Thursday, November 26th, 1987
Richfield Coliseum
Richfield, Ohio
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Off The Grid, Volume 40:
Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura are introduced and welcome us to the show. It's crazy how much difference a year or so makes in this era, because this show still looks and feels very old fashioned even compared to 1988-89. With this being the first ever Survivor Series, they go over the rules of the matches.
Craig DeGeorge is with Honky Tonk Man's team and it's lots of chatter while Honky hyping up the team. This is the type of fun that's missing from the current era of wrestling. We go to Mean Gene with Randy Savage's team and we get some more fun nonsense.
Honky Tonk Man, Harley Race, Hercules, Ron Bass & Danny Davis vs. Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Brutus Beefcake, Jake Roberts & Jim Duggan
As is the case with most major matches during this era, the crowd is outstanding to start here. Beefcake and Hercules start if you are wondering for trivia purposes. Beefcake slaps on the sleeper quickly, but he's able to get out of it. Davis is able to hit a knee to the face of Steamboat to slow down Savage's teams momentum. Race tries throwing Steamboat out of the ring twice, but both times he skins the cat. Steamboat throws Race out, but he races quickly in and hits a suplex. In comes Duggan and he clotheslines Race over the top rope and they start brawling on the floor, leading to a double countout. So your first ever eliminations are Duggan and Race. Savage is able to make a blind tag to Beefcake and that leads to him hitting a high knee on Bass to eliminate him. We get some classic Honky Tonk Man selling from Beefcake until Beefcake runs the ropes and into Davis's knee. Honky hits the Shake Rattle 'N' Roll Neckbreaker and Brutus is gone. Jesse basically buries Honky by saying "What he lacks in ability, he makes up with sheer luck", which is kind of an odd comment for a heel commentator to make about a heel wrestler. Roberts hits the short arm clothesline on Davis and into the DDT to eliminate Davis. Hercules comes in and clocks Roberts. After working on Roberts, he's able to get a hot tag to Steamboat and the crowd is loving it. It leads to Savage hitting the top rope elbow and we now have a 3 on 1 situation for Honky Tonk Man. He gets absolutely dominated, so Honky decides to head to the back for the anticlimatic victory for Savage, Roberts and Steamboat. This was good fun though overall with a hot crowd.
Match Rating: ***1/4
We go to Bobby Heenan, Andre The Giant, Butch Reed, Rick Rude, King Kong Bundy, Slick and One Man Gang to hype up their main event match tonight.
We get a weird cut with the women already in the ring. I wonder what was there originally?
Dawn Marie, Donna Christianello, Sensational Sherri & Glamour Girls vs. Velvet McIntyre, Rockin' Robin, Fabulous Moolah & Jumping Bomb Angels
Moolah being a face seems kind of weird to me and she doesn't get much of a positive reaction. Christianello is 45 here and looks 65. She gets eliminated quickly by McIntyre with a victory roll. They know they aren't as over since they are never on television, but they are definitely trying to make the most of the opportunity here with the effort. I should note that Jimmy Hart is managing the Glamour Girls. Rockin' Robin hits a crossbody on Dawn Marie and she's gone. We get a taste of the awesome Jumping Bomb Angels and they show off some innovative offense. Sherri is able to eliminate Robin with a suplex. We kind of hit a lull in the match where the match just isn't as sharp. Ironically, it's when the old veteran Moolah is in. No coincidence there. She stinks. She telegraphs getting hit by a clothesline and thankfully is out of this match. Sherri hits an awkward looking suplex on Velvet. Leilani hits a nice double underhook suplex, but the Jumping Bomb Angel bridges out of that. The bell rings because apparently they don't know the difference between 2 and 3. Velvet hits an airplane spin on Sherri and then hits a victory roll to pin the champion. Leilani is able to eliminate Velvet and we now have a true tag team match. That probably would have just been the better choice here. Kai misses a top rope splash and gets hit by a crossbody to eliminate Kai. The Angels knock Jimmy Hart off the apron and then pick up the victory on Martin. This was just way too long and really lacked in storytelling.
Match Rating: 3/4*
It's time to go to the heel team for the tag team match. Bobby Heenan once again leads the way on teh interview. Jimmy Hart comes in and he's on edge, but changes his jacket. More fun chaos. We then go to the ring with Slick introducing the Bolsheviks to sing the Russian national anthem. No one interferes.
Mean Gene is with the face team. It's good to see best buddies Jacques Rougeau and Dynamite Kid get to team together.
