WWF Survivor Series 1997

If Over the Edge 1999 is the most notorious show in WWE history, the 1997 Survivor Series probably comes in as a close second – becoming known for, more than anything else, the Montreal Screwjob, and Bret Hart’s sad exodus from the WWF. Montreal is one of those things among wrestling fans that has been talked about so much, written about so much, had terms created for so much, had documentaries released on (both by the WWE, and independently) so much, and changed booking so much that there’s almost literally no new insight to give. So, I won’t lecture about the causes, the motivations, the rights, and the wrongs of the participants – I’ll just focus on how it made me feel as a twelve year old mark, watching live.

In late 1997, with the internet on the rise in American households, I was one of those many middle school wrestling fans with access to a ‘dirt sheet.’ While most everything the semi-daily e-mail would report on would later turn out to be completely and totally false, one of the big things they were printing going into Survivor Series was that Bret Hart had signed with WCW. As a major Hart-mark, I couldn’t believe it – and since the ‘publication’ had been wrong so many times before, I wrote it off. Unfortunately, they were right – and more unfortunately was how Bret would leave the company after such a long and very mutually beneficial relationship. Breaking up is hard to do. Breaking up with Vince McMahon while you’re WWF Champion is fucking agony.

After years of watching, and following both Hart and rival Shawn Michaels’ careers closely, I eagerly awaited their match at Survivor Series. When Vince McMahon ‘rang the fucking bell’ at the finish, and it became apparent what had happened, it not only angered me because of what had happened to my hero – but also killed the last shred of doubt that I had that what I was watching wasn’t ‘fake.’ In the weeks to come, I would stop watching the WWF entirely out of ‘protest,’ and wouldn’t actively return as a fan until after WrestleMania XIV – mostly because WCW was becoming such a chore to watch.

From Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.


Opening Survivor Series Elimination Match: The New Age Outlaws and The Godwinns v The Headbangers and The New Blackjacks: The Blackjacks dominate Phineas Godwinn to start, so he tags to Henry. He has a little better luck with Bradshaw - reversing a suplex - but gets caught in an abdominal stretch cradle, and eliminated at 3:52. Phineas runs back in, and gets into a big hick slugfest with Bradshaw. Barry Windham in for a couple of suplexes, but he misses a blind charge, and Phineas hits a lariat to eliminate him at 5:14. Mosh in, and botches an elbowdrop, so he plays it safe with an armbar. Eh, maybe he was off his game from having to entertain Bret's kids all night. Phineas manages a tag to Billy Gunn. He gets distracted by a 'faggot' chant, allowing Mosh a clothesline, but he manages to counter a bulldog with a faceslam to get rid of Mosh at 8:42. Phineas and Thrasher have a go, and it's everyone’s favorite time: wristlock time! That fails to get a standing ovation, so Thrasher tries an armbar next. That doesn't work either, so he goes up top for the Stagedive to get rid of Godwinn at 12:38. Bad portion, there. Jesse James gets in, but Bradshaw levels him with a short-clothesline. Powerbomb gets Billy to distract him, and Jesse schoolboys him for the pin at 13:44. Thrasher comes in for vengeance, but a cheap shot from Gunn allows Jesse to screw-up a pump handle slam. He wastes time trying again, so Gunn just dives in with a flying legdrop (which misses so badly, not even a slick camera angle can hide it) to finish at 15:25.
Survivors: The New Age Outlaws
Bad opener, as literally nobody (well, maybe their families, I guess) cared about these teams at this point, and they botched more spots than you can count on one hand. DUD

Survivor Series Elimination Match: The Disciples of Apocalypse (Crush, Chainz, 8-Ball, and Skull) v The Truth Commission (The Jackyl, The Interrogator, Sniper, and Recon): That Gang Warz were horrible from start to finish, and the fact that this features the least interesting of the factions (Truth Commission) doesn't help. Chainz tries to dominate Interrogator in the corner early, but walks into a sidewalk slam, and gets pinned at 1:18. 8-Ball faces off with Recon, and gets powerslammed, but Jackyl (the scrawny leader of the Commission) wants to get the pin himself. It backfires, of course, and 8-Ball finishes him with a sidewalk slam at 2:50. Sniper runs in with a spinheel kick, but Recon misses a flying axehandle, so Skull runs in with a clothesline to finish him at 5:18. Recon comes in for vengeance, but gets caught with a swinging neckbreaker. Interrogator throws a cheap shot to turn the tide, and Skull falls to a bulldog at 6:30. They finally figure out that they should tag Interrogator back in, and he finishes 8-Ball with another sidewalk slam at 8:50. Crush comes in to try and save things for his team, but Interrogator shrugs him off. He makes the mistake of tagging Sniper back in, though, and Crush powerslams him out at 9:40. He turns around right into a yet another sidewalk slam, though, and we're out at 9:46. 
Survivor: The Interrogator
Really dull match, but at least it was relatively short. Early Survivor Series matches would have been less than half way through at the ten minute mark. DUD

Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Canada (Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart, Doug Furnas, and Phil LaFon) v Team USA (Vader, Marc Mero, Goldust, and Steve Blackman): Kinda silly that 'Team Canada' is being led by an Englishman and an American, with the only Canadian on the team (LaFon) essentially a mercenary hired since Bret and Owen were busy in other matches, and Brian Pillman had died. Though, he wasn't Canadian either. Davey and Mero start, and Mero quickly gets dropkicked to the floor. He regroups by bitching as his wife, and then (somewhat more effectively) by tagging Vader. He lays Davey out with a short-clothesline, but gets caught with an impressive hanging vertical suplex. Blackman ends up in with LaFon, and dominates, but they spill to the floor, and Blackman gets triple-teamed by the 'Canadians' and counted out at 5:16. Mero tries his luck with Neidhart, but loses a slugfest, and lets Vader finish him proper - with a splash at 6:53. LaFon heads back in, and a series of savate and spinkicks put Vader on the floor. Another try at ganging up like they did on Blackman doesn't go as well, however, and Vader finishes LaFon with a 2^nd rope splash at 8:28. Furnas in with a dropkick, so Vader passes to Mero to do his Golden Gloves routine. He badly botches a springboard moonsault - looking like he almost broke Doug's neck - so he passes back to Bulldog to do his business while Furnas shakes the cobwebs off in the corner. Once he's recovered from that whole 'near paralysis' bit, he tags back in to reverses a Mero sunset flip at 11:18. Vader back in with body shots in the corner, but Furnas catches him with a diving clothesline, and tags Davey. He unloads, but a suplex gets reversed, and both guys look for a tag. Davey finds it, but Goldust refuses to tag in - citing an injured hand. Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you came through the curtain, idiot. Vader shrugs Furnas off, but can't hold off both 'Canadians' for long, and crawls for the tag - but Goldust continues to refuse. Vader tries to drag him in, so Goldust walks out 16:26. Vader doesn't like that, and takes out his frustrations by Vaderbombing Furnas at 16:54. He's good and pissed now, so Davey whacks him with the ring bell to take him out at 17:05. Surprisingly, that bell would serve as a much more pivotal part in wrestling history later.
Survivor: Davey Boy Smith
Good booking all around, and everyone seemed to be working hard, but this was only 'good' in comparison to the first two horrible matches. * ½

Mankind v Kane: Kane had made his first appearance at Badd Blood the month before, and now needed someone to squash to make his pay per view debut propers. Mankind tries to jump him in the aisle, but gets predictably slaughtered. Unfortunately, the lighting crew decides to get cute, leaving Kane's red 'glow' lighting on for the entire match - which is clever, sure - but also makes it hard to, like, see what's actually going on. I guess they figured that this show was so dull up to this point, people wouldn't care. Mankind tries to comeback with a Cactus Clothesline, but that just gets him thrown into the stairs, and then the stairs thrown at him. Inside again, Kane keeps plodding away. Mankind throws a piledriver, but gets caught up with Paul Bearer (aligned with Kane at this point, for those Bearer-tracking), and flung off of the apron, right through the announce table. Kane follows by slamming him off of the top rope, to the floor, and when Mankind has the gall to beat the count back in, Kane just simply tombstones him for the pin at 9:27. Not a great match by any means (pretty slow and boring, actually), but served its purpose by putting Kane over strong - wisely pairing him with Mick Foley, who will gladly bump around to make a guy look like an unstoppable monster. ½*

