Brian Zane, Denise Salcedo, Steve and Larson, SP3 and the WrestleTalk boys discuss the five greatest Survivor Series moments and what they meant to them and what they meant for wrestling!
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Watch 'Is Charlotte Flair ACTUALLY Good? | PartsFUNknown' here! https://youtu.be/sqixulQ_dM4
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Yeah, it's the last kind of great stipulation.
00:02 They gave the shield every advantage that you could possibly have.
00:06 I compared it when we did the review of it to the sixth sense.
00:08 The biggest reason is evolution. His character always changed as the years went on.
00:14 Brett is grumpy, Sean's a prick, and Vince was wrong.
00:28 I remember I was watching when Bischoff started talking about the Elimination Chamber,
00:34 and it seemed like a big mess.
00:38 The concept, like they had, I remember they had like the graphics, like the blueprint,
00:41 and I was like, "Am I supposed to figure out what the hell that thing looks like with the blueprint?"
00:45 And then he's talking about pods and people coming out of pods.
00:48 I remember being very young when this was introduced, and I remember
00:53 them making it seem like it was Eric Bischoff's big grand idea.
00:57 I remember watching the video packages for this and thinking,
01:01 "Man, this is so cool. This is the best invention ever."
01:04 Yeah, it's the last kind of great stipulation I think that WWE have created. It's phenomenal.
01:12 Maybe Money in the Bank. Maybe Money in the Bank.
01:14 When I first saw the Elimination Chamber, I was pretty blown away by it.
01:17 When I started watching wrestling, it was 1998. The Hell in a Cell was still a relatively fresh
01:22 concept, but I still was hungry as a fan to see what else they could do to push the envelope and
01:27 try and just think outside the box in terms of match concepts and what kind of structures they
01:31 can come up with. So when I saw the Chamber in its full completed form, when I saw them
01:36 actually perform in the Chamber itself for the matches, especially in '02, I was pretty enthralled
01:41 with it. I love the concept of combining the War Games element, the Rumble element, and a big cage
01:46 structure to really add to the severity of the situation in those matches. I think it was a
01:52 pretty cool concept. So 2002 Survivor Series was the first ever Elimination Chamber match,
01:59 which is remarkable in itself, but I think the moment that really the story running through this
02:05 was that this was Shawn Michaels' big return from wrestling. He'd been out of a back injury.
02:10 He returned to wrestling with this new attitude that was supposedly no longer the sort of
02:15 egomaniac that was part of the Montreal Screwjob, which we'll get to in a bit,
02:20 but it was this new version of Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels winning the first Elimination
02:27 Chamber match, organized of course by my dad. It was great. I just wish he hadn't done it in
02:32 brown tights. Worst tights he's ever worn, those tights. Also the worst hair he's ever had.
02:40 Altogether, presentation of Shawn Michaels on that one night, kind of the big night since he came
02:46 back. Terrible hair and terrible tights. Horrible poo tights. Really good match though. Bloody LHHH
02:54 wrestling with a crushed throat. The first ever Elimination Chamber match and Shawn Michaels
03:00 winning it, this may get me some heat. Shawn Michaels is great. He is one of the greatest
03:07 of all time, but I'm not a Michaels guy. I was a Bret Hart guy. So yeah, like Michaels coming back
03:14 and winning the title, it was a great moment and everything, but yeah, come at me. Shawn Michaels
03:20 winning seemed to be the only option that made sense. At the time, Shawn coming back and winning
03:24 the championship was a real cool feel good moment. I think that having not watched his first run
03:31 until many years later, watching it in hindsight for reviews and stuff, I think that Shawn's second
03:37 run easily surpasses his first in a lot of different ways. He may not have won as many titles,
03:42 but he was still like the man. He was still so good at what he did. Like he was older,
03:47 he was wiser. He was still able to do a lot of what he did in his first run and just do it better.
