That Was Then 11.06.07: Looking Back At Survivor Series 1991 & 1992

Survivor Series 1991

Survivor Series 1991 came to us from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, and for the first time in the history of the event, there would be a match other than the elimination matches with which the show had become associated as WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan would defend against his #1 contender, the Undertaker. Unfortunately, the Grand Finale Match Of Survival would not make a second appearance this year, though there were a lot of interesting storyline developments throughout the show.

The first match saw Roddy Piper team with IC Champion Bret Hart, Virgil, and the British Bulldog against Ric Flair, Ted Dibiase, the Mountie, and the Warlord. Ric Flair had come to the WWF a couple of months before this, and for reasons I will not explain again here he was still carrying around the NWA World Title belt and referring to himself as the “Real World’s Champion”. He was instantly targeted by his old nemesis Roddy Piper, hence their being on opposite sides here. Bret Hart and the Mountie had an issue because during a non-title match between the two, the Mountie had thrown water on Hart and zapped him with his shock stick. The Bulldog and the Warlord had a typical WWF-style feud over who was stronger, and Dibiase had been feuding with his former bodyguard Virgil for most of the year, and Virgil had briefly won Dibiase’s Million Dollar Belt before losing it back to him shortly before Survivor Series. As for the elimination match itself, Bulldog got eliminated first due to chicanery on the part of Flair’s team, then the Warlord was eliminated by Piper’s team, and it came down to all the remaining participants except Flair brawling on the outside of the ring. The referee finally disqualified everyone in the match except for Flair since he was the only one who was behaving himself, so Flair became the sole survivor. His night, however, was far from over.

Next was a total throwaway match pitting Col Mustafa, the Berzerker, Hercules, and Skinner against Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Sgt Slaughter, Tito Santana, and Kerry Von Erich. Slaughter had returned to his American ways after he lost at Summerslam, and Duggan accepted him and brought him into the fold as a member of his team. Quick match, probably no more than ten minutes, which saw all four of Mustafa’s team eliminated one by one, leaving Duggan’s team intact as the winners. Really nothing else to say about this one.

Now comes the real fun, as Hulk Hogan defended the WWF Title against the Undertaker. Even though Undertaker had been losing matches to not only Hogan but also the Ultimate Warrior across the country leading up to this, he was being billed as undefeated coming into the match. Typical Hogan big man match as he’s faced with the unbeatable opponent who he can barely put a scratch in, until the heel hits his finishing move, at which point Hogan Hulks Up and makes his amazing comeback. However, in this case the Undertaker hit the Tombstone and Hogan made his comeback…and then Ric flair made his way to ringside. Hogan, always up for a cheapshot against an innocent bystander, goes outside and suckerpunches poor Flair, who wasn’t even facing the ring. The distraction allowed Undertaker to get Hogan up for a second Tombstone, but this time Flair slid a chair into the ring, and Undertaker piledrove Hogan on the chair, and that was enough to give Undertaker the win and the WWF Title. For the next several moment, we were treated to a shot of concerned WWF officials tending to the injured Hogan, who finally made it to his feet and was helped to the back.

To bring the crowd back up after that depressing turn of events, the Rockers and the Bushwhackers faced the Nasty Boys and the Beverly Brothers. The Bushwhackers got eliminated early and Michaels pinned Beau Beverly, making it 3-on-2. The Rockers made a comeback, but due to some miscommunication between the two, Michaels got rolled up and pinned. For several moments, there was a tense argument between Michaels and Jannetty, and Michaels just walked off. Left by himself against three men, Jannetty was unable to come back and went down in defeat. The match itself was nothing to write home about, but the real story was that this planted the first seeds of dissension between Michaels and Jannetty, leading to their famous breakup on the Barber Shop about two months later.

The final match of the evening saw the Big Boss Man team with WWF World Tag Team Champions the Legion Of Doom against IRS and the Natural Disasters. Sid Justice was originally supposed to team with the Boss Man and LOD against IRS, the Natural Disasters, and Jake Roberts, but Sid tore his bicep and had to be taken out of the match, leaving Boss Man and LOD in a 4-on-3 situation right off the bat. Macho Man Randy Savage, retired since losing to the Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania 7, petitioned WWF President Jack Tunney to be reinstated and replace Sid against the team led by Roberts, who had crashed his wedding reception and attacked him on his wedding night. The reinstatement angle culminated a couple of weeks before Survivor Series when Jake Roberts attacked Savage, tied him in the ropes, and let his king cobra bite Savage. Jack Tunney ended up not only not reinstating Savage, but also pulling Jake from the match, leaving it 3-on-3. IRS used his briefcase to eliminate the Boss Man, but when he tried to use it again, he accidentally missed and hit Typhoon, causing him to be eliminated. Earthquake was irate with IRS for hitting his partner, albeit accidentally, and walked out on him, leaving him all by himself against the LOD. IRS fought valiantly, but in the end went down in defeat to the WWF Tag Team Champions.

