The SmarK Retro Repost – Survivor Series 1991

The Netcop Rant for Survivor Series 1991.

– Live from Detroit, MI.

– Your hosts are Gorilla & The Weasel.

– Opening match: Ted Dibiase, The Mountie, The Warlord & Ric Flair v. Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, The British Bulldog & Virgil. Flair’s video-distorted belt of choice tonight is the WWF tag title. Dibiase has his Million $ Belt back, after he and Repo Man beat the Miracle Jobber Connection (Virgil & Santana) on a countdown show leading up to this PPV. I should point out that the STR (Suck-To-Rule) Ratio for the team members here is .750, which is pretty amazing. Piper & Dibiase go first and tear it up, to enormous heat. Wow, hot crowd. Dibiase and Bret go next, and here is where the famous “Reverse, charge” spot call occurs. There was also one in the 90 show, but it wasn’t nearly as loud or obvious as this one. My bad. Anyway, great sequence follows, then Bret & Flair go at it. Flair ends up getting beat down by everyone, and then Piper MURDERS him. Flair bails and brings in the Warlord. Mountie gets destroyed next, and Bulldog is about to finish him, when Flair hits a cheapshot from the top rope and pins him. Piper commences kicking ass, but gets quadruple-teamed. He manages to escape a Boston Crab by tagging Virgil. We get the inevitable Virgil-Dibiase showdown, and it ends badly for Virgil…in a Warlord full-nelson. However, Bret repays Flair’s earlier cheating by hitting his own shot from behind, and Piper pins Warlord. Good booking there. Virgil gets the Dream on Dibiase, but he escapes. Heels work Virgil over for a while as Heenan plays armchair quarterback and nearly cracks Monsoon up on a few occasions. Piper gets the hot tag, and shrugs off Flair’s offense. Big brawl erupts, with Flair doing the Flip to the floor, and the ref DQ’s everyone…who was in the ring. Oops, that leaves Flair, who is thus the Survivor. Great match, bad ending. ***1/2

– Randy Savage cuts a promo. It’s This Tuesday in Texas, ya know. Order now.

– Col. Mustafa, The Berzerker, Skinner & Hercules v. Texas Tornado, Tito Santana, Hacksaw Duggan & Sgt. Slaughter. I never bought Slaughter’s face turn, and neither did the fans. And it’s time to play my favorite game again! Let’s see…jobber, jobber, jobber, jobber, suicidal drug addict, jobber, jobber, traitor. Close call, but I’ll have to say that the heels have the advantage because none of them are liable to kill themselves mid-match. And while I’m ranting, is this like the biggest collection of loser gimmicks in the history of wrestling or what? It’s like the bottom of the Pat Patterson Idea Barrel or something. Skinner takes a quick flying jalapeno and bails, and a stall session results. Oh, man, it’s gonna be one of THOSE matches, I can just feel it. The match drags on, and it’s like watching Heroes of Wrestling all over again. Mustafa loads up the POINTY-TOED BOOT OF DEATH and gets two on Duggan, and then Slaughter comes in and hits a clothesline on him for the pin. Berzerker bumps around a bit for Duggan. Santana hits El Pace With Extra Picante on Hercules and gets rid of him. Slaughter gets a blind tag and cradles Skinner for the pin. Duggan finishes Berzerker with the three-point stance to put me (and the crowd) out of our misery at 14:15. This was well and truly awful, but at least it was reasonably quick. -*

– Jake Roberts offers his rebuttal to Randy Savage. The hidden message: Sure, we know you’ve just blown $30 on THIS crappy PPV, but since you’re in a spending mood, why not blow ANOTHER $20 on ANOTHER crappy PPV?