03:51 I think that time away made him a better performer ultimately. Michaels winning as well. So not only
03:57 have you got the Chamber match, you've also got Michaels after that excellent SummerSlam bout with
04:03 Triple H and you're like, okay, well that was maybe a one-off, but he just got better and better
04:10 and better. And I, maybe it's because I wasn't watching in real time, the Michaels run unfold in
04:17 the nineties, but I was in the noughties and those WrestleMania performances. Hell yeah. The greatest,
04:24 one of, if not the greatest performers in the history of wrestling, Shawn Michaels, if his
04:29 back was fine and he was, he had his head on straight, absolutely. He deserved a second reign
04:35 or a second run. A hundred percent, a thousand percent. Yes.
04:39 And then there's this brilliant moment right at the end where Triple H goes for a pedigree and
04:44 Shawn kicks out on the exact last moment because the man selling is on point for the whole match.
04:50 He is just selling up a storm as he's getting this ridiculous beat down. You just remember that,
04:55 that's, that is one of Shawn Michaels' best things. Nevermind all the flips and the athleticism and
05:02 all the kind of charisma. He's selling his next level.
05:05 The debut of the shield, man, like the shield were brilliant.
05:15 The shield are without a doubt the best WWE faction in the last 15 years.
05:21 I mean, it's gotta be up there. I don't know if there's been a stable
05:26 that has had as much success on an individual level as much as the shield did.
05:33 Now the shield debuting at Survivor Series 2012, for me, that's probably right when I was at like
05:42 my peak of wrestling interest. I was still riding the wave from Money in the Bank 2011, and I was
05:47 still all into what Punk was doing. So I was super invested in this match. And then Survivor Series
05:54 2012, these three lads show up and you kind of suddenly was like, huh, okay, all right.
06:00 Got these three new guys here. It's, it's Roman Reigns and it's Seth Rollins, it's Dean Ambrose.
06:04 And if you're watching like here in the UK, we used to get NXT. So if you're watching it,
06:07 you're like, oh, okay. I kind of know these guys because I've seen them periodically. Like, you
06:12 know, Rollins was an NXT champion. Reigns didn't really do a great job. I don't think Ambrose even
06:16 made it onto NXT TV. He made that like once or twice or so. I remember watching the shield debut
06:20 and made quite the impact. And I was like, who are these three guys in the mock turtlenecks,
06:24 you know, destroying everything. And at the time I didn't really watch
06:29 NXT. I did not know what FCW was. I didn't really pay attention to independent wrestling like I do
06:38 now. So I had absolutely no clue who any of those three gentlemen were. But as you know, we all got
06:44 to know them, became fans of theirs. - So when the shield attack Ryback and Cena during the triple
06:50 threat match with CM Punk, this is like a moment that just has these ripples that go over throughout
06:57 modern WWE. You can still see the imprint and the impact of that power bomb, triple power bomb
07:02 through the table. - And when these three lads came in dressed all in black and started beating
07:06 up Ryback, I was like, oh, for God's sake, it's another like screwy finish with some random nobody
07:12 jobbers who are just going to beat up Ryback for this one match. And then the commentary started
07:17 saying, oh my God, that's Dean Ambrose. I was like, wait, I know about Dean Ambrose. I've heard
07:22 about him on these forums that I've been on. He's supposed to be involved in a few with Mick Foley
07:26 over the summer and stuff like that. And then he said, that's Seth Rollins. I was like, I know him
07:30 from NXT. And then I started getting really excited because I saw that this was a debut of a
07:34 brand new faction. - It created so many memorable moments, but really the shield is synonymous
07:41 on WWE being able to create three new stars. And this is something that WWE gets a lot of
07:48 criticism to almost this day. And it's always been the same for the past decade. - I was convinced
07:55 like, oh, you know, you get a brief little run undefeated, whatever, and then you lose,
08:01 and then you keep losing and to eventually become three and beat. Like everyone's waiting for that
08:05 to happen. But it never did, which is the incredible thing. - They gave the shield every advantage that
08:12 you could possibly have. They inserted them into some of the biggest things. They had them working
08:15 with the biggest stars in the company and they very quickly gave them triple championships. And
08:20 look where it got them all. All three guys have been top champions in the company at some point
08:26 in their career. And obviously Jon Moxley has gone on to basically walk in the door at AEW
08:31 and become their champions, let them for a year as their top guy. - And I think that, you know,
08:36 my favorite shield member for the bulk of its run was Dean Ambrose, because he was kind of the crazy
08:41 one. I was shocked to find out he wasn't the leader of the group. I always thought he was.
