Legacy Review
Survivor Series '90
November 22, 1990 from the Hartford Civic
Center in Hartford, CT
Commentary: Gorilla Monsoon and Roddy Piper
Commentary: Gorilla Monsoon and Roddy Piper
This is the last Survivor Series to be held in the traditional Thanksgiving day slot. Vince had already maneuvered Crockett/WCW into moving Starrcade from Thanksgiving to late December, and with Thanksgiving slowly being taken over by other options like the NFL the holiday was becoming less and less tenable for a major wrestling show.
In the open commentary hypes the Grand Finale Match of Survival, a
great one off idea that should have been done more, where the survivors from all
the matches meet in one last match to determine the final winner(s) for
the night. They also hype up the "brontosaurus size" egg. More on that
later, unfortunately.
The Warriors (WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior, WWF Intercontinental Champion "The Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich and The Legion of Doom) def The Perfect Team (Mr. Perfect and Demolition) in 14:20- Perfect and Tornado were feuding over the IC title. In fact, the match where Perfect won the title back had already been taped and would air on weekly TV a couple of weeks after this. The 3 man Demolition and LOD were in their long awaited feud after LOD's WWF arrival. Sadly the timing was awful and the feud fizzled out before it barely got started. In fact, this would be Ax's last WWF match and the inferior Smash and Crush Demolition would lurch on like a zombie a few more months before the team came to an end and both moved on to different gimmicks. World champ Warrior is the odd man out here, his feud with Randy Savage was just getting started. Tonight's Warrior belt strap color is white. In the prematch promo Warrior talks about skeletons making sacrifices and erecting a force field to protect his team. Rather tame stuff from him, really. Lots of "who's starting" debate. Animal ends it by jumping Smash from behind. Smash counters a backdrop and Animal gets worked over in the heel corner a bit. That ends with a powerslam on Smash. Perfect runs in and Animal atomic drops him right into a Hawk inverted atomic drop! Tornado gets backed into the heel corner and axed by Ax. He breaks free and locks on the claw but Smash breaks it up. Warrior kills Ax with two tackles and a big splash, and goodbye Ax. The remaining Demos work Warrior over a bit. Perfect and Hawk flub a corner whip so they turn it around and do it again. Hawk posts his shoulder and goes in peril a bit before nailing Smash with a flying tackle, with the same shoulder that was posted of course. Guess it's fine. Hawk hits Smash with a clothesline off the top. Crush breaks the pin up and we have a LOD/Demolition donnybrook! All four guys are DQ'd for ignoring the ref. Just like that it's down to Warrior and Tornado against Perfect. Warrior comes in but Perfect wants Tornado. Warrior obliges and Perfect ambushes him as he's coming in the ring. Tornado turns it around and the discus punch sends Perfect 360 and out! Warrior gives Perfect and Heenan a double noggin knocker and whips Heenan over the guardrail. Perfect dodges and Tornado posts his shoulder. Tornado's already sold it longer than Hawk did. Perfect took a top turnbuckle pad off at some point. He runs Tornado into it, hits the Perfectplex, and Tornado's gone. Perfect runs Warrior into the exposed pad! Perfectplex! Warrior kicks out! Beautiful standing dropkick from Perfect. Perfect beats Warrior around for a few more dull minutes until the Warrioring up (with no rope shaking) starts. Should have done that right after the Perfectplex kickout. Forever clotheslines, with Perfect working in a 360 sell of course, tackle, splash, done. SOLE SURVIVOR: The Ultimate Warrior **1/4
