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Kevin’s WWF Survivor Series 1992

May 8, 2017 | Posted by Kevin Pantoja
4.5
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Kevin’s WWF Survivor Series 1992  

WWF Survivor Series 1992
November 25th, 1992 | Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio | Attendance: 17,500

With the Hulkamania era officially over, the WWF had to transition into the “New Generation” era. This would be the second straight Pay-Per-View without Hulk Hogan and put the focus on new stars like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Yokozuna and others. While SummerSlam was the first without Hogan, this event feels much more like the start of that era. Also, there was a late change to the card as the Ultimate Warrior was once again on the outs with the company and had to be replaced by a newly face turned Mr. Perfect. It is the sixth Survivor Series in history.

A side personal note as this show has a special place in my heart. This was one of three WWE PPVs that I would constantly rent from my local video store (along with SummerSlam 1991 and Royal Rumble 1992). I watched it so many times growing up that the guy who ran the store eventually just made me copies.

Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan are on commentary and they hype some of the card to open things.

The Headshrinkers w/ Afa def. High Energy in 7:39
Here we have some of the earliest stuff from the Headshrinkers in the WWF. High Energy was a team that gave Koko B. Ware something to do while showcasing the potential of Owen Hart. High Energy starts quickly but an Afa cheap shot swings the momentum. Koko takes the heat for a good long time while Afa eats chicken at ringside. He finally gets free and Owen comes in with dropkicks. He hits a top rope cross body but the pin is broken up. His hot run is over rather quickly and he loses to a Fatu splash. Mostly an extended squash. I would have had Koko’s heat segment be much shorter. Owen looked good at least.

In a highlight of the show, we get the greatness of the “Brain Scan”. Bobby Heenan goes all John Madden by drawing on the replay and making Thanksgiving references. I loved it as a kid and still do.

Sean Mooney interviews Nailz, who sounds and looks like he’s trying to pass a huge deuce. He says some pretty violent things that he plans on doing to the Big Boss Man because he was innocent when locked up by Boss Man. Boss Man’s rebuttal in his promo with Mean Gene is to sentence him to a life of hard times. Wait. When did Boss Man get all of these powers? He’s a corrections officer, he can’t arrest people or sentence them.

Nightstick on a Pole Match: Big Boss Man def. Nailz in 5:43
Boss Man runs out to prevent Nailz from stealing the nightstick before the bell. They get into a good old fashioned slugfest. Heenan protests that the only crime Nailz committed was having unpaid parking tickets. Boss Man misses a headbutt and both guys get close to retrieving the weapon. Boss Man has trouble yanking it down but eventually does. He whacks Nailz with it but it mostly gets no sold. Boss Man still wins with the Boss Man Slam. About what I expected. It was relatively short and inoffensive. The crowd popped hard for Boss Man getting the nightstick. *

Mean BAH GAWD Gene interviews Ric Flair and Razor Ramon in the back. They recap the build for the big tag team match tonight. Again, I ate this up as a kid and still do. Macho Man wanted Mr. Perfect to be his partner. Perfect laughed at the idea at first but when Heenan started bossing him around, Perfect accepted, so Heenan slapped him. Perfect got in his face, making Bobby cower, and dumped a pitcher of water on his head. Bobby was amazing in this segment. Back to the promo, where Flair yells a ton and Razor speaks in a horrible accent. He would ease up on it a bit as time went on.

Tatanka def. Rick Martel in 11:05
It’s been a few months and Tatanka is still undefeated. While he is still pretty green (and never got very good), Martel is a veteran who knows how to work around it. He plays the slimy heel rather well and adds to the heat of the match. He works an extended front face lock while Doink the Clown strolls to ringside to make balloon animals. Tatanka starts to rally but Rick hurls him over the top rope. In WCW, he would have been disqualified. Tatanka makes the official comeback while Heenan steals the show again with his “HEYHOWAREYA”. Tatanka wins with the papoose to go. Pretty basic stuff. It was about as good as you could hope for from Tatanka though. **

Doink gives a kid a balloon but then just pops it.

Randy Savage and Mr. Perfect are interviewed backstage. Mr. Perfect is excellent here, cutting a promo on how he was never in Flair’s shadow and that Heenan wanted to keep him away from Flair out of fear. The fact that babyface Mr. Perfect didn’t get a WWF Title run in 1993 is a travesty. Savage delivers too.

Mr. Perfect and Randy Savage def. Razor Ramon and Ric Flair in 16:28
Savage is out alone at first, making Heenan think the team isn’t going to work out. Savage uses the time to introduce Perfect, who gets a great ovation. Perfect starts the match and shows that he’s still got it. He makes Razor regroup and it upsets Flair. Flair hops in for the big showdown and gets his ass handed to him by Perfect. Savage also gets his licks in but gets stuck in the opposite corner. With that, he takes some classic heat, featuring things like an illegal assist on an abdominal stretch. There is almost nothing more old school than that. They tell the story of whether Savage can trust Perfect and Perfect teases walking out on him. It’s great because it shows that Perfect didn’t change overnight. This is a process. Even with Perfect back, Savage remains in trouble. He finally makes the hot tag and Perfect cleans house. Flair knocks out Savage with a chair and after a ref bump, Perfect nails the Perfect Plex. Flair breaks up the count and eats a Perfect Plex of his own but Razor pulls the official. The heels shove the ref and the substitute ref for the DQ. This was going very well until the wacky finish. It was strong tag formula, with the right guy (Perfect) getting the shine. The crowd ate it all up and they told a good story. ***½

The heels try to continue the attack as Flair slaps a figure four on Perfect. Savage takes out Razor and hands the chair to Perfect, which he uses to break the hold. The heat during all of this was magnificent.

