History of Survivor Series Part I: Origins and Early Years

We’re getting close to “Survivor Series 2016” which means a milestone only reached once before: thirty editions of a single pay per view. In the history of WWE, only Wrestlemania has reached this point before and now it’s time for the second series to join the ranks. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be taking a look at the history of Survivor Series and breaking down a little bit of the history along with some of the biggest moments. This won’t be a show by show breakdown but rather a look at the series from more of a general point of view.

So where did this concept come from in the first place? Well, as is so often the case, it was something tried out on the house show circuit that turned out to be a big success. During the course of 1987, the WWF ran at least seventeen of them around the country and they were a very popular concept. They offered a different style of match as you could have multiple eliminations and falls instead of one fall to a finish. If the villains were losing, the fans got to see all of them get beat instead of just one. Extra falls and longer wrestling time helped make for a more entertaining card.

Now, since this is wrestling, there was no way that would be the only reason to run something like this. As you might expect, this would be a major shot in the war between the WWF and the NWA. While the WWF had been involved in the pay per view market since 1985, the NWA wasn’t quite there yet. The NWA was ready to jump in though and their first pay per view offering was to be “Starrcade 1987”. This is where the WWF comes in.

Vince McMahon, wanting to screw with his competition, decided to air his own pay per view on the same night (Thanksgiving 1987) and just happened to have the elimination tag concept waiting in the wings. Ever the businessman, McMahon told the cable providers that if they didn’t air his show, they couldn’t air “Wrestlemania IV”, an almost guaranteed moneymaker. The companies buckled and most aired “Survivor Series”, dealing a huge blow to the NWA.

So with the company’s enemies vanquished, what did the first show have to offer? As was so often the case with the WWF in the 1980s, the answer would be Hulk Hogan and the second round in his feud with Andre the Giant. Hogan had defeated Andre at “Wrestlemania III” in the biggest match of all time and it was time for the two of them to be in the ring again. McMahon was smart enough to avoid using the one on one rematch though and had the two of them captain elimination tag teams instead. Combined with a hot midcard feud between team captains Randy Savage and the Honky Tonk Man, the main event was a can’t miss.

That would be the big idea for the first several years of the show: a main event feud, an upper midcard feud and a few lower card feuds, all played out in elimination tags. From 1987-1990, there was nothing on any edition of the show but elimination tags. Imagine one gimmick match completely dominating a show today, with the first two cards only airing four matches each. It’s a rather odd concept today but the late 1980s and early 1990s were a much simpler time.

However, as you might expect, things didn’t always work out this well. While the first show worked very well and the second was mostly well received, the 1989 edition didn’t exactly work. With a subpar lineup and not the best set of feuds in the world (Hogan vs. Ted DiBiase, over a year past his prime as a top villain and Ultimate Warrior vs. Andre the Giant in a series of matches that mostly ran thirty seconds), what exactly was there to get excited about?

That’s where the series started to go downhill. At the end of the day, fans need a reason to care. Hogan vs. Andre in 1987 worked so well because it was a match people wanted to see because it was a rare treat. Once you were getting five matches in one show with most of the feuds not exactly being red hot and nothing standing head and shoulders above the rest of the card, the interest in the concept really started to wain. A solution was needed in a hurry and as luck would have it, the WWF would give us two of them.

First up: a dancing humanoid turkey.

Yeah I’m not sure how much of an explanation this really needs. Hector Guerrero (Eddie Guerrero’s arguably more talented older brother) put on a turkey suit and was hatched out of a massive egg. Called the Gobbledy Gooker, he was basically a mascot for kids who bombed horrible. A dancing turkey wasn’t the most thrilling thing and it didn’t take long for the character to be written off.

The second solution wasn’t exactly the smartest in the world. On a show where the main criticism was too much of the same, the big twist of “Survivor Series 1990” was to have the survivors in the previous matches team up in one last match called the Grand Finale Match of Survival. In layman’s terms: “Come see Hogan and Ultimate Warrior beat up people in two matches instead of one!”

In a result that shocked no one paying attention, this wasn’t exactly well received. At the end of the day (and the show for that matter), it was another nine minute match that filled in time on the card which could have been added to earlier matches on the show. Well, assuming you didn’t mind the five matches ranging anywhere from pointless to horrible. The big main event offered no prize for the winners other than bragging rights and that’s not enough for most fans.

That right there is the problem the series was facing: with nothing to fight over and a lot more wrestling on TV than before, the Survivor Series pretty much just came and went. Look at the 1990 edition again. In Hogan’s match, his team was facing a team captained by Earthquake. Hogan’s team won (of course) but it was just three months after he beat Earthquake at “Summerslam 1990” and two months before he would beat him again at “Royal Rumble 1991”. That’s a bit of a far cry from Hogan vs. Andre happening twice in a year. Give them something to fight over, which is what we’ll be taking a look at in part two on Tuesday.

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