The Million Dollar Team ("The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Rhythm & Blues and a mystery partner) def The Dream Team ("The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, Koko B Ware and WWF Tag Team Champions The Hart Foundation) in 13:54- Dusty is in old WCW gear here instead of the WWF run polka dots, signaling that he's on his way out. Dusty and DiBiase were still in the feud that started with the huge (in that it occupied half the show) "DiBiase buys Sapphire" angle at Summerslam despite the fact Sapphire was no longer with the company. DiBiase grabs a mic and introduces his mystery partner: the debuting UNDERTAKER! Managed by Brother Love. Paul Bearer would come in later. Taker's first impression is a smash hit. Commentary goes nuts hyping him up and thanks to his look it all sticks, and the live crowd is suitably awed. Bret starts out with Taker and has no chance, taking an early .5 choke slam. Anvil takes a swing and does no better. Ware comes in, tries a dive and flies onto the top rope, and Taker plants him with the first ever Tombstone to finish him off. Bret finally gets a few shots in and Taker casually tags out. So cool. Dusty and Valentine trade some stiff NWA style chops. Valentine gets a knee up on Bret in the corner. R&B work Bret over a bit until he gets a sneaky tag to Anvil. Anvil powerslams Honky and he's gone. DiBiase comes in and Anvil softens him up for Dusty. Mounted punches and a dropkick from Dusty. Anvil suplex on DiBiase for 2. Virgil distracts Anvil, DiBiase kills him with a clothesline and gets a quick pin to eliminate Anvil. Dusty gives DiBiase a little funky like a monkey. DiBiase counters with an eye poke and clothesline, and Taker's back in. Bret fights out of the heel corner and tags. Dusty's elbows on DiBiase push him back into his own corner and he's able to tag out. Taker goes up top, does a short rope walk, and hits Dusty with a double ax handle to eliminate him. Bret's all alone. He pounds Taker into the corner while Love takes some cheap shots on Dusty. Dusty threatens Love. Taker comes out to defend his manager and gets counted out in the process. That's how you get rid of him without having to take a pin on his debut. Valentine goes for the figure four. Bret counters with a Paul Smackage and Valentine's gone! It's down to Bret and DiBiase, the two best workers in the match. An atomic drop sends DiBiase over the top to the floor. Bret with a plancha! That was a new move in WWF in those days. Posting and stair shot for DiBiase. Stiff European uppercuts from Bret in the corner. DiBiase reverses a corner whip and Bret bump! DiBiase puts his head down for a backdrop and Bret backslides him for 2. Bret trips over DiBiase and hurts his knee. No he didn't! Classic Bret fake out! Roll up for 2! DiBiase wipes Virgil out and Bret does another roll up for 2. Bret hits a crossbody, but DiBiase rolls through it and gets a clean pin! Damn good mini match there. He took the final fall, but Bret looked fantastic in losing. Not coincidentally, this is just months before his long delayed singles push finally began. SOLE SURVIVOR: Ted DiBiase **3/4
The Visionaries ("The Model" Rick Martel, The Warlord, and Power & Glory) def The Vipers (Jake "The Snake" Roberts, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka and The Rockers) in 17:42- This is the middle of the angle where Martel "blinded" Roberts in one eye with a spray of Arrogance. The Rockers and Power & Glory also have a beef dating back to Summerslam, where they hurt Shawn's knee. Janetty opens the match speeding around the barely mobile Warlord. Warlord brushes away dropkicks. Rocker double team sunset flip for 2. Shawn flips out of a Martel hiptoss and hits his own. Huge dropkick! Shawn is on tonight. Roberts tags in and Martel gets the hell out of town. Snuka (wearing boots for once) no sells a Roma eye rake. Hercules and his junior heavyweight trunks come in. That's more than I ever needed to see. Snuka flies all around him. Janetty fights out of a Warlord bear hug and hits a double ax handle off the second rope. He goes for another one. Warlord catches and powerslams him! Janetty is gone. Shawn with a rana on Warlord! After some more weebles wobble play Roberts finally knocks Warlord down. Shawn covers, and Warlord's kickout sends him flying over the bottom rope to the floor! Monsoon:"Right in the external occipital protuberance!". Piper: "Hit him in the head too!". Never gets old. HUGE Shawn elevation on a backdrop. If this was Cowboys Stadium he would have hit Godzilla-vision. Shawn