Last week, the wrestling industry lost Bill Moody, known best for his portrayal of the spooky mortician manager Paul Bearer. In a scummy business, Moody was considered like the Tom Hanks. Just about everyone referred to him as the nicest guy. The other night on Monday Night Raw, they did a night-long tribute that showed a bunch of his career highlights. His first appearance, his big returns, the first appearance of Kane and so on. One clip that appeared towards the end was a completely bizarre one involving Mr. Fuji and Nicholas Tuturro. Thinking back to that clip, it made me realize how that was the final stage of a feud that when viewed together in one collective chunk is one of the most outright surreal storylines in all of wrestling history.

Let’s reminisce about the utter insanity that is the Undertaker vs. Yokozuna.

In the blue corner, we have the Undertaker. The invincible zombie wrestler has been a huge deal in the WWF ever since debuting at the end of 1990. As a monster heel, he was once pushed to the heavens in one segment where he both manhandled the Ultimate Warrior and shrugged it off when Hulk Hogan slammed a belt into his face. He turned face due to outright popularity and became something of a special attraction for a few years. Despite having a gimmick as silly as being an undead dude in kitchen gloves, he’s been treated as a serious character, even to this day. At the time of this story, he’s coming off a feud with Giant Gonzalez, a wrestler whose gimmick is that he’s really tall and fake-naked.

In the red corner, we have the late Yokozuna. An extremely large Samoan depicting a Japanese sumo wrestler, he also became a huge deal immediately. Managed by Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna rose through the ranks within months, dominating the Royal Rumble and defeating Bret Hart at Wrestlemania. By this point, he’s only suffered two losses and both controversial. Still champion, he’s been feuding with Lex Luger, who foolishly threw away what appeared to be his only chance to win the title.

At the end of November, the stage is set for Survivor Series 1993. In a PPV filled with four-on-four elimination matches, the most high profile is the All-Americans (Lex Luger, Tatanka, Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner) vs. the Foreign Fanatics (Yokozuna, Ludvig Borga, Quebecer Jacques and Quebecer Pierre). During this, Tatanka has been on an undefeated streak that’s been in place since his debut, almost two years earlier. A televised match between Tatanka and Borga ends with Borga being the first to pin Tatanka after some interference by Mr. Fuji and the use of a chair. The Quebecers had set it up so that Steiner Brothers are stuck in their locker room and can’t do anything as the Foreign Fanatics put the boots to Tatanka. Yokozuna crushes Tatanka’s ribs with a couple Banzai Drops as the Quebecers hold Luger back. Luger eventually reaches the ring, but his buddy is in rough shape and definitely won’t be able to compete at Survivor Series.

With only a couple weeks left, Luger and the Steiners do an interview to explain that they have found a replacement. They introduce the Undertaker to a huge ovation. Hey, he’s a great acquisition, but what the hell does a magical walking corpse have to do with America? He explains.

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Sorry for the lateness. I was planning on finishing this baby up yesterday, but I was exhausted. Exhausted from MARKING! Why was I marking again? Oh yeah…

Right! Miz winning the title. Good times. But I’m sure I’ll be forgiven for finishing this list off a couple days late. Posting it on Thanksgiving sort of works, right? You’ll forgive me, won’t you, Miz Title Win Reaction Girl?

Oh. Never mind, then.

As for the PPV? I thought the first half was brilliant and the second half was below average. The Kane vs. Edge match especially. That’s a shame, since I like the angle.

Now for the top three Survivor Series!

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With this series winding down, I thought I should take a second to discuss my thoughts on the Survivor Series concept in general. I’ve found through watching these 23 shows that it would benefit the WWE to go back to the earlier concept from the first ten years. Nearly, if not every match should be an elimination tag. If you really need to fit in a title match, go ahead. The thing is, forcing your champions into these tag matches both gives even the most invincible face champion an excuse to lose for once and it keeps things from getting stale. It’s optimal to have your money feud spread out with a high-profile tag match such as this, rather than wearing out the luster with rematch after rematch in a singles setting.

