Dark Pegasus Video Review: Survivor Series 1987 Take Two

Survivor Series 1987 by J.D. Dunn November 27, 1987 Live from Richfield, Ohio. Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura. Opening Match: Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Brutus Beefcake, Jake Roberts & Jim Duggan (w/Elizabeth) vs. Honky Tonk Man, Ron Bass, Hercules, Danny Davis & Harley Race (w/Jimmy Hart & Bobby Heenan). Let’s see. Randy is feuding with HTM over the Intercontinental Title, and the Harts by proxy because Bret cost him the title on a Saturday Night’s Main Event. That’s the major feud. Beefcake clears the ring early, and the babyfaces MURDER Danny Davis. Steamboat catches a knee, allowing Race to tag in. Race and Duggan go at it, falling to the floor where they are counted out at 4:30. We’re clipped ahead to Jake and Ron Bass going at it. Randy Savage gets in trouble but blind tags Beefcake. Beefcake hits Bass with a knee and eliminates him at 5:40. Brutus abuses Honky for a bit to indirectly set up their Mania match. Danny Davis trips Brutus from the outside, though, allowing Honky to hit Shake, Rattle & Roll at 7:15. Hercules tires to punch a hole in Savage’s chest. Jake tags in but gets caught in the bad guy corner. For whatever reason, they tag in Danny Davis, who promptly gets DDT’d at 10:55. Hercules attacks Jake right away, cutting off his tag. He hits the chinlock, but Jake counters to a jawbreaker to get out of trouble. Steamboat destroys Hercules with chops, and Savage finishes Hercules with the Flying Elbowdrop at 16:59. Honky Tonk is a man alone and gets killed by the babyfaces, so he decides to take the countout at 19:10 (clipped from 24:00). This was a pretty good example of how to build an elimination match, especially with all the hapless heels in there. ***1/4 Sensational Sherri, Dawn Marie, Donna Christianello & the Glamour Girls (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. The Fabulous Moolah, Rockin’ Robin, Velvet McIntyre & the Jumping Bomb Angels. Why is Moolah a babyface? Did I miss something? A quick check reveals I did not. Moolah just started being a good person one day. Maybe she found Jesus. I’m guessing not, though. McIntyre quickly eliminates Christianello with the Victory Roll at 1:58. Robin tags in but gets caught in the wrong corner for a while. She hits a crossbody on Dawn Marie (the old one, not Torrie Wilson’s stepmom) at 4:12. The Bomb Angels come in and wow everyone, including Jesse, with their shtick. When Jesse Ventura is paying a woman compliments, you know they’re impressive. Robin tags in, though, and gets overpowered by Sherri. Sherri finishes with a snap suplex at 6:54. Moolah and Judy Martin slug it out like Rue McClanahan and Betty White over the last piece of cheesecake on the set of The Golden Girls. I know I used that one before, but I like it. Moolah gets caught with a double clothesline from the Glamours at 10:52. McIntyre spins Sherri around in a Big Swing and finishes her off with a Victory roll at 14:54, setting up a feud between those two. Velvet tries a Victory Roll on Kai, but Kai blocks and snaps her neck on the rope. The Electric Chair Drop finishes at 17:21. The Jumping Bomb Angels don’t let her recover, and one of the Angels finishes Kai with a crossbody at 18:36. Jimmy Hart tries to get involved, but it backfires, and Judy Martin gets finished by a flying clothesline at 20:15. The Angels impressed everyone and had a decent run in the WWF for a couple of Japanese women. ** Tag Team Survivor Match: Demolition, The Islanders, The Hart Foundation, The New Dream Team & The Bolsheviks (w/Jimmy Hart, Johnny Valiant, Bobby Heenan & Mr. Fuji) vs. Strike Force, the Rougeau Bros., The British Bulldogs, The Young Stallions & The Killer Bees. Wow! Ten tag teams – IN ONE MATCH! I won’t bother you with much play-by-play, but I will say the match is tremendous and definitely worth a look. The Bolsheviks, who really didn’t deserve to be on PPV anyway, go early thanks to a Tito Flying Forearm at 1:48. The faces continue to dominate until Jim Powers, ditto the Bolsheviks, gets caught in the wrong corner. Ax, who just wants fresh meat, tosses Powers into Powers’ own corner. Raymond takes the bait but misses a crossbody and gets pinned at 6:00. Neidhart and Haku doubleteam powers. Valentine turns Roma into his bitch, which is fine. Smash tags in and goes after Dynamite Kid, but that pesky ref gets in the way, so Smash tosses him aside for the DQ at 10:00. Jesse, who complained earlier that Strike Force were glory hounds because they started the match, now claims they are hiding. Tito shits him up by tagging in and killing everyone in sight. He hits the flying forearm on Neidhart, but Bret makes the save with an elbow drop. Neidhart rolls Tito over and eliminates Strike Force at 13:00. The Islanders and Dream Team take turns passing Jim Powers amongst themselves, but they can’t eliminate him. Valentine tries to finish Powers with a figure-four, but Roma tags in and sunset flips Valentine for the win at 