Bolsheviks, Demolition, Dream Team, Islanders & Hart Foundation vs. British Bulldogs, Young Stallions, Rougeau Brothers, Killer Bees & Strike Force
As it has been said many times over the years, there are just too many wrestlers on the ring apron for this one. It's an absolute nightmare for the camera crew. Santana is able to catch Zhukov with the flying forearm and the Bolsheviks are gone. The Rougeaus are eliminated after a missed crossbody by Jacques. This is probably the hardest I have ever seen Dino Bravo work before. Smash runs into the turnbuckle and gets hit by a Dynamite Kid clothesline. Smash and Ax start double teaming Dynamite and the ref tries to stop them, so they shove him out of the way, causing the disqualification. Bret Hart comes in and hits a piledriver for a 2. The pace quickens and Tito is able to hit a flying forearm on Neidhart, but Bret makes the save and apparently the elbow to the back of the head was enough for Neidhart to pin Tito. That was weak. Ventura is impressed by the Young Stallions being able to kick out of pins. I'm sure they will have a great career. So far all of these matches have hit a wall at some point where the inexperience of this type of match is shown. They just start doing whatever and lose the momentum from the early part of the match. Davey Boy hits a running powerslam on Haku, but he's able to kick out. The Bulldogs hit a suplex/second rope headbutt combo. Dynamite sells the hard head of Haku and gets hit with a superkick to be eliminated. Dino hits that deadly side suplex and instead of pinning him, he tags in Valentine for the Figure Four. He kicks out of it and it leads to Roma hitting a sunset flip to eliminate the Dream Team. This thing has just gone on way too long here. Tama dropkicks Bret while Brunzell has him up, but it backfires and Brunzell rolls through and pins Bret. We get some pretty standard stuff until the Killer Bees use a mask to confuse the referees and illegally pin the Islanders. Um, sure? So the Stallions and Bees are your survivors, which given hindsight seems like a pretty poor decision. This was good, but it was so long that you just started to not care about it.
Match Rating: ***
We go to Ted DiBiase in a limo counting money and talking about how much better he is than us. They then show him insulting children and adults from TV. Early DiBiase was classic. Much like the tag team match, this was also very long.
We get a long recap of the show so far with Gorilla and Jesse. They are just killing time and it's making this show feel like it's 5 hours long.
Honky Tonk Man and Jimmy Hart come out to the arena for a live interview. This show just continues to drag, as he basically says nothing here.
We go to Mean Gene with Hulk Hogan's random team. Seriously, they couldn't have spared him someone a little better than Ken Patera?
King Kong Bundy, Rick Rude, Butch Reed, One Man Gang & Andre The Giant vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, Ken Patera, Don Muraco, Paul Orndorff & Hulk Hogan
Rude and Muraco start things off. Rude's tights...yikes. I'm not even sure what he was going for with street sign tights. The face team just destroys Rude to start, but he's able to get to Butch Reed for the tag. Hogan and Orndorff double clothesline Reed and then Hogan hits the leg drop to eliminate him. Hogan is celebrating with his team and when he turns around, Andre is there. For some reason Hogan tags Patera. The match comes to a crawl with Patera and Gang in there. They both go for a clothesline, but Gang's is the one that wins and he falls on top of Patera to eliminate him. Bam Bam and Hogan hit a double boot on Gang to shift the momentum, however Bam Bam and Gang collide and both are down. Rude is back in, but so is Orndorff. Orndorff is a house of fire and signals for the piledriver. Bundy comes in from behind and nails him, allowing Rude to roll him up and eliminate him. Muraco hits a powerslam on Rude and that's enough to eliminate him, making it 3 on 3. Muraco tries to slam Gang, but he falls on top and almost gets eliminated. Muraco is thrown into Andre's corner and he takes a shot allowing Gang to hit a splash to eliminate him. Bundy hits a big clothesline on Bam Bam, but Hogan breaks up the count. We finally get back to Hogan and Andre. It all just leads to some distractions on the outside from Gang and Bundy, which just means Hogan is getting counted out. The crowd is not happy with this, as this was an absolute rarity during the Hogan era. They announce that if Hogan doesn't go to the back, Andre's team wins. That leaves Bam Bam to take on 1,500 pounds of Andre, Gang and Bundy. Bam Bam hits a dropkick on Bundy. He hits a slingshot splash on Bundy and he's gone. One Man Gang goes up to the top, but Bam Bam moves out of the way and we are down to just Bam Bam and Andre. Bam Bam tries to use his speed to avoid Andre, but he eventually gets him and hits a suplex for the victory. Not to be outdone, Hulk runs down right away and nails him with the WWF Championship. This is the match that gave us the "Hogan must pose" quote. I mean Andre didn't even get a second to acknowledge the victory. This match was a little bit more well constructed than the others and has the rare Hogan loss to boost it a little bit.
Match Rating: ***
As Hogan is still posing, we go back to Mean Gene with Andre and Heenan. They naturally want a title shot. Jess and Gorilla wrap it up before we get some still photos of the show to close it out.
The matches were mostly decent here, but the show felt like 6 hours instead of 3. They were still figuring out things as far as how the Survivor Series matches flowed and the production wasn't what it would be in a year or so. I'm sure some people love this one, but it's not one I watch often for a reason.
Overall Rating: 46%
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