WWF Survivor Series 98: The Deadly Game
November 15, 1998
St. Louis, MO
March 15, 2014
Background: The WWF has started to regularly win the Monday Night War. Yes, WCW would still win once in a while, but the WWF had control. Vince Russo’s Crash TV was in full effect as you will see here. There are 14 matches on this card, which is a ludicrous amount.
Stone Cold Steve Austin, the #1 man in the WWF, had been screwed out of the WWF Title at Breakdown and hadn’t even gotten a chance to regain the title. This tournament was supposed to be his rematch. The Undertaker and Kane were feuding throughout 1998. The Rock, Mankind and Triple H were coming into their own and at least one of them looked to be a star main eventer in 1999 (all three of them would make it). Mr. McMahon was the biggest heel in wrestling. He recently had demoted Shane McMahon to referee status.
WWF Attitude was in full swing here. I think there is some good and bad on this show, and I’ll get to each.
The Card
The main focus of the show is a 14 Man Tournament to decide the new WWF Champion. Smart money storyline wise was on Mankind as he seemed to be who Mr. McMahon wanted to be champion.
It’s 14 man because Taker and Kane got byes and start in the 2nd round.
I love the Deadly Game theme.
Here comes Vince. He’s still in a wheelchair after Taker and Kane dropped the stairs on his leg.
Great intro by Vince. “An individual who is looking to take one small leap for man, one giant leap for Mankind”.
Mankind is slated to face a mystery opponent. A lot of people thought this would be the return of Shawn Michaels. Not quite.
Mankind is in a tux. And he hugs McMahon. Just awesome.
When Vince says “WCW” he gets massive heat.
It’s DUANE GILL!
Deadly Game Round 1: Mankind vs. Duane Gill
Mankind pins Duane Gill in 0:30. Double Arm DDT, cradle for the win. Obviously a non-match, but the story is that Vince is making this as easy as possible for Mankind.
On Heat Jacqueline attacked Sable. She cuts an angry promo on her. Sable couldn’t really talk either.
Deadly Game Round 1: Jeff Jarrett vs. Al Snow
Winner faces Mankind in round 2.
Debra’sPPV debut here.
Al Snow was pretty over here. Or really Head was over.
Apparently Mankind’s Socko is a headband for Head. I guess that spoils the winner.
Al Snow does a weird corner flip.
Top rope guillotine legdrop misses.
Nice spinebuster counter into the DDT from Snow.
Al Snow takes way too big of a bump when he bangs his head on Jarrett’s back.
Al Snow pins Jeff Jarrett in 3:31. Jarrett grabs Head and Snow grabs the Guitar, but Jarrett misses the Head shot. Snow gets Head back and nails Jarrett for the win. Ok for three minutes, even if the finish was whatever. Snow vs. Mankind in Round 2.
Deadly Game Round 1: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Big Bossman
Stone Cold wins by DQ in 3:20. Bossman slides out and when Austin slides out to follow, Bossman gets him with the nightstick. Bossman proceeds to beat the crap out of Stone Cold with the nightstick, story being he is weakening Austin for later, which I guess makes sense. Vince looks happy about what happened. Nothing notable in the match itself.
Deadly Game Round 1: X-Pac vs. Steven Regal
Winners takes on Stone Cold.
This is a Real Man’s Man William Regal.
Regal’s pushing muscle taunt is great.
Weirdly placed catapult by Regal. Wonder if that was intentional or not.
Match is all submission wrestling from Regal.
Regal’s selling is fantastic.
Double underhook suplex on X-Pac from the top. X-Pac survives.
Double Countout at 8:10. X-Pac and Regal go at it on the outside and are counted out. Vince sends Sgt. Slaughter to start a 5 minute overtime. It doesn’t start though as X-Pac (I think is legit hurt) and Regal runs after him for some reason. I think it’s botched as Regal is all in the ring at first and his running after X-Pac was unnatural. Anyway, Vince is angry that Austin gets a bye. Why not make it a triple-threat? You’re the boss. Anyway, finish sucked. Weird it got the most time of all the first round matches.
