Cuffing season has officially begun as WWF’s original cock blocking ppv Survivor Series has arrived. For those that don’t know Survivor Series was started in order to screw Starrcade, which was traditionally always on Thanksgiving. This was NWA’s biggest show of the year, and Vince strong armed the cable companies to exclusively air only Survivor Series with the lure of being able to carry WrestleMania IV in the future. So you can thank pettiness for one of the WWF’s big four ppv’s.

I am not sure words can describe how much I loved the awkwardness of the opening of this ppv. It starts with none other than the USA flag in human form Lex Luger with his two kids, and wife as a Tim and Eric skit come to life. I am not even sure if this is Luger’s family because I have never seen someone struggle more to lovingly introduce his wife and kids. Luger’s wife is fresh from a western inspired Fashion Bug boutique, and gives a history lesson on Thanksgiving that made Tatanka want to scalp her. WWE then abruptly cuts to this fellow in the middle of the ring who starts singing the national anthem with no introduction.

Survivor Series is coming live from the old Boston Garden with Vince McMahon and Bobby the Brain Heenan on the call. The opening match pits Razor Ramon’s squad of 123 Kid, an in between drug suspensions Marty Jannety, and a returning Macho Man filling in for an injured Mr. Perfect. They are facing captain IRS’s team of Diesel, Rick “The Model” Martel, and Dr. Strangelove’s favorite wrestler Atom Bomb. Atom Bomb is basically Vince McMahon showing his writers this picture and telling them to create a wrestler based on it.

Atom Bomb hails from Three Mile Island, the home of the famous nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania during the seventies. Somehow the nuclear waste turned him into a mid-card wrestler that wears goggles instead of, you know, a cancer patient. The match is pretty stacked featuring four future hall of famers and sets the night off on a strong note. Diesel is eliminated first, in rather easy fashion, from a Macho Man elbow. Crush then comes out to distract Savage, and the original brah does his job as IRS school boy’s Savage for the quick elimination. IRS is next eliminated by Razor, and when a donnybrook breaks out between between the remaining competitors, IRS sneaks in to smash Razor in the ribs with his steel briefcase to knock him out of the match. Boston loves the 1 2 3 Kid and he feeds off the audience to do a sick suicide dive into Atom Bomb- unfortunately Atom Bomb catches him and slams him down to the floor. The ending comes on two quick successive school boys as 1 2 3 Kid starts it off on Martel, and the former Rocker follows it up with a quick roll-up on Atom Bomb. Razor’s team wins with Marty Jannetty and the 1 2 3 Kid as the sole survivors. They would parlay this success to be the genesis of a future tag team together.

Next up we have the entire Hart Family versus Shawn Michaels and three random knights. You might be asking why three random knights? And wasn’t Bret just in a blood feud with Jerry Lawler? I mean three knights make sense with Jerry Lawler, but unless these are three boy toys cosplaying Games of Thrones this is a bizarre pairing for Shawn Micheals. Making it even worse Shawn Michaels has been suspended and off tv for the last 6 weeks because of testing positive for steroids. Him feuding with the entire Hart Family is a bit out of left field. So you may be asking where is the King? Well this when it gets messy. 12 days before Survivor Series Lawler was quietly put on leave for the alleged statuary rape and sodomy of a 13 and 14 year old, and harassing a potential witness. He will eventually plead out to harassing a witness when the teenagers become uncomfortable testifying against him. Soon he will be back on TV where the announcers will make jokes about him hanging around playgrounds. I wish I was making that last part up. I am not sure their is an easy segue way after that so here is a picture of hall of gamer Koko B. Ware.

Since this a Hart Family reunion, and actually an amazing excuse to set up a great feud in the future between Owen and Bret, they decide to bring in the Family Feud’s Ray Combs as the special host. Ray is there to make yo mama jokes about Shawn’s mom, and fawn over the McPoyles of Canada, the Hart Clan.

The Hart team consists of Bret, Owen, history teacher Bruce, and fireman Keith. And no these aren’t gimmicks for the latter Hart brothers it’s their real life day jobs. Keith maybe my favorite because he looks exactly like the husband in Escape From Dannemora.

Shawn Michaels crew consists of the white knight Jeff Gaylord, blue knight Greg Valentine, and red knight Barry Horowitz. Rumor was Terry Funk was supposed to be an original knight until he found out who the other knights were and that each knight would be unmasked. Upon hearing this information Funk immediately had to return to the Double Cross Ranch to tend to a “sick” horse. With Bret and Owen on the team you’d figure they would do all the heavy lifting right? But if you guessed that you are dead wrong because Keith and Bruce dominate the first half of this match. I never wanted to watch Keith or Bruce wrestle before and this match proved why. Owen makes a cameo to takeout the black knight, but Bruce is tagged back in and the Boston crowd responds with silence and a boring chant. Yes, a ppv match with Shawn Michaels, Bret, and Owen Hart gets a boring chant. The first half of this match is brutal. Owen gets back in as the crowd begins to recover as he eliminates the blue knight with a missile drop kick. Glory hog Bret jumps into eliminate the red knight with a sharpshooter. Then Bret causes his younger brother to get pinned when Owen collides with a lollygagging Bret Hart who decided to take a stroll across the apron. Bret crashes into the barricade and all 99 Hart’s turn their attention to Bret as the collision causes Owen to get rolled up by Shawn. Bret hulks up and dominates the rest of the match until Shawn runs to the back and gets counted out. In the aftermath Owen storms back to the ring and stands up to his evil glory hogging brothers, and tells them off. Instead of getting cheered like he should have the fans boo and his family shuns him. To which I assume Owen is thinking, “Why are you Booing me? I am right.” I agree Owen, ohh I agree. This would lead to a heel turn and incredibly feud with his older brother. Also this turn gave us this great Helen Hart visual which the Brain dubs the, “Oh no they are going to repossess me teeth” face. God bless you Bobby.

