WWF Survivor Series 1995
November 19, 1995
Landover, MD
Reviewed on March 1, 2014

Background: 1995 was perhaps the worst year in the history of the WWF. Diesel had not been the major drawing champion the WWF needed, although I don’t believe that is really all on him (fighting Sid and Mabel and The British Bulldog on PPV after PPV didn’t help). The overall booking style of the WWF has suddenly become dated, especially with the edgier and at times much better WCW Nitro now on the air. The WWF had a lot of very good to great top talent in 1995: Diesel, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart,Undertaker, Razor Ramon to name a few, but often times they were wrestling guys not in their league rather than each other (like Razor vs. Dean Douglas, Diesel and Taker vs. Mabel, Bret vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte). For some reason, WWF tried to create new stars despite having current stars to draw money with. It’s great to create new stars if your current guys are stale, but these guys weren’t. Often times, when these top guys were paired with one another, good results happen, and the evidence is in the main event of this PPV.

The Card

Here comes Mr. Perfect! I assume he’s doing commentary with Vince. I like Perfect’s commentary, so that’s a plus.

Promor video for Bret vs. Diesel. It’s the two time triple crown winner against the man who won the triple crown in one year. Cool facts there.

We’ve got a USA theme going, I guess that’s because Landover is right there with Washington DC.

The Bodydonnas (Skip, Rad Radford, Tom Pritchard and the 1-2-3 Kid) vs. The Underdogs (Marty Jannetty, Hakushi, Barry Horowitz, and Bob Holly)

Wooo Sunny!

I like that Tom Pritchard is on this Bodydonna team…since he would be Zip a few months later.

I believe the Kid just turned heel by costing Razor Ramon and match with Sid. Kid gets his own entrance with Ted Dibiase.

Here comes Razor! Refs send him to the back though.

Jannetty and Pritchard start us off. Jannetty owns the entire Bodydonna team to a good response. I am of the opinion that Jannetty could have been a big star had he not been a mess.

I didn’t realize Bob Holly had a frankensteiner in his arsenal.

I still hate the Modern Day Kamikaze nickname for Hakushi. It also makes me sad that Hakushi is in this match. He was feuding with Bret Hart 5 months ago.

The Kid is the biggest heel in this match.

Barry Horowitz chant! He hasn’t been tagged in.

Bob Holly hits Pritchard with a top rope bodypress and Pritchard is gone. Skip rolls up Holly to even the odds right away.

There have been a lot of fun moves in this one. It’s weird that Horowitz is being built up as the big star in this match…

I feel like Kid vs. Hakushi would have been a fun match.

Kid spin kicks Hakushi in the back of the head, and Rad Radford eliminates him.

Barry Horowitz is in!

Rad Radford does some pushups, and Horowitz rolls him up in ugly looking fashion for the pin, eliminating him.

The Kid nails Horowitz from behind and gets the pin after a legdrop. Down to Skip and Kid vs. Marty Jannetty.

Jannetty and Skip are having a nice match here.

Top rope powerbomb from Marty to Skip! Down to Jannetty and the Kid.

Perfect dropkick to the face of Jannetty.

Kid misses a somersault from the top.

Here comes Sid!

The Bodydonnas win when The Kid last pins Marty Jannetty in 18:45. Jannetty gets the Rocker Dropper, but the Kid gets his foot on the rope. Dibiase distracts the ref, and Sid hangs Marty on the top rope for the Kid to get the pin. Fun match. Great way to showcase a lot of the lower card guys. Too bad only a few would even be employed in six months.

Razor Ramon is pretty angry about the end of that match.

The wildcard match is later tonight. Faces and heels are mixed in their respective teams. Jim Cornette has Owen Hart and Yokozuna on one side with Dean Douglas and Razor Ramon. Cornette’s Bulldog is on the other side with Sid, HBK and Ahmed Johnson.

Bertha Faye, Aja Kong, Tomoko Watanabe and Lioness Asuka vs. Alundra Blayze, Kyoko Inoue, Sakie Hasegawa, and Chaparita Asari

Interesting that WCW got all the international male wrestlers, but the WWF got all the women. At least at this point. The women’s division was gone about a month later when Blayze showed up on Nitro with the women’s title.

I don’t know who is who to be honest, except for Kong, Blayze and Faye.