18:00. Now Roma is the face-in-peril. Brunzell tags in and picks up Bret. Tama tries to help by dropkicking them over, but Brunzell rolls through to eliminate the Harts at 23:58. Tama grabs a nerve hold on Brunzell, but Brunzell blocks a backdrop from Haku. Powers gets the hot tag AND ELIMINATES EVERY HEEL BY HIMSELF! Well, maybe not. Haku goes all Samoa Joe on his ass instead. Tama comes in and takes a dropkick from one of the Bees. In all the confusion, Brian Blair dons a mask, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because, you know, process of elimination and all. He finishes Tama with a sunset flip at 30:46. Now that’s an unpredictable outcome. **** Main Event: Andre the Giant, King Kong Bundy, The One Man Gang, Butch Reed & Rick Rude (w/Slick & Bobby Heenan) vs. Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Bam Bam Bigelow, Ken Patera & Don Muraco (w/Oliver Humperdink) Now there’s some raw tonnage in that ring. Multiple subplots here: Hogan and Andre hate each other, of course. Andre turned on Hogan and challenged him nearly a year earlier. They had the Match of the Century at WrestleMania III, which Hogan won, but Andre thought he got the win early in the match. Longtime Hogan nemesis “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff turned face and is a part of Hogan’s team, but Jesse points out that Hogan can’t trust him. Bam Bam Bigelow had debuted not long before and was still something of a wild card. Don Muraco, who reminds me a little of Batista, starts with then-newcomer Rick Rude. Rude gets the ever-loving dogshit beat out of him by all five faces. Patera, like an idiot, knocks him to the heel corner where he tags Butch Reed. Reed doesn’t fare much better and gets eliminated by a Hogan leg drop at 3:08. Andre climbs in and just stares at the back of Hogan’s head. Hogan wants to go, but Morella rules that Hogan tagged out when he was high-fiving his teammates. Ken Patera is the unlucky one who gets to come in, despite Hogan’s objections. Andre decides Patera isn’t even worth his time, though. Orndorff holds his own against Bundy, the Gang and Rick Rude. The faces are just all over the heels here, and the crowd is eating it up. One Man Gang hits a clothesline, which looks more like an STO, but that didn’t exist in North American wrestling at the time. It gets the elimination at 8:00. Orndorff comes in and destroys Rude. I don’t think Rude’s hit an offensive move all night. Orndorff signals for the piledriver, but Bundy hits him from behind, allowing Rude to get the upset elimination with a schoolboy rollup at 9:39. Rude’s still a sitting duck, though, so Bam Bam jumps on him. He lets Hogan get him some before Murraco tags in and eliminates Rude with a powerslam at 10:27, making it 3-on-3. Bundy misses a kneedrop on Muraco, allowing the Rock to go work on Bundy’s leg. Muraco and Gang tag in. Muraco tries to slam Gang and collapses under the weight for two. Gang throws him into Andre’s head and finishes with a splash at 12:11. Jesse is gloating now, as he anticipates Hogan being left alone with the three monsters once Bigelow is eliminated. Bigelow takes a ton of punishment, some of it clipped by CHV. He keeps kicking out, though. Andre tags in but misses a swing. Bigelow makes the HOT TAG TO HOGAN! Hogan and Andre go toe-to-toe. Hogan dominates, but Bundy pulls him to the outside. Hogan beats up both Bundy and the Gang, but they keep him outside long enough to get him counted out at 16:45. That leaves Bam Bam alone with Andre the Giant, the One Man Gang, and King Kong Bundy. Bam Bam drops an elbow on Bundy’s leg going back to the work done by Muraco. Bundy misses a charge, allowing Bam Bam to slingshot on top of him for the elimination at 19:18. The Gang jumps Bigelow before he can recover. Gang and Andre dominate until Gang misses the 747. Bigelow covers to eliminate him at 20:38. It’s down to Andre and Bigelow. Bigelow avoids the Giant but misses an avalanche in the corner. Andre drives his shoulder into him and hip tosses him over, squashing him for the final elimination at 22:54. Hogan comes back and knocks Andre out of the ring, setting up their big rematch for the Main Event a few months later. None of these guys were particularly great wrestlers at this point, but they knew how to build the match in order to get their goals (a: build a Hogan/Andre rematch, and b: get Bigelow over) accomplished. ***

The 411:  A surprisingly enjoyable PPV from an era when there were still a lot of stiffs in there. They actually put a lot of effort into how to make the eliminations and matches interesting, unlike today when they just throw people out there to improvise something because it doesn't matter in the long run. You know, sometimes just putting on a good show is its own reward. Of course, this kind of booking would become obsolete when everyone realized there was more money to be made by always putting the main eventers over. Solid recommendation for Survivor Series '87.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]