terrible, depriving the wrestling industry of the storyline it had been dreaming about for years. With that said, it at least gave us the most balls-out Survivor Series team of all time.

Sometimes in life, things are just so awesome you give them a pass. The plot of 

School of Rock

doesn't really make sense - there's no way Jack Black could just waltz into a teaching job with minimal security checks - but you allow it because there are guitar solos and dry ice and that awesome montage with The Ramones playing in the background. Also, I used to have a crush on the bassist when I was a kid.

The Alliance are nowhere near the best representation of WCW, but it's easy to forget that because the five members are so fantastic. Austin and Angle are obviously two of the greatest of all time (and 2001 heel Stone Cold was utterly brilliant - I don't care what you say), while Booker T and Rob Van Dam were probably the most exciting actual members of the incoming WCW/ECW forces.

A lot of Survivor Series teams missed out on this list by having too much filler. Like, I get that you needed to make up the numbers, Hogan, but why on earth did you pick Duggan, Tugboat and Boss Man? You're in the golden age of wrestling!

The Alliance's filler is Shane McMahon, a man I saw jump off a 20-foot cell to try to kill an undead wrestling icon. In front of his children. In sweet Jordans. I'm going to make a bold claim and say that Shane could waltz into any Survivor Series team in history, and I probably wouldn't mind.

Yes, this team lost the highest-stakes match in the history of the pay per view, handing control of the WWF back to Vince McMahon - but as we've learned over the course of this list, winning doesn't necessarily mean

winning

.

Also, in defeat, they brought one of the most disappointing angles in wrestling history to a merciful end, and if that isn't reason enough to consider The Alliance the coolest Survivor Series team ever, I don't know what is. Goodbye.