Hello Again!
Welcome to part two of my look back at the Survivor Series .
The year 2000 saw a lacklustre Survivor Series, headlined by a rather ridiculous brawl between ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and HHH. The previous year, of course, Austin had been ran over by a car before the main event. The culprit turned out to be nappy wearing, fat, dancing fan favourite Rikishi. It made absolutely no sense, especially as Rikishi started spouting off about how he did for The Rock, as Samoans had been held back in the WWF (At this point The Rock had been a 5 time World Champion). It then got even more convoluted as it turned out HHH was the one behind it all along, that rascal. Anyways, nonsensical story line explained, the two had a big brawl, which ended in a no-contest. The brawl ended up going to the back, and instead of me describing the stupidity that followed (and this was the tale end of the Attitude era, remember), watch this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZq73ekq2cw[/youtube]
HHH returned to Raw swiftly, showing no ill effects of being killed. You gotta admire a guy who doesn’t sell being murdered.
Kurt Angle was in the midst of his 1st WWF Title reign, and boy, was he booked weakly. Here, he beat The Undertaker with the old switcharoo last seen by Demiltion, although instead of Crush under the ring, it was his brother Eric. Angle was consistently booked to look like a total loser at this stage, and not the Olympic Badass he would be in later years, and as such could never be taken seriously before he dropped the title to The Rock at No Way Out 2001.
2001: Oh, 2001. Everyone’s ultimate wrestling dream – WWF vs WCW. The Superbowl of wrestling. Sting vs Rock, Austin vs Goldberg, Flair vs Angle etc etc. By SS 2001, this dream had turned into an absolute nightmare. Poor booking, uncooperative wrestlers and, of course, ego running wild meant that WCW vs WWF had turned into a watered down ‘Alliance’ (ECW and WCW) taking on the WWF. Although, it really wasn’t ECW and WWF, as by SS 2001 they featured Stone Cold (in what would turn out to be one of the most misguided heel turns ever, from which he never fully recovered) and Kurt Angle. I’m angering myself writing this so I won’t go on too much longer, as I still can’t believe they messed this up, and it’s nine years later. Gah.
Anyway, the card itself was quite good. The Main event (The ECWCW team featured Austin, Angle and Shane McMahon) was exciting if the most predictable match in history, and the undercard was carried by the 16587984654168789th meeting of The Hardy Boyz and The Dudleys in a cage match to unify the Tag Team titles (featuring, as ever, a SICK bump from Jeff. This vintage was a missed Swanton off the cage, through a table), as well as an Edge vs Test unification bout (Intercontinental an US Title, both which exist today) which had no right to be as thrilling as it was.
2002 saw the debut of one of my favourite gimmick matches – The Elimination Chamber. The first edition is also, in my most humble of opinions, the very best. It was the culmination of Shawn Michaels’ return as he won the World Heavyweight Title,eliminating HHH last in an exceptional closing sequence. Major credit has to go to HHH here, as he had suffered an almost crushed larynx due to a mistimed 5 star frog splash from RVD (NB: It’s reasons why this that RVD never got a real main event run. This, accidentally busting open opponents, SMOKING WEED etc. NOT politics) earlier in the match. If you haven’t seen this, I implore you to. Even Kane isn’t that bad in this!
The undercard featured a shockingly great match involving The Big Show (this was when he was at his all time slobbiness) challenging for Brock Lesnar’s WWE title, which he would grab after Paul Heyman turned heel on ‘The Next Big Thing’. Matches like this make me wish Lesnar had been given the schedule he wanted, as dammit, he was THAT good. Speaking of Heyman, his perfectly booked series between Los Guerreros, Edge and Rey and Kurt Angle and The Wrestler Who We Must Never Speak Of reached it’s climax here in an exceptional triple threat tag team match. Finally, Scott Steiner made his return to WWE, and swore within 10 seconds. Gotta love Big Poppa Pump.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bkTWIRkOOE[/youtube]
2003 saw one of my favourite 5 on 5 elimination matches, as Team Austin squared off against Team Bischoff, with the losing team’s Co-GM having to relinquish his role. This featured two masterclasses: face and heel. The heel masterclass came from Chris Jericho, as he taunted Austin throughout the match about the prospect of losing his job, to the point where I do not know how Austin didn’t crack up laughing. Wonderful. The face masterclass came from, of course, Shawn Michaels, as he battled valiantly to turn the tide as the odds were stacked against him. This came from a great storyline where we were left wondering if Shawn would help Austin due to their history. (Remember when wrestlers had history? A reason to fight?) It looked as if Michaels would save Austin’s job, but a returning Batista made his name by running in and Batista-Bombing Team Bischoff to victory. Austin reacted as if he had lost his job, and gave the farewell speech he should have given at The Hall of Fame when he was inducted last year. The sight of him running down, trying to save his team from loss was actually quite moving. It was all forgotten immediately as he was brought back as ‘Sheriff Austin’ on Raw.
