Survivor Series (1990)

Survivor Series
Survivor Series
	Promotional poster
Promotion	World Wrestling Federation
Date	November 22, 1990
City	Hartford, Connecticut
Venue	Hartford Civic Center
Attendance	16,000
Tagline	The WWF Thanksgiving Night Tradition!
Pay-per-view chronology
← Previous; SummerSlam	Next →; Royal Rumble
Survivor Series chronology
← Previous; 1989	Next →; 1991

The 1990 Survivor Series was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the fourth annual Survivor Series and took place on Thanksgiving Day in the United States on Thursday, November 22, 1990, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. The event centered on the Survivor Series match, a tag team elimination match that pits teams of multiple wrestlers against each other. The pay-per-view broadcast consisted of six matches, all of which were Survivor Series matches, and there was also one dark match before the event aired live.

This event is well known for the PPV debut of The Undertaker, who would become one of the most prominent and venerable figures within the WWF.^[2] In addition, Sgt. Slaughter, who then portrayed an Iraqi sympathizer, insulted servicemen stationed in Iraq for Thanksgiving during Operation Desert Shield. In an interview, Randy Savage challenged Ultimate Warrior for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Haku replaced Rick Rude, who had left the WWF over a pay dispute. In the storyline, he was suspended by WWF President Jack Tunney for insulting the mother of the Big Boss Man. Boris Zhukov replaced Akeem, who had left the WWF in October.

Production

Background

Survivor Series is an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, produced every November by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) since 1987, held around Thanksgiving in the United States. In what has become the second longest-running pay-per-view event in history (behind WWE's WrestleMania), it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam; referred to as the "Big Four".^[3] Continuing the tradition of the previous years' events, the fourth Survivor Series only featured Survivor Series matches, which are tag team elimination matches. Like the previous three events, the fourth Survivor Series was scheduled to be held on Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 22, 1990, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut.^[1]

Storylines

Other on-screen personnel
Role:	Name:
Commentator	Gorilla Monsoon
Commentator	"Rowdy" Roddy Piper
Interviewer	Gene Okerlund
Interviewer	Sean Mooney
Ring announcer	Howard Finkel
Referee	Earl Hebner
	Mike Chioda
	Joey Marella
	Danny Davis
	Shane Stevens

The card included matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWF's writers,^[4]^[5] with storylines produced on their weekly television shows.

This was the only Survivor Series to feature a "Grand Finale Match of Survival", wherein the survivors of each announced Survivor Series elimination match would take part in a final elimination match in the main event, split based on their heel-or-face alignments. The match ended with the three-man face team of Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan (the two survivors) and Tito Santana defeating the five-man heel team of Ted DiBiase and the full "Visionaries" team from earlier in the night (Rick Martel, the Warlord, and Power & Glory).

Aftermath

Crowd reaction to the Gobbledy Gooker was extremely negative, with fans loudly booing as the costumed Héctor Guerrero danced in the ring with announcer Gene Okerlund. Although the character made a handful of appearances in taped promos following the Survivor Series,^[6] the Gobbledy Gooker soon disappeared and was not mentioned again until the Gimmick Battle Royal at WrestleMania X-Seven. Several years later, WrestleCrap used the name for its "Gooker Award", presented for the worst gimmicks, storylines, or events in wrestling.

Sgt. Slaughter and Randy Savage both challenged Ultimate Warrior for the WWF Championship. Slaughter and his manager, General Adnan, also cut several anti-American, pro-Iraqi promos – all airing at a time when the United States was engaged in Operation Desert Shield, all to build up heat for his match against Warrior at the 1991 Royal Rumble, held two days after the start of the war against Iraq. Slaughter – with help from both Savage and his manager, Sensational Sherri – won the title from Warrior at the Royal Rumble. Warrior defeated Savage in a career-ending match at Wrestlemania VII, after which Savage turned face and reunited with former manager Miss Elizabeth, ultimately winning back the belt a year later at Wrestlemania VIII. Savage and Warrior fought one more time for the title at SummerSlam in a match plagued by interference from Ric Flair and Mr Perfect.

Hogan went on to focus on wrapping up his feud with Earthquake with a series of stretcher matches, which Hogan won, before going on to challenge Slaughter for the WWF title.

Since the formation of Demolition in 1987, they had been compared to the Legion of Doom. The feud between the Legion of Doom and Demolition (which by now was Crush and Smash) continued to rage into the end of 1990, with the Legion of Doom eventually coming out on top (in part because the feud had not had the anticipated intensity due to Ax's reduced role). Demolition's last pay-per-view appearance was at WrestleMania VII, where the team lost to Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao. The Legion of Doom eventually became WWF Tag Team Champions.

Home Video and Streaming

The event was released on home video in 1991 the USA by Coliseum Video and in the UK by Silver Vision. The home video version included several exclusively shot segments, including an introduction from Sean Mooney stood in front of The Giant Egg and a post credit scene with The Bushwhackers and The Gobbledy Gooker.^[7]

In July 2005, Silver Vision re-released the event on DVD as part of their Tagged Classics series. This DVD was only available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.^[7]^[8]

The event was uploaded to the WWE Network when it launched in 2014. In 2024, WWE uploaded the event to stream freely on their WWE Vault YouTube channel.^[9]

Results

No.

Results

Stipulations

Times^[1]

1^D

Shane Douglas defeated Buddy Rose^[10]

Singles match

—

2

The Warriors (Ultimate Warrior, Hawk, Animal and Texas Tornado) defeated The Perfect Team (Mr. Perfect, Ax, Smash and Crush) (with Bobby Heenan and Mr. Fuji)

4-on-4 Survivor Series match^Eliminations