08:45 And then like when Seth Rollins turned on them, oh, he turned out to be the leader the whole time?
08:49 Okay, I'll go with that for now. - Like when he initially debuted,
08:54 I was a big Seth Rollins fan. I love Seth Rollins from his time at Tyler Black in ROH. But as time
09:02 went on, the promo work of Dean Ambrose just made me engaged. - I think with Moxley now in AEW,
09:11 a shield reunion feels like it would be a bigger deal at this point. - I'd love to lie and say,
09:19 no, they're done now. You can't go back and nostalgia and wrestling is bad. I'd be up for it,
09:26 of course. And no one can say that they wouldn't mark out if the shield reformed randomly somehow.
09:34 - But I've got to be honest, I've got no interest in ever seeing them reform again.
09:38 They've done that storyline enough times with the various tag runs and the fist bumps backstage.
09:45 I'm happy with them to all be separate forever, but maybe they come back for a big three-person
09:52 interpromotional match when AEW starts working with WWE. So that'll never happen.
09:58 -
10:04 I am going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say that Survivor Series 1998 is the most perfect
10:14 one-night pay-per-view storyline ever told. - Corporate Champion, Deadly Games is one of my
10:23 favorite WWF pay-per-views of all time. Survivor Series 98, it's fantastic.
10:29 - So Survivor Series 98 is actually still my favorite pay-per-view ever.
10:33 - Deadly Game, man, that was like one of my favorite pay-per-views of all time.
10:37 - It's kind of like, I compared it when we did the review of it to The Sixth Sense, where
10:41 if you know where it's going, the building blocks of that story are presented to you
10:46 plain as day. But if you don't know where it's going, the end can hit you like a ton of bricks.
10:50 I was a huge, huge Rock fan at the time. I was really into his face turn.
10:56 - I was less than a year into my fandom in '98 when The Rock turned heel and joined the
11:00 corporation. And I was furious at Survivor Series when he won the tournament and joined up
11:06 with the corporation. I was so crestfallen. I was like 13 years old. I should have known better.
11:11 - Oh man, Corporate Rock, the corporation, the corporate champion, The Rock turning on Mick
11:18 Foley. When you think Foley was going to be McMahon's chosen guy to win the WWF Championship,
11:23 this is honestly, it's not just a great moment. It's arguably one of the greatest Survivor Series
11:28 ever. - The Rock wins the Deadly Games
11:31 tournament to become the WWF Champion. - I think what's brilliant about this story
11:36 is that it seems like it's rigged from the start, right? You think that The Corporation,
11:39 who are all at ringside, are going to mess up and interfere and cost The Rock the victory.
11:44 And instead, they do interfere, they do mess up the match, and they do cost someone the victory,
11:50 but it's Mankind. - And Vince screws Mankind out of the WWF
11:55 Championship. It was stunning to me. I was honestly very much surprised because The Rock
12:01 seemed like the perfect new baby face for WWF at the time.
12:05 - I mean, everything was there from The Rock's motivation, being upset that the people had
12:10 originally said, "Die, Rocky, die," and "Rocky sucks." That was there. Vince finding his new
12:19 perfect Corporate Champion. Mankind just wasn't realistic as a Vince guy.