– WWF title match: Hulk Hogan v. The Undertaker. Taker was “undefeated” at this point, which translated from WWF-ese means that the Ultimate Warrior’s victories over him were erased from history. UT no-sells Hogan’s initial offense and runs through some of his stuff, then Hogan starts no-selling, but Undertaker no-sells that no-selling. UT wins that particular war of wills and chokes Hogan out with a cable. UT methodically chokes him down with a face claw, giving Gorilla a chance to run through some of his usual cliches about fans on the edge of their seats and such. After a LONG resthold, UT hits the flying clothesline and tombstone, which Hogan of course no-sells. Hulk gets the dramatic bodyslam, and HEEEEEEEEEERE’S Flair. He tries the steal the title belt, but Hogan stops him and then goes back to hit the big boot on Undertaker. Legdrop, but Paul Bearer grabs Hogan’s leg. The ref goes to deal with *him*, and that allows Flair the chance to toss a chair in the ring, which Undertaker tombstones Hulk on, and we have a new champion. Hey, is that a FACE pop I hear for Undertaker? Nah, couldn’t be, Hogan made the business and drew all the money from 1984 on, right? Match was an abortion, of course. DUD

– Interview-O-Rama kills some time.

– The Beverly Brothers & The Nasty Boys v. The Rockers & The Bushwhackers. Strangely, the Rockers were probably at the height of their popularity and credibility at this point, just before they self-destructed. Bushwhackers control the flow to start and clear the ring. Knobbs hits a quick clothesline on Luke, however, and pins him. The Rockers double-team Sags for a bit, and then a painfully boring sequence with Marty playing cokehead-in-peril follows. Butch gets the hot tag, but falls victim to the Beverly Bounce about 3 seconds later and is gone. Marty pulls out a rana for two on Beau. Shawn comes in and gets beat up. Crowd is just gone. Shawn catches Beau with a backslide and pins him. Gorilla starts reading heelishness into Marty’s actions, then later Shawn’s. See, at that point the WWF was still undecided about which Rocker would get the sacred heel push. In my opinion, it wouldn’t have mattered either way, because Shawn didn’t truly get over until 1994 anyway and by then Marty had long since become a pathetic shell of his former self. But I digress. Shawn hits a running clothesline off the apron on Sags, then reluctantly tags in Marty, who is a house of fire for 3 seconds before getting pounded again. The announcers fill downtime by talking about…you guessed it….THIS TUESDAY IN TEXAS. And man, there’s a LOT of downtime to fill here. Pier-six brawl erupts, and Marty slams Sags, who ends up kicking Shawn in the face on the way down. Knobbs quickly cradles the stunned Michaels and pins him. This prompts Shawn to tease a heel turn, but he just leaves. So it’s Marty 3-on-1. Massive heel beatdown is punctuated by a couple of highspots from Jannetty, but in the end Knobbs rolls Jannetty over as he’s small-packaging Sags, and the heels get the win at 23:04. Yes, they actually gave this half an hour with entrances, I’m just as shocked as you. 3/4* for a couple of highspots. Survivors: Blake Beverly, Jerry Sags, Brian Knobbs, and ME, for staying awake through it all.

– The Natural Disasters & IRS v. Big Bossman & The Legion of Doom. Interesting thing I heard on the Meltzer radio show: IRS was dreamed up by Vince McMahon as a shot at the real IRS, who audited him the year before. I dunno why this is just a six-man, but it’s still elimination rules. LOD dominates Typhoon in sloppy fashion. Bossman gets bopped with the briefcase and pinned by IRS. Animal takes some big fat punishment. Man, this is too exciting for words. Hawk gets the hot tag. They try the briefcase trick again, but the same trick can’t work twice according to the rules of wrestling, so it misses and Typhoon takes it instead, and gets pinned. Earthquake bitches at IRS about that miscue, and ends up walking out with Typhoon, leaving IRS 2-on-1 against the tag champs. RIP, IRS. Animal gets the pin after the usual at 15:21. Survivors: The Legion of Doom. 1/2*

– Hulk Hogan and Undertaker offer their final thoughts and hype THIS TUESDAY IN TEXAS.

The Bottom Line: Well, the first match was great, and Hulk Hogan jobbed, which is always good for a laugh, but the rest is strictly sadomasochist territory. Perhaps Vince knew that too, because in 92 he scrapped the tag match format entirely for a year, and gave us a pretty awesome main event to boot.

But that’s another rant.

Anyway, this show is definitely not recommended.