goes in peril. Flip in the corner! Shawn dodges and Martel posts his shoulder. Tag. Snuka goes wild on Martel. He hits a springboard reverse crossbody, but Martel reverses it and grabs a handful of tights to pin Snuka. Martel runs away from Roberts again. Roberts drops some non-PG bombs. He hits Herc with a kneelift but Herc squirts out of the DDT. Maybe the junior trunks provide better rear aerodynamics. Not easy on the eyes though. Martel blindsides Roberts with a clothesline from the apron. Roberts dodges a Roma fistdrop off the top and tags. Shawn hits a suplex and elbow off the second rope for 2. He atomic drops Roma, but that lets him get a blind tag to Herc. Herc elbows Shawn from behind in the back of the head. P&G give Shawn the powerplex and he's gone. The 4 on 1 edge quickly gets Roberts down. Roberts slips out of a Warlord slam and hits him with a DDT outta nowhere! The heels have the ref distracted. Martel tries to spray Roberts with Arrogance again. He blocks it, gets Damien out, and chases Martel to the back. Martel wasn't the legal man, so only Roberts was counted out and the entire Visionaries team survives. Like Bret in the last match, Shawn showed he was ready to break off for a singles run with a fantastic performance. One small complaint about this match- despite stumbling around like he was half blind during the build, the usual master of psychology Roberts did nothing to sell the "blind" eye. SURVIVORS: Martel, Warlord, Power & Glory **1/4
The Hulkamaniacs (Hulk Hogan, Tugboat, The Big Boss Man and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan) def The Natural Disasters (Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Haku and The Barbarian) in 14:49- The Hogan/Earthquake feud continues. Weird to see Quake and Tugboat on opposite sides when one of the teams is called The Natural Disasters, especially since it's less than a year before Tugboat's heel turn and the Disasters teaming up. Hogan and Earthquake jaw at each other but Duggan and Haku start. Slugfest. Duggan dodges a springboard crossbody and kills Haku with clotheslines. Haku hits him with a back elbow but Duggan tags Boss Man as he falls back. The Boss Man Slam makes short work of Haku. Big boot and back elbow on Barbarian. Heenan gets on the apron and Boss Man runs him into the turnbuckle. Heenan's taken two or three good bumps tonight. He was so good at that, like everything else he did. Quake and Bravo double clothesline Duggan and Quake squashes him in the corner. Hart pulls the top rope down and Duggan tumbles to the floor. Duggan grabs his 2x4, chases Hart, and whacks Quake with it. It's an obvious DQ. Duggan, again, not the smartest. Hogan takes out all the heels. He bodyslams Quake! Corner clothesline. Quake counters mounted punches by picking Hogan up and powerslamming him. Bravo picks at the carcass. Flash Hogan Mr. Small Package! Bravo is gone. Boss Man dodges Quake in the corner and tries coming off the top rope. Quake catches him. Hogan comes in and pushes Boss Man down on top of Quake for 2. Barbarian knees Boss Man in the back on a rope run. Quake drops a couple of big elbows and Boss Man is gone. Hogan big boot on Quake. Four guys left and Tugboat hasn't even been in yet. Even Monsoon says he forgot he was out there. Hogan goes for another slam and Quake falls on top of him for 2. Hogan dodges a Quake big splash. Tag and finally Tugboat is in. He and Quake trade some hoss shoulderblocks that knock Quake back to the ropes and Hogan drags him out. Quake and Tugboat fight on the floor and they're both counted out. Hogan's back got rammed into the post during that exchange. Barbarian hops out and goes to work on it. Piledriver from Barbarian. Hogan does the full spasm sell then kicks out. Double clothesline. Barbarian clothesline off the top. Hulk Up. Point, three punches, big boot, legdrop, good night. Heenan takes another bump after, flying over the top to the floor in the corner. SOLE SURVIVOR: Hulk Hogan *1/2
Mean Gene welcomes Randy Savage to the interview podium. Savage says he's taking the WWF title back from the Warrior. Okerlund says "Ultimate Chicken" is a "strong" insult. Man, we're WAY pre-Attitude Era here.
