That Was Then 11.13.07: Looking Back At Survivor Series 1997 & 1998

We’re ready for the second half of our big look back at every Survivor Series ever, and we all know that this is the one you’re all really interested in, so I’ll just skip the introductory blah blah and get right to it.

Survivor Series 1997

The 1997 Survivor Series came from the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, which speaking from personal experience is an incredibly unfriendly city to anyone who doesn’t speak French, but that’s neither here nor there right now, though it was a bit surreal to see the American wrestlers perform in front of what was a pretty hostile crowd, complete with the ring announcing in French. The important thing is that this was the show where we were to see the long-awaited rematch between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, who had spent the better part of the last year and a half sniping back and forth at each other verbally, with the planned rematch repeatedly being scrapped for one reason or another. But finally they were able to get these two real life enemies together in the ring one last time, and people still talk about the outcome to this day. Too bad it wasn’t for the match itself. But we’ve got a whole PPV to get through before we get to that match, so let me talk about it while you all skip ahead to the main event.

Opening match saw the Godwinns join up with the new team of Road Dogg Jesse James and Bad Ass Billy Gunn against the Headbangers and the New Blackjacks. For those of you who weren’t familiar with the Old Blackjacks, they were WWF World Tag Team Champions in the 70s, and Blackjack Mulligan was Barry Windham’s dad, so they decided to throw Windham and Bradshaw together in a tag team and make them the new version of a team that nobody in 1997 would know. Road Dogg and Billy Gunn were a pair of low-level jobbers who got thrown together and then pushed to the moon. They would squeak by everyone thrown in their path, either by luck or extensive cheating, and would go on to defeat the Legion Of Doom for their first World Tag Team Title shortly after this. This was their first PPV match as a team, and of course they went on to become one of the biggest acts of the Attitude Era, but this was before they were anything or even had the entrance music and opening speech from Road Dogg that they would become famous for. That didn’t stop them from winning this match, even though the move that eliminated Thrasher missed by a mile.

Up next was the Truth Commission taking on the Disciples Of Apocalypse as part of the Gang Warz of 1997. For those who need an explanation of the Gang Warz, it all began with the Nation Of Domination, which was led by Faarooq, who was playing the part of the leader of a black militant movement, except that his crew consisted of Crush (a white guy) and Savio Vega (a Puerto Rican). Faarooq ended up firing both of them and replacing them with all black guys, so they each went off and formed their own groups, Savio forming Los Boricuas with three other Puerto Ricans, while Crush formed the Disciples Of Apocalypse, which was your stereotypical white redneck bike gang. Shortly afterward, the Truth Commission came on the scene, with their gimmick being that they were a group of South African white supremacists. This might have been riveting stuff if ANY of these guys were halfway decent workers, but sadly none of them were, and the worst of the lot was the Interrogator from the Truth Commission. This guy was such a stiff that he makes Khali look like Chris Benoit, and sadly he was the unstoppable monster this match was built around. The Truth Commission was at a disdvantage right away because one of the spots on their team was taken by their manager the Jackyl (aka Don Callis, who would later be an announcer and manager in ECW), and he was eliminated almost immediately with a side suplex. In fact, nearly everybody in this match was eliminated with a side suplex, and it also appeared to be the only move the Interrogator knew. I actually named his finisher The Only Move I Know, and even sent it in as a suggestion to the WWF headquarters, but they never ended up using it. Oh well. Anyway, Crush ends up 2-on-1 against Sniper and the Interrogator and manages to beat Sniper with, you guessed it, a side suplex, before the Interrogator comes in with The Only Move I Know to win the match for his team and set him up for the push which thankfully never happened. Yeah, we’re off to a great start.

