Welcome to my retrospective about what has traditionally been one of my favorite wrestling concepts, the Survivor Series. The PPV debuted in 1987 when the WWF's chief rival, the NWA, decided to venture into the PPV market with Starrcade '87. Vince McMahon, in full-on predatory mode, created a new gimmick PPV to go head-to-head with Jim Crockett's flagship show, but also told the cable companies they would have to choose between Starrcade and Survivor Series, and if they chose the former they would not be permitted to carry the following year's WrestleMania event. This unfortunately crippled Starrcade's distribution (a shame since Starrcade '87 was a helluva show) and essentially ruined Crockett's PPV hopes, leading to the promotion's sale to Ted Turner in 1988.
The Survivor Series was built around a simple but ultra-awesome concept, superteams of five wrestlers (with either one or two captains depending on the year) battling for supremacy in a sequence of elimination matches. The last team (or portion thereof) left standing would be the winners. I had seen six-man elimination tag matches but the idea of a 5-on-5 version blew my freakin' mind and I absolutely loved this plan.
For the first few editions the show was entirely comprised of these elimination matches, but as the years have worn on WWE has almost disowned them and made the card more like a regular old PPV with an occasional elimination bout thrown in. The result has been a very watered-down version of a once epic annual tradition. But let's take a look at the history of WWE's second-oldest PPV event.
 |
| Survivor Series 1987 - Richfield Coliseum - 11/26/87 |
The original Survivor Series was an absolutely colossal extravaganza. The three-hour PPV consisted of only four matches, three of which pitted teams of five against each other. The fourth (and this was fucking GENIUS) stacked five tag teams to a side, and when one man from a tag team was eliminated, both members were gone. So for example if Dynamite Kid got pinned, his partner Davey Boy Smith had to leave the ring as well. This match type was only featured in the first two Survivor Series' (and was brought back in 2016), but it was amazing. It also demonstrated how incredibly deep the tag team division used to be.
 |
| That there is a tag team division. |
The first event opened with the team of Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake, and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan facing the Honky Tonk Man, Hercules, "Outlaw" Ron Bass, Harley Race, and Danny Davis. Savage and HTM were feuding over the Intercontinental Title, and the "Macho Man" had become the second-most popular babyface in the company. Also consider how monumental it was that Savage and Steamboat were teaming up only months after their venomous blood feud. This match was absolutely thrilling and kicked off this historic event in style. Team Savage was dominant, winning the match with three survivors (Savage, Steamboat and Jake) after the hopelessly outnumbered Honky Tonk Man took a powder and got counted out. Just twenty-four minutes of BOSS.