Deadly Game Round 1: Ken Shamrock vs. Goldust
Heel Shamrock is the best Shamrock.
Goldust had just returned (he was Dustin Runnels for most of 98) and was pretty over.
Shamrock with a great counter to the Shattered Dreams! He pulls the ref in front of him!
Ken Shamrock makes Goldust submit in 5:56. Shamrock gets a leaping off the top rope into a frankensteiner combination. Belly to belly then ankle lock for the submission win. Match was 70-30 Shamrock, which makes sense since he was the Jobber to the Stars at that point, and Goldust was closer to the midcard. Okay match.
Deadly Game Round 1: The Rock vs. Triple H
Winner of this faces Shamrock.
Rock is megaover.
Instead of Triple H…here come The Stooges! Brisco specifically does some big crotch crops coming in, which is hilarious. Amazing how Vince made Patterson and Brisco into stars in 1998.
Patterson announces that…The Bossman will replace HHH!
The Rock pins the Big Bossman in 0:03. Roll-up and it’s over. This actually makes sense later. This got the biggest pop of the night up to this point.
Deadly Game Quarterfinal: The Undertaker vs. Kane
I’ll preface this by saying this may be my least favorite Undertaker match ever, and I’ll explain why shortly.
This Darker Side theme is the best Taker’s ever had in my opinion.
Undertaker does this awkward sidekick I’ve never seen him do.
Undertaker was trying a spinning toe hold or a Figure Four. Kane kicked out, but weird.
It’s weird to see Taker do the work on the leg story.
Kane with a bad looking top rope clothesline. He also awkwardly jumped over the top rope.
Horrible chokeslam from Kane…but I think that was on Taker.
Undertaker pins Kane in 7:16. Paul Bearer distracts Kane, and then Kane walks into a Tombstone. Taker actually hooks the leg and Bearer holds down Kane’s other leg for the three, which is a nice touch. But still. Match sucked. Undertaker, while I guess being all evil was going back to the no selling route. But he’s not supposed to do that against Kane. Kane peaked from his debut until this event. Kane had been protected from his debut as a very very tough to beat monster. And this match killed that aura as Taker disposes of him in 7 minutes in a horrible match. And you know what? Kane never truly recovered. This was the end of unstoppable monster Kane, as in a few months he was going to the insane asylum and feuding with Chyna. What a shame. Terrible overall.
Deadly Game Quarterfinal: Mankind vs. Al Snow
Winner faces Stone Cold, who got a bye.
Mankind is still in the tux.
Al Snow just uses a chair and the ref doesn’t call for the DQ. How WCW 2000 like (at least the PPVs I reviewed so far). Dammit Russo.
Mankind finds Socko on Head…and beats up Head. Ok.
Match has oddly been all Al Snow.
Socko is over.
Mankind makes Al Snow submit in 3:55. Socko for the win. The Socko-Head stuff was bizarre, but I mean, it’s another 4 minute whatever match. Al Snow got in a lot of offense though, which was odd.
Deadly Game Quarterfinal: Ken Shamrock vs. The Rock
Winner faces The Undertaker.
Like Taker and Kane, this is the fourth PPV match of the year between these two, with another involving Mankind. First time with Shamrock as the heel and Rock as the face though.
Nice suplex by Shamrock that led to a pin where he hooked the head. You don’t see that often.
JR points out that Rock made his debut two years earlier at Survivor Series. The changes he made in two years was incredible.
Bossman is here. I’m a little sick of him to be honest.
The Rock hilariously sells the frankensteiner.
Ankle Lock is in. Fans are alive here, as they might believe this is the finish.
Rock also comes off the ropes very awkwardly in the next sequence leading to a double clothesline.
The Rock pins Ken Shamrock in 8:20. Rock Bottom attempt…but Shamrock counters with a belly to belly that Rock doesn’t go up for (was Rock really this bad as a worker then?). Bossman tosses the nightstick in the ring…but Rock catches it instead of Shamrock and he knocks out Shamrock for the win. This would make sense later as well. We have Rock vs. Taker and Austin vs. Mankind as the semifinals. Match was definitely the 2nd weakest of the Rock-Shamrock series…Mania was worse, but Mania was barely a match.
