That Was Then 10.30.07: Looking Back At Survivor Series 1987 & 1988

But even though this year’s show is looking to be 100% Montreal-free, the Survivor Series is now entering it’s 21st year, so I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at the first twenty editions of the show and give my thoughts on each of them. Larry thought this was a stupid idea, but I sent him a six pack and promised to go away again for another few months if he’d let me do it, so he finally relented and here I am. so let’s get started all the way at the beginning…

Survivor Series 1987

The original Survivor Series was held in Richfield, Ohio on Thanksgiving of 1987 and was specifically designed to force cable providers to choose between the WWF and the NWA’s own PPV debut with Starrcade 1987. As you might imagine, most providers chose the WWF over NWA so Vince successfully screwed the competition there, but afterward both companies were told by the cable providers that they were never to run PPVs on the same day ever again.

The gimmick for the original Survivor Series was that you’d have teams of five (whether it be five men, women, or tag teams, more on that later) facing off in elimination matches, and the concept of the gimmick, along with the possibilities of some heavily unfair situations, made this PPV unique at the time. Though they later got away from doing the elimination matches as the main focus, these matches were what gave the PPV its name.

The opening match saw Randy Savage leading a team of Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat, Jim Duggan, and Brutus Beefcake against IC Champion the Honky Tonk Man and his crew of King Harley Race, Danny Davis, Hercules, and Outlaw Ron Bass. The Honky Tonk Man was not the top heel in the company, but was easily the most hated man there, and so you saw Savage, Roberts, and Steamboat, all of whom had heated feuds against one another, teaming up just to get an opportunity to get their hands on HTM. And in the end, it was those three on one side taking turns beating up HTM, who was left all by himself on the heel side. Rather than take the fall, HTM got his ass handed to him for about five minutes before rolling out of the ring and just hightailing it to the back, giving Savage’s team the win.

Up next was the women’s elimination match, with the Fabulous Moolah teaming with Rockin’ Robin, Velvet McIntyre, and the Jumping Bomb Angels against WWF Women’s Champion Sensational Sherri, Dawn Marie (not the one you’re probably familiar with, this was some scary old lady), Donna Christianello, and WWF Women’s Tag Team Champions the Glamour Girls. I always thought it was odd that they had a Women’s Tag Team Title considering the women’s division at the time was no deeper than today’s, but I later realized it was something that was probably specifically designed for the Glamour Girls and their feud with the Jumping Bomb Angels. Speaking of the JBEs, they were easily the highlight of the evening, as they were pulling out a ton of moves that we’re mostly familiar with today, but at the time were so far beyond anything anyone else in North America was doing that it popped the crowd big time and they easily stood out as the stars of the match. Also of note was Velvet McIntyre, who was no slouch when it came to workrate that was ahead of its time herself, as she pinned Sherri to eliminate her. In the end, it came down to the Glamour Girls against the JBEs, and the JBEs eliminated both of the Glamour Girls, knocking Jimmy Hart on his ass in the process, to pick up the win and immediately establish themselves as a force in just one match. This is something that I think WWE could probably do again today if they were to grab somebody with that kind of workrate from the developmental territory and let him just come in and regulate a few people in convincing fashion, but that doesn’t seem terribly likely. Too bad, it worked great here.

Now we got a huge match pitting WWF Tag Team Champions Strike Force, the Killer Bees, the Young Stallions, the British Bulldogs, and the Rougeau Bros against the Hart Foundation, Demolition, the Islanders, the New Dream Team (of Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo, not to be confused with the original Dream Team of Valentine and Brutus Beefcake), and the Bolsheviks. The gimmick here was that when a wrestler was eliminated, his partner had to go to the back as well, and the sight of a 10-on-10 match was a truly impressive one that, again, would probably be a draw today. One notable point about this match was that the part where the Bulldogs got eliminated somehow got clipped from the home video release, so it just looked like they were there one minute and gone the next. Research indicates that the Islanders eliminated them I believe after Haku hit Dynamite with a thrust kick, but this left the underdog teams of the Young Stallions and the Killer Bees all by themselves against the imposing duos of the Islanders and the New Dream Team and, wouldn’t you know it, they came back to eliminate both teams and score a huge upset win that ultimately led both teams nowhere.