Other notable matches from 2003 include Vince beating Undertaker in a Buried Alive match (and Christ, did he bleed), as well as Shane McMahon giving his traditional Superman performance (that is not a compliment) in a losing effort against a recently unmasked, psychotic Kane. One final note – look at Team Lesnar in the opening match.
Confession time – I haven’t seen 2004’s edition, and looking at it, I am happy to keep it that way. 2005’s edition was only notable for Kurt Angle dragging John Cena to a thrilling match, which Angle managed to lose even with his manager as referee. Goodness.
By the time 2006 rolled around, DX had reunited, ECW was resurrected and Booker T had beaten the piss out of Batista in a backstage fight. At the 2006 Survivor Series, DX buried their opponents (and put over CM Punk, which must have annoyed them as he was the most popular man in their team), Big Show was ECW champion and Batista beat ‘King’ Booker to win the World Heavyweight Title. A PPV to avoid to be honest.
2007 kicked off with a forgotten bout between ECW Champion Punk, and his number one challengers Miz and Morrison. I say forgotten because I cannot remember if it was any good myself. What I can say was that the two headline bouts, none of which were traditional SS matches, were both excellent. Randy Orton defeated Shawn Michaels in a match whereby if he was disqualified Michaels would win the title, and if Shawn used the Superkick, he would be DQ’d. This led to a great finish, in which HBK went for said kick, hesitated and was nailed with an RKO for his troubles. Lovely.
In the other headliner, Batista and Undertaker clashed in a titanic Hell in a Cell match, which was the rubber match of their excellent feud. My only complaint was that the advertisements for the PPV had Edge heavily featured, so it was no surprise when he popped up to cost Taker the title. What was surprising was Taker allowing Batista to kick out of The Tombstone, something which rarely happened, and was something of a honour, which Batista alludes to in his surprisingly excellent autobiography. Try and catch this if possible.
I am going to pair 2008 and 2009 together as a) they weren’t very memorable and b) you are probably sick of waffling on about Survivor Series. For purists, 2008 offers a very good Team Orton vs Team Batista bout, as well as another surprise Edge return. 2009 saw the poorest promotion for a main event ever (Cena, Michaels, HHH triple threat) , and what would appear to be Kofi Kingston’s elevation to the main event. And we all know how THAT went….
As for 2010? Well, you can find out my thoughts here: http://www.wrestling-edge.com/editorials/bingos-breakdown-survivor-series-predictions.html
I will close in saying that it there IS drawing potential in 5vs5 matches at Survivor Series, but only if similar matches aren’t used throughout the year. Old School Raw showed that people will sit up and pay attention if old gimmicks are rehashed, and none can offer much more than Survivor Series.
As a treat, I will give you my personal top 5 favourite TRADITIONAL Survivor Series Matches:
5) The Bad Guys (Razor Ramon, 123 Kid, British Bulldog and The Headshrinkers) vs The Teamsters (HBK, Diesel, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart and Jeff Jarrett) – 1994
4) The Alliance vs Team WWF – 2001
3) The Ultimate Warriors (Warrior, The Rockers and Jim Neidhart) vs The Heenan Family (Bobby, Andre The Giant, Haku and Arn Anderson) – 1989
2) Team Bischoff (Jericho, Christian, Orton, Mark Henry and Scott Steiner) vs Team Austin (HBK, RVD, Booker T and The Dudleys)
1) The Powers of Pain, The Rockers, The British Bulldogs, The Hart Foundation and The Young Stallions vs Demolition, The Brain Busters, The Bolsheviks, The Fabulous Rogeaus and The Conquistadors.
I hope you have enjoyed my trip down memory lane. As always, feedback is welcome, and until next time, I’ll leave you with this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVaxSfD6pwU[/youtube]