Survivor Series Elimination Match: The Nation of Domination (Faarooq, The Rock, D-lo Brown, and Kama Mustafa) v Ken Shamrock, Ahmed Johnson, and The Legion of Doom: Brown and Hawk start, and Brown's offense just bounces off of him. Piledriver no-sold (you'd think after over ten years, guys would learn not to immediately turn there backs after piledriving Hawk), so he tags Rocky in to get rid of him with a Rock Bottom at 2:09. He walks right into Ahmed Johnson, though, and smartly tags out. Not such a great trade for Faarooq, though, as Ahmed hits the Pearl River Plunge - and he's gone at 4:53. D-lo tries his luck with a spinkick and frogsplash, but Ahmed WEDGIES UP!! Forward-falling suplex has D-lo bailing to the Rock, but WedgieMania is running wild, and he gets spinebustered, so Faarooq (still hanging around ringside) trips Ahmed up for Rocky to pin at 6:09. Animal in, and he overpowers Rock. Tag back to Kama to slug it out with him, and Animal gets him with a rollup at 10:44. Brutally bad segment, there. D-lo in, but Shamrock unloads on him in the corner, and hits a running lariat. Nation double-team slows him down, and Brown grabs a chinlock. He tries a nice springboard moonsault, but Shamrock dodges, and both men tag. Animal is a house of arson, but the New Age Outlaws show up wearing the LOD's spiked shoulder pads, and lure Animal to the outside (it's embarrassing showing up in the same outfit as another girl), where he gets counted out at 14:12. For fashion. I've always found it interesting that women will generally react horribly in that situation, whereas guys will get excited, point at each other, and be, like, 'dude, nice shirt!' then high-five. Anyway, Shamrock starts snapping, and puts D-lo down with the Anklelock at 16:54. Rock sneaks in with a chair shot while the referee clears D-lo out, but it only gets two. Still-unnamed People's Elbow for two, and a tornado-DDT, but Shamrock counters with a Northern Lights suplex. Rana, and Shamrock snaps again, hooking the Anklelock for the win at 20:28.
Survivor: Ken Shamrock
It heated up towards the end, but very plodding, dull match otherwise. *

WWF Intercontinental Title Match: Owen Hart v Steve Austin: Austin had won the title from Owen at SummerSlam, but had taken a near career ending, near paralyzing injury during the match off of a botched tombstone piledriver, so he had to forfeit the belt in September. Owen won a tournament for it at Bad Blood (with help from Austin, to make sure he gets to kill Owen himself in the rematch), and now this is that rematch. For all his bravado, Owen is reluctant to get going - and it takes Jim Neidhart distracting Austin to get things started. Owen hammers away, and goes for a piledriver early, but Austin counters with a backdrop, and posts Owen. Owen tries to walkout, but Austin jumps him in the aisle, and drags him back to ringside, so Owen rakes the eyes. He chokes Austin with electrical cable - begging the referee to disqualify him - but no go. Inside, Owen stomps a mud hole, but that's crossing a line, and Austin shows him how to walk it dry. They tease another piledriver, but Austin quickly Stuns him to win the title at 4:00. Austin hadn't quite healed up from the whole 'nearly getting paralyzed' thing, and wasn't at all ring  ready, but he was already penciled in to headline WrestleMania, and they needed him to finish crushing Owen yesterday. Match was fine considering Austin's limitations, but not good in a conventional sense. DUD

