Survivor Series '97

Legacy Review

Survivor Series '97

November 8, 1997 from the Molson Centre in Montreal

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

Welcome to one of the most infamous nights in wrestling history. The tagline for this show is Gang Rulz because Russo loved his gang/faction warfare and Survivor Series was the perfect format for that.

The show opens with another excellent video, this time focusing on the Bret/Shawn feud since Wrestlemania 12. By this point the hatred between the two was true and real. I believe "worked themselves into a shoot" would be the term. The opening pyro is on fire in front of the stage! Bit early for Kane's entrance. Since the show is in Montreal, WWF has gone the extra step of hiring a French ring announcer for the occasion. They certainly need to do all they can to appease the crowd with what's coming.

Survivor Series Match: "Bad Ass" Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and The Godwinns def The Headbangers and The New Blackjacks in 15:27- Gunn and Dogg had been teaming sporadically for a couple of months, while Gunn was still "Rockabilly", but weren't officially the New Age Outlaws or part of DX yet. The Godwinns are also transitioning into their Southern Justice personas, as referenced by Dogg during his opening promo. Phineas and Windham start. Windham shoulderblocks Phineas to the floor. Back in he pops Phineas with an open hand slap. Bradshaw hits a powerslam. Phineas tries to tag out but neither Dogg or Gunn want to get in. Henry does. Bradshaw and Henry do some back and forth. Henry clothesline for 2. Bradshaw gets an abdominal stretch cradle and that gets a pin. Henry is eliminated. Phineas and Bradshaw slug it out. Windham hits a couple of suplexes and flying lariat for 2. Phineas back elbows Windham in the corner, clotheslines him and pins him. Windham is gone. Mosh uses agility to easily stay on top of Phineas. Gunn comes in and pounds away to huge boos, the first time the crowd's been engaged the whole match. They chant something in French that's probably not very polite. Mosh gets a boot up in the corner and a clothesline. Gunn counters a bulldog, I think, planting Mosh on his face and getting a pin, eliminating Mosh. Thrasher comes in and works Phineas over. With biting. Lawler wants to know where Vince is. JR says he knows and that Vince is busy. Yeah, I'd say he is. At that very moment he was probably still arguing with Bret and/or Shawn, together or separately, about how the main event would end. That's way more interesting than what's happening in the ring, which is the most boring ass segment of the whole match yet and that's saying something. Thrasher gets a hiptoss and armdrag, outwrestling Phineas. He hits the butt splash off the top and Phineas is gone. Dogg finally gets in and immediately gets pummeled so hard his bandana flies off. Bradshaw chops him and JR gets the government mule line in. Short clothesline. Powerbomb. Gunn distracts and Dogg rolls Bradshaw up and pins him. Thrasher comes in hot. Gunn kicks him in the back from the apron. Dogg tries a pumphandle slam but Thrasher counters with a hiptoss. Blind tag. Gunn completely misses a legdrop off the top rope but gets the pin for the win anyway. Horrible match. The future New Age Outlaws had a long way to go in just about every sense. SURVIVORS: Gunn and Dogg. 3/4*

 

Survivor Series Match: The Truth Commission def The Disciples of Apocalypse in 9:58- The Truth Commission are the latest entrant into Russo's faction wars. They're presented as a kind of Latin American style paramilitary group and consist of leader Jackyl (very young Don f'n Callis, no wonder he talks so much), Sniper (a Montreal native), Recon (Bull Buchanan) and the Interrogator (Kurrgan), who's a classic 7 foot tall guy that can barely wrestle so you know who's getting featured. The DOA ride their bikes to the ring then turn right around and ride out again. Oh, I guess they're parking where there's space. How very not biker gang like polite of them. They charge the ring and the big brawl is on. They settle in with Interrogator and Chainz in the ring. Interrogator absorbs all of Chainz's offense, hits a side suplex and Chainz is gone. Everyone comes in to stand off again. Recon works over Skull. Or 8-Ball. It's the old Blu twins so no one can tell who's who, not even JR. Jackal hits a knee off the top that's no sold. A side suplex hits and Jackal is gone. Sniper comes in as Jackal, Don Callis, takes a spot in commentary. Man, some things really never do change. Sniper hits a crossbody for 2 but then gets caught coming off the top rope. Crush drops some legdrops. Belly to belly suplex for 2. Recon flips over a backdrop, lands on his ass, gets up and hits a heel kick. Collision and both guys are down. The twins swap without tagging. Skull or 8-Ball hits a clothesline and pins Recon. 8-Skull horrible swinging neckbreaker on Sniper for 2. The twins do a double team slam. The ref is distracted by Interrogator and Sniper is able to kick out. Sniper hits a sort of bulldog and one of the bald guys is gone. The official rundown says it was Skull so sure, we'll go with that. Crush is busy fixing his hair as he's getting tagged in. Not the first time I've caught him being more concerned with his hair than the match. Interrogator blind tags in. 8B hits a DDT on Sniper. Interrogator comes up and gives him another side suplex and gets the pin. I guess that's the only move he knows. Crush is quickly beat down. He hits Sniper with a tiltawhirl powerslam and Sniper is gone. Interrogator comes in and plants Crush with a, guess what.....SIDE SUPLEX and it's over. Even worse than the first match. SOLE SURVIVOR: Interrogator. DUD