12:26 - It's perfect. 1998 is one of the best years in the history of wrestling, ever. Not only have
12:33 you got the Mr. McMahon angle with Stone Cold, but when at Survivor Series, The Corporation
12:39 is properly founded, then Austin becomes even more of an underdog. The Rock gets to cut all of these
12:46 amazing promos and has that killer presentation. Rock is so good as a heel, and that cements him
12:54 as the equal megastar. - Just one year after the Montreal Screwjob,
12:59 they wanted to do a similar thing, and they've done it many times since. It's like every time
13:04 Survivor Series rolls around. But this was so soon after, so I guess there's definitely an argument
13:10 to do it then if you're ever gonna do it. - There have been a lot of attempts to recapture
13:15 the magic of Survivor Series '97, and I think the reason why it works at '98 Survivor Series
13:20 is because it's a self-contained story. You don't need to know what '97 is. You don't need to know
13:26 what the Montreal Screwjob is for this pay-per-view to make sense. And for me, that's kind of why it
13:32 works and why when you watch it, you're not like, "Ah, it's just the Montreal Screwjob, but again."
13:37 - So it's 1990, and it's Survivor Series, and Ted DiBiase's million-dollar team has been teasing
13:49 that they've got a secret final member. Back then, assembling a Survivor Series team was
13:57 just like assembling a new version of the village people on steroids. And then they go like,
14:01 "And our final member," and he's not the team because he's a heel, he's a zombie man. Here he
14:08 is. It's an Undertaker. A literal Undertaker comes walking out flanked by Brother Love.
14:13 - I wasn't watching wrestling when Undertaker debuted, but you go back and watch it. And the
14:19 thing that I always remember about going back and watching it, so the first time you see it on VHS
14:25 tapes or whatever, is that Roddy Piper line, "Look at the size of that ham hock!"
14:31 - Look at the size of that ham hock!
14:35 - What does that even mean?
14:37 - So Undertaker's debut, like 10 years before my time in terms of watching wrestling, but even
14:44 looking back with hindsight, we know Undertaker's a big deal now, but it's obvious that he's a big
14:50 deal. It's just the way he carries himself. It's a silly gimmick, right? He comes out looking like
14:57 some sort of dead cowboy with his little boots and his purple flamboyant gloves. He looks like a dead
15:07 prince. He's, oh, Prince is dead. Like Prince.
15:12 - The first time I saw The Undertaker wrestle, I was, um, I was kind of bored and didn't really
15:20 understand what was happening. I was just a kid. I'm just saying what was coming to my mind. I
15:24 wasn't that into the supernatural kind of stuff. - I think the craziest thing about Undertaker's
15:29 debut as well is that he had a short-term deal with WCW during the summer up to September before
15:36 he was told that he'd never draw a diamond, people would never pay to see him wrestle. And then,
15:41 yeah, he got brought in as The Undertaker and, you know, would become one of the most iconic
15:45 characters in WWE history. It's just crazy to see how one person's perspective can be complete
15:52 rubbish compared to another person's. And that person just happened to be Vince McMahon, who'd
15:57 pushed The Undertaker to the moon. - He really found a way to inhabit that
16:02 character that was different than seemingly basically everybody else. He slowed his pace
16:08 down, not just in the ring, how he walked, everything. Everything was so invested in
16:13 creating this illusion that The Undertaker was this character.
16:18 - And I know that the real best version of The Undertaker is the dead man when he's doing his
16:23 WrestleMania streak series with Shawn Michaels and Triple H and CM Punk, but I would be lying,
16:29 I would be betraying Teenage Oli if I did not say The American Badass, The Motorcycle Riding,
16:38 Limp Bizkit Entrance Musa-king, Bandana Wearing, I'm Gonna Make You Famous
16:44 version of The Undertaker is my favourite. - As far as why I think The Undertaker has lasted
16:50 as long as he has and why he endured so much, I think a lot of the biggest reason is evolution.