Bonus Review Of This Tuesday In Texas

To backtrack a bit, Randy Savage had been petitioning to be reinstated to lead Sid Justice’s team against Jake Roberts at Survivor Series, but instead had been attacked by Jake Roberts and his cobra. Jack Tunney pulled Roberts from the PPV, but did end up reinstating Savage, and immediately signed a match between Savage and Roberts for the following Tuesday night, December 3rd, in San Antonio, Texas. Tunney also addressed the shady circumstances under which the Undertaker had defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title, and while he could not overturn the referee’s decision, he could order a rematch, and did so for the same night as the Savage-Roberts match. The show was offered on PPV, and was a test by the WWF to see if people would buy more than just the four regular annual PPVs. We’ll quickly blow through the three other matches on the card since none of them really meant anything: Bret Hart defeated Skinner by submission to retain the IC Title, the British Bulldog defeated the Warlord in 37 hours and 52 minutes, and Ted Dibiase and the Repo Man defeated Virgil and Tito Santana.

The first of the two main events was Savage vs Roberts, and Savage didn’t even wait for introductions, attacking Jake in the aisle before he even got to the ring. Savage went after Roberts like he wanted to kill him, but Roberts was able to turn the match around, focusing his attack on the arm that had been injured in the snake attack. Savage turned the match around and hit the flying elbow for the win, but winning the match wasn’t enough for Savage, he wanted to hurt Jake. He went outside and grabbed the ring bell, but as the referee tried to stop Savage from using it, Jake recovered enough to hit the DDT out of nowhere, then hit another one. Miss Elizabeth, who by this point was married to Savage, came out to try and stop Jake, but Jake delighted himself in her misery by hitting yet a third DDT on Savage. Elizabeth got in the ring to try and get Jake to stop hurting her husband, but instead Jake told her that she made him sick, grabbed her by the hair, and punched her in the face. Men attacking women in wrestling has kind of lost its shock value by 2007, but back then this was big time, and Jake Roberts came off as the sickest, most evil man in wrestling with that one punch. Once Savage recovered and realized what happened, he was absolutely infuriated, blaming himself for what happened and vowing to get his hands on Jake Roberts again for what he had done.

This brings us to the rematch for the WWF World Title as now defending champion the Undertaker faced former champion Hulk Hogan. This time around, Jack Tunney would be sitting at ringside for the match to ensure that what had happened at Survivor Series wouldn’t happen again here. Flair of course winds up at ringside to try and interfere again, and this time, Hogan takes the initiative and tries to take him out of the equation by hitting him with a chair. Problem is, he also took out Jack Tunney with the shot, but he’s able to get back in the ring and continue battling the Undertaker. Hogan gets the urn from Paul Bearer and opens it up, pours the ashes in his hands and throws them in Undertaker’s eyes, allowing him to roll the Undertaker up for the pin and WWF World Title #4. Unfortunately for Hogan, Flair had recovered by this point and had heaved Jack Tunney up onto the apron just in time to see Hogan use the ashes. Tunney ended up getting fed up with the whole situation, stripped Hogan of the WWF Title, and put it on the line in the Royal Rumble, which was won by…Ric Flair. Financially insecure old man, or evil genius? YOU DECIDE.

Survivor Series 1992

Survivor Series 1992 returned to the original location of Richfield, Ohio, and this was the first time that they almost completely ditched the elimination concept and went with a more traditional card, albeit with a couple of gimmick matches. With that in mind, we’re again going to quickly blow through the undercard and meaningless matches: The opener saw the Headshrinkers (Samu & Fatu) defeat High Energy (Owen Hart, Koko B Ware, and Neidhart pants), Tatanka defeated Rick Martel to regain his peacock feathers (don’t ask), and Yokozuna made his PPV debut with a win over Virgil.