Babyfaced Kevin Kelley is in the AOL chat room with Austin. I wonder if language filters had been made for chat rooms yet.

 

Survivor Series Match: Team Canada ("The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon) def Team USA (Vader, Goldust, Marc Mero and Steve Blackman) (w/Sable) in 17:47- With what's coming tonight this is the last real gasp of the longrunning Hart Foundation led Canada vs the US angle. The makeup of the US team is interesting. You've got Blackman, another Ken Shamrock like "shoot fighter" making his PPV debut (like Shamrock he had much more wrestling experience than was let on) and replacing an injured Patriot, Vader, who had recently turned face and was now the de facto captain with Patriot out, Mero, who recently returned from injury and was transitioning heel by mistreating Sable, and Goldust, who was also going heel and well on his way to becoming The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust. His face paint is black tonight with "FU" written on his face (supposedly "forever unchained", not the other thing) and "ALIVE AGAIN" written on the back of his head. Team USA still comes out to Patriot's music, which will be Kurt Angle's music in a few years. No surprise, the crowd is 100% behind Team Canada. Vader runs with it by giving the crowd a couple of Spaceballs salutes. Bulldog and Mero start. After some shenanigans with Mero's US flag bandana Bulldog attacks, dropkicking Mero to the floor and then mocking Blackman a bit. The fans chant for Sable and Mero moves her to another corner. Basically he's ripping off '80s heel Randy Savage with a fraction of the charisma. Vader hits some shots in the corner, a short clothesline and tackle. Bulldog powerslams Vader off the second rope. He suplexes Vader! That got a huge pop. Furnas gets avalanched in the corner. Mero kneelift. Furnas spinning heel kick. Mero gets pounded in the Canadian corner. He punches LaFon in the back of the head and tags Blackman. Blackman unloads with kicks and a corner dropkick. Elbow drop for 2. LaFon hits a ripcord knee and DDT for 2. Crucifix for 2. Blackman hits a tackle and takes out the whole Canadian team. He backdrops LaFon to the floor. Team Canada gangs up on Blackman on the floor while LaFon gets back in. Blackman is counted out. That's one way to protect him. Anvil and Mero go back and forth a bit. Mero dodges a splash off the second rope. Anvil clothesline and tackle on Vader for 2. Vader responds with a tackle, elbow drop and big splash that gets a pin and Anvil is eliminated. A LaFon spinning heel kick sends Vader over the top to the floor. Furnas gets some shots in. LaFon and Vader struggle a little with LaFon doing a weird rolling sell of a corner whip. Belly to belly suplex from Vader. Splash of the second rope and LaFon is gone. Furnas dropkick on Vader. Vader dodges a second. Mero comes in with boxing fists flying. This is when he changed his style from high flying to his boxing roots due to his injuries. Well, there's a Mero moonsault. Furnas landed wrong catching him and JR speculates his shoulder is hurt. He quickly tags out to Bulldog. Bulldog outpowers Mero and goes for the powerslam. Mero pushes out. Furnas is back in and fine. He and Mero do a boxing like corner slugfest. Mero roll up for 2. Furnas counter roll up and that gets 3. Mero is out. Vader comes in and pummels Furnas. Furnas hits a flying clothesline. Vader suplex on Bulldog. Vader goes to tag but Goldust refuses to come in. Furnas hits Vader from behind. Vader back suplex. Goldust still won't tag in. Furnas low blow on Vader! Cover for 2. Vader gets a boot up and clothesline on Bulldog. Another tag reach and this time Goldust jumps completely off the apron. Furnas belly to belly on Vader! Cover for 2. Furnas hurricanrana for 2. Vader nails him with a potato shot. Goldust turns his back on Vader in the corner. Vader turns him around and slaps him! I guess that's a tag. Vader throws Goldust in the ring, the first time he's been legal all night. Goldust immediately rolls back out and takes a walk. He's counted out. Vader tackles both Canadians. Bulldog goes out and gets the bell. Vader bomb on Furnas and he's pinned. Bulldog whacks Vader with the bell, covers and gets the win! Bulldog immediately gets out of the ring and almost runs to the back, not staying a second to celebrate. I think there's something big going on back there with the Harts that he's preoccupied by. Vader almost singlehandedly carried this to a decent match. SOLE SURVIVOR: Bulldog. **1/2

