Survivor Series '97

Survivor Series '97 (20,593)

Match 1- Road Dog, Billy Gunn & The Godwinns def The Headbangers & The New Blackjacks (Survivor Series Elimination Match) Match 2- The Truth Commission def The Disciples of Apocalypse (Survivor Series Elimination Match) Match 3- Team Canada def Team USA (Survivor Series Elimination Match) Match 4- Kane def Mankind Segment- Michael Cole interviews Sgt Slaughter and Vince McMahon backstage. Vince and Slaughter say that they will ensure the main-event will go ahead as planned. Vince is asked who he thinks will win before answering that he doesn't know. Match 5- The Legion of Doom, Ken Shamrock & Ahmed Johnson def The Nation of Domination (Survivor Series Elimination Match) Intercontinental Championship Match 6- 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin def Owen Hart (c) WWF Title Match 7- Shawn Michaels def Bret Hart (c) Analysis Matches 1 & 2 Road Dog with one only G for some reason. Almost as if one of the producers thought it was misspelt and changed it last minute. It was a poor opening match that saw the heel team of Road Dog, Billy Gunn (not Billy Gun, thankfully) and The Godwinns defeat The Headbangers and The New Blackjacks in traditional Survivor Series elimination action. This one started off ok in all fairness, but midway through the match everyone decided to turn into William Regal and start doing wrist locks and mat based submissions for some reason. It just didn't work at all, and overall the match wasn't really good enough to warrant me going through the eliminations one by one as I did last year. I had little interest in the feuds these guys were involved in and the match itself just wasn't fun to watch. Road Dog and Billy Gunn were the final surviving men on their team, with Billy Gunn scoring the winning pinfall on Thrasher. Somehow match number two was even worse than the opener, as we had our first 'Gang Warfare' match of the night, (The tagline for this PPV was Gang Rulz) as The Disciples of Apocalypse took on The Truth Commission. At least in the last match, the people involved had notable personalities and gimmicks. This was like watching 8 'create a wrestlers' from a video game go at it for nearly ten minutes. They all looked the same, and even wore the same ring gear (DOA in matching black biker vests, and The Truth Commission in green shirts and beige pants) Visually it just made it all so boring! Like with the opener, I doubt too many people even cared about this feud and honestly looking back on it, I wasn't quite sure what it was all about anyway. The Truth Commission picked up the win, with The Interrogator being the Sole Survivor for his team! This PPV has been pretty hard to watch so far. Match 3 ANOTHER SURVIVOR SERIES ELIMINATION MATCH! Jeez, I get it was the gimmick of the show, but three back to back to back 8-man tag matches was just excessive. At least this was the first semi decent match of the night as Team America (Vader, Goldust, Marc Mero and Steve Blackman) took on Team Canada (British Bulldog, Jim Neidhart, Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon) Team Canada got a nice pop coming out, as the crowd woke up for the first time all evening. Bulldog started the match for team Canada, working with Mero and Vader. Bulldog even hit an impressive looking standing vertical suplex on the 450lb Vader before tagging out! Steve Blackman was the first elimination, as the would-be mixed martial arts instructor was counted out of the match. Blackman had actually appeared for the WWF 9 years prior in '88 at a house show, having a short run with the company before he contracted malaria while wrestling in South Africa, and was bedridden for two years as a result! Blackman incorporated martial arts into his recovery, with a focus on Escrima (weapon based fighting) and Tae Kwon Do. Anyway, back to the PPV. Later in the match, Doug Furnas had a sequence with Marc Mero, with Mero showing off his "incredible hand speed" as he boxed with Furnas for some reason. Furnas would eliminate him via roll-up shortly afterwards. Goldust refused a tag, leading to Vader slapping him in the face and forceably tossing him into the ring. Goldust then walked away from the match as a result, leaving Vader in a two on one situation against Furnas and Bulldog. The British Bulldog was the Sole Survivor after clocking Vader with a ring bell. This still wasn't the best match by any means, but it was a marked improvement on the first two outings. While it would have been nice if they built some more suspense, and actually had a short sequence with Vader and Bulldog at the end, they wanted to keep Bulldog heel in America so I understand the decision to not have him win clean. Some nice story telling in this one, with Bulldog looking strong as the Sole Survivor, Vader generally looking like a beast, Mero and his boxing or whatever that was, and Goldust continuing to be a dick in the midst of him bullying his wife Marelena. Layers guys, layers… Overall, I'm still not a fan of the elimination Survivor Series matches, but for what it was, it was fine. Match 4 Kane's in-ring debut (well not actually, but his in-ring debut as his most famous character) as he took on Mankind. Leading up to this, rather than competing in traditional squash matches, Kane opted to cause carnage, destroying others before their scheduled bouts instead. I liked this move as it built anticipation for Kane's ACTUAL debut match, and allowed the WWF to hold off and do it with someone interesting as opposed to him just fucking up the Godwinns on Raw, while still building Kane as a monster. Unfortunately, the WWF still decided to use Kane's weird red lighting for this one. I wasn't a fan of this as it was distracting and you couldn't see Mick's face clearly, and he was the master of telling a story by selling alone and using his facial expressions. This was unofficially contested under no DQ, no count-out rules, as the pair brawled on the floor, using steps, chairs and announcers tables on their way. I say unofficially as this wasn't actually announced, but they did it anyway. Kane predictably went over, but this was still a strong showcase for the character. He tossed Mankind around for the better part of 9 minutes, and generally looked imposing. Not the best match, and I'm breaking my own rule by not ACTUALLY rating this as a match, but instead as a Segment. Here's why. This was clearly a prolonged squash match designed to put Kane