Third match wouldn’t get any better as Team Canada of Davey Boy Smith, Doug Furnas, Phil Lafon, and Jim Neidhart, of which only LaFon is Canadian, and one of those fucking second-rate French Canadians at that, takes on the massively unimpressive Team USA of Vader, Steve Blackman, Marc Mero, and Goldust. Even the announcers make mention of what a crappy team we have in this one. Anyway, it was originally supposed to be the Patriot and not Blackman, but Patriot tore his bicep, which turned out to be a career-ending injury, so Vader had to really scrape the bottom of the barrel and he came up with Blackman instead. To make an even bigger joke out of it, they came to the ring to what would later become Kurt Angle’s entrance music. Blackman ended up getting eliminated first when he got counted out because he’s a karate guy and didn’t know you could lose by being outside the ring for too long. The remaining guys take turns eliminating each other until it comes down to Vader and Goldust against Furnas and Davey Boy. Now, Goldust had turned heel about a week or so before this when he walked out on his wife Marlena, aka Terri Runnels because, while Marlena was contractually bound to spend a month with Brian Pillman as per a prematch stipulation when Pillman beat Goldust, Goldust got pissed that she wasn’t coming home anyway and basically told her he spent the month fucking other chicks and then just walked out on her on an episode of Raw. He also had a broken hand here, which Jerry Lawler explained happened when he got so pissed at Marlena that he punched the wall instead of her face. I guess because of the injury, Goldust just camped out on the apron for the whole match, but finally Vader smacked him (I guess that was the tag) and dragged him into the ring. Instead of wrestling, Goldust just rolled out of the ring and got himself counted out, leaving Vader all by his lonesome. He managed to eliminate Furnas, but Davey Boy whacked him in the head with the ring bell behind the referee’s back and picked up the win for what in this case was the hometown crowd.

Up next is our first singles match of the evening, as Kane takes on Mankind. Kane may be a sucker now, but in 1997 he was really a big deal because the Undertaker was feuding with his longtime manager Paul Bearer, who revealed that Undertaker’s brother Kane, who Taker had long thought dead after he accidentally set his house on fire as a child, was actually alive, and that Kane was coming for him. Bearer taunted him for months and Kane (who of course was also a fully trained pro wrestler) finally made his first appearance at the end of Undertaker’s Hell In A Cell match against Shawn Michaels and Tombstoned Undertaker, costing him the win and a shot at the WWF Title. This was Kane’s actual wrestling debut, and his first test was against the man who had given the Undertaker his toughest matches ever, and just to drive home what a badass Kane was and how much trouble the Undertaker was in, Kane absolutely kicked the shit out of Mankind, beating him within an inch of his life and giving him a Tombstone for the win. Kane would continue to dominate everyone in his path en route to his big confrontation with the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 14.

After that, it’s back to the pain as the Nation Of Domination, consisting of Faarooq, The Rock, D’Lo Brown, and Kama Mustafa, took on Ken Shamrock, Ahmed Johnson, and WWF World Tag Team Champions the Legion Of Doom. Ahmed had been feuding with Faarooq and company for over a year at this point, beginning when Faarooq attacked Ahmed and injured his kidney, causing him to miss about six months of ring time and give up the Intercontinental Title. The LOD and Shamrock had also had their battles with the NOD throughout 1997, so they were drafted to Ahmed’s side for this match. Ahmed ended up getting eliminated very shortly into the match, effectively preventing him from injuring himself or anyone else. As with every match tonight, a babyface wound up in a 2-on-1 situation, in this case Shamrock was left against D’Lo and the Rock, and he made both tap to the ankle lock to pick up the win for his team.

The semi-main saw Intercontinental Champion Owen Hart defend the title against Steve Austin. Now, if you know your 90s wrestling history, you know that Owen accidentally broke Austin’s neck on a botched piledriver spot at Summerslam, and though Austin somehow was able to barely roll up Owen for the win, he was too injured to continue wrestling and had to give up the IC Title, which Owen then won back in a tournament. This is the rematch, and even though Austin was riding a huge wave of popularity in the US, he was the biggest heel on the planet in Canada. This was characteristic of one of the most bizarre booking situations in wrestling history, as the WWF, which was running the US vs Canada angle through all of 1997, spent a lot more time than usual doing TV from Canada, and while the shows in the US would have guys like Austin, Michaels, and the Patriot playing babyface with the Hart Foundation as heels, they would then go over the border for the following week’s TV and it would be like going to Bizarro World because the Hart Foundation were the biggest babyfaces ever while Austin and Michaels were mega heels. So here you have Austin, in his first match back after one of the most severe injuries anyone’s ever come back from which he only suffered less than three months earlier, coming to boos and the crowd chanting “Break his neck!” at Owen. Owen had Team Canada with him, and Austin singlehandedly went through them all before jumping in the ring with Owen. Owen got a short heat segment on Austin before Austin turned it around and hit the Stunner out of nowhere for the win. The whole thing lasted all of three minutes, which was likely dueto him still not being in good enough of condition to really be wrestling after the injury, but he rushed back in order to not miss the push of a lifetime, but the trouble with his neck continued and eventually led to him retiring just a few years later before even hitting age 40.