Main Event: WWF Title Match: Bret Hart v Shawn Michaels: These two had been engaged in a very real backstage feud since about the time Shawn won the WWF Title from Bret at WrestleMania XII in 1996, but relations between them fell pretty much completely apart over the course of 1997 - even coming to a pull apart backstage brawl one week over the summer. To say this match was highly anticipated would be a gross understatement, and with the ink still wet on Bret's new WCW deal, it became painful for Vince McMahon and the WWF to work out a finish agreeable to both parties - finally settling on a double disqualification. Great heat here for both guys, with Shawn getting covered in garbage and sodas on the way to the ring - which he responds to by wiping his nose, ass, and dick with the Canadian flag. Shawn tries to jump him during the entrances, but gets taken to the mat, and pounded on. To the floor, Shawn eats post, and gets a dessert of steps. They brawl into the crowd, as Vince McMahon, Pat Patterson, and Sgt. Slaughter appear at ringside to try and 'restore order.' Shawn starts choking him with the American flag, and tries a piledriver on the floor, but gets backdropped. They brawl up the aisle to the entrance way (with an unusually high amount of referees trying to pull them apart), where Hart suplexes him. Vince and Bret get into an argument as he wrecks Shawn (though, they were all still working at this point), and they head back to the ring to 'officially' start the bout, with the opening bell finally sounding. Bret chokes him out with the flag, and gives him an inverted atomic drop - only to get caught with a diving forearm off of a criss cross. Shawn with a fistdrop, but he gets caught up jawing with the crowd (looking about ready to riot), and throws Bret to the floor to beat him in front of them. Considering the ending Vince and Shawn had planned, egging the crowd on probably wasn't the best of decisions. Inside, Shawn with a flying axehandle, and he grabs a front-facelock. Bret powers out, and tries for a leglock, but Shawn rakes the eyes. Slam, and he tries a flying bodypress, but Bret rolls through for two. He starts firing off shots at the knee, and hooks the ringpost figure four - which is especially notable because, as Hart noted in his fantastic 2007 autobiography - this hold especially was impossible to apply without Shawn's cooperation (he had to hold Bret's leg, or else he'd fall flat on his ass while hooking it on), which made Bret trust him a bit more. Shawn sells it like death, so Bret drags him to the center of the ring for a standard figure four. Shawn reverses, but Bret quickly makes the ropes. Shawn takes a Flair Flip, and the Russian legsweep gets two. Suplex for two, and a backbreaker sets up a flying axehandle, but Shawn throws referee Earl Hebner in the way to dodge him. Shawn with the Sharpshooter, and as Bret goes to reverse - suddenly the bell rings, and Shawn's music kicks on at 12:00 (bell to bell - about twenty minutes total), as Vince McMahon ordered the timekeeper to sound the bell, worried that Bret would show up on WCW programming with the title (which he felt would have been irrevocably damaging to the WWF - already on the ropes in late 1997), therefore destroying his relationship with Bret Hart, but taking the final step into morphing from 'Vince McMahon: goofy announcer' to 'Mr. McMahon.' Afterwards, a visibly shocked Hart literally spits in Vince's face, while Shawn acts annoyed at the finish - which we would later learn he was absolutely in on. Hart is understandably upset - his fears of a screw job having materialized, even after referee Earl Hebner had sworn on his kids he wouldn't allow it to happen - and after the show ends, spells 'WCW' in the air with his finger, and then proceeds to destroy the announce positions, before heading to the back to legitimately knock McMahon out. Watching this live, I didn't know what the hell was going on (not helped by the chaotic nature of the whole match), but it was obvious something had gone wrong, and, as noted, once things became clear, it was the end of innocence. It's notable that Bret was warned before the match (memorably by Vader) not to allow Shawn to put him into any submission holds, as they could work a screw job that way. It's also notable that Hart let Shawn put him into several submission holds (front-facelock, figure four) before the ending, but Vince somewhat ruthlessly wanted him to go down to his own hold in his home country. Match before the ending was quite different than any previous Hart/Michaels matches - very intense, and brawl oriented - with both likely more nervous than usual, building towards the most infamous finish in wrestling history. Interestingly, both men who fought so adamantly over their positions on the card would end up out of the ring before the end of the decade, as Bret would go on to suffer a career ending injury two years later during his unremarkable WCW tenure, while Shawn would suffer what everyone considered career ending injury only a couple of months later – not to return until 2002, and with a much improved attitude. The two would not make up until over twelve years later, in 2010 (with Hart memorably having Michaels barred from the building during his WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2006), which was practically the length of Hart’s entire WWF career.  ** ½

BUExperience:  Endlessly historically significant, but the show itself is horrible – and would easily be a candidate for ‘worst of all time’ if not for the impact it made, and continues to make. The ‘Montreal Screwjob,’ and the events leading up to and following it, have become wrestling’s equivalent of the Kennedy assassination – with the ending correlating with the Zapruder Film. While that would normally be enough alone to warrant checking this out, it has been covered extensively – most notably in the 1998 documentary Wrestling with Shadows (which followed Bret for the bulk of 1997, and captures the chaos of Montreal, along with many of the backstage incidents leading up to it), and the 2011 WWE DVD release Greatest Rivalries: Shawn Michaels v Bret Hart, which features a joint sit-down interview with both Michaels and Hart, some fourteen years later, after they had finally buried the hatchet. Both of those are fantastic pieces that cover the historical implications wonderfully, and trump having to sit through this show. *