Paul Bearer says Taker will walk out champ. What else would he say really?
Women’s Championship
Jacqueline© vs. Sable
No idea why the Women’s title returned at this stage. Jackie beat Sable with Marc Mero’s interference a couple months ago for the new title.
Shane McMahon is the referee here, which is genius. Subtly plants a seed for later.
Horrible TKO by Sable. Sable is not really a wrestler.
Sable Bomb on the floor to Marc Mero. Yes this killed Mero, but who cares about Mero anyway?
Talking a lot about how Shane McMahon was demoted to ref by Vince. Again, this works well for later.
Sable pins Jackie to win the title in 3:14. Sable Bomb for the win. Sable can’t wrestle, but really no one cares. Nor should they.
Deadly Game Semifinal: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mankind
The card just took a serious turn here. Probably because this is the first match that’s really in doubt in terms of who would win.
Here comes Vince! Huge boos.
Mankind practically runs away from the Stunner and the Stooges have to coax him back. Austin breaks up the Stooge meeting.
This is a great back and forth match. Best of the night easily.
Double Arm DDT on the chair! Austin with a really close kickout…and Vince stands up!
Stunner! 1…2…McMahon is up! He takes out the referee! He’s healed!
Mankind pins Stone Cold in 10:23. He is a botched ending (according to Stone Cold himself). To be fair I knew something was wrong the first time I saw this. Austin gets another stunner. Shane slides in, 1…2…where’s 3? 3? Where’s 3? Double bird to Austin from Shane. That’s an amazing turn there. But here is where it goes to hell, as Austin goes after Shane and the Bossman is supposed to attack Austin here…but there’s no Bossman. Austin even turns around and is shocked at no Bossman. The actual finish is awful (Foley said so himself on his book), as Gerald Brisco hits the worst chair shot in PPV history. Literally. Worse than anything Lance Storm ever did. And Austin jobs to that. Austin should have kicked out on principle and let Mick hit him. Vince and the Stooges hightail it. Austin in pursuit in a car. Could have been one of the all time great finishes. Thanks Bossman.
Deadly Game Semifinal: The Undertaker vs. The Rock
Winner takes on Mankind in the final! Crowd is a bit deflated because Austin is gone…but they still have The Rock!
This PPV officially will be the first since the Royal Rumble to not have Austin in the final match.
This is mostly Undertaker here, which makes sense as this is Rock’s first real dash with a main eventer I believe. It would make perfect sense if Taker puts over Rock here.
Bossman is still here. Again.
Rock mocks Taker with a sit-up, too bad crowd didn’t react to it.
Bossman messes up a People’s Elbow…which doesn’t make sense for later.
Taker nails the Bossman!
The Rock defeats Undertaker by DQ in 8:23. Taker tosses Rock to Kane…Chokeslam to Kane to get Taker DQed. Kane then goes at it with Taker. That finish absolutely blows, and here is why. It actually makes perfect sense for Kane to do that…but then it opens the can of worms of why doesn’t EVERYONE do that. Like, every champ, just get yourself DQed. It’s fine to threaten that once in a while, but don’t actually do it. Anyway, Mankind vs. Rock finals.
Mankind promo. He has one more hill…no, one more rock to climb, if ya smell what the sock is cookin!
World Tag Team Championship
The New Age Outalws© vs. The Headbangers vs. D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry
Road Dogg’s intro will always be awesome.
Mosh with this great springboard bodypress to the outside. Don’t remember him ever doing that.
Match is an absolute mess by the way. Tags that don’t make sense for example. Jerry Lawler points this out as soon as I write it about how many guys are supposed to be in the ring.
I don’t remember D’Lo having a top rope hurricanrana in his repertoire.
It looks like Road Dogg legitimately hurt his hand on an earlier double flapjack from the Bangers.
The Future Lo Down with the double team!
Mosh with one of the more awesome low blows to D’Lo.
Road Dogg absolutely blows a spot. Billy Gunn gets the hot tag and immediately gets hit with D’Lo’s Sky High, which is a pinning combination. Road Dogg goes flying at Mark Henry instead of making the save. Referee Tim White doesn’t count…as it’s clear he expected Dogg to break up the pin. He makes the count and a Headbanger just makes the save. Yikes.