The Alliance (Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana and The Bushwackers) def The Mercinaries (Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov and the Orient Express) in 10:52- Former Soviet heel Volkoff is now an American loving face, and former Marine Slaughter is now an Iraqi sympathizing heel. This is when Operation Desert Shield was heating up into Desert Storm. Volkoff and Zhukov were a (jobber) tag team before Volkoff's face turn so they've got history too. Slaughter's team are all wearing camo facepaint. The Bushwhackers double team Zhukov to start. Santana whacks him with the flying burrito and Zhukov is quickly gone. Both teams started the match in the wrong corners and gradually work themselves over to the right ones. Tags are happening all over the ring in the meantime. The Express double team Santana, then the Whackers double team the Express. The battering ram sends Sato to the showers. Santana's flying jalapeno takes out Tanaka and Slaughter is all by himself barely two minutes in. Slaughter spends the next few minutes slowly taking apart Volkoff and pinning him with no fanfare. The Whackers double slam and double clothesline Slaughter for 2. Slaughter gets his knees up on Butch coming off the top, hits a gutbuster and pins him. Luke does a .3 Bret bump, gets clotheslined and pinned. Santana dropkicks Slaughter in the back and Slaughter goes face first into the post! Flying tamale off the top rope for 2. Slaughter blocks a monkey flip and commences another long and slow beatdown. Ref bump! Adnan comes in and pokes Santana in the back with the flagpole. Slaughter locks in the camel clutch, but the ref saw the pole shot and DQ's him. Blech. SOLE SURVIVOR: Tito Santana. 1/2*
It's egg hatching time. Okerlund is by the egg. The pre-cut cracks in it have been obvious all night. Okerlund has all the bad puns. He gets a small pop when he speculates if the Playboy Playmate of the Month is in there. Now for some perspective, this isn't an on the night thing. They had literally been teasing this egg hatching for weeks on TV. WEEKS. People are expecting something huge. Finally the egg pops open and out comes.....a guy in a turkey costume. Instant boos from the crowd. He gobbles into the mic and somehow Okerlund understands to call him the Gobbeldy Gooker. The Gooker leads Okerlund to the ring. Piper: "The kids are going nuts! They love him!". In Vince's mind, maybe, not in reality. They do some square dancing to folkish music, then the Gooker starts doing some rolls. The Gooker is being played by Hector Guerrero, brother of Eddie and Chavo Classic, uncle of Chavo. He tries to get Okerlund to do some rolls. Okerlund does, and it's the worst move seen in a WWF/E ring until JR tried to do a Spinaroonie. They dance some more and leave to apathy and boos. That's it, that's the whole segment. This was so bad and the backlash so immediate that WWF memory holed the whole thing for years. The Gooker would eventually resurface as an entrant in the Wrestlemania X7 comedy gimmick battle royale. He's made sporadic appearances since, including multiple Survivor Series returns, as a recurring character on The Edge & Christian Show That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness (a funny gem of an original show on the Network) and Drew Gulak wearing the suit a couple of times. Gulak even won the 24/7 Title as the Gooker at Survivor Series '20.
Grand Finale Match of Survival: The Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan and Tito Santana def Ted DiBiase, The Warlord, Rick Martel and Power & Glory in 9:07- The heels outnumber the faces, but everyone knows who's winning as we're still very much in the "always send the fans home happy" PPV era. It would have been a lot more interesting if the teams had been randomly redrawn instead of staying on the regular face/heel lines, especially because with eight guys in they could have done a straight four on four. Hogan and Warrior are teaming up less than a year after their epic Wrestlemania 6 encounter and true to the period in WWF, it's barely mentioned. Monsoon sidles up to it before the match starts without directly mentioning it, that's it. As soon as the bell rings Santana hits Warlord with a flying enchilada to eliminate him. That'll even up the numbers. Roma powerslam on Santana. DiBiase dodges another Santana flying insert Mexican food name here, hot shots him and Santana's out. After an initial flurry on DiBiase Hogan goes face in peril for a bit. DiBiase double ax handle off the second rope for 2. P&G hitting the powerplex causes Hogan to Hulk Up (short version). One clothesline eliminates Roma. Tag to Warrior. Martel takes some punishment, says screw this and leaves. DiBiase tries but Hogan kills him with a corner clothesline. Big boot, legdrop and DiBiase's done. Hogan slams Herc as soon as he comes in. Warrior forever clotheslines and tackle. He squashes the junior trunks with a big splash and it's all over, with Hogan joining in on the ref's count. Anticlimactic as hell. A good idea poorly executed. Hogan and Warrior do the mutual respect thing, holding the ropes open for each other to close the show. FINAL SURVIVORS: Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior *
OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Not a lot here that's going to get anyone's attention, but it's not completely terrible. Minus the Alliance/Mercenaries match and maybe the finale, everything else on the show is at least watchable. Undertaker's debut is great and very worth seeing, and both Bret and Shawn had nights that clearly influenced the decision to get them on singles runs. The Gooker though, hoo boy, that's some serious shit right there. Not even entertaining bad, it's just plain bad. Piper is generally awful on commentary throughout the night too. He has good shows in the booth, but this is not one of them.
OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-
The Warriors (WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior, WWF Intercontinental Champion "The Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich and The Legion of Doom) def The Perfect Team (Mr. Perfect and Demolition) in 14:20- Perfect and Tornado were feuding over the IC title. In fact, the match where Perfect won the title back had already been taped and would air on weekly TV a couple of weeks after this. The 3 man Demolition and LOD were in their long awaited feud after LOD's WWF arrival. Sadly the timing was awful and the feud fizzled out before it barely got started. In fact, this would be Ax's last WWF match and the inferior Smash and Crush Demolition would lurch on like a zombie a few more months before the team came to an end and both moved on to different gimmicks. World champ Warrior is the odd man out here, his feud with Randy Savage was just getting started. Tonight's Warrior belt strap color is white. In the prematch promo Warrior talks about skeletons making sacrifices and erecting a force field to protect his team. Rather tame stuff from him, really. Lots of "who's starting" debate. Animal ends it by jumping Smash from behind. Smash counters a backdrop and Animal gets worked over in the heel corner a bit. That ends with a powerslam on Smash. Perfect runs in and Animal atomic drops him right into a Hawk inverted atomic drop! Tornado gets backed into the heel corner and axed by Ax. He breaks free and locks on the claw but Smash breaks it up. Warrior kills Ax with two tackles and a big splash, and goodbye Ax. The remaining Demos work Warrior over a bit. Perfect and Hawk flub a corner whip so they turn it around and do it again. Hawk posts his shoulder and goes in peril a bit before nailing Smash with a flying tackle, with the same shoulder that was posted of course. Guess it's fine. Hawk hits Smash with a clothesline off the top. Crush breaks the pin up and we have a LOD/Demolition donnybrook! All four guys are DQ'd for ignoring the ref. Just like that it's down to Warrior and Tornado against Perfect. Warrior comes in but Perfect wants Tornado. Warrior obliges and Perfect ambushes him as he's coming in the ring. Tornado turns it around and the discus punch sends Perfect 360 and out! Warrior gives Perfect and Heenan a double noggin knocker and whips Heenan over the guardrail. Perfect dodges and Tornado posts his shoulder. Tornado's already sold it longer than Hawk did. Perfect took a top turnbuckle pad off at some point. He runs Tornado into it, hits the Perfectplex, and Tornado's gone. Perfect runs Warrior into the exposed pad! Perfectplex! Warrior kicks out! Beautiful standing dropkick from Perfect. Perfect beats Warrior around for a few more dull minutes until the Warrioring up (with no rope shaking) starts. Should have done that right after the Perfectplex kickout. Forever clotheslines, with Perfect working in a 360 sell of course, tackle, splash, done. SOLE SURVIVOR: The Ultimate Warrior **1/4
The Million Dollar Team ("The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Rhythm & Blues and a mystery partner) def The Dream Team ("The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, Koko B Ware and WWF Tag Team Champions The Hart Foundation) in 13:54- Dusty is in old WCW gear here instead of the WWF run polka dots, signaling that he's on his way out. Dusty and DiBiase were still in the feud that started with the huge (in that it occupied half the show) "DiBiase buys Sapphire" angle at Summerslam despite the fact Sapphire was no longer with the company. DiBiase grabs a mic and introduces his mystery partner: the debuting UNDERTAKER! Managed by Brother Love. Paul Bearer would come in later. Taker's first impression is a smash hit. Commentary goes nuts hyping him up and thanks to his look it all sticks, and the live crowd is suitably awed. Bret starts out with Taker and