Turkey Day is just a week away and with it, WWE’s Thanksgiving tradition, Survivor Series is coming up. While often maligned in comparison to its other more consistently vaunted Big Four PLE peers—WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble—Survivor Series has been a major platform for pro wrestling history.
Which main events from this show were the most important to WWE history, though? Questions like this are always subjective, but there were five particular selections that stood out from the rest in shaping what was to come.
It’s a testament to the historical importance of the Survivor Series PLE brand in general that it, in choosing a top five, so many huge and memorable main events fall into only honorable mention consideration. That list includes Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar that marked the return of Goldberg and early steps in normalizing the potential for a main-event squash, The Rock returning to the ring and tag teaming with John Cena against The Miz and R-Truth, a Brock Lesnar vs. Daniel Bryan instant classic, Roman Reigns winning his first world title over Dean Ambrose, a Survivor Series all-timer in Team Cena vs. Team Authority, and the original Elimination Chamber match in which Shawn Michaels won his final world title.
5. The Original Main Event
WWE
In 1987, WWE grasped for a new concept in order to add a second annual pay-per-view event to its calendar. Such a move capitalized on the overwhelming popularity of the brand and success of WrestleMania, in addition to going on the offensive against Jim Crockett Promotions in directly competing with their flagship annual spectacular, Starrcade.
On one hand, the answer was obvious—Hulk Hogan battling Andre the Giant had proven perhaps the most successful draw in company history as the main event of WrestleMania 3. Rebooking this singles bout would have diminishing returns, though, given Hogan was never known as an in-ring virtuoso and especially given Andre’s progressively weakening physical health and resulting diminished capacity to put on a passable match. So, the best solution emerged: to position the men as captains of teams in which their partners could shoulder the majority of the work.
The resulting match was deceptively good with clever booking that protected Hogan with a mid-match DQ elimination, pushed Bam Bam Bigelow as he stood up well to one-on-three odds, collecting pins over One Man Gang and King Kong Bundy before succumbing to Andre the Giant. For his part, Andre emerging the sole survivor kept him well positioned as the top heel and a credible WWE Championship challenger as the calendar rolled into 1988. Finally, the match put over the elimination tag-team format in general as a fun novelty, capping the first Survivor Series with an entertaining match that had a genuinely surprising outcome.
4. The First Main Roster War Games
WWE
After five years of contrived brand warfare offering a seriously mixed bag of Survivor Series events, 2022 saw WWE make a radical turn with the very first main roster War Games match, pitting a peak Bloodline lineup of Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, Sami Zayn, and The Usos against Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, and The Brawling Brutes crew of Sheamus, Butch, and Ridge Holland.
It was long rumored that Triple H championed the idea of WWE WarGames bouts while Vince McMahon was resistant to the idea—part of why the gimmick appeared on NXT years before launching on the main roster. With The Game at the creative helm by November 2022 and The Bloodline a perfect fit as a faction to follow in the tradition of WarGames matches centered on The Four Horsemen, Dangerous Alliance, nWo, and The Undisputed Era, the table was set.
The resulting match was very good. While fans will endlessly debate the relative quality of different WarGames outings, there’s little questioning the draw this style of match proved to be and the fact that the main event delivered contributed mightily to launching a new annual tradition.
3. Team WWE Vs. Team Alliance 2001
In 2001, WWE infamously wrestled defeat from the jaws of victory as the dream scenario of booking a WWE vs. WCW war (not to mention with the ECW brand and talents in the mix) became a reality. There are so many reasons the Invasion angle failed, with some of it coming down creative, some of it talent relations as many of WCW’s marquee names chose not to come over in 2001. Nonetheless what started as the most promising of angles limped into fall 2001.
To the credit of the powers that be, who opted to bring the Invasion to a conclusion at Survivor Series, taking advantage of the well-established tag team elimination format to pose Team WWE vs. Team Alliance for one last showdown. Against the odds, the final match of the angle proved quite arguably the best of the bunch, as the action delivered in a dramatic, fun main event that conclusively ended the high-profile storyline and set WWE on a path for its future.
Team Alliance going up against WWE with a lineup that included Steve Austin, who’d become a star in WWE after WCW fired him, Kurt Angle who’d only ever wrestled for WWE, and Shane McMahon is borderline laughable in hindsight. Nonetheless, that lineup actually does bespeak a lot about how WWE booked The Alliance, not to mention that the talents chosen delivered in spades.
2. The Rock Vs. Mankind
WWE
When it comes to ranking the most objectively famous professional wrestlers in WWE history, including casual fans and non-fans, Mick Foley is in the conversation for a top ten-ish spot. Meanwhile, The Rock is in the next echelon of names with a legitimate case to be called the most famous wrestler who ever lived.
Going into Survivor Series 1998, both of these men were fringe main event acts—perhaps more earnestly, upper mid-carders when they reached the finals of a tournament to crown a new WWE Champion. So it was that this Survivor Series main event not only helped elevate both burgeoning stars, but cemented Rock’s status as a star second-only to Stone Cold Steve Austin in that heated moment of the Attitude Era.
In addition to pushing the right guys and the clever booking in pulling a big swerve with Rock’s surprise heel turn to become Mr. McMahon’s hand-picked Corporate Champion, there was the matter of poeticism. WWE had already bounced back from a rocky time the year before with massive creative and commercial success in 1998. This Survivor Series main event put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence as WWE riffed off the infamous Montreal Screwjob to fully own the infamous moment and nod to fledgling Internet and “smart” fans, while marching forward to even greater heights of the Attitude Era.
1. Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels, 1997
WWE
The 1998 Survivor Series main event finish of Mr. McMahon calling for the bell while The Rock had Mankind locked in a Sharpshooter wouldn’t have been nearly as potent or even sensical were it not for the Montreal Screwjob going down one year earlier.
A heated on-air and behind-the-scenes rivalry between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels came to a head with the two defining New Generation stars battling it out one last time for the WWE Championship. So much has already been written and discussed about the scheme to get the belt off The Hitman on his way out the door to WCW, including calling for his submission loss without the performer himself consenting to that finish.
This main event was important enough to remain a topic of conversation and debate as we approach the three-decade anniversary in just a couple short years. Combining legitimate shoot with worked shoot elements, this moment in wrestling history marked seismic shifts across the board, including a decade-long rift between Hart and WWE and Michaels being cemented as the guy who would ultimately pass the torch to Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania months later.
WWE itself would forever change, and despite the poor look of screwing over such a well-respected veteran as Hart, it’s hard to deny this moment didn’t serve the company in the long term as it launched the Mr. McMahon character and charted a course for the Attitude Era.