This Fourth Survivor Series event is a big disappointment in my opinion. The matches suffer from being far too short and the way in which some of the wrestlers are eliminated, was rather lazy and unimaginative. The most stupid thing about this Survivor Series from 1990, is the appearance of some idiot dressed up as a feathered hen! I know it was the holiday of Thanks-giving but even so, it was ridiculous. The match of the Ultimate Warrior's team against Mr. Perfect's team, had some potential initially. The Legion of Doom - still one of the best tag teams in Wrestling history - were having a story angle with Demolition. The two teams were on opposing teams at the 1990 Survivor Series. What could have been a great match, resulted in there being an average one. Ax from Demolition was due to leave the WWE for various reasons and new member Crush took his place. Ax had little to do and was eliminated early. The fact that both members of Legion of Doom and Demolition were eliminated at the same time, was both thoroughly lazy and disappointing. It was left to the Ultimate Warrior to win the match. The next match is quite a bit better. We are introduced to a wrestler who would proceed to become one of the company's biggest names - The Undertaker. He was a last minute replacement for Bad News Brown who had left the WWE not long before the date of the Fourth Survivor Series. The Undertaker was on the team of the Millon Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. The match has some good action and the confrontation between DiBiase and Bret Hart is like poetry in motion. Next is the Hulk Hogan match where his team is pitted against his enemy, Earthquake and his team. The match is not bad and is at least entertaining. It's too brief though and should have been about 6 minutes longer. The match of the Vipers vs. The Visionaries is absolutely terrible. Of all the matches on the card, this one should have been shorter as it is too one-sided. The ending was rather stupid as well. The final match is also lamentable. The whole thing was woefully uneven in the way the wrestlers were eliminated. To conclude this Survivor Series event, all the survivors from the matches gathered to wrestle in a match to decide who would be the ultimate survivors. This match was passable without distinguishing itself. A few wrestlers were due to participate in the Fourth Survivor Series but had left before this could happen. Akeem the African Dream and Ravishing Rick Rude each were part of the official photos that were taken to show who the teams were going to be. Macho King Randy Savage didn't take part and I was disappointed.
... View MoreThe Fourth Annual Survivor Series, and the third different Survivor Series format. The first two Survivor Series featured one twenty man tag team match each, and three five on five elimination tag matches. The next year featured five 4 on 4 elimination tag matches. This year all of the elimination tag matches are building up to the main event where all the good survivors will be put in a team and face off with the evil survivors, with the winners crowned the Ultimate Survivors.The night started off with WWE Champion The Ultimate Warrior, the great NWA Tag Team the Road Warriors, now renamed the Legion of Doom Hawk and Animal and Intercontinental Champion Kerry Von Erich defeating Mr Perfect and Demolition Crush, Ax and Smash. It came down to Mr Perfect vs The Warrior and Kerry Von Erich. Perfect was able to pin Von Erich, but fell to the Ultimate Warrior. Earlier Demolition and the LOD had got in a brawl outside the ring and all of them had been disqualified.WWE Legend The Undertaker made his debut in the next match, representing Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Team, consisting of DiBiase, Undertaker, and Rhythm and Blues Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man as they defeated the Dream Team of Dusty Rhodes, Koko B Ware and the Hart Foundation Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart. It came down to Hart and DiBiase with DiBiase hitting a flying cross body to be the sole survivor. This match was part of the rivalry between Dusty Rhdes and Ted DiBiase. DiBiase had brought the services of Rhodes' woman Sapphire at Summerslam.Next up saw the first shut out in Survivor Series history as the evil Visionaries Rick Martel, Warlord, and Power and Glory Paul Roma and Hercules defeated The Vipers Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snuka and the Rockers Shawn Micheals and Marty Janetty.At the moment it looks like we'll be seeing the Ultimate Warrior taking on five men in the main