The theme of today is counter-programming, something which most wrestling fans still seem to be up in arms about even after the Monday Night Wars. I'll leave you to figure out what I might be referencing in the modern wrestling landscape, but let's now head back to the 80s, where Vince McMahon is, shockingly, still petty. WrestleMania was created to be an equivalent to NWA's Starrcade, but wasn't exactly true competition, as both shows featured radically different presentation and were separated by about 7 months on the calendar. That was to change on this night, as the very first Survivor Series, a more wrestling oriented show than WrestleMania 3, went head to head with Starrcade '87. To up the ante, Vince demanded pay-per-view providers only carry Survivor Series, or they wouldn't receive the rights to air WrestleMania 4. Caught between a rock and a hard place, most providers went with the WWF, leading to a crushing defeat in the buyrates for Jim Crockett Promotions. That, combined with unchecked spending, the injury to Magnum T.A. and alienating fans in the South by holding major shows in Chicago and New York, would lead JCP to the edge of bankruptcy less than a year later. For the very first time on these reviews, Vince has successfully put a rival out of business, though a certain billionaire would pounce on the opportunity to ignite a whole new war with the Fed. For now though, let's take a look at the very first Survivor Series.
- My intro focused more of the business side of proceedings in the lead up to this show, but the wrestling side of the build up deserves a mention as well for one of the most important moments in history. As we shall see in the opener, Randy Savage is now a face, and just a month or so earlier, formed the Mega Powers with WWF Champion Hulk Hogan. Both the formation of the team and the fact that Miss Elizabeth brought them together will be extremely important later, but for now, Savage is captaining a team against IC Champion The Honky Tonk Man.
- It's Team Savage, featuring Randy, his WrestleMania III opponent Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake and Jim Duggan against Team Honky Tonk, who has Hercules, Danny Davis, Ron Bass and Harley Race on his side. Duggan and Race have been feuding recently, with "Hacksaw" even still Harley's crown, and they are the first two eliminated, brawling to a double count-out. Beefcake eliminates Bass with a high knee, before being taken out by the champ with a Shake, Rattle and Roll. The match slows to a crawl at this point, as the heels dominate and wear down the "Macho Man". I felt this middle portion definitely dragged down my opinion of the match overall, as it was electric to start off but this felt like a complete waste of the three great babyfaces you had on hand. The faces do eventually make a comeback, as Davis falls to a DDT from "The Snake" and Hercules is pinned with the flying elbow, and it's three on one. Leaving the arrogant and despicable heel Honky Tonk in there with three men he'd feuded with and score wins over throughout the year was a brilliant booking decision, and everyone in the building was more than ready to see him get his a** kicked. All three faces get to showcase their offense, before Honky runs for the hills to lose by count-out, a somewhat disappointing finish but perfect for his character. Not a great match, but it served it's purpose, getting you invested in a future IC title rematch for Savage.
- Women's Survivor Series action up next, as the heels led by new Women's Champion Sensational Sherri, who teams with the Glamour Girls(Leilani Kai and Judy Martin), Donna Christianello and Dawn Marie(not that one) face The Fabulous Moolah, Rockin' Robin, Velvet McIntyre and the Jumping Bomb Angels(Itsuki Yamazaki and Noriyo Tateno). My main two takeaways from this match was face Moolah is weird and disgusting given her track record, and the Bomb Angels are really f***ing good. After a slower opening, as the lesser known talents like Christianello, Marie and Robin get eliminated, Kai and Martin score a big pinfall, eliminating Moolah with a double clothesline. McIntyre, who I'm personally always impressed by, gets the champ with a victory roll to a nice pop before she gets eliminated with an electric chair drop. At this point, the Bomb Angels take full control, and Martin and Kai stand no chance against this incredible team. Itsuki and Noriyo are all over the place, moving at a speed that you just don't see from many wrestlers in this era, man or woman. They honestly wouldn't look out of place wrestling today, and they were doing this stuff over 30 years ago. Yamazaki eliminates Kai with a crossbody and Tateno takes down Martin with a diving clothesline, and they get some well deserved cheers from the crowd in the Richfield Coliseum, who mostly sat on their hands throughout the match. I thought everyone moved well and the match was pretty good, but without much in the way of audience investment or true heat between any of the competitors, it was just a showcase match for the Jumping Bomb Angels.
