In Defense of the 5 on 5 Elimination match

Court is in session! 

The 5 on 5 Elimination match was a staple to the Survivor Series event, until it was replaced by the Wargames match - much to fan delight. But I say it’s time to bring back the classic match that made Survivor Series unique in the first place. There are my two main arguments split up:

1. The booking of the matches are to blame

2. Bringing the match back adds value

The Booking

The Elimination match gets unfair (and unjust!) criticism of being boring. Is that that matches fault? Or is it the fault of the booking surrounding the match? Let’s look at the last event that featured the 5 on 5, which was Survivor Series 2021. The entire night was built around brand supremacy, every match on the card being a RAW vs Smackdown match. The 5 on 5 Elimination match was literally just regulated to “if your team wins this match, your brand gets one point.” Well, I mean, that sucks! On top of that, you had teams filled with heels and faces that would never get along in the first place. There wasn’t even an effort to at least build an all heel team vs an all face team. Pretty lazy.

Survivor Series 2014 may be THE example of what this match could bring to the table. Team Cena vs Team Authority. “It’s us vs them and the stakes could never be higher” - If Team Authority lost, they would be stripped of their powers but if Team Cena lost, everyone (except Cena) would be fired. The “everyone except Cena gets fired” twist was genius because no one actually believed that WWE would 'fire' Cena… but when you look at who was on his team, you think to yourself “Omg.. Vince might actually do it.. he might ‘fire’ everyone, just to give Cena this chapter of grievance and continue the Authority storyline” which blurred the lines for hardcore fans. 

Then we get to the match. Twists and turns galore. Big Show turns heel on Cena, getting him eliminated and leaving Dolph Ziggler solo to fight Seth Rollins, Kane, and Luke Harper. All hope is lost - but boom, Ziggler is able to eliminate Kane. He follows it up by catching Harper off guard with a sneaky roll up pin, eliminating him as well. I watched this live back in 2014 on the WWE network for $9.99, and I remember thinking, “oh well that’s nice they didn’t bury him on his way to get totally murdered by Rollins. Back to back eliminations are great for him.” After about an eight minute stretch, we are hit with a huge surprise in Sting making his WWE debut to fight off Triple H, pulling a lifeless Ziggler over Rollins to get the win. (The full match is on WWE’s Youtube page. Check it out if you haven’t seen it - sorry for the spoilers lol). 

This Authority storyline started in the summer of 2013, with this match taking place in fall of 2014. I’m not asking every 5 on 5 to have that much history put into its build up - with a debuting legend -  but we need SOMETHING more than the “Oh that’s the PLE coming up next month, we should start building it up now”. Especially now under the Triple H creative, there is no reason we can’t start planting seeds and moving storylines a few months in advance. 

Value added

The Wargames match was a welcome addition in 2022, but we are now going into our fourth year in a row of this. Isn’t this exactly what ruined the Hell In A Cell match's reputation for so long? I know this same argument can be applied to the 5 on 5 match as well but my point is that Wargames isn’t receiving that same hate. So why does the 5 on 5 match just get banished to the shadow realm? Let’s use both matches to highlight one another's strengths and hide the weaknesses.

WWE is rumored to have more PLEs spanning over two nights. Wrestlemania and Summerslam have already gone two nights, I think it might be safe to say that the next two will be the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series. Let’s bring back the classic 5 on 5 Elimination match to fill out that two night card. The Wargames match is a car crash event. WWE seem to also have a top faction running havoc over the show each year, from The Judgement Day to The Bloodline, so as long as that continues then the storyline for the Wargames match will continue to make sense. 

Wargames is the type of match that is a main event attraction - leaving it nearly honestly impossible for the WWE midcard to get involved. This allows the 5 on 5 match to live in a space where teams of midcard heroes and villains get to showcase themselves. The 5 on 5 match could provide entertainment in a way that Wargames just can’t, like a match featuring a team lead by Chelsea Green - that’s entertainment right there. The Secret Hervice is exactly the type of team this match would feature in the late 80’s. Maybe one of the teams is made of NXT stars, as a way to promote their PLE that usually follows next weekend. I’m just saying, we got options here to pay respect to the match that made Survivor Series famous. 

So there it is - boom. I have to say, I’m a great lawyer.

Case closed.