Okay, the first match that mattered saw the Big Boss Man face Nailz in a Nightstick Match. The story here was that Nailz was a prison inmate who claimed that the Big Boss Man, as a former prison guard, abused him while he was in the joint. Finally he did his time, and the summer before this he came out of the crowd to attack Boss Man, and absolutely beat the shit out of him with his own nightstick. Boss Man was out of action for months, but finally returned and signed on for this, which was your basic “item on a pole” style match. Nailz, for his part, appeared to have very little wrestling ability, mostly relying on punching and choking. I never thought I’d see anyone who made Zeus look like a decent worker, but here he is. Anyway, Boss Man got this stick, dropped it, Nailz got ahold of it, but Boss Man quickly hit the Boss Man Slam and got the win.

The announced main event of the card ended up taking place in the middle of the show, and saw Randy Savage and Mr Perfect take on Ric Flair and Razor Ramon. The story here was that Flair and Perfect had interfered in Savage’s defense of the WWF World Title against the Ultimate Warrior at Summerslam 92, injuring him in the process. Mere days later, Flair regained the WWF Title from Savage thanks to the injury and Razor’s interference. Since the Warrior had come to Savage’s defense at Summerslam, the match was originally signed to be Savage and Warrior against Flair and Razor, but a couple of weeks before this, Warrior ended up out of the WWF thanks to either holding them up for more money or failing a drug test depending on who you believe, and now Savage had no partner, so a quick storyline was whipped up the week before the show which saw Savage ask Mr Perfect (who had been out with an injury for over a year) leave Flair and Razor to come out of retirement and team with Savage. Perfect got a huge pop for his return and, even though he returned ahead of schedule, he looked like a million bucks and Flair and Razor barely got any heat on him. Perfect teased walking out on Savage (a kind of “you know what? Fuck this.” situation), but ended up coming back, and he and Savage won by DQ when Flair and Razor excessively double teamed Perfect.

After Yokozuna squashed Virgil, we get the one elimination match on the card, and it was quite underwhelming as the Natural Disasters and the Nasty Boys faced WWF Tag Team Champions Money, Inc and the Beverly Brothers with the stipulation that when a man is eliminated, his partner also must leave. If you think an eight man elimination match with a maximum of three falls doesn’t sound like much fun, you’re right. The Natural Disasters eliminated the Beverly Brothers and then the match plodded along until IRS pinned Typhoon, and then was immediately rolled up and pinned by Sags, giving the Nasty Boys the win. Next.

Following that borefest, we get the Undertaker against Kamala in a Coffin Match, which sounds like a Casket Match except that first you have to pin your opponent and then roll them into the coffin. They had had a match at Summerslam, and Kamala had splashed Undertaker off the top rope, following which the Undertaker sat right up and started chasing after Kamala, and since Kamala was justa wild savage, he was totally freaked out and petrified of the Undertaker. The match was mostly controlled by the Undertaker and he ended up winning in under six minutes, then rolled Kamala into the casket and nailed it shut. Next.

We close the show with new WWF World Champion Bret Hart defending against IC Champion Shawn Michaels, years before they hated each other, with only Bret’s title on the line. In case you’re not familiar with the story of Bret’s first title win, Flair had suffered a head injury and needed to drop the WWF Title immediately, and nobody else was available that night except Bret Hart, so they went nuts and put the title on him before the politicians could stop that from happening. Meanwhile, Michaels had gotten the IC Title because Davey Boy Smith, who had beaten Bret for the title at Summerslam, failed a drug test and needed to drop the title on his way out of the company. As JD Dunn said in his review of the show, this seems less like a transition moment than it does like an experiment to see how the smaller, better workers would fare on top, and they really delivered because I consider this to be the best Bret vs Shawn match of all their PPV meetings. Though it was fun at the time thinking about the possibility that Shawn Michaels would be both the IC Champion and WWF Champion, it was really way too soon and he wasn’t ready for it. Funny thing is that five years later, he’d again challenge Bret for the WWF Title, and this time he’d be the European Champion, and we all know what happened there. Anyway, great effort by both men, and Bret went over clean with the Sharpshooter, then celebrated with Santa when he came down to the ring after the match.

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With the exception of the Bret vs Shawn match from 1992, neither show featured much in the way of workrate, but there were enough interesting things happening on both shows, more so than any previous Survivor Series, that they’re both worth a look. I’ll be back soon with 1993 and 1994. Thanks for reading.