In the back, the heels rant about the loss and getting revenge. Flair tells Gene to shut up several times.

Yokozuna w/ Mr. Fuji def. Virgil in 3:44
I will forever laugh at how excited Vince McMahon gets for Virgil here. He’s all “Yokozuna hasn’t been tested yet, BUT HE’S GONNA GET TESTED RIGHT NOW!” The crowd is pretty much in awe of Yokozuna. It’s his PPV debut. Virgil’s offense is just a few dropkicks and a stupid school boy attempt that causes him to get flattened. Yokozuna wins with the Banzai Drop. It went about a minute longer than it needed to but it did the job. The “Brain Scan” sees Heenan call Yokozuna’s leg a drumstick and Virgil the mashed potatoes. *

Savage and Heenan get interviewed backstage and call their opponents turkeys. Perfect even has a small turkey in his hand during the promo.

The Nasty Boys and the Natural Disasters def. The Beverly Brothers and WWF Tag Team Champions Money Inc. w/ The Genius and Jimmy Hart in 16:03; Survivors: The Nasty Boys
If a member of a team gets eliminated, both members must leave. The Disasters and Nasties both left Jimmy Hart’s services in the past. Ted Dibiase is rocking his white attire which is a personal favorite. The teams do uninteresting things for the first few minutes. As usual, IRS is the worst offender of this. He’s unbearably boring. Everyone gets involved at one point and Earthquake sits on Blake at 9:25 to send the Beverly Brothers home. The heels wear down the Disasters for what seems like forever. IRS eliminates them with a cheap pin at 15:55 before Knobbs rolls him up. Painfully boring with a dead crowd. ¾*

Coffin Match: The Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer def. Kamala w/ Harvey Wippleman and Kim Chee in 5:34
It’s the first casket match! It’s even called a coffin match at this point. It follows typical early Undertaker casket match rules where his opponent is comically afraid of the coffin. They do a lot of nothing until Kamala hits his series of splashes. Commentary actually thinks that is enough to beat Undertaker. Kim Chee knocks Bearer off the apron and the urn falls in the ring. Kamala wants no part of it and Undertaker sits up. Undertaker hits the Tombstone for three and the bell rings. Heenan says he still must put Kamala in the coffin to win, which he does. He then nails it shut. This was shitty. Undertaker matches didn’t get good for another four years. ¼*

Sean Mooney interviews Shawn Michaels. Michaels just dethroned British Bulldog for the Intercontinental Title and has a WWF Title shot coming up next. Michaels says that Bulldog beat Bret at SummerSlam and he beat Bulldog, so simple match says he’ll beat Bret.

A classic Bret Hart interview follows. As usual for this era, Bret cuts a serious, realistic promo. It isn’t anything special, but gets the point across and he always made me want to see his matches. They discuss how he turns back no challengers and in two and a half weeks he’s beaten Papa Shango, Rick Martel, the Mountie and others. Due to that, he says he’s at the top of his game.

WWF Championship: Bret Hart (c) def. WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels in 26:40
The future hated rivals trade mat stuff in the early goings. It’s funny to see them sell basic moves with a lot of pain on their face. Their mat work could be boring to some, but I like it. It feels like two guys struggling to best the other. Michaels gains the first real advantage after a stun gun. We get the Hart sternum corner bump for a near fall. Shawn stays in control and Heenan wants him to be awarded the title based on points. If it was being scored that way, he’d definitely be in the lead. Shawn wears Bret down for a while until Bret catches him with a catapult into the corner. Bret’s comeback involves the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM. He gets two on the second rope elbow and Heenan points out that he hasn’t tried the Sharpshooter, which Mean Gene put over a ton before the match. Bret hits a superplex, which was great because that’s the move that cost Bulldog the title against Shawn. With both men exhausted, they go back and forth. Shawn comes close to winning a few times and even hits the superkick. However, that isn’t Shawn’s finish yet and Bret kicks out of the teardrop suplex. Shawn makes the mistake that he would make in the Ironman match four years later by coming off the top rope. Bret catches him into the Sharpshooter and retains. Easily the best match these two ever had. Great back and forth with two young guys out to prove that they could carry this company going forward. Some great storytelling bits sprinkled in throughout this smartly worked main event. ****¼

Santa Claus comes out to celebrate with Bret Hart. Fake snow comes down on the fans during all of this.

4.5
The final score: review Poor
The 411
It hurts me to score this show so low. It will always be special to me. That being said, outside of two matches, it just isn’t very good. The coffin match, traditional Survivor Series tag and Nightstick on a Pole match were all flat out bad. The Headshrinkers and Yokozuna competed in relative squash matches and Tatanka/Martel was kind of just there. The only matches worth checking out are the Flair/Razor vs. Perfect/Savage and WWF Title ones.
legend

article topics :

Survivor Series, WWE, WWF, Kevin Pantoja