16:56 His character always changed as the years went on.
17:00 - And it's a simple enough concept that it isn't shoehorned into a gimmick. Yeah,
17:04 he's The Undertaker, he's the dead man, but as we saw with The American Badass stuff,
17:10 that's pretty easily transferable. That could just be a cool nickname.
17:14 - He commits to the character. Famously, he doesn't break character ever. It's only now,
17:22 now that he's retired, that Undertaker started doing interviews out of character. Undertaker
17:29 was the only one who was just like, "No, I'm a zombie wizard. I'm a zombie wizard. I don't have
17:36 Twitter or TikTok. I am a zombie wizard." I still don't think there's ever been a big person,
17:42 a big guy wrestler, maybe Kane, but a big guy wrestler who has as much kind of complete control
17:48 over their own body, be able to go crazy violent and stop and pause and know exactly where the
17:53 cameras are, be in the right place and in the right position to create that lasting image.
18:00 - Even later in your career when you're going to do your best damn work, which he did from 2005
18:06 onwards. Yeah, I mean, that's why the Survivor Series moment is so incredible because it is a
18:11 statement of intent from WWE. - And apparently Mark Calloway,
18:16 who would play The Undertaker, was worried that he would end up being the gobbledygooker. And at
18:21 one point he thought he was going to be, which, imagine, imagine that.
18:26 The Montreal Screwjob was one of the biggest things ever to happen to the wrestling industry,
18:38 and it was where Vince McMahon decided to screw over one of the most loyal people that ever worked
18:44 for him because he had the audacity to sign with another company. The Montreal Screwjob.
18:51 What else could be number one on this list of Survivor Series things is 1997 is the year and
18:56 Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels are facing off for the championship. - So the Montreal Screwjob is
19:02 what happens when two wrestlers really don't like each other to the point where it's stupid,
19:08 and two companies don't like each other to the point where it's stupid. - The Montreal Screwjob
19:14 can be summed up in its simplest form, Bret is grumpy, Shawn's a prick, and Vince was wrong.
19:21 I distinctly remember when I found out about the Montreal Screwjob. I was at a friend's house,
19:27 another friend came over and said, "Hey, did you hear what they did to Bret Hart?" And I was like,
19:33 "No, what happened?" And he kind of told me, you know, what went down, and then I went home and
19:39 got on the internet, read up on some details, and then I watched Raw the next night and saw
19:46 McMahon's interview, the Bret Screwed Bret interview, which, you know, pretty much gave
19:50 birth to the Mr. McMahon character. - So at the time, I didn't even know what had happened. It
19:55 wasn't until I watched Wrestling With Shadows that I was like, "Holy crap, this is crazy." Like,
20:00 it was just a contract negotiation gone wrong, played out in front of, like, whatever 12,000
20:06 people live, and then, however, you know, a couple hundred thousand people at home or whatever it is.
20:10 Bret Hart, thinking that he's actually gonna be able to get one over on Vince McMahon, even though,
20:16 like, what, four years earlier at WrestleMania, 1993, WrestleMania IX,
20:20 Vince McMahon allowed Hulk Hogan to just walk right back into the company, say, "Hey, brother,
20:25 I want that title back," and then Bret Hart was just sort of screwed out of his title. So, I mean,
20:30 it was kind of obvious, it should have been obvious to Bret that Vince was gonna get what
20:33 Vince wanted. - The most infamous moment in all of Survivor Series history, I was a huge
20:42 Shawn Michaels fan, so I was rooting for Shawn Michaels against Bret "The Hitman" Hart. Bret
20:47 "The Hitman" Hart was also one of my favorites, but I always stood on the side of the ledger of
20:53 Shawn Michaels. I rooted for him against Bret Hart in the infamous Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII,
20:59 so I was still on Shawn Michaels' side when he went up against Bret "The Hitman" Hart at Survivor
21:05 Series 1997. - Vince basically couldn't afford to keep Bret Hart, and I'm saying like, "All right,
21:11 Bret, look, WCW are gonna pay you more money for fewer dates. Off you go. It's fine. You can go."
