WWF Survivor Series 1993

WWF Survivor Series 1993
Boston, MA
Boston Garden
November 24, 1993

I’m going to just flat out say it – this pay per view objectively sucks. Because of the memories and the era, I’ve always loved it to a certain degree, but even at the time I didn’t think it was very good. I always tried to love it, because at least they return mostly to the traditional format, but with a depleted roster, shitty surprises, and last minute substitutions, this Series is just overall disappointing.

I haven’t watched it in a few years, and I’m up to this point chronologically, so with November recently upon us, I decided to try and give it another go. It certainly has not got any better with age. The event starts good, but ends with a whimper, as the Lex Express was sputtering by this point, almost out of gas. The lackluster and dull main event really ends this on a flat note.

Dark Match) Billy Gunn pinned the Brooklyn Brawler at 7:46 with a sunset flip off the top

I have a copy of the pre-show and was kind of excited to see it again. This was the first event to feature the new and better format of having Todd Pettingill live in the arena, roving around and pitching to all the different hype packages. Up until this point, every countdown show was pre-taped and studio based, so this was far more exciting. I remember how thrilled I was to watch the countdown show as you got a sneak peek of the arena and set up, and got to see bits and pieces of the dark match, something that has always fascinated me. The live format was fantastic, as Todd is all over the historic Boston Garden and we get cool shots from various points in the arena, even the upper deck.

It’s bizarre that with such a weak roster, guys like the Smoking Gunns weren’t even featured on the card. You get to see a fair chunk of this dark match, including the finish, and the crowd pops big for Billy. Instead of bringing in the ancient Rock N Roll Express, why not just have the Gunns challenge the Bodies for the Smoky Mountain titles? It would have got that match far more over.

The PPV opens with Lex Luger and his robot wife and kids seated in front of the fire in their home, wishing warm American holiday greetings from his family to yours. Luger was so disingenuous in this good guy role, and comes across like a smarmy asshole. They booked him so smart leading up to Summerslam. The more of him we saw on TV the worse he became.

Vince McMahon and Bobby the Brain Heenan are on commentary and are HILARIOUS throughout the event. Heenan was only weeks away from leaving, but really brings his comedic A game. Heenan had me roaring with laughter as his insulted the Hart Family, the “Doinks”, Luger, etc. Fantastic! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his commentary in all the 93 stuff I watched. He was comedic gold with Ross, McMahon, and of course Monsoon. Speaking of Gorilla, him and Jim Ross were doing Radio WWF commentary and throughout the night, they kept teasing the Heenan-Monsoon feud, with Monsoon threatening to get his hands on the weasel right from his opening remarks.

1) WWF IC Champion Razor Ramon, Randy Savage (sub. for Mr. Perfect), the 1-2-3 Kid, & Marty Jannetty defeated IRS, Rick Martel, Adam Bomb (w/ Harvey Wippleman), & Diesel in an elimination match at 26:59

I remember when watching it live being confused and upset that Mr. Perfect no-showed. A couple weeks before Series, Matt and I were at the Winnipeg Arena house show where Perfect also no-showed and was replaced by Bob Backlund against Diesel (where Matt got lectured by Backlund in frightening fashion). The Perfect-Michaels feud fizzled out after SummerSlam due to Michaels’ suspension and the feud was transitioned to Perfect-Diesel. I remember reading rumors that there was talk of letting Diesel go around this point, but was saved by getting so over in the 94 Rumble. Perfect was collecting huge dollars once again thanks to his insurance policy, but it was impossible to know that at the time. The roof nearly blows off the Garden when Razor introduces Savage. What a missed opportunity in 93, parking Savage in the commentary booth. He was still so hugely over and could have done a lot to get some feuds and new talent over.