event. But there are still two matches to come. Can some of the good guys stand up and even out the score?Hulk Hogan went some of the way toward evening up the main event as he survived the next match. The Hulkamaiacs: Hulk Hogan, Jim Duggan, Tugboat and The Big Boss Man defeated the Natural Disasters Earthquake, Haku, Dino Bravo and the Barbarian. This was an even contest which ended with Hogan pinning Barbarian following a leg drop.Our final qualifying match for the main event was won by the Alliance: Tito Santana, Nikolai Volkoff and Butch and Luke the Bushwackers, who defeated The Mercenaries Sgt Slaughter, Boris Zhukov and the Orient Express. Santana was the sole survivor after Slaughter's evil Iraqi friend Sgt Adnan hit Santana and Slaughter was disqualified. What's going on with this story? Why is the super patriotic Slaughter siding with Iraq and wrestling with foreigners? Someone needs to put him into his place.So here comes our main event as the good guys Hulk Hogan, The Ulltimate Warrior and Tito Santana defeated the Bad Guys Ted DiBiase, Rick Martel, The Warlord, Paul Roma and Hercules with Hogan and the Warrior the survivors. This was a short match, ending after Hogan had pinned DiBiase following a leg drop and the Warrior pinned Hercules following a body splash.An interesting idea that worked reasonably well here. Needed some sort of tie between the good teams and evil teams rather than simply being good and evil. A fun night, but really didn't leave us anticipating the next year's story lines as the previous three had.
... View MoreThis one was marred by potentially great matches being cut very short.The opening match was a waste of the Legion of Doom, but I guess the only way they could have been eliminated by Demolition was a double-DQ. Otherwise, Mr. Perfect would have had to put in overtime. Kerry von Erich, the I-C champ, was wasted here. And this was the third ppv in a row where Perfect jobbed. Remember, before that he never lost a match.The second match was very good, possibly the best of the night. Ted DiBiase and the Undertaker were excellent, while the Jim Neidhart had one of his WWF highlights, pinning the Honky Tonk Man. Koko B. Ware continued his tradition of being the first to put over a new heel (remember the Big Bossman and Yokozuna?). This was a foreshadowing of Bret Hart's singles career, as he came back from two-on-one and almost survived the match. He and DiBiase put on a wrestling clinic, making us forget that the point of the match was DiBiase's boring feud with Dusty Rhodes.Even though the Visionaries were the first team to have all of its members survive (and only the second since '87 to have four survivors), this match was not a squash. This was the longest match of the night, and Jake did a repeat of his '88 performance when he was left alone against four men and dominated. I think he could have actually pulled off an upset. These days, the match would have ended the other way around.One of the shortest SS matches ever was also one of its most surprising. Possibly the most underrated wrestler ever, Tito Santana was the inspirational wrestler of the night, putting on war paint and pinning Boris Zukhov, Tanaka, and even the Warlord in the final survival match. It was so strange to see him put over so overwhelmingly, then go right back to his mediocre career. Sgt. Slaughter also did well, getting rid of Volkoff and the Bushwhackers, but that just wasn't a surprise. Tito was.I think the only point of the survival match was to have Hogan and the Warrior win together at the end.This show was boring and the matches were too short. The Undertaker's debut was cool, but Tito Santana is the reason I will remember this one.
... View MoreWhen the WWF 4th Annual Survivor Series came out Thanksgiving night in 1990, I missed it by a fraction. Fortunately for me, I rented the video when it was still around(The event is out of print today). The debut of the Undertaker was a phenomenon for everyone that saw it. He was the surprise team member of the "Million Dollar Team" captained by Ted Dibiase. The music, the introduction and the crowd's reaction was an epic to behold. There were other great matches in the event like "The Hulkamaniacs" vs "The Natural Disasters", "The Warriors" vs "The Perfect Team" and the Grand Finale match of survival, which was pretty cool too.The event lasted just over two hours, and had lots of excitement. I own this Survivor Series feature and a few others. I also own quite a few original copies of past "Wrestlemanias", "Summerslams" , and "Royal Rumbles"
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