There’s a giant swing. Eat your heart out Cesaro!

Wow skytwister press by Asari. What the fuck that was awesome.

Blaze eliminates Asuka with a german suplex. Nice.

Wow a chained double underhook suplex by Hasegawa.

T-bone suplex on Kong from Hasegawa!

Kong eliminates Hasegawa with a suplex.

Kong hits a top rope splash takes out Asari.

Kong eliminates Inoue with a sitdown splash!

We have 3 vs. 1 against Blayze right now.

Mike Chioda accidentally counts out Watanabe, but Blayze piledrives her and gets a legit 3 count right after.

Bertha Faye was a stupid idea.

Blayze hits a german suplex and eliminates Faye!

Great action between Kong and Blayze. Standing moonsault from Blazye!

Team Faye wins when Kong pins Blayze in 10:01. Brutal swinging backhand from Kong for the win. Great match. Some things got botched, but overall, it was full of action and good spots.

Random fact: Roman Reigns was the 2nd person ever to eliminate an entire Survivor Series team this last year. Aja Kong was the first.

Fake Bill Clinton!

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldust

When Bigelow’s pyro goes off the fake Clinton dives for cover. I guess it’s supposed to be funny.

I believe this is Bigelow’s last WWF match. Shame that Bigelow didn’t have a bigger 1995.

I love these Goldust movie interviews. Goldust was such a tremendous character.

You can see Dustin Rhodes’ toughness when he wrestlers, which is a great contrast to what WWE was promoting with Goldust.

Goldust’s outfit is not rated PG for sure…

Goldust pinned Bam Bam Bigelow in 8:18. Goldust hits a bulldog for the win. Match was 80% Goldust and it was clear why. Bigelow was on his way out and was putting over Goldust. And it did the job.

Mr. Bob Backlund confronts the fake Clinton! This actually is funny.

The Royals (Jerry Lawler, King Mabel, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and Isaac Yankem) vs. The Darkside (The Undertaker, Savio Vega, Henry Godwinn and Fatu)

The main feud here is Mabel vs. Undertaker. At King of the Ring Mabel pinned Undertaker in one of the worst PPV finishes ever. Mabel and Yokozuna would injure Taker later in 95, breaking his face. Taker’s coming for revenge.

Godwinn had been feuding with HHH at the time as well. Hogpen matches or something.

Taker is more over than the other 7 men combined.

The Phantom of the Opera Undertaker is probably the best look Undertaker has ever had.

We have Undertaker, Rikishi, Triple H and Kane in this thing!

Fatu and HHH start. I think this is where they figured out how to run down Stone Cold in 4 years.

This is Make a Difference Fatu.

We are getting a lot of Godwinn-HHH here.

This all feels like unnecessary build-up to Taker-Mabel.

Vega kicks out of Lawler’s piledriver. A little later we get a Rock Bottom on HHH from Vega!

Another piledriver from Lawler to Vega…only Vega no sells and tags in Taker!

No one wants to tag in for Lawler. Tombstone to Lawler and he’s gone.

Tombstone to DDS, he’s gone.

HHH tries to escape, but Godwinn threatens to slop him. Leads to an over the top rope chokeslam! Taker pins HHH.

Team Darkside wins when Mabel gets counted out at 14:21). Mabel gets some shots in, but Taker sits-up from a belly to belly and a legdrop (which makes the KOTR finish even dumber), then hightails it after that. It’s not bad, but a bit too long for what the result was. If you thought Undertaker was levels above all these guys before the match, well, it was certainly booked that way. I don’t think that’s a bad thing though.

Vince announced Bulldog vs. Bret/Diesel winner at the December In Your House for the title.

Bret interview. Compares himself to Wayne Gretzky. Wonders if he is still the best. The truck stops here! Ok interview, but Bret is bland here.

Diesel interview. Says that he has to go through Bret to get the Bulldog. Weird way to look at it.

Owen Hart, Yokozuna, Dean Douglas and Razor Ramon vs. The British Bulldog, Ahmed Johnson, Shawn Michaels and Sid

Cornette tells the Bulldog he is on his side. Of course, he told Owen and Yoko that earlier.

This match is weird. Ramon, HBK and Ahmed are faces. The rest are heels. I assume WWE did it because that’s just how alignments work out at the time.