 

Kane (w/Paul Bearer) def Mankind in 9:29- This is Kane's first televised match after his big debut the previous month at Badd Blood. Mankind is a perfect choice of first opponents for him, both because of Foley's skill at laying matches out and crazy bumping, and his connection to Bearer (or Uncle Paul), who managed Mankind for a good chunk of '96 before Mankind's face turn. Mankind attacks Kane in the aisle. A guardrail shot has no effect. He's wearing a hard mask! Kane picks Mankind up and drops him on the steps. They get in the ring, Kane sets off the ring post pyro, and the bell rings to officially start the match. And the red light stays on. Yes, years before the Fiend got the infamous red light for his matches they tried it with Kane first. It was never a good idea in either period. They go back and forth in the ring and Mankind hits a Cactus Clothesline. Kane lands on his feet just like his brother and hits a clothesline. He throws the steps into Mankind's face. Slow Kane beatdown in the ring. Mankind rips his own hair out to try to get back in it but runs into a big boot. Corner beatdown. Kane hits a side slam. Mankind goes to the floor again. Kane gives him clubbing blows and tosses him into the steps again. Mankind lifts Kane up and drops him onto the steps! Flurry of punches from Mankind as he tries to take advantage of the opening. Chairshot to Kane's head! Mankind piledriver in the ring. Bang bang! He calls for the Mandible Claw. He puts the Claw on Bearer! I get it emotionally but he's taking his eye off the ball here. Kane sits up, pushes Mankind off the apron, and Mankind flies off AND THROUGH THE SPANISH ANNOUNCE TABLE! As Foley bumps go, that was moderate. Kane hits Mankind with one of the pieces of the table. Kick wham Mankind DDTs Kane in the aisle! Cactus Elbow! Another Kane sit up. He hops up onto the apron and slams Mankind off it to the floor! Light Foley bump. Kane allows Mankind to slowly crawl his way back into the ring. The Tombstone hits and it's over. Red light aside that was a very good debut. Foley did most of the work but Kane was where he needed to be when he needed to be there. He's not exactly a rookie but he'd continue to learn quickly. WWF really nailed Kane's opening months and this was just the start. ***1/4

Michael Cole is in the back with Commissioner Slaughter and Vince. Slaughter says there's "unusual tension" tonight. You don't say? Vince says this Bret/Shawn rematch was supposed to happen many times the last 18 months and never did for "a number of reasons". Like Shawn faking a knee injury to get out of it for one. Cole asks straight up who's going to win and Vince says "I don't know". A likely story. I can only imagine the chaos that was going on backstage this close to the match happening.

 

