10 Unexpected Betrayals At WWE Survivor Series

As far as Survivor Series elimination matches go, rarely have the stakes been as high as they were in 2001.

In what was the culmination of the WCW Invasion angle, Team WWF would face the Alliance in a Winner Take All elimination match, with the losing side being put out of a job. All of this was a construct of kayfabe, of course—but that didn’t make a jot of difference to nine-year-old me at the time.

Either way, with so much on the line, that only made Chris Jericho’s actions all the more unforgivable, as he responded to his elimination in the worst manner possible. Seconds after being pinned by Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jericho seemingly lost the plot and turned on his partner the Rock—the one remaining member of Team WWF—laying him out with his full-nelson facebuster.

Somehow the Great One would manage to kick out of Austin’s resultant pin, and so the match continued and Jericho’s double-cross wasn’t quite as disastrous as it could have been. But even so, to have risked losing it all in such a high stakes match is what made Jericho’s betrayal such a shocking one.