This is definitely the best and most exciting match on the show, and was truly a nice return to form. If only the rest of the show delivered to this level. I love how they included all the top IC contenders and feuds into this one match. Lots of great action and tags to start, and I love how they continued the angle from Superstars of Rick Martel and Adam Bomb not being able to get along. Martel had a great little run when they brought him back in late 93 and into early 94 before he departs again. The biggest highlight of the match was Savage, as the crowd was just electric when he was in the ring. His elimination of Diesel was maybe the pop of the night. Man did they ever drop the ball by not using Savage to help get Luger over. Savage’s focus on Crush caused him to be pinned by IRS in another nice touch. It got the number one IC title contender a major pin, and furthered the heat in the boiling hot Savage-Crush feud. The match slows down for the second half, which is just fine by me. I liked the surprise of Razor and IRS being eliminated, and it coming down to the four least likely team members. Jannetty and the Kid winning was a major upset and a really cool and fun surprise! They even carried their victory to a very short title reign in just over a month’s time. What a great opening match!

The Bret Hart-Jerry Lawler feud was red hot throughout the fall, outdrawing Lex Luger – Ludvig Borga on the house show circuit. Lawler’s arrest and dismissal put a massive dent into the plans for Series and really derailed what should have been a hot match. However, I doubt even Lawler’s presence could have saved this boring mess from the doldrums. They hastily brought back a bloated Shawn Michaels (sporting quite a beer gut and clearly not giving a singe fuck) and inserted him into this feud, under the pretense that Michaels was sour over losing to Bret the year before. I applaud their efforts because this was a mess of a situation. I’ve always tried to come up with an alternate booking idea for this match, but without Lawler, it’s next to impossible.

Ray Combs is in the ring to play up the Family Feud. His act was funny at Wrestlemania VIII, but falls totally flat here. The crowd is dead silent for his terrible and unfunny jokes. This was far worse than I remembered it being.

2) Bret, Owen, Bruce, & Keith Hart (w/ Stu Hart) defeated Shawn Michaels, the Black, Blue, & Red Knight in an elimination match at 30:56

What a truly epic and disappointing letdown the Knights turned out to be. There was so much hype for the Knights, that Matt and myself discussed for weeks all the possibilities. We were convinced that Lawler would be recruiting three new awesome heels to the company. We speculated over all the possible baddies that Lawler could bring in: newcomers from WCW or the indies, returning guys like Papa Shango, the Berzerker or Nailz (lol). But of course it was three masked nobodies (even Greg Valentine without the mask would have been a better fucking surprise). Talk about an EPIC fucking disappointment!

The match itself is slow, boring, and uninteresting. The crowd dies a slow death as this crawls along at a snails pace to the half hour mark. Both Bruce and Keith are competent workers, but nobody gave a single shit about these anonymous Knights and the half baked Shawn Michaels feud. Couldn’t they have come up with something better than Barry Horowitz in red pajamas working a headlock on a fireman? The absolute highlight of this debacle is the commentary from Bobby Heenan. This is some of Heenan’s finest heel commentary, endlessly mocking Stu and the whole Hart family. I was barely watching the match itself, just listening to the Brain’s top shelf remarks and Vince’s incredulous reactions. This needlessly stretches on forever, with Shawn and the useless Knights working at a glacial pace. The whole sequence with Owen is really great, but it just takes forever to get to that point. I love the set up with the Hitman selling the eye gouge and taking a pretty solid bump that brings down the guardrail. Owen was nearly on par with Bruce and Keith at this point, as he had been treated as nothing more than a jobber throughout 93, so this was a legitimate surprise. The ending itself falls flat with Michaels just walking away. Why not just have Bret make him submit to the sharpshooter? What a lame finish after a long half hour grind.

The post match Owen tantrum was my favorite moment from this whole show and something we talked about at school for weeks. This heel turn was expertly done, and I’m so glad that Bret lobbied for Owen to be in this role, not Bruce as suggested to him.