Survivor Series Match: WWF Tag Team Champions The Legion of Doom, Ken Shamrock and Ahmed Johnson def The Nation of Domination in 20:34- The Nation team is Faarooq, Rocky Maivia, Kama Mustafa and D'Lo Brown. On the other side, after a short dalliance with Nation membership Johnson has turned back face after returning from his latest injury. We get the first of many "Rocky sucks" chants during the Nation's entrance. The Canadian crowd really, really hates Rocky. Hawk and Brown start. Shoulderblock standoff. Double clothesline. Brown goes down. Hawk doesn't. Brown hits a piledriver and Hawk, I think we've seen this movie a few times before, pops right back up. Hawk hits a neckbreaker. Rocky tags in to more crowd hate. Hawk gets kicked from behind from the apron, Rocky plants him with the still yet unnamed Rock Bottom, and Hawk is eliminated. Rocky turns around into Johnson. If you're looking for kneepads in Montreal you're out of luck, they're all on Johnson's legs. Kama and Faarooq beat Johnson down a bit. He gets caught in the heel corner and Brown whips him with a strap. Faarooq goes for a powerbomb. Johnson is supposed to flip out and land on his feet but he falls on his ass, gets back up, hits the Pearl River Plunge and Faarooq is gone. Brown hits Johnson with a heel kick that was badly delivered and sold even worse. Frog splash from Brown! He doesn't cover and plays to the crowd instead, then screams at Johnson to get up. Johnson starts hulking up. Falcon arrow on Brown! Johnson takes Rocky down. He hits the ropes but is tripped by Faarooq, still at ringside. Rocky covers and Faarooq holds Johnson's foot down. Johnson is pinned and eliminated. Good thing because watching Johnson attempt to wrestle gets more and more painful to watch after each injury. He's regressing and he was never very good to start with. He chases Faarooq and they brawl to the back. Animal pounds away on Rocky and hits a corner clothesline. Shamrock is in for the first time and hits a clothesline and dropkick on Rocky. Kama and Shamrock do some back and forth. Animal/Kama double clothesline. Back suplex from Animal. Kama hits some weak kicks. Animal tackle. There's some random and loud mic feedback. Commentary is affected too. Lawler says it's "our genius sound engineer Kevin Dunn". He's probably hitting all the buttons trying to figure out if the mics can do every second camera cuts or quick zooms. Animal pushes Kama into Rocky and rolls him up for a pin. Kama is gone. Shamrock pounds Brown down. Brown holds Shamrock down and Rocky comes in to give him a Greco Roman Nut Punch. Brown legdrop for 2. Shamrock goes face in peril for a bit. Brown misses a springboard moonsault. He would have missed even if Shamrock hadn't rolled, he set Shamrock way too close to the corner. Tag to Animal. Billy Gunn and Road Dogg are out. Gunn is in Animal face paint while Dogg is wearing the spiked shoulder pad they stole from LOD a few weeks prior. That's how the New Age Outlaws got their name by the way, by stealing stuff from all the other tag teams. Animal hops out to confront them and tosses the outside ref aside. Gunn throws a bunch of powder in Animal's face and Animal is counted out. Gunn and Dogg would end up defeating LOD for their first of many tag title wins on Raw a few weeks after this. Shamrock is left alone against Brown and Rocky. The Nation guys try to corner him but the ref forces one to get out. Brown stays in and gets a quick edge. They try a double team but Shamrock double clotheslines them both. Rocky goes to the floor. Belly to belly suplex on Brown. The ankle lock is on! Rocky is outside with a chair but he's not making any effort to save Brown. Brown taps out! Rocky gets in and nails Shamrock in the back with the chair. Cover. Shamrock kicks out! Rocky stomps Shamrock down in the corner until the ref stops him. Rocky DDT for a long 2. He slams Shamrock in the middle of the ring. The elbow pad is off! Could it be? Yes, it's the first ever People's Elbow on PPV! Of course it also wasn't named yet. Cover and another kickout. Shamrock gets up with a flurry of gut punches. He blocks another DDT into a northern lights suplex! Shamrock hurricanrana! Ankle lock. HARD tap out from Rocky and Shamrock wins! Most of the match was very rough, but the right two guys were there at the end and they both looked good. SOLE SURVIVOR: Shamrock. **

Ad for the December PPV, which will be D-Generation X: In Your House. DX's famous entrance music makes its debut here too.