Next up is my favorite tag team as a five year old, the Rock n’ Roll Express, versus the Heavenly Bodies. This is the first ever Smokey Mountain championship match sanctioned under WWF rules. This match is so southern they actually change up the announcers as Vince and Heenan go do radio, and JR and Gorilla take over the tv duties. If you like good ol’ fashion southern tag team wrestling you are in for a classic. The Rock n’ Roll express dominate early as Morton hits a great suicide dive as Gibson holds the middle ropes open.

Definitely was not expecting that, and it seems like something you would see in a Ricochet match today. The Heavenly Bodies take control as Cornette holds Morton outside of the ring as Jiggalo Jimmy hits a sweet reverse moonsault on him. The Bodies isolate Morton until we get the Gibson hot tag as he becomes a proverbial house on fire taking out the heels. Soon chaos erupts and all four men are in the ring when Morton is thrown over the top rope. Gibson starts to celebrate because in Smoky Mountain, like WCW, they also have the horrible over the top dq rule. Why the south hates dudes being thrown over the top ropes is almost as baffling as their love of putting peanuts in Coca Cola. The match continues as Morton fights back and has Prichard pinned. But unfortunately for the ghost of my five year old self the ref is tied up with Gibson as Jiggalo Jimmy flys off the top rope with Cornette’s loaded tennis racket knocking Morton out. Prichard gets the pin, and the stupid sexy bodies are the new Smoky Mountain tag team champions. Let’s finish up this segment of southern wrestling with a random fact I learned during this match that Robert Gibson’s mother was a deaf mute, and the Rock n’ Roll Express would communicate through sign language during their matches.

Now speaking of tone deaf we return to traditional Survivor Series rules and racist tropes for our next match.

Yes this is three Samoan wrestlers and fat guy eating straight off the turkey carcass. Regardless of the leukemia scare this pic alone is reason enough to never boo Roman Reigns. His reparations should be a long world title run after what the WWE put the early generations of Samoans through. If you are wondering who that fat guy chewing on the turkey with his teammates is it’s none other than Mike Shaw- who you may remember as WCW’s Norman the Lunatic, and before the religious folks got up in arms WWF’s Friar Ferguson. Because Vince has a fetish for muscles, and a hatred for all things fat, he decided that Shaw’s new gimmick would be an actual real life garbage pail kid. His gimmick was he was a slovenly fat slob in an ill fitting grey singlet named Bastion Booger. If you are wondering how a gimmick like that went over it was:

This was his only ppv and was out of the WWF by next summer losing his final match to hall of famer Koko B. Ware, who you may remember as the guy not picking up girls at the playground earlier in the column.

This match is based off a feud between Doink the Clown and Bam Bam Bigelow. Doink has guaranteed his team will be four Doinks. These Doinks turn out to be the Bushwackers and Men on a Mission in clown makeup.

Who are surprisingly terrifying looking for a popcorn break match for the kids. Also terrifying is the referee in this match. I don’t think the Doinks make one legal tag this entire match. If you like “whomp there it is” chants, dudes getting bit on their ass, turkey carcasses used as weapons, and Bastion Booger’s finishing move of him just teabagging dudes this is the match for you.Also if the turkey carcass eating wasn’t racist enough for you the Headshrinkers also bring bananas to the ring. The lure of the bananas in the corner prove too much to overcome as Booger, Samo, and Fatu all fail to get pins because they stop to eat some potassium instead; with Fatu even getting pinned after slipping on a peel.

The match mercifully ends as the “good guys” defeat Bam Bam with a four man pin which the ref allows even though this dogpile is brutally breaking the rules.

The main event is next as we have the Foreign Contingency of evil heels with Yokozuna, The Mountie, Ludwig Borga, and check notes- yes, Crush from Hawaii. Apparently foreign means anybody outside of the continental United States. They are going against the All Americans Of Lex Luger, The Steiner Bruhs, and Undertaker, who apparently loves America just as much as he does dead bodies now.

The bootleg Brock Lesnar Ludwig Borga starts off the eliminations and pins Rick Steiner in very ugly fashion. You can pin point the exact moment Borga realizes he does not have steroids cursing through his veins as he botches trying to catch one of the Steiner Bruhs jumping off the middle rope for a slam.

Vince and Heenan try to cover it up insisting Rick must have tore his groin, or hurt himself someway to account for the pin. Randy Savage is back for payback as he storms out of the back as Crush is in control of the other Steiner Bruh Scottie. Crush gets counted out brawling with Savage, and rightfully argues that Macho Man interfered so why is he eliminated and not the Steiner Bruh as the rule book would state. Again perfectly great logic the referee chooses to ignore to screw the foreigner from Hawaii. Speaking of illegal, all around good US citizen, Luger uses his illegal loaded surgically repaired forearm to eliminate the Mountie. Soon after that the final Steiner Bruh is eliminated by a Yokuzuna big leg drop. The final four is set as the Undertaker makes his first appearance of the match, and brawls to the outside with Yokozuna where they will both be counted out. This sets up Luger to defeat the final foreign enemy easily because of patriotism I think. I don’t know why but Lex Luger is still a thing the WWF is doing going into the new year. The show ends with Koko B. Ware coming out to celebrate with Lex Luger…wait check notes…no that’s Santa Clause. Yes, the show ends with old Saint Nick and Luger being skeeted on with white stuff from the rafters.