over, and if you ask me. Mission accomplished. Mankind threw himself around for Kane (as you'd expect) and did it really well (also, as you'd expect) They showed that the Kane character could take shots, but they inflicted very little damage, and Kane looked like a monster in general. Overall it was exactly as it sounds on paper being Kane's debut match, but it was still done well enough for it to be enjoyable if you were only seeing Kane officially compete for the first time. Segment Not so much of a segment review, more of a segment recap. Michael Cole is talking to Vince and Slaughter backstage. Cole asks Vince "Who's going to win the match" between Shawn and Bret. Vince says with a smirk "I don't know" I'll give my thoughts on this during my screwjob rundown, but this segment alone plays a big part into what I think actually went down. Match 5 Another Survivor Series Elimination Match (Yippee) It's the last one and Rocky is wrestling so I'll crack open a cold one and give it a chance. The Nation of Domination take on Ken Shamrock, Ahmed Johnson and The Legion of Doom Ahmed Johnson eliminated Faarooq, before Faarooq held down Johnson's feet allowing Rocky Maivia to pick up the first elimination for the Nation…of Domination. Towards the end of the match, Road Dog and Billy Gunn came out and covered L.O.D member Animal in powder, blinding him and costing him his spot in the match via count-out. Rocky and Savio Vega double teamed Ken Shamrock, until a Shamrock comeback allowed him to apply an ankle lock on Vega, eliminating him. Only Rocky and Shamrock remained. Rocky used a chair on Shamrock who kicked out. The pair had an ok sequence together, before Rocky tapped out to the ankle lock, with Shamrock winning the match as the Sole Survivor! The first elimination match of the evening with an element of drama leading to the finish. It was really fun seeing Rocky and Shamrock go at it and in my opinion, even though both guys were still unpolished from a wrestling standpoint, this was still the best traditional 8-man tag match of the whole evening due to this aspect alone. Match 7 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin took on Owen Hart in a rematch for the Intercontinental Championship. This was a short, explosive match that saw Austin regain his title. The reason it was short was because Austin wasn't fully cleared, and quite frankly, had no business even wrestling the 4 minute match he was involved in! I still enjoyed seeing him win back his title but I can't rate this as a match, as it was too short and through no fault of his own, Austin just wasn't able to do much here. Main-event Here…WE…GO! Shawn took on Bret in the main-event for the title. This is my first time seeing this as an actual match, so I'm going to put my phone down and make any notes afterwards. But first, a quick rundown in case any of my new readers are unsure of what actually happened here. Shawn locked in Bret Hart's sharpshooter, leading to the referee Earl Hebner to call for the bell before Bret actually tapped (aka, screwing him) Bret Hart freaked out, spitting on Vince and giving him a black eye backstage. The story goes that this was done in an effort to FORCIBLY take the title of Bret Hart before he left for WCW, as Bret didn't like Shawn and refused to drop it to him in Canada, or whatever he decided actually happened when he wakes up on any given Sunday (The story has changed…a LOT!) I will cover this element properly in my next written piece dedicated to the so-called 'Montreal Screwjob' but how was it as an actual match? For starters, Bret looked genuinely distracted walking out. He was either nervous or unsure over what would go down. As a side note, I hope the kid that Bret gave his glasses to actually kept them! I have no idea how much a pair of infamous 'Screwjob glasses' would be worth now, but I'm guessing it would be a few quid if you could somehow prove the provenance. Shawn and Bret started this one with a brawling segment that actually saw Shawn and Bret struggling to fight in the crowd, as the live fans were ALL OVER the pair of them. This crowd was at a fever pitch for this one and understandably so. The match officially started some 10 minutes or so later after this. Usually I hated these spots. They feel long, unnecessary and drawn out. But the brawling worked so well here because the heat and build alone made the match feel electric from the off. A trait lost in modern day wrestling perhaps? There was a moment that Shawn spat towards the fans. A dick move but Shawn was famous for spitting in his matches anyway so it was either unintentional, or he was trying to get them away so he could work. Regardless, a dick move all the same. The match itself was quite short considering who was involved, so not much to analyse from that standpoint. But in summary, this was a short match that felt like a FIGHT. This was high intensity, had TONS of believability coupled with some fun brawling spots before the contest officially started. The camera cuts before we see Bret's hissy fit at the end. They replay that moment so often, I actually thought it was broadcast live. Summary The Survivor Series 8-man gimmick matches weren't very good for the most part (thankfully, the WWF/E would eventually move away from this being the main emphasis of the show) and there were FAR too many of them, making the event drag at times. Yet technically, half of them were ok, Kane's debut was fun and the main-event, depending on how you look at it, was actually excellent! As a match, not many may realise this, but it was REALLY good! Not technically speaking, and the finish was a bit shit obviously, but the energy, build, pace and general feeling behind every single punch, kick and even backdrop would be pretty hard to replicate today. This was THE MATCH everyone wanted to see at the time. All of the backstage drama between Bret and Shawn was clear as day, so even the most casual of fans understood what was going on. Plus, the screwjob itself must have only added an extra layer of drama and (I'm sorry Bret) but enjoyment for the viewers at home for the shock value alone! My next written piece will cover the screwjob, as well as the impact it had on the people involved as well as my own personal thoughts. But overall, this was actually a pretty solid PPV. Sadly, none of the actual wrestling matches were classics or 4 star calibre in my opinion, but as an actual show, it was ok. Final score (2.75 Stars)