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin def The Slammy Award Winning Owen Hart (c) (w/The Hart Foundation) in 4:04- This is Austin's return match after having his neck legitimately broken by Owen in their IC title match at Summerslam and concerns that he might never wrestle again. Owen openly said leading up to this match that he was going to break Austin's neck again. The shattering glass on the stage is back, but only about half of it shatters when it's supposed to and Austin walks through some of it. How huge has Austin gotten? He's cheered while Owen and the Hart Foundation are booed. In CANADA. There are Austin 3:16 shirts EVERYWHERE in the crowd. Owen stalls forever on the floor. Austin takes the Owen 3:16 I Just Broke Your Neck shirt and tears it up. I'm still laughing at him calling that shirt "cheap heat" at the last PPV. Anvil tries to catch Austin from behind but gets Stunnered! Owen takes the opening to attack. He hooks up for a piledriver, the move that injured Austin, and the crowd gasps. Austin backdrops out. Owen posts Austin's knee. Austin uses his legs to pull Owen into the post. Owen tries to walk but Austin clotheslines him from behind. They fight in the commentary area and Owen gets a low blow. Austin gets rammed into the remnants of the Spanish announce table. The crowd chants for Austin but JR tries to play it as "this crowd really wants to see Austin's neck broken". Yeah, I don't think so. Canadian crowds, they never cooperate. TV cable choke from Owen and he straight tells the ref to DQ him. Back in Austin turns things around with an eye poke and mudhole stomp. Stunner! It's already over and Austin gets the title back! Furnas and LaFon get some Stunners for the road. That went as well as it could have. Austin clearly wasn't 100% yet. You could argue they should have waited to do the match later, but Vince might have wanted to get all the belts off the Harts now just to be safe. *

We get the same Bret/Shawn video that was played at the start of the show to set up the main event. Like I mentioned earlier, what started as a wrestling angle turned into real life hatred. Bret had a lot of opinions about Shawn's hard partying lifestyle and accused Shawn of ducking matches with him since WM 12 (a claim with merit), while Shawn struck a nerve with Bret by saying Bret thought he was the whole WWF. Then Shawn struck an even bigger nerve by openly on TV accusing Bret of having an affair with Sunny (the "you've had some sunny days" promo). That one caused a real fight backstage and led to Shawn getting legit suspended. On top of all that, the news hit the internet before this show that Bret was planning to leave to go to WCW. Both guys get the epic locker room to Gorilla backstage walk on camera. DX and some of the Harts do the walk but all stay behind backstage.

 

WWF Championship: "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels def Bret "Hitman" Hart (c) in 12:11- It seems almost irrelevant to mention with everything going on that Shawn is also still the European champion, a title already rendered almost meaningless. During his entrance Shawn has what looks like a full beer thrown on him. He gets a Canadian flag, then proceeds to get an already hostile crowd even more enraged by wiping his ass, blowing his nose, and humping it. The prematch tension is insane. While Bret's in the ring during his entrance Shawn continues to mess with ringside fans. Finally Shawn jumps Bret from behind. Bret quickly slugs back and clotheslines Shawn 360 to the floor. Important to note, the bell never rang to start the match. Bret posts Shawn, then tosses him into the crowd! They fight in the floor section right on top of the fans! Vince, Slaughter, Pat Patterson, Gerald Brisco and every ref in the WWF are all at ringside trying to get things under control. Not in a "breaking up a real fight" way, everything is going as planned. So far. Shawn gives Bret table and stair shots then does his usual push of a cameraman out of the way. JR references the "rumors" about Bret's future and says it's been mentioned he might be leaving the WWF "if he loses". Shawn chokes Bret with a US flag. They go into the crowd on the other side. Bret backdrops Shawn over the rail back to ringside! Low blow from Bret. They start working their way up the entrance aisle. Bret suplexes Shawn on the aisle! Shawn runs Bret into ref Tim White. Bret flips Shawn over the barricade right next to the entrance tunnel and hits him with a fire extinguisher. Vince starts yelling at them and, coincidence or not, they start working back to the ring. They get in and the bell finally rings to officially start the match. Bret got a Quebec flag from somewhere and chokes Shawn with it. Inverted atomic drop. Shawn ducks a clothesline and hits a flying forearm. He gets the Quebec flag and chokes Bret with it. The heat from the crowd is ridiculous. Jim Cornette in the deep south in the mid '80s level heat. Shawn continues to mess with the crowd to make it even worse. He tosses Bret out and gives him some measured shots with more crowd mocking. He drops Bret on the steps, then breaks the pole of Bret's Canadian flag and hits him with it. Double ax handle off the top in the ring. Shawn grounds things for a bit with a front facelock. Bret eventually powers out. He drops elbows on Shawn's knee. Shawn gets an eye rake in. Crossbody off the top but Bret rolls through it for 2. More Bret knee kicks. He posts Shawn's knee and puts on the post wraparound figure four. More knee work. Figure four! Shawn fights and reverses it. Bret quickly grabs a rope. Shawn flip! Bret Russian leg sweep for 2. Snap suplex for 2. Backbreaker. He goes up to the top rope. Shawn pulls Hebner in front of him and the ref is down. Another Shawn eye rake. He puts Bret in a Sharpshooter! Hebner is suddenly up, gives a perfunctory look at Bret, and calls for the bell to ring! Shawn's music plays. Commentary is flummoxed, or at least pretends to be. Bret looks both stunned and not surprised at all. He gets up and spits right on Vince. Triple H is out. He backs Shawn up as Shawn goes over to the timekeeper's area, grabs the belt, and gets the hell out of town. The camera stays on Shawn as he goes up the aisle, zooms in on the Survivor Series logo, and we are off the damn air. The Montreal Screwjob is done. It's almost impossible to rate a match like this with all the real life drama and screwing going on, but despite their issues Bret and Shawn always worked well together and that continued here before the ending. ***1/2