- In the longest match on the card, it's a tag team Survivor Series match, as the faces, led by champions Strike Force(Rick Martel and Tito Santana), the Young Stallions(Paul Roma and Jim Powers), the Rougeau Brothers, the Killer Bees and the British Bulldogs take on the Hart Foundation, The Islanders(Haku and Tama), Demolition(Ax and Smash), the New Dream Team(Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo) and the Bolsheviks(Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov). If anyone is wondering why I only included the names of members of certain teams, it's because I haven't reviewed a match with them in it yet. This match is almost 40 minutes long, and I don't think I'll ever have the time or memory to take you through every single bit of the action. I will tell you that it's very good, with lots of tags, plenty of double team moves and tons of great psychology. That's a constant throughout the night, pretty much every match in extremely well booked and well executed, and features some of the most intelligent tag team wrestling I've seen in my life. To actually get into some analysis, I thought Demolition were somewhat wasted, they didn't get in a ton of offense and exit via a meager DQ. Tito Santana's elimination at the hands of Jim Neidhart should've been a big deal, the former champs getting a win over the new champs, but the cameras completely miss whatever offensive move he delivered. There's a fun spot where Dynamite hits his diving headbutt on Haku, but of course his hard Samoan head protects and Dynamite takes the worst of it and is pinned, some classic wrestling nonsense. After the Bees get a fluke elimination of the Hart Foundation, it comes down to them and the Young Stallions, who have been put over plenty on commentary, against The Islanders. The Bees steal the win by using their masks, which is actually a pretty cool gimmick and a nice variant of the "twin magic" style finish. Tons of action here, which did feel a little overdone at times but overall came together for a fairly riveting match.
- A break from all the wrestling before the main event, as we go to a promo package from "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. Obviously, the gimmick is a classic and is still in it's primordial stage at this point. He gets audience members to attempt challenges for money, including a then unknown Linda McMahon, who is instructed to bark like a dog, foreshadowing the infamous Trish Stratus angle in 2001, and a young Rob Van Dam, who has to kiss DiBiase's foot after a match. This is all great, but I especially loved DiBiase renting out a kid's pool and kicking out all the children, which is both incredibly heelish and strangely quite cheap, surely he could rent out like an Olympic pool or something? I generally don't comment on interviews or other non-wrestling segments during these reviews, since they're often too short to be noteworthy, but I really enjoyed this.
- Continuing to kill some time, Jesse Ventura pulls out a pilgrim hat, and wears it over his headset which is terrific. This show is quite something.
- Main event time, as captain Hulk Hogan leads his team into battle against Team Andre in what is essentially a WrestleMania 3 rematch. The Hulkster has Paul Orndorff, who has turned heel and then back face again since the last time we saw him, Don Muraco(referred to as "The Rock" and replacing the injured Billy Graham), Ken Patera and the recently debuted Bam Bam Bigelow on his side, while Andre teams up with One Man Gang, King Kong Bundy, Butch Reed and Rick Rude. Rude's took Orndorff's spot in the Heenan Family, and eliminates him early with a roll-up, while Hogan jobs out Reed and One Man Gang flattens Patera. This match slows to an absolute crawl when Muraco eliminates Rude, as it's mostly just big guys left. The big shock elimination here is that of Hogan, who of course isn't pinned but rather counted out while fighting Bundy and Gang. This spot is executed extremely poorly, as it's obvious that Hogan had tons of opportunities to break the count and the referee is counting right in front of him. From here, the match still remains slow but is at least more interesting, as Bam Bam goes three on one against Andre and the other two monsters. The crowd rallies behind Bigelow, who is really presented a true main eventer here, and he looks like he just might do the impossible. A slingshot splash eliminates Bundy, and Gang crashes and burns attempting a splash of his own as Bam Bam gets the cover. Completely spent in shoot and kayfabe, Bigelow's babyface fire in his showdown with Andre is a bit lackluster as he clearly had nothing more to offer. Andre gets another big win with a butterfly suplex, but here comes sore loser Hogan, hitting him a couple times with the belt for absolutely no reason and then posing for at least 4-5 minutes, and is still posing in the ring as the show goes off the air. The post-match segment was complete bollocks and Hogan is really starting to p*** me off at this point, but I thought the match itself was really well booked and did a great job putting over Bigelow. It's just a shame that it didn't really feel like it mattered at all, since the story is entirely focused around Hogan and Andre, and Bam Bam doesn't even appear on camera again after taking the pinfall.
6/10
This show was tough to grade, as while Survivor Series format limited all four matches in what they could achieve, it also meant that there was very little bad on the show. I thought the show did very well in what it was intended to be, a setup for the next few months of programming and the beginnings of the build towards WrestleMania 4. Overall, I thought Survivor Series '87 was good but mostly forgettable, just slightly above average in what I'd hope for from a pay-per-view. I hope my review did it justice, I really tried on this one but there was just so much to talk about.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: now this is an interesting dilemma, as technically the next big show for the WWF was the first Royal Rumble in 1988, but that aired on the USA Network, not pay-per-view. With that in mind, I'm going directly to WrestleMania 4, where the WWF Championship is now vacant and on the line in a one night, 14 man tournament. How did that happen? Well if you don't already know, I guess you'll have to wait until my next review to find out. See you soon.
- Henry
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