3) Tom Prichard & Jimmy Del Ray (w/ Jim Cornette) defeated SMW Tag Team Champions Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson to win the titles at around the 13-minute mark when Prichard pinned Gibson after Del Ray came off the top rope with Cornette’s tennis racquet behind the referee’s back

The internet fans seem to love this tag team match, calling it a hidden gem of sorts. Meh, I’m not really as big of a fan of it. Bringing in two tag teams from Smoky Mountain fell flat with the WWF faithful, myself included. Especially from such a deep southern promotion. The Boston crowd could care less. There was nothing wrong with the work, but the Express felt like relics from another time. The Bodies were great though, and like I said earlier, they could have just won the titles in Smoky Mountain and defended them against a WWF team like the Gunns. Jim Ross is really interesting on commentary, putting over the Midnight Express and the long history the RNR Express had with them. I’m certain that’s the first ever NWA reference of any kind on a WWF pay per view! It was really surprising to hear it. The Bodies win the titles because of WWF rules, much to the dismay of the RNR Express. I’m not a huge fan of southern indie wrestling so this didn’t do a whole lot for me.

One awesome aspect of this show were the team interviews before some of the matches. Great idea to bring back these interviews! There was none better than the Bigelow team interview where the Headshrinkers, Afa, and Booger are ripping into a turkey carcass and roaring. Fucking hilarious!

4) Men on a Mission (w/ Oscar) & the Bushwhackers (all dressed as Doink the Clown) defeated Bam Bam Bigelow (w/ Luna Vachon), Bastion Booger, & the Headshrinkers (w/ Afa) in an elimination match at 10:58

I’ve seen this garbage WAYYYY too many times! In the early 90s I picked up a VHS tape of the WWF’s Most Unusual Matches from the States, which featured this hot mess. Of course I watched that tape over and over so every second of this is burned into my mind forever. The Four Doinks promised to be another fun match of surprises, but was also an epic letdown, just like the Knights. Men On A Mission get a huge pop from the fans and are by far the most over. Instead of the four Doinks crap, they should have just booked it as Doink, Men on a Mission, and some jabroni like Bob Backlund or Virgil. Or bring in a wacky character like Superfly Jimmy Snuka as a surprise. Vince McMahon is LAUGHING through all of this, clearly more entertained than anyone else, while Heenan subtly buries this crap through humor. This was utterly atrocious and horrible in every way possible! Poor Bam Bam. At least he should have gone over.

5) Lex Luger, the Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer), Rick & Scott Steiner defeated WWF World Champion Yokozuna (w/ Mr. Fuji & Jim Cornette), WWF Tag Team Champion Jacques Rougeau (w/ Johnny Polo), Ludvig Borga, & Crush in an elimination match at 27:59

This main event was so well built and hyped, yet fell so flat in the end. This should have been a star making performance for Luger, but was unbelievably dull. The action was a mess of botches and really boring points. It should have been hot and explosive, not so slow paced. Apparently Rick Steiner was hurt for real in the early moments, which maybe is what threw this thing off track. The eliminations were overall piss poor though, with Luger pinning Jacques with a fucking weak elbow from the second rope! The greatest moment of the match is when the Undertaker and Yokozuna finally face off! Despite wrestling on house shows (and Coliseum Videos) throughout the year, this was their first official on-camera meeting. The crowd was red hot for the Undertaker, and the short sequence with him and Yoko was excellent. The air was sucked out of the building when they were both counted out. What the fuck! Crush had just been counted out minutes before, why do another countout in the same fucking match?! That’s just irritating. No one gave a shit about Luger-Borga in the end, as Borga was just not a credible threat to Luger. I get that they were using him as a stopgap before Luger got back to Yoko, but man, he had no heat and the crowd didn’t care. The whole foreign heel angle was so dead in fall 93. Probably should have used a competent worker like Bam Bam Bigelow instead. Anyway, the match limps towards it’s predictable conclusion with Luger putting away Borga to a mild pop. And then we the hilarious conclusion of “snow” falling and Santa coming down to celebrate with Lex.

This show fills me with a tremendous amount of nostalgia. Takes me right back to grade 7 and all the memories from that era. It’s definitely not a great event, and I hate to admit that it’s objectively terrible, but yeah, the matches for the most part were on the weaker side.