Forgotten Goodness 10.31.06: 1996 Survivor Series

Before I start, I just wanted to let everyone know that I was originally planning on doing this show as a review. However, being the reporter I am, this week before elections is what you would refer to as hell. For example, I get to interview Ralph Nader tomorrow. I work in Connecticut and he is on a “dump Joe Lieberman” tour for the Green Party. Not good times, bad times. Not that I have any biases, it’s just that after weeks and weeks of hearing nothing but political spin and BS, you tend to go a little crazy. And us reporters get harassed by campaign flaks non-stop. Gee, people wonder why reporters are cranky…

It’s kind of amazing to survey the current state of pro wrestling compared to what it was just one short decade ago. There are now three major brands with primetime television slots – Impact at 11 is actually late-night – and all three of those brands are run by Vince McMahon and the WWE. They have a virtual monopoly over professional wrestling in this country. You know why it’s so amazing? Because there was a point in the not-so-distant past that it looked the WWF was going to fade away into oblivion.

That time was 1996 and, without going into great detail about stuff you probably already know, WCW was crushing the WWF in every way imaginable thanks to a new weekly live television show, featuring different styles of wrestling, turning Hulk Hogan heel and thrusting tweener characters into the forefront. Everything about WCW was fresh and exciting. Everything about the WWF was old, stale and headed for the trash bin of history. In the fall of 1996, it would not have been farfetched to think the WWF was going to close up shop soon and WCW would be the company ruling the world. My, how things change.

When looking back at history – whether it’s in entertainment, politics or wars – historians like to pick out small, seemingly inconsequential events that actually signal a larger change is imminent. Mmm, that’s good fancy talk. When the history of the WWF is chronicled and its reasons for success with the Attitude era, there are many moments picked out. Stone Cold’s face turn and match with Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13. The screwing of Bret Hart and the emergence of heel Mr. McMahon. The Rock’s true arrival in late 1997. The format of Raw is War along with the crash television implemented by Vince Russo. But to me, the most historically significant WWF show of all-time has been largely ignored as a footnote.

You see, the 1996 Survivor Series is where everything changed. Now the results of the night didn’t lead to immediate gains for the company but it laid the foundation for everything that would render gains in the next two years. It was the night that the sensibility and rooting interests of fans, specifically WWF fans, changed forever. Sounds intense, right? What’s so amazing about the show is that the fans undergone this transformation in the course of three hours. It’s right there. They start off as 20,000 screaming marks in the WWF’s home arena, Madison Square Garden, and end the night rooting for and respecting the bad guy while making the first clear statement that the bland, good guy face with the belt was a dinosaur about to become extinct.

The first major event of the evening, considering a success the night of and a disaster every since, was the big league debut of Rocky Miavia, forever known as the Rock. He came in doing the good guy thing and, for whatever reason, the usually edgy New York fans ate it up. It was almost like seeing a legends show that way Rocky acted that night. He possessed enough talent in the ring and enough charisma that the fans rallied beyond the youngster in an old-school Survivor Series elimination match as he fought off three guys single-handedly to win the match. The place went ballistic and it seemed like a star was born. The problem was the character was a one-note character and the plucky underdog thing never clicked after that first night. But for about 20 minutes in the Garden, it felt like it was 1985. The good guy travails over all and the crowd is pleased. It wouldn’t last.

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart, round one. In my opinion, this is the best pure wrestling match of the 1990’s, narrowly edging our Bret versus his brother Owen in the same building. The build to the match was right out of an old-school booking manual. Bret, the hero, takes some time off following a tough loss to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania. Austin, like a bat out of hell, runs absolutely roughshod over the WWF in the interim. He coins the ‘Austin 3:16’ line. He utters the famous “Put the letter S in front of Hitman and you get my opinion of Bret Hart” line. He curses. He throws up middle fingers. He was one of the best heels, in this short period of time, that pro wrestling had ever seen. There was only one problem – he was too good of a heel.