Okay, here we go with Bret vs Shawn. Shawn came out first to absolutely nuclear heel heet, which he just made worse by grabbing a Canadian flag from a ringside fan and doing several obscene things with it to amuse himself and get himself over with the fans. Bret, on the other hand, got a huge pop, which is ironic since word had leaked out that he was leaving for WCW about a week or so before the show. You would have never known it to watch Bret, who was his usual professional self. Before the bell even rang, Shawn jumped Bret as he got into the ring and they ended up brawling all over ringside. I say brawling, but it was really more like Bret just flat out beating the shit out of Michaels before tossing him in the ring to start the official match. Much like Owen vs Austin, the match itself was really short, certainly nowhere near the 60 minutes they did at Wrestlemania 12, and to be honest, the match really sucked. Of course the end came when the ref got bumped, Shawn got Bret in the Sharpshooter, and Earl Hebner magically recovered and rang the bell on the orders of Vince McMahon before running from the ring and into a waiting car which sped him away from the arena. Bret continued wrestling for a few seconds after the bell rang becuase he didn’t realize that the match had ended, then of course realized what was going on and spit in Vince’s face. Meanwhile, the crowd went absolutely bananas as the WWF Title belt was thrust into Shawn’s hands and he was hustled to the back. Bret took out his frustrations on the ringside broadcasting equipment and then, with his family by his side, he made his way out of a WWF ring for the last time.

I really have to say that if it weren’t for the circumstances surrounding the main event, this would have easily gone down as one of the worst and least memorable PPVs of all time, and even the wrestling in the main event was way subpar for both men.

Survivor Series 1998

One year later and everything’s changed. The WWF had gone from being a distant second place to WCW in the Monday Night Wars to not only regaining their position as the leader of the wrestling industry, but had even become a pop culture phenomenon in the process, with Vince McMahon and Steve Austin becoming as well known as many other celebrities. Bret Hart was gone, Shawn Michaels was retired (for the time being), and in their place at the top of the card was Mankind, The Undertaker, and Kane. However, a year and a half after turning heel, the Rock was rapidly gaining popularity despite losing the IC Title to Triple H at Summerslam, and had finally set his sights on winning his first WWF World Title here at the Survivor Series.

Why was the WWF Title on the line in a tournament? Because Vince McMahon had been hellbent on getting the title off of Austin since the moment he won it at Wrestlemania 14, and had thrown every obstacle he could think of in Austin’s path. Mick Foley, as Dude Love, was unable to get the job done. Kane has managed to cheat Austin out of the title, but Austin regained it a day later. Foley was also unable to get it done as Mankind, and the Undertaker fell short at Summerslam. Finally, McMahon had set up a triple threat match with Austin defending against both Kane and the Undertaker, and the two brothers were able to finally put Austin down. Problem was, they both covered him, so even though the title was no longer Austin’s, neither of them had a solid claim either, so McMahon ordered another match for a month later in which Undertaker would face Kane for the WWF Title with Austin as the special referee. As you might imagine, Austin ended up just laying both of them out, and Vince McMahon was so irate that he fired Austin. To Vince’s surprise, his son Shane rehired Austin a couple of weeks later since he was angry at Vince for never being around while he was growing up. Vince was unable to fire Austin again, but punished Shane by demoting him to referee. In the meantime, the Rock had made his title aspirations known, but Vince was also determined to prevent him from getting the title, instead choosing Mankind as his corporate champion. The title was ordered to be put on the line in a tournament at Survivor Series, and here we are.

The show, and the first round of the tournament, opened with a match in which Mankind was set to face a mystery opponent. A lot of people expected this to be the in-ring return of Shawn Michaels, including a large contingent of fans in attendance who were chanting “HBK”, but that would have to wait another four years or so. Instead, we got Duane Gill, who is renowned as being one of the most famous jobbers in WWF history. Mankind hit the double arm DDT and pinned him in about fifteen seconds to advance to the second round. People were obviously disappointed that after weeks of speculation, we didn’t get anyone cool, but it made perfect sense that Vince would want to give his chosen son as easy a trip to the finals as possible.

The rest of the first round was mostly uneventful, so we’ll just breeze through the matches: Al Snow defeated Jeff Jarrett after hitting him with Head, X-Pac and Steven Regal were both counted out, and Ken Shamrock defeated Goldust by submission. Steve Austin’s first round match was against Vince McMahon’s enforcer the Big Boss Man, whom Vince had brought back to the WWF to protect him from attacks by Austin. Boss Man was never meant to win the title, and was simply to take Austin out, and he did his job: rather than try to eliminate Austin, he just grabbed his nightstick and left him laying. Vince didn’t expect the X-Pac/Regal double countout, which unexpectedly gave Austin a bye to the semifinals and meant that Vince would have to come up with Plan B. The final first round match was scheduled to be the Rock vs Triple H in a rematch from Summerslam, but Triple H’s knee injury, which had caused him to vacate the IC Title only weeks after winning it, had not yet healed up and he was unable to compete at the show. Instead, Vince McMahon reinserted the Big Boss Man, who ran into the ring and got small packaged and pinned in four seconds to allow Rock to advance.

