Survivor Series 1990: The Undertaker Arrives; the Egg Hatches; the Format Runs Out of Road

The opener works best whenever Mr. Perfect is involved and immediately loses altitude whenever the booking reminds you that LOD and Demolition are not allowed to settle anything. Perfect bumps with cartoon violence, Texas Tornado gives him a credible power opponent, and Warrior's early elimination of Ax signals that the WWF Champion will be protected throughout the night. Then Hawk, Animal, Smash and Crush are all disqualified in one brawl, removing the tag feud with a single administrative sweep rather than allowing any member to actually lose.

The match improves again when Perfect is left against Tornado and Warrior. Perfect pins Tornado with the Perfect-Plex and later hits Warrior with the move for a believable near fall before Warrior runs through the comeback and splash. Cagematch's current matchguide is 6.85, and its displayed Observer rating is 3.5 stars. Canton is much colder at two stars, largely because the match never develops beyond a few good sequences and protective eliminations. WrestleFile goes B / 7.6 because Perfect's work and the crowd make it enjoyable, but the mass DQ prevents it from becoming a truly satisfying elimination match.

The best match on the show contains the two performances history remembers most clearly. Undertaker enters as the mystery partner and is treated as dangerous immediately. Bret Hart cannot move him, Jim Neidhart cannot move him, Koko B. Ware is dropped with a Tombstone, and Dusty Rhodes later becomes the second elimination. The character does not spend five minutes proving he belongs. The match behaves as though everyone else should already be worried.

Undertaker's countout removes him without defeat, and the match then becomes Bret Hart's audition. Bret eliminates Greg Valentine and goes nearly five minutes alone with Ted DiBiase, producing a series of backslides, cradles, a middle-rope elbow and a bodypress that DiBiase finally rolls through for the win. Arnold Furious calls the closing stretch roughly three-and-a-half-star-level work even though he grades the whole match lower, and Scott Keith praises Bret for getting himself over immediately after Undertaker had dominated the first half. WrestleFile goes A- / 8.8 because the match creates two future-defining impressions in under fourteen minutes: Undertaker looks like a star, and Bret looks like he should become one.

The Visionaries become the first Survivor Series team to complete a clean sweep, which sounds much more exciting than the seventeen-plus minutes required to get there. The match has two reliable energy sources: Shawn Michaels taking huge bumps for larger opponents, and Jake Roberts trying to reach Rick Martel after the Arrogance angle damaged his eye. The rest is long stretches of Warlord, Hercules and Paul Roma grinding through control segments without enough urgency.

Marty Jannetty falls to Warlord, Snuka is rolled through by Martel, and Michaels finally loses to the PowerPlex. Jake is then left four-on-one but never really gets the heroic comeback because the finish is about Martel spraying Arrogance and Roberts chasing him backstage for a countout. Cagematch sits at 4.12, Canton gives it two stars and Scott Keith lands at 2.5. WrestleFile goes C / 6.3 because Shawn and Jake provide a coherent narrative thread and the clean sweep is historically distinctive. The match is simply too long for the amount of interesting wrestling contained inside it.

This match is crowd heat wrapped around a continuation of Hogan versus Earthquake. Big Boss Man eliminates Haku quickly, Duggan gets himself disqualified with the 2x4, Hogan pins Dino Bravo, and Earthquake removes Boss Man before the match finally reaches the two people everybody expects to matter. Then Tugboat and Earthquake brawl to a double countout, protecting Earthquake again and leaving Hogan to finish Barbarian.

The wrestling is not especially good, but the Hartford crowd reacts to Hogan with a force Warrior does not match elsewhere on the show. Scott Keith explicitly points to that reaction as evidence that the supposed post-WrestleMania VI transfer of the company had not truly taken hold. Cagematch's matchguide is a brutal 1.76 and its displayed Observer rating only one star, while later reviewers are somewhat kinder because the crowd carries the structure. WrestleFile gives it C / 6.0 because Hogan's segment succeeds as live-event business and Earthquake is protected logically. As a standalone elimination match, it is another exercise in avoiding the finish the feud actually needs.

The first two minutes remove Boris Zhukov and both members of the Orient Express, leaving Sgt. Slaughter alone against four babyfaces. That sounds like the setup for an impressive heel survival run, and for a few minutes it almost works. Slaughter eliminates Nikolai Volkoff, Luke and Butch in succession, giving him exactly the dominance required for someone about to challenge for the WWF Championship.

Then the match falls apart around the finish. Tito Santana fights back, the referee is bumped, General Adnan uses the flag, and Slaughter is disqualified instead of being pinned. The protection is obvious because WWF wants Slaughter strong for Warrior, but the result leaves the audience watching a future title challenger lose through his manager's stupidity rather than through any meaningful final exchange. Canton gives it half a star and calls it one of the worst Survivor Series matches. Cagematch is 3.12, with a displayed Observer rating of 1.25 stars. WrestleFile goes D- / 4.3 because Slaughter's middle stretch at least accomplishes the push. Everything around it is weak, dated or both.

The Grand Finale is a better spreadsheet idea than wrestling match. The heels begin five-on-three, Tito immediately eliminates Warlord and is quickly removed by DiBiase, leaving the entire supposed handicap advantage aimed at Hogan and Warrior. Power and Glory and DiBiase work Hogan over long enough for the crowd to demand the comeback, Hogan kicks out of the PowerPlex, eliminates Roma and tags Warrior. Martel eventually walks out rather than lose, Hogan pins DiBiase, and Warrior finishes Hercules.

There is nothing offensive about the mechanics. The problem is inevitability. Nobody in the building believes five midcard heels are defeating Hogan and Warrior in the final match of Thanksgiving night, so every minute is waiting for the obvious visual. Scott Keith rates it a DUD and calls it a complete waste; Canton goes 1.25 stars and likewise finds it predictable. Leighty is slightly kinder at two stars because Hogan's extended selling gives the heels something to do. WrestleFile lands at D+ / 5.4 because the crowd responds and the experiment has historical novelty. As the payoff to an entire evening's special format, it is profoundly underwhelming.