As the match starts, it’s obvious people in the crowd are wearing Austin shirts. Now Austin is still booed and a majority is still rooting for Bret, but the crowd shifts as the match progresses. Austin, in arguably the best wrestling performance of his life, goes toe-to-toe, hold-for-hold with Bret for nearly a half-hour. Credit must be given here to Bret for being a complete professional and making Austin a star, but Austin still had to show up. He still had to prove that he had the goods to back up what he’d be saying.

Pro wrestling is different than other sports because it’s not the wins and losses that matter. Austin could have won the match in a ** affair and he wouldn’t have become a star. No, the point on this night was for Austin to prove he was a main event material, that his work in the ring would give people a reason to buy tickets. In the words of Maximus from Gladiator, “Are you not entertained?” On this night, Austin proved to everybody – the marks who didn’t know he ever wrestled in WCW to the dirt sheet readers who knew too well his misuse in WCW – that he was the real deal.

So as the match went on, as the tension built, the crowd split. There were still Hart supporters, but the crowd was gradually coming around to Austin. The ending of the match, where Austin gets pinned because he won’t let go of the Million Dollar Dream, just solidified everything about Austin. He was made that night. He may not have gotten there without Austin 3:16 and he needed WrestleMania to become a face, but it was at Survivor Series that it became apparent to the world, fans and Vince McMahon alike, that Austin had arrived. The irony is the post-match – Bret celebrates like a conquering hero, complete with handshake from Vince who was announcing – but it was really his farewell. I don’t know if Bret ever received an ovation like that ever again. Why? Because Bret’s good guy act was losing touch with the new breed of wrestling fans that grew up admiring guys like Randy Savage and Bobby Heenan while tiring of Hulk Hogan.

This final point was hammered home during the most surreal main event in WWF history to that point as Psycho Sid took on Shawn Michaels for the WWF title. In recent years, there have been more and more examples of faces getting nuclear heel heat. John Cena at WrestleMania this year. The Rock at WrestleMania X8. Those are the most known, but there’s plenty and it just seems to happen these days. Well, it should go without saying, that face world champions did NOT get booed in 1996. Even if they weren’t successful, they didn’t get booed.

On this night, Shawn Michaels garnered more heel heat than he had ever had as a heel. The crowd at the Garden that night had clearly tired of Michaels’ ‘sexy boy’ persona and wanted him to get crushed. Sid, though no smart mark darling himself, just represented the opposition. I’m convinced whoever faced Michaels that night would have been a crowd favorite. As the match went on, so did the crowd’s dislike for Michaels. At one point, Michaels kips up only to get smacked down by Sid and the place explodes in delight. It was the first moment that WWF fans had ever really gotten blood-thirsty for a good guy – they wanted the good guy pretty boy to eat it.

Even the finish of the match, when Sid takes a camera and levels Shawn’s elderly mentor Jose Lethario into a friggin’ heart attack, did nothing to quite the crowd. One Sid powerbomb later, the WWF title changed hands and the Garden crowd couldn’t be happier to see the heel celebrating. As a 14 year-old watching it, I was just stunned. As a Michaels hater myself, I did enjoy it. I just didn’t know what to make of it.

And that’s why the show is so significant – it changed the way I looked at pro wrestling. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just me who was tired of the 1980’s act the WWF was still giving us. I wasn’t the only one who thought Austin was cooler than hell. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see Michaels get his ass kicked. It was almost as if collectively the WWF fanbase decided they wanted something different. Maybe they had made that decision before but the Survivor Series was the first time the fans got a taste of it. It was the first time they saw Michaels get rocked and the first time they really got to see Austin let loose. And they wanted more of it.

Everything that happened with Austin, Bret and HBK in 1997, which led into the Attitude era boom, can be traced back to that November night in 1996. Austin carried his momentum into WrestleMania and the legendary ‘I Quit’ match. Bret, as he admitted on his DVD this year, could clearly see the writing on the wall and become the American-hating heel that carried the WWF through 1997. And McMahon or Michaels, probably both, realized the WWF fans would be much happier seeing Michaels getting his ass kicked than kicking them. So, they turn Michaels into a true heel by allowing him to act like a dick, which is how he really was according to basically everybody at the time, and, thus, D-Generation X was born. Yes, the Survivor Series of 1996 was quite important, don’t you think?