Finally, we get to our main event as WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan and his team of Ken Patera, Bam Bam Bigelow, Don Muraco, and Paul Orndorff faced Andre The Giant (making his first in-ring appearance since Wrestlemania III), Rick Rude, Butch Reed, King Kong Bundy, and the One Man Gang. The match came down to Hogan and Bigelow against Andre, Bundy, and the Gang, and even though the match (and the entire show) was mostly sold on seeing Hogan in the ring with Andre again, they only barely interacted before Hogan got pulled out of the ring by Bundy and Gang and counted out, leaving Bigelow at a 3-on-1 disdvantage. Bundy fought valiantly, eliminating first Bundy and then the Gang, but Andre was too much for him and he was finally pinned, giving Andre the win and a claim for another shot at the World Title.

Survivor Series 1988

The second edition of the Survivor Series returned to Richfield, again on Thanksgiving, for another series of elimination tag team matches. This year’s show was opened by the 10-on-10 match with five teams on each side as WWF World Tag Team Champions Demolition teamed up with the Brain Busters (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard), The Bolsheviks, the Rougeau Bros, and jobber tandem extraordinaire the Conquistadors as they faced recent NWA transplants the Powers Of Pain (Warlord & Barbarian), the Hart Foundation, the British Bulldogs, the Rockers, and the Young Stallions. This one went over 40 minutes and the main story through the entire match was that the Conquistadors, considered to be the weakest team in the entire match, escaped elimination time after time as everyone else got eliminated. Finally it came down to the Powers Of Pain against Demolition and the Conquistadors, and though Demolition was in control, their manager Mr Fuji hooked the ropes and caused Smash to fall out of the ring to the floor and get counted out, causing Demolition to beat the crap out of him and leave. Things became clearer a moment later when the Powers Of Pain helped Fuji up and easily finished off the Conquistadors to win the match and hoist their new manager up on their shoulders before Demolition came back out and cleaned house. This was a really well done instance of the elusive double turn, though still not as good as the Hart-Austin double turn in my opinion. That one will always be king.

Anyway, we move on to IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior, Brutus Beefcake, and their jobber team of the Blue Blazer (Owen Hart), Jim Brunzell, and Sam Houston taking on the Honky Tonk Man, Ron Bass, Danny Davis, Greg Valentine, and Bad News Brown. Warrior and Beefcake’s team got pretty quickly wiped out, since they WERE jobbers and all, though Bad News lived up to his Survivor Series MO of getting pissed at his partners for screwing up and walking out. To quote Scott Keith, “He should have known better than to team with a guy named Honky.” Beefcake and HTM both got counted out, leaving Warrior 2-on-1 against Bass and Valentine. Normally this would be insurmountable, but this is the Warrior, so he came back with a big pair of double axhandles to eliminate them both and claim victory for his team.

Moving along, Jake Roberts, Jim Duggan, Scott Casey, Tito Santana, and Ken Patera take on Mr Perfect, Dino Bravo, Andre The Giant, Harley Race (post-King) and Rick Rude. Santana got to eliminate Harley Race (in what would be a huge upset anywhere else), but other than that Jake’s team got destroyed, leaving him in a 4-on-1 situation against Perfect, Bravo, Andre, and Rude, who took turns beating him up. Roberts got the DDT on Rude to eliminate him, and then Andre got disqualified for choking Roberts out in the corner bringing it down to 2-on-1, but by that point Jake had too much taken out of him and Perfect was able to easily cover for the win.

Finally it’s main event time, as co-captains Hulk Hogan and WWF World Champion Randy Savage (in that order) teamed with Hillbilly Jim, Hercules, and Koko B Ware (yes, Koko B Ware main evented a PPV) against co-captains Big Boss Man and Akeem, along with Ted Dibiase, the Red Rooster, and King Haku. The Red Roostere was eliminated early, much to the chagrin of overbearing manager Bobby Heenan, but they were able to come back and bring it to 4-on-2 against Hogan and Savage. Savage snuck in and got a quick rollup pin on Dibiase to bring it down to 3-on-1, and then the plan unfolded as first Big Boss Man got disqualified for using the nightstick, then Akeem got counted out, but they took the opportunity to put a beating on Hogan and handcuff him to the ropes on the floor, leaving a badly beaten Savage alone in the ring with Haku. Haku kept working over Savage until it seemed he couldn’t last any longer, and then Hogan finally got the key to the cuffs from Slick, unlocked himself, and was able to tag in and clean house on Haku before putting him away with the usual. After the match ended, Savage and Hogan celebrated with manager Miss Elizabeth, though Savage quickly became jealous when Hogan got a little too huggy with Elizabeth. This was one of the first signs of dissension between Hogan and Savage, and it would be that jealousy over Elizabeth’s affections that finally caused the split and led to the Hogan vs Savage main event of Wrestlemania 5.

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