has no chance, taking an early .5 choke slam. Anvil takes a swing and does no better. Ware comes in, tries a dive and flies onto the top rope, and Taker plants him with the first ever Tombstone to finish him off. Bret finally gets a few shots in and Taker casually tags out. So cool. Dusty and Valentine trade some stiff NWA style chops. Valentine gets a knee up on Bret in the corner. R&B work Bret over a bit until he gets a sneaky tag to Anvil. Anvil powerslams Honky and he's gone. DiBiase comes in and Anvil softens him up for Dusty. Mounted punches and a dropkick from Dusty. Anvil suplex on DiBiase for 2. Virgil distracts Anvil, DiBiase kills him with a clothesline and gets a quick pin to eliminate Anvil. Dusty gives DiBiase a little funky like a monkey. DiBiase counters with an eye poke and clothesline, and Taker's back in. Bret fights out of the heel corner and tags. Dusty's elbows on DiBiase push him back into his own corner and he's able to tag out. Taker goes up top, does a short rope walk, and hits Dusty with a double ax handle to eliminate him. Bret's all alone. He pounds Taker into the corner while Love takes some cheap shots on Dusty. Dusty threatens Love. Taker comes out to defend his manager and gets counted out in the process. That's how you get rid of him without having to take a pin on his debut. Valentine goes for the figure four. Bret counters with a Paul Smackage and Valentine's gone! It's down to Bret and DiBiase, the two best workers in the match. An atomic drop sends DiBiase over the top to the floor. Bret with a plancha! That was a new move in WWF in those days. Posting and stair shot for DiBiase. Stiff European uppercuts from Bret in the corner. DiBiase reverses a corner whip and Bret bump! DiBiase puts his head down for a backdrop and Bret backslides him for 2. Bret trips over DiBiase and hurts his knee. No he didn't! Classic Bret fake out! Roll up for 2! DiBiase wipes Virgil out and Bret does another roll up for 2. Bret hits a crossbody, but DiBiase rolls through it and gets a clean pin! Damn good mini match there. He took the final fall, but Bret looked fantastic in losing. Not coincidentally, this is just months before his long delayed singles push finally began. SOLE SURVIVOR: Ted DiBiase **3/4
The Visionaries ("The Model" Rick Martel, The Warlord, and Power & Glory) def The Vipers (Jake "The Snake" Roberts, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka and The Rockers) in 17:42- This is the middle of the angle where Martel "blinded" Roberts in one eye with a spray of Arrogance. The Rockers and Power & Glory also have a beef dating back to Summerslam, where they hurt Shawn's knee. Janetty opens the match speeding around the barely mobile Warlord. Warlord brushes away dropkicks. Rocker double team sunset flip for 2. Shawn flips out of a Martel hiptoss and hits his own. Huge dropkick! Shawn is on tonight. Roberts tags in and Martel gets the hell out of town. Snuka (wearing boots for once) no sells a Roma eye rake. Hercules and his junior heavyweight trunks come in. That's more than I ever needed to see. Snuka flies all around him. Janetty fights out of a Warlord bear hug and hits a double ax handle off the second rope. He goes for another one. Warlord catches and powerslams him! Janetty is gone. Shawn with a rana on Warlord! After some more weebles wobble play Roberts finally knocks Warlord down. Shawn covers, and Warlord's kickout sends him flying over the bottom rope to the floor! Monsoon:"Right in the external occipital protuberance!". Piper: "Hit him in the head too!". Never gets old. HUGE Shawn elevation on a backdrop. If this was Cowboys Stadium he would have hit Godzilla-vision. Shawn goes in peril. Flip in the corner! Shawn dodges and Martel posts his shoulder. Tag. Snuka goes wild on Martel. He hits a springboard reverse crossbody, but Martel reverses it and grabs a handful of tights to pin Snuka. Martel runs away from