Thanks to multiple documentaries and compilation sets we have seen what happened after the show went off air. Bret continued to berate Vince, destroyed a bunch of equipment ringside, and air wrote out "WCW" to the fans. And then Bret punched Vince out backstage. So what was supposed to happen? Bret refusing to drop the title to Shawn in Canada is what started it. He was also upset by Shawn supposedly saying if he was champion he wouldn't drop the belt to Bret period. After much negotiation it was agreed, as far as Bret understood, that this match would end by DQ when the Harts and DX all interfered (a "schmozz" in backstage parlance). Bret would then drop the title on Raw before leaving for good. There was time as he still had a month before his WCW contract started. Vince, however, had just been burned by Medusa/Alundra Blayze taking the WWF Women's title belt to WCW and dropping it in a garbage can. He didn't want to take any risk of that happening to the WWF Title. I think he also had in the back of his mind 1991 when Ric Flair came over while still WCW World champion and still in physical possession of the Big Gold Belt and didn't want that situation in reverse either. So the Screwjob was cooked up the weekend of the show. To this day there's conflicting reports of who knew and who didn't. It'd take a whole separate article to get into all the detail but I think it's generally accepted by now that Shawn, Triple H and Hebner at least were all aware of what was happening. Several people have pointed to Trips as the mastermind of the whole scheme.

 

The effects of this night were widespread and long lasting. Shawn became beyond a shadow of doubt the most hated man in wrestling. Much of the locker room was upset and had to be calmed down. The Undertaker in particular didn't like what was done and almost led an open revolt. Most of the Hart Foundation left the company in protest. The exception was Owen, who was locked into his contract, but he did go away for the next month. DX member Rick Rude also left in protest, leading to the famous night soon after this where he was on Raw (taped) and Nitro (live) the same night. Other members of the roster not involved left in disagreement with what was done while others, notably Triple H, backed McMahon's decision. The next night on Raw Vince, sporting the shiner Bret gave him, gave the infamous "Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart" speech. Bret would move on to his WCW run, which never got anywhere close to the level of his WWF heyday, in part certainly due to WCW's atrocious booking (Bret had the misfortune of jumping over just as WCW's wheels were coming off for good), but also I think because Bret never got over what happened on this night and was never fully mentally in the game over there. It would cause a rift with Vince and Shawn that would last years before Bret agreed to bury the hatchet, at least somewhat, during Wrestlemania 26 season in 2010, but to this day he's clearly still bitter about it. 

 

So what do I think? This is definitely one of those situations where opinions on the Montreal Screwjob are like assholes, everyone's got one and they're mostly used to spew shit, and I'm sure I'm no better. In my younger days I was much more pro Bret, and still get where he was coming from, but as I've gotten older I can more easily see Vince's perspective on this and on the whole think he did what he had to do under the circumstances. I do still think that if cooler heads had prevailed Bret would have kept his word and dropped the title on Raw before leaving, but Vince had no way to 100% absolutely guarantee that after this night. It's unfortunate and sad it had to happen this way at all.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Like the main event, it's hard to put any kind of a rating on a show like this. The majority of the show is perfectly skippable, but the main event is an absolute must watch for every wrestling fan, sadly not for the right reasons. I'll give it a grade right in the middle and move on.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C