Team Raw featured Triple H, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman and general manager Kurt Angle. Team SmackDown, conversely, was captained by commissioner Shane McMahon and featured John Cena, Bobby Roode, Shinsuke Nakamura and Randy Orton.
With the scorecard knotted at three, the winner of the battle for brand supremacy would be determined by this, the Survivor Series main event.
Early interactions that involved Roode and Triple H, Balor and Nakamura, and Randy Orton and Samoa Joe were fun and set the stage for an explosive main event.
After unloading on all of Team Raw, Nakamura was rolling. Then came Strowman, who caught him in midair and delivered a massive powerslam, ending The Artist's night and scoring the first elimination. He followed up with another powerslam, this one to Roode, to eliminate a second consecutive NXT champion and put SmackDown at a serious numbers disadvantage.
Nakamura and Roode would get a measure of revenge moments later, joining Cena and Orton in suplexing Strowman through the announce table.
Dissension between Joe and Balor led to Attitude Adjustments for both men and the elimination of the Samoan Submission Machine.
Angle delivered an Angle Slam to Cena, followed by a Coup de Grace by Balor. A second slam from the Raw general manager scored the most shocking elimination of the match and left the blue brand's chances of victory to McMahon and Orton.
Balor was the next to go, courtesy of an RKO.
At ringside, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn came from out of nowhere to beat McMahon down and toss him over the announce table. McMahon fought back, using a chair to pummel Owens and Zayn.
Strowman re-entered the match and obliterated Orton with a running powerslam, leaving McMahon to battle The Monster Among Men, Triple H and Kurt Angle.
Angle punished McMahon, trapping him in the ankle lock. The SmackDown commissioner tried to fight through the agony and nearly made it to the ropes. Suddenly and inexplicably, Triple H entered the ring and planted the general manager of Raw with a Pedigree.
McMahon eliminated Angle, leaving Triple H to stare at Strowman, almost daring him to test him.
The announcers questioned the motivations of The Cerebral Assassin as he stood side-by-side with his brother-in-law. Revealing that he wanted to take out McMahon himself, Triple H delivered a Pedigree and scored the win.
After the match, a dumbfounded Strowman looked at a braggadocios Triple H. When The Game attempted to sneak attack The Monster Among Men, the big man planted him with two powerslams and stood tall to close the show.
Team Raw defeated Team SmackDown (Braun Strowman and Triple H survived)
This was, by far, the biggest disappointment of the night.
A match brimming with talent was hurt significantly by booking that left fans scratching their heads.
Why were Nakamura, Roode, Balor and Joe sacrificed to put over the likes of Triple H, Angle, Cena and Orton? Did WWE Creative forget that this was not, in fact, the year 2006?
Why bring Cena back just to have his impact on the match be minimal and largely unnecessary?
Did we really need a pay-per-view main event in 2017 to descend into another chapter in McMahon family melodrama?
About the only thing this match did correctly was its use of Strowman.
The Monster Among Men was a beast who could only be tamed when the entire Team SmackDown banded together to put him through the table. His powerslams of Triple H after the match set him up to be a foil for The Authority, if that is the direction WWE Creative wishes to take him.
If not, it renders the entirety of the match even more useless.