The New Age Outlaws retain when Billy Gunn pins Mosh in 10:08. Awful match. JR diplomatically says so with the classic “this was a unique match”. Gunn won with a piledriver which didn’t even look fluid. Awful match. Terrible.
Deadly Game Final: WWF Championship
Mankind vs. The Rock
OMG, Vince and Shane are still here!
Match is very slow and the crowd is dead. Just a lot of back and forth punching.
Interesting note. A few moments in Mankind locks in a chinlock. According to Foley’s book, they had no idea what to do in this match and basically call it in the ring during that chinlock.
Vince and Shane get some life out of the crowd.
Rock nails Mankind with a plastic garbage can…but not before a fan knocks it out of Rock’s hand first.
We get some chair action. At least JR has an explanation for it (Vince would never DQ Foley in this scenario).
Rock nails Foley with a chair while he has the steps, then beats the crap out of the stairs with Foley under them. Crowd really got into that…then went back to silent.
Rock sells a low blow in a hilarious manner. 2nd bad sell job from The Rock tonight.
Cactus Flying Elbow even gets no reaction.
Mankind with a legdrop on the desk that kinda misses the desk.
Mankind leaps from the second rope at the Rock on the floor…but misses and smashes through the table. Interesting note here, this was the move that served as the catalyst to Foley’s retirement in 2000, as he tears his meniscus here.
The Rock wins the WWF Title by submission in 17:10. Socko Claw into a Rock Bottom…but Rock only gets two! Rock shoots the Eyebrow at the McMahons. Sharpshooter…and Foley gets Montreal’d. McMahons and Rock hug in the ring to win the title. Match was pretty bad as you can tell they didn’t know what to do, but the finish was what mattered.
Vince and Shane cut a promo about what happened. The Rock cuts one as well, pointing out that the fans should kiss his ass.
Mankind says he’s confused as he didn’t submit, and the McMahons and The Rock beat him up.
Austin’s back!
Stunner to The Rock!
Stunner to Mankind!
Okay, this show is tough to grade.
There are two trains of thought here. One, wrestling wise, this show was absolutely awful. In fact, for in ring action, it would be a F. We had two non-matches (Mankind-Gill, Rock-Bossman), a downright horrible match (Tag title), and multiple horrible finishes (X-Pac-Regal, Austin-Mankind, Taker-Rock and even Taker-Kane if you don’t like how buried Kane was here). There’s not a good match on this show, although Mankind and Austin would have gotten there without the weak ending.
But storyline wise, this was an A. When you have a cast of characters that people care about, all this swerving and screwing and crazy stuff actually works. Hell, it is how the Attitude Era worked. There are very good stories here. Rock-Bossman made sense…because the McMahon’s were backing Rock. Bossman tossing the nightstick, maybe it was intentional to Rock, again now makes sense. Vince using Mankind to eliminate Austin…makes sense. Sure there are hiccups (Bossman trying to screw Rock against Taker), but it mostly works. They even tie up some other ends on RAW the next night.
Historically, this PPV is huge too. The Rock and Mankind come out as top tier players, and in fact would be the WWF Title match for every PPV until Wrestlemania (and their matches would get a lot better too). Also this established Shane as a top authority figure as well.
I can’t get past a couple of things though to put this in B range. The Mankind-Austin finish was so weak. I mean, this was the first time Austin was pinned by one guy on TV since July of 97! And the first time it happened in a 1 on 1 match since May of 97! That’s a long damn time! And I can’t get past the killing of Kane and really, the greenness of The Rock. I assume internet forums for 1998 thought Rocky still sucked, and well, it seemed like he still did.
What a mixed bag of everything. But it was perfectly fine for what the WWF needed at that point. And that does give it a little extra credit. Better to be good at one thing (story telling) than average at everything. That’s how Hogan-Andre got by, didn’t it? And really, the 1999 PPVs mostly suck in the ring, and that was the biggest year for the business.
Final Grade: C+