Survivor Series

[Isabellas2007]

I know this started off as a great elimination type of match. However, its style has changed drastically lately. So which of the matches is your favorite ones and why are they your favorite over some of the other matches you have seen in this great Thanksgiving classic!

 

[Crippler]

So if we're only doing the Traditional Survivor Series matches

Survivor Series 2001 - Winner Take All: WWF vs. Alliance
The crowd was electric, all the stars were here, well kind of. This match is laid out like most matches that are 45 minutes long: The first 10 minutes are exciting, the middle 30 minutes are quite slow, and the last 5 minutes are off the charts. But the only bad this was everyone knew what the order of elimination was going to be (with a bit of doubt in the Taker/Kane/RVD/Booker combination) and that it was going to come down to Rock-Austin with a face turn to help vince cause they've been building it for weeks. ***3/4

Survivor Series 2005 - Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown
The match was good and i liked the booking of most of the eliminations but even at 25 minutes this still felt fast as hell and some of the eliminations were too close together. I think we got 6 elminiations in the space of 5 minutes. ***

Survivor Series 1995 - Wild Card Match: Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, The British Bulldog & Sycho Sid (w/Ted Dibiase & Jim Cornette) vs. Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon & Dean Douglas (w/Mr. Fuji)
WWE Interim President Gorilla Monsoon mixed up the teams so that heels and faces wound up teaming with one another. Okay this was fun with the babyface/babyface and heel/heel match-ups. The wrestling was good and fast paced with one Yoko nerve hold slowing it down; everyone in the ring was pretty talented at this point so it leads to a good match. ***

Survivor Series 1993 - Irwin R. Shyster, Diesel, Rick Martel & Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Whippleman) vs. Razor Ramon, Randy Savage, the 1-2-3 Kid & Marty Janetty
A really fun way to kick off a ppv, it was action packed from bell to bell. ***1/4

Survivor Series 1991 - Ted DiBiase, The Mountie, Warlord and Ric Flair vs. Bret Hart, Virgil, Davey Boy Smith and Roddy Piper
We’ve got four feuds, DiBiase/Virgil, Mountie/Hart, Warlord/Bulldog, and Flair/Piper. Three champions in Bret Hart, the IC Champ; DiBiase, the Million Dollar Champ; and Ric Flair, the REAL World’s Champ (but not really!) so this has history to it. Okay the match was great but the only thing that lets it down is finish, it would be an easy ****1/2. But since the finish was pretty lame, i gotta got ***3/4 (still a must watch)

Survivor Series 2003 - Stone Cold's Team vs. Bischoff's Team
The match wasn’t much before the 3-on-1 sequence, but everything after was just amazing. Though the honors have to go to HBK for one of my favorite unsung performances of his. Somehow, it's even better because it's in defeat which rarely happens for him. ****1/4

Survivor Series 1988 - Demolition, The Bolsheviks, The Conquistadors, The Brainbusters & The Rougeau Brothers (w/Bobby Heenan, Mr. Fuji & Jimmy Hart) vs. The Hart Foundation, The Young Stallions, the Rockers, The British Bulldogs & the Powers of Pain
This match all sorts of ruled, six ways to awesome; possibly one of the most entertaining Survivor Series matches of all time; nonstop action, double teams, double switches, etc. One of the most remembered double switches in WWF history happened in the closing minutes here as well, and it kicked off one of the more popular and dominating tag teams ever in the WWF. **** - ****1/4

 

[Isabellas2007]

Those are some great matches! Do you feel the PPV lost some of its uniqueness when they went away from the elimination type of format or do you think this just the regular matches taking most of it or do you think it is better? I personally liked the older style of elimination because it made for some great matches and action!

 

[The New F'n Show]

Loved the original concept, you got to see some guys square off that you normally wouldn't. I understand why they changed it though, nothing at stake in those matches.

 

[Got_Swag]

Survivor Series is not anywhere what it used to be and is basically in my opinion a ppv like an Over the Limit, No Way Out type of ppv. It has no meaning anymore and has lost that edge since the Team Raw vs Team Smackdown in 2005 when Randy Orton beat Shawn Michaels to win it for Smackdown. After that it's been meaningless. Even though DX had that one good traditional tag team match win with CM Punk, and The Hardy's. Overall my favorite match will be from the 1989 Survivor Series, The Hulkamaniacs vs. The Million $ Team. Hulk Hogan vs. Zeus at the end of it was like watching No Holds Barred and I always enjoy watching it! Close to that one would be The Alliance vs. WWF, that was a classic!

 

[The Cork]

Love the one from 2006 with DX, Punk, etc vs Nitro, Knox and whoever.

 

[Isabellas2007]

Could they not recreate the original concept and make it a little bit more like the winner gets to win some extra money or something like that? I think this would make it even more interesting because it could be treated like a King of the Ring type of match and even lead to them getting to have the elimination go on to where each team would have to move on a round to face another team with just the remaining wrestlers?

 

[Waynefire]

This would be a good idea, but would it be feasible for the company to do this financially? Probably would be okay for them once to try this, but I doubt if they could afford it year after year. However, the buy rates may be higher then normal for buys because of the different format.

 

[Crippler]

I want them to bring back the concept and have the winning team take over raw or smackdown for a week like they did back on Raw's 2004 survivor series

 

[The New F'n Show]

I want them to bring back the concept and have the winning team take over raw or smackdown for a week like they did back on Raw's 2004 survivor series

I'd be totally cool with that but that's just one match, not the whole show.

 

[We Are Legion]

The tradition Survivor Series matches are one of my favorite match types, but they used to work better before Raw and Smackdown were around because for a lot of viewers, it was the first time they got to witness certain match-ups. That's why it was perfectly fine to do several of those matches without titles or really anything significant at stake. It was so good back then it ran Starrcade off Thanksgiving week.

Now it's a lot different, now those matches are only pimping out match-ups the fans have seen a billion times before, so there generally has to be something "at stake" to make those matches interesting. It's hard to sell those matches now because pride alone isn't enough these days.

I think it could still work with the right booking, but WWE has become so singles-oriented they would have to really dig deep to make it work and I'm not sure WWE cares about it that much.