The quarterfinals were also mostly uneventful, and opened with the Undertaker vs Kane, who had both been given byes to the quarterfinals. Short match which was won by Undertaker with a Tombstone piledriver. Mankind defeated Al Snow, and the Rock was presented with another major challenge in Ken Shamrock. Rock and Shamrock had waged a long feud through late 1997 and the first half of 1998, and each match basically consisted of Shamrock manhandling Rock before making him tap out to the anklelock. Rock would usually end up actually winning the matches on a reverse decision when Shamrock would snap and do something stupid after the match, but Shamrock did decisively beat him to win King Of The Ring 1998. He also went on to win the IC Title that was vacated by Triple H in another tournament, so he was obviously somebody who was capable of winning a big tournament. Vince McMahon decided to try and tilt the odds away from the Rock by sending the Big Boss Man down to the ring and tried tossing the nightstick to Shamrock. Unfortunately, he overshot and the nightstick sailed right over Shamrock’s head and into the hands of the Rock, who blasted Shamrock with it behind the referee’s back and covered him to finally score a decisive singles win over Shamrock and advance to the semifinals.

Right around here, we got a brief interlude as WWF Women’s Champion Miss Jaqueline defended against Sable. The story was that Marc Mero was pissed off that Sable had begun to overshadow him and dumped her, then ended up with Miss Jackie instead. The two women had a match to determine a new WWF Women’s Champion, a title last held by Alundra Blayze/Madusa, who had vacated the title by showing up on Nitro and tossing the belt in a trash can. This incident, by the way, was what Vince feared a repeat of with Bret and the World Title, which was why he did what he did in Montreal the year before. Sable pinned Jackie to win the title, though I have a feeling it’s not the same belt Madusa threw in the trash.

Time for the semifinals, and first up are Mankind and Steve Austin. Even though he had an entire round to rest, Austin was still in a bad way when he got out to the ring for his semifinal match. However, he was able to turn the momentum around and hit the stunner on Mankind. Unfortunately, the referee had been bumped and was unable to make the count, so down the aisle runs Shane McMahon, who counts one, two…and then stops and flips a double bird at an astonished Steve Austin. The distraction allowed Gerald Brisco to slide into the ring with a chair and nail Austin with it, allowing Mankind to make the cover and pin Austin, ensuring that his title hopes were completely dashed and advancing to the finals to complete what now seemed to be his destiny. Speaking of destiny, Rock was one step closer to fulfilling his, but was first going to have to go through the Undertaker. He had scored a clean pin on the Undertaker in a tag team match several weeks earlier, but now it was a singles match and the WWF World Title was at stake. Rock wouldn’t pin the Undertaker here, but the match had a pretty unique ending when Kane came to the ring and nailed Rock, getting the Undertaker disqualified for outside interference. I thought that was a really clever way for a wrestler to screw somebody over and I’m surprised nobody’s done it since.

After another brief intermission match which saw the New Age Outlaws successfully defend the WWF World Tag Team Title against the Headbangers and D’Lo Brown & Mark Henry, it was time for the final match as Vince McMahon’s handpicked champion Mankind faced off against the Rock, whom Vince had been trying to screw over for weeks. However, the Rock got Mankind in the Sharpshooter and, in a surprise twist, Vince McMahon yelled at the ringside timekeeper to ring the bell and, in a direct parody of what had happened in Montreal the year before, awarded the match and the WWF Title to the Rock even though Mankind had never submitted. Mankind was understandably confused at what had gone on and asked Vince for an explanation, but all that got Mankind was a beating at the hands of the Rock. the beating continued until Steve Austin returned to the ring and gave the new WWF Champion a stunner. Right away you knew that eventually it was going to be Rock vs Austin for the title, but that was still a ways down the line, so for the time being all we were left with was the Rock, who had been gaining a lot of popularity as a babyface, abruptly turning heel and aligning himself with Vince McMahon and the Corporation and leaving poor Mankind out in the cold in the process.

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1997 and 1998 were two of the most eventful, and certainly most interesting years in Survivor Series history. I’ll be back soon with 1999 and 2000, so until then, thanks for reading.