Roberts again. Roberts drops some non-PG bombs. He hits Herc with a kneelift but Herc squirts out of the DDT. Maybe the junior trunks provide better rear aerodynamics. Not easy on the eyes though. Martel blindsides Roberts with a clothesline from the apron. Roberts dodges a Roma fistdrop off the top and tags. Shawn hits a suplex and elbow off the second rope for 2. He atomic drops Roma, but that lets him get a blind tag to Herc. Herc elbows Shawn from behind in the back of the head. P&G give Shawn the powerplex and he's gone. The 4 on 1 edge quickly gets Roberts down. Roberts slips out of a Warlord slam and hits him with a DDT outta nowhere! The heels have the ref distracted. Martel tries to spray Roberts with Arrogance again. He blocks it, gets Damien out, and chases Martel to the back. Martel wasn't the legal man, so only Roberts was counted out and the entire Visionaries team survives. Like Bret in the last match, Shawn showed he was ready to break off for a singles run with a fantastic performance. One small complaint about this match- despite stumbling around like he was half blind during the build, the usual master of psychology Roberts did nothing to sell the "blind" eye. SURVIVORS: Martel, Warlord, Power & Glory **1/4
The Hulkamaniacs (Hulk Hogan, Tugboat, The Big Boss Man and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan) def The Natural Disasters (Earthquake, Dino Bravo, Haku and The Barbarian) in 14:49- The Hogan/Earthquake feud continues. Weird to see Quake and Tugboat on opposite sides when one of the teams is called The Natural Disasters, especially since it's less than a year before Tugboat's heel turn and the Disasters teaming up. Hogan and Earthquake jaw at each other but Duggan and Haku start. Slugfest. Duggan dodges a springboard crossbody and kills Haku with clotheslines. Haku hits him with a back elbow but Duggan tags Boss Man as he falls back. The Boss Man Slam makes short work of Haku. Big boot and back elbow on Barbarian. Heenan gets on the apron and Boss Man runs him into the turnbuckle. Heenan's taken two or three good bumps tonight. He was so good at that, like everything else he did. Quake and Bravo double clothesline Duggan and Quake squashes him in the corner. Hart pulls the top rope down and Duggan tumbles to the floor. Duggan grabs his 2x4, chases Hart, and whacks Quake with it. It's an obvious DQ. Duggan, again, not the smartest. Hogan takes out all the heels. He bodyslams Quake! Corner clothesline. Quake counters mounted punches by picking Hogan up and powerslamming him. Bravo picks at the carcass. Flash Hogan Mr. Small Package! Bravo is gone. Boss Man dodges Quake in the corner and tries coming off the top rope. Quake catches him. Hogan comes in and pushes Boss Man down on top of Quake for 2. Barbarian knees Boss Man in the back on a rope run. Quake drops a couple of big elbows and Boss Man is gone. Hogan big boot on Quake. Four guys left and Tugboat hasn't even been in yet. Even Monsoon says he forgot he was out there. Hogan goes for another slam and Quake falls on top of him for 2. Hogan dodges a Quake big splash. Tag and finally Tugboat is in. He and Quake trade some hoss shoulderblocks that knock Quake back to the ropes and Hogan drags him out. Quake and Tugboat fight on the floor and they're both counted out. Hogan's back got rammed into the post during that exchange. Barbarian hops out and goes to work on it. Piledriver from Barbarian. Hogan does the full spasm sell then kicks out. Double clothesline. Barbarian clothesline off the top. Hulk Up. Point, three punches, big boot, legdrop, good night. Heenan takes another bump after, flying over the top to the floor in the corner. SOLE SURVIVOR: Hulk Hogan *1/2
Mean Gene welcomes Randy Savage to the interview podium. Savage says he's taking the WWF title back from the Warrior. Okerlund says "Ultimate Chicken" is a "strong" insult. Man, we're WAY pre-Attitude Era here.