Survivor Series is an awful lot like the Royal Rumble. It’s a who’s who of the roster. We get mystery wrestlers, replacements, good eliminations, bad eliminations, chaotic guessing games of who’s going to win, current feuds developed, new feuds created and old feuds rekindled. While the elimination tag matches aren’t as fun as the Royal Rumbles, they do have the advantage that there doesn’t have to simply be one winner that night. As much as I love the Royal Rumble, it’s a pain knowing that sometimes only two or three guys involved have anything resembling a chance at winning. At Survivor Series, we have multiple matches with potentially multiple winners. If somebody loses, a lot of the time, it doesn’t hurt their status. Sometimes a win can make you look great.

It is silly that this year’s Survivor Series has only one of these matches. In the past couple months, we had a 7-on-7 elimination tag at Summerslam and another one at Bragging Rights. Both were a lot more important than Rey Mysterio’s team vs. Del Rio’s team. How strange that the company insists on shoving different gimmick PPVs in our faces month after month, but doesn’t want to give any service to their original gimmick PPV.

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I am officially a day behind. The fatigue finally hit me, mainly due to real life scheduling and sleep sounded a lot better to me than writing about the Goodfather. I’m going to try to have the rest of this up before leaving to watch Sunday’s show, but I’m sure I’ll probably tap out and finish the last installment the day after despite my best efforts. Boy, I suck.

And speaking of people who suck, as well as Thanksgiving, I want to direct your attention to Luther Reigns. He’s a hoss from the mid-00’s who is featured in today’s update. For that, I bring you this clip, which features one of my favorite quotes in all wrestling.

He’s had peas before. That… That’s good to know, Luther. Thank you for sharing that.

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To show how bored I am when I’m not writing and how desperate I am to fill this intro space, I put together this presentation.

Stupid jerk Big Show, beating up Blue Meanie, Taka and Funaki for no reason.

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One neat little feature of Survivor Series is how just about any random wrestler is capable of main eventing the show, especially apparent in one of the two PPVs I’ll be showcasing in this entry. For every Randy Savage, there is a Koko B. Ware. Here’s a list of some of the guys who have main evented this major PPV.

– Bobby “The Brain” Heenan
– Hillbilly Jim
– Jacques from the Quebecers
– Marty Jannetty
– “The Model” Rick Martel
– Maven
– Shane McMahon
– Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart
– Paul Roma
– The Red Rooster
– Butch Reed
– Irwin R. Schyster
– Gene Snitsky
– Koko B. Ware

Now, you might point out that the Royal Rumble match is a main event too and therefore you have guys like Virgil and Mantaur main eventing major PPVs. To that I say…

Goddamn it. Moving on.

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One more Gobbledy Gooker video for you all and this one is very important to the annals of history. You see, the failed gimmick of the Gobbledy Gooker crosses paths with a man who will one day become the Shockmaster. It’s like George Washington meeting Abraham Lincoln.

Shock the turkey!
Shock the turkey!
Shock the turkey to life!

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Before we get to #15 on the list, let’s check back in with the Gobbledy Gooker.

Three cool guys right there. Three cool, cool guys.

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How about that? Day Four and I haven’t broken stride yet. This is promising. So far I’ve neither JMS’d this series nor Billy Gunn’d it. Let’s celebrate with the Gobbledy Gooker.

All right!

Now onto the list.

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Survivor Series trivia isn’t nearly as entertaining as Wrestlemania trivia, but I thought I’d give it a shot to fill up some intro space.

– Only two shows failed to include any elimination tag matches. 98’s “survival” had to do with its tournament setup while 02’s “survival” was mostly about the introduction of the Elimination Chamber. 02 also featured an elimination tables match and a three-way elimination tag match, which I suppose are close enough.

– Mick Foley has never been in an elimination tag match at any of these shows. Steve Austin has only competed in one during the 01 Series.

– The first non-elimination match at a Survivor Series is Hogan vs. Undertaker at the 91 show.

– John Cena is 6-0 at Survivor Series. Randy Savage is 5-0, though he did get eliminated in a match where his team won. Savage also went two years in a row where he was at the show and cut a live promo, but didn’t actually wrestle. The Ultimate Warrior is 3-0.

– Triple H lost his first seven Survivor Series appearances, though one of them is a no contest.

– Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels have been in four Survivor Series matches together. They teamed up in 88, fought for Bret’s title in 92, fought against each other as team captains in 93 and had that more well-known title match in 97.

– The first team to ever win with a shutout is the team of “The Model” Rick Martel, the Warlord, Paul Roma and Hercules at the 1990 Series. The first man to ever be the sole survivor will be brought up later in this installment.

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