WWF Survivor Series Countdown Show (November 26, 1987)

 

Original Airdate: November 26, 1987

Your Hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan from the studio

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Jim Duggan will BE THERE at Survivor Series. Wait, I thought this was meant to generate buys?

Gorilla and Bobby discuss the card, and the general concept of Survivor Series style elimination matches. It feels so odd in this era to hear them discuss a card with only four matches. It was definitely the ‘more is more’ era. Also odd: an era when Survivor Series was a new concept

Gene Okerlund runs down the teams for the main event, with WWF Champion Hulk Hogan’s team against Andre the Giant’s team

Heenan discusses the main event, noting that it’s good that Hogan has all these partners, because he’ll need a lot of guys to hide behind

WWF Intercontinental Champion Honky Tonk Man is excited for Survivor Series

Clips from Saturday Night’s Main Event when Honky and the Hart Foundation teamed up for a beat down on Randy Savage, with Hulk making the big save after they put hands on Miss Elizabeth. This was a tremendous angle

Gorilla and Bobby discuss the Honky’s team versus Savage’s team match. Man, that babyface team has some incredible star power and talent on it. And Jim Duggan

We take a look at July 26 1987 in Houston Texas, where Sherri Martel defeated Fabulous Moolah to become WWF Women’s champion

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Gorilla and Bobby discuss the women’s elimination match. Heenan wonders how having more than three women on a team is going to work, since they’ll all probably argue about a sale, or something

Up next, discussion of the tag division elimination match with ten teams, which was a great feature of the first two shows. I get why it wasn’t possible to keep it running later on, but they were a hell of a deal

Craig DeGeorge brings Hulk out for a podium interview, which looks like it came from Superstars or Wrestling Challenge, though may be exclusive for this show, I’m not sure. The show is so new Hulk keeps calling it ‘Survivial Series!’ 

Jim Duggan is ready to eat a turkey. Or be a turkey. Not really clear

DeGeorge brings Andre and Heenan out for a podium rebuttal, giving Heenan a chance to tear apart the opposing team one by one. Andre at least gets the damn name of the show right

Bobby is excited because, after Andre takes Hogan to school, the championship committee will be forced to give him his title shot

BUExperience: I mean, these are what they are. You either enjoy them for what they are, or you don’t. I do. 

Would it have made me order the show back in the day? On the strength of this alone, no, probably not. But they’d get better at these later. Todd Pettengill was always amazing at them.