The Alliance (Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana and The Bushwackers) def The Mercinaries (Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov and the Orient Express) in 10:52- Former Soviet heel Volkoff is now an American loving face, and former Marine Slaughter is now an Iraqi sympathizing heel. This is when Operation Desert Shield was heating up into Desert Storm. Volkoff and Zhukov were a (jobber) tag team before Volkoff's face turn so they've got history too. Slaughter's team are all wearing camo facepaint. The Bushwhackers double team Zhukov to start. Santana whacks him with the flying burrito and Zhukov is quickly gone. Both teams started the match in the wrong corners and gradually work themselves over to the right ones. Tags are happening all over the ring in the meantime. The Express double team Santana, then the Whackers double team the Express. The battering ram sends Sato to the showers. Santana's flying jalapeno takes out Tanaka and Slaughter is all by himself barely two minutes in. Slaughter spends the next few minutes slowly taking apart Volkoff and pinning him with no fanfare. The Whackers double slam and double clothesline Slaughter for 2. Slaughter gets his knees up on Butch coming off the top, hits a gutbuster and pins him. Luke does a .3 Bret bump, gets clotheslined and pinned. Santana dropkicks Slaughter in the back and Slaughter goes face first into the post! Flying tamale off the top rope for 2. Slaughter blocks a monkey flip and commences another long and slow beatdown. Ref bump! Adnan comes in and pokes Santana in the back with the flagpole. Slaughter locks in the camel clutch, but the ref saw the pole shot and DQ's him. Blech. SOLE SURVIVOR: Tito Santana. 1/2*
It's egg hatching time. Okerlund is by the egg. The pre-cut cracks in it have been obvious all night. Okerlund has all the bad puns. He gets a small pop when he speculates if the Playboy Playmate of the Month is in there. Now for some perspective, this isn't an on the night thing. They had literally been teasing this egg hatching for weeks on TV. WEEKS. People are expecting something huge. Finally the egg pops open and out comes.....a guy in a turkey costume. Instant boos from the crowd. He gobbles into the mic and somehow Okerlund understands to call him the Gobbeldy Gooker. The Gooker leads Okerlund to the ring. Piper: "The kids are going nuts! They love him!". In Vince's mind, maybe, not in reality. They do some square dancing to folkish music, then the Gooker starts doing some rolls. The Gooker is being played by Hector Guerrero, brother of Eddie and Chavo Classic, uncle of Chavo. He tries to get Okerlund to do some rolls. Okerlund does, and it's the worst move seen in a WWF/E ring until JR tried to do a Spinaroonie. They dance some more and leave to apathy and boos. That's it, that's the whole segment. This was so bad and the backlash so immediate that WWF memory holed the whole thing for years. The Gooker would eventually resurface as an entrant in the Wrestlemania X7 comedy gimmick battle royale. He's made sporadic appearances since, including multiple Survivor Series returns, as a recurring character on The Edge & Christian Show That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness (a funny gem of an original show on the Network) and Drew Gulak wearing the suit a couple of times. Gulak even won the 24/7 Title as the Gooker at Survivor Series '20.
Grand Finale Match of Survival: The Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan and Tito Santana def Ted DiBiase, The Warlord, Rick Martel and Power & Glory in 9:07- The heels outnumber the faces, but everyone knows who's winning as we're still very much in the "always send the fans home happy" PPV era. It would have been a lot more interesting if the teams had been randomly redrawn instead of staying on the regular face/heel lines, especially because with eight guys in they could have done a straight four on four. Hogan and Warrior are teaming up less than a year after their epic Wrestlemania 6 encounter and true to the period in WWF, it's barely mentioned. Monsoon sidles up to it before the match starts without directly mentioning it, that's it. As soon as the bell rings Santana hits Warlord with a flying enchilada to eliminate him. That'll even up the numbers. Roma powerslam on Santana. DiBiase dodges another Santana flying insert Mexican food name here, hot shots him and Santana's out. After an initial flurry on DiBiase Hogan goes face in peril for a bit. DiBiase double ax handle off the second rope for 2. P&G hitting the powerplex causes Hogan to Hulk Up (short version). One clothesline eliminates Roma. Tag to Warrior. Martel takes some punishment, says screw this and leaves. DiBiase tries but Hogan kills him with a corner clothesline. Big boot, legdrop and DiBiase's done. Hogan slams Herc as soon as he comes in. Warrior forever clotheslines and tackle. He squashes the junior trunks with a big splash and it's all over, with Hogan joining in on the ref's count. Anticlimactic as hell. A good idea poorly executed. Hogan and Warrior do the mutual respect thing, holding the ropes open for each other to close the show. FINAL SURVIVORS: Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior *
OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Not a lot here that's going to get anyone's attention, but it's not completely terrible. Minus the Alliance/Mercenaries match and maybe the finale, everything else on the show is at least watchable. Undertaker's debut is great and very worth seeing, and both Bret and Shawn had nights that clearly influenced the decision to get them on singles runs. The Gooker though, hoo boy, that's some serious shit right there. Not even entertaining bad, it's just plain bad. Piper is generally awful on commentary throughout the night too. He has good shows in the booth, but this is not one of them.
OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-
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