21:19 And to make it even better, I'm gonna honor the fact that, yeah, as you leave, you do get creative
21:25 control on your way out, which was the thing that Bret Hart kind of pushed for when negotiating his
21:30 whopping big contract with Vince in the first place. - And so Shawn Michaels and Triple H
21:34 essentially got in the ear of Vince McMahon and told him that, "Hey, the champion needs to drop
21:39 the title on the way out," which is true. The champion should drop the title before they go off
21:43 to the competition. He'd been burned by Medusa going across to WCW and dropping the belt in the
21:50 trash. So he kind of just didn't want that happening. What you don't want in the middle
21:54 of a wrestling war is for your top champion to show up on another show with your top title,
22:01 throw it in the trash, or do whatever it was. - So Vince decides to conspire backstage to put
22:07 the belt on Shawn at Survivor Series in 1997 in Montreal, Canada being the home country
22:15 of Bret Hart. This is a disaster. This is a powder keg that they are just
22:19 waving a lighter nearer and nearer as they come up with this plan. "We'll give the belt to Shawn.
22:24 It'll go fine. When are we gonna do it? We're gonna do it in Montreal. It's the last chance
22:27 we have before he goes to WCW. It's always gonna go terribly wrong." - Of course, what happens?
22:33 Shawn Michaels locks in the sharpshooter on Bret. Vince tells Earl to ring the bell. Earl
22:40 signals the bell to be rung. Earl f***s up because Earl's worried that Bret's gonna kick the sh*t
22:46 out of him. Shawn Michaels pretends he's not in on it even though he is. Bret loses his fruit on
22:53 pay-per-view, does the WCW thing, and spits in Vince's face. - It was this perfect storm of these
23:02 three ideals of Bret not wanting to lose in Canada, Bret not wanting to lose it to Shawn,
23:07 and Shawn wanting to beat Bret in a way I suppose because Vince had played them off against each
23:13 other for years like in the locker room and stuff. They'd had a fight in the locker room
23:17 and like Vince was fueling this fight. He was fanning these flames because it made for
23:22 good television when they would go out and cut promos on each other and have their matches.
23:26 It was just basically a situation where Bret had his position. He didn't want to lose to Shawn.
23:33 You know, he had another month with WWF after Survivor Series that he could have waited to
23:39 another pay-per-view and dropped it then. And then you had Vince who just wanted Bret to drop the
23:44 belt that day, apparently to Shawn, and they were just so entrenched in their own positions that
23:51 Vince had to pull the move to forcibly take the belt off of Bret.
23:56 - Yeah, Vince was wrong in cheating Bret. He could have gone about it a different way.
24:01 I don't necessarily think that Bret Hart wasn't going to go to Nitro the next night
24:06 and whiff the WWE Championship, okay? He wasn't going to do that. He still had about a month left
24:12 on his contract. I know that Bret Hart was willing to put over Austin or Shamrock or even The
24:18 Undertaker. He could have done it that way. I know that he was even willing to put over Shawn Michaels
24:23 if Shawn Michaels would return the favour, but because he wouldn't, that didn't necessarily
24:27 happen. - If Vince was that scared,
24:30 and he had every right to be, I know we can say, but you know, there was this clause in the contract,
24:35 he was legally unable to do it, but WCW was more than in a position to absorb those legal costs
24:42 and it not matter a dime to them, and WWF would just be the morally right company going out of
24:50 business. - Vince became Mr. McMahon,
24:54 and Mr. McMahon was opposed by Austin, and Austin vs. Mr. McMahon is one of the greatest money
25:00 earning feuds in all of wrestling, so yeah, it's probably the most important Survivor Series moment
25:06 of all time, and one of the most important moments in wrestling, I think, of all time.