This match does have a lot of storylines intermingled. The Douglas-HBK-Ramon stuff. Cornette being on both sides. Ahmed Johnson slamming Yokozuna on RAW. Also Razor-Sid/Dibiase stuff. Even Sid and Shawn had history in 95.

Owen and Shawn start us off. Michaels beats up Cornette for no reason!

Mr. Perfect says on commentary that Michaels probably wasn’t hurt and just forfeited the IC title to Douglas last month because he didn’t want to get pinned. I wonder why Perfect said that and how Vince felt about it. Perfect probably said it as a heel commentator and not a shoot comment, but still.

Ahmed goes for the slam on Yoko, but no dice.

I think it’s a big weird to see Ahmed be the face that gets beat down, but he gets out of it himself with a powerslam to Douglas.

Shawn actually did the loading of the boot for Sweet Chin. Thought he didn’t do that till 96.

Razor hits his teammate Douglas, and HBK rolls him up for the pin.

Bulldog and Owen in there now. They shake hands but then both go for the punch. Nice spot considering they are both sneaky heels.

Shawn and Razor now. I feel like this would have been the WWF’s top feud of 1996 if Ramon stayed.

Razor’s Edge! Ahmed Johnson saves Razor.

Perfect keeps making comments that if you think about them you’d think they were shoot comments on HBK. (“HBK always makes friends with the big guys”)

Vince asks who woulda thought that Michaels and Razor would be going at it at the Survivor Series. Um..everyone? They are on opposite teams here.

Sid holds Ramon for HBK to hit SCM, but Razor ducks and HBK nails Sid. HBK didn’t seem to care. Ramon pins Sid.

Sid powerbombs HBK out of anger. Actually seems justified.

Yokozuna looks huge here. Like huge huge.

Pearl River Plunge on Owen and he’s gone. It is a cool looking move to be honest. Someone should bring it back.

Razor hits the Razor’s Edge on Ahmed, but the Bulldog makes the save. Here comes the Kid, Sid and Dibiase! Their distraction leads to a Bulldog powerslam on Razor for the pin.

Ahmed, Bulldog and Shawn vs. Yoko.

Team HBK wins when Ahmed Johnson pins Yokozuna in 27:24. Ahmed comes in and slams Yokozuna. The Bulldog actually saves Yoko, but HBK and Ahmed double clothesline him over the top rope. Sweet Chin Music…then a splash from Ahmed for the win. Pretty good match despite the weird team mechanics. Puts Ahmed over for sure.

More Fake Clinton. This time he has Sunny on his lap, and he offers her a cabinet position. Lol?

WWF Championship-No DQ
Diesel© vs. Bret Hart

Bret and Diesel each take a turnbuckle off the corners of the ring.

The match was built up as the powerful Diesel vs. the wrestler Hart. Diesel starts with all power moves.

At Rumble 95, Bret was the aggressor to keep Diesel as a face. It’s clear that this match is the exact opposite. Diesel absolutely destroys Bret early on and Bret gets the sympathy. It made the Diesel heel turn a lot easier to do.

Chair shot from Diesel to Bret. This has been all Diesel.

Bret bites Diesel and rakes him in the face a few times. Normally heel moves…but Bret makes use of them as ‘a survive at all costs’ kinda sequence, and it works.

Bret vs. Diesel was basically made for Bret Hart’s attack the legs offense.

Figure Four! Wooo!

Bret ties Diesel’s leg to the ringpost. This is the only part of the match that feels a bit out of place, although the spot itself is creative.

See, now Bret using the chair feels justified, since Diesel used it earlier.

Bret uses the back of the chair instead of the seating part. I wonder if that was a mistake.

People used to joke that Diesel only had 2 moves and one was the Sidewalk Slam. Yeah…but it was one of the best Sidewalk Slams in wrestling.

Diesel is really selling the knee, which is great storytelling.

In one of the best spots of pre-attitude WWF, Bret gets on the ring apron and Diesel shoves him off…sending Bret through the announcer’s desk! It’s the first time we see that happen in WWF history I believe, and the way Bret hits just looks like it killed him.

Bret Hart pins Diesel in 24:54 to win the title. Diesel is about to finish off the lifeless Hart. Even his jackknife attempt doesn’t happen as Bret collapses. Diesel picks him up…and Bret surprises with a small package, 1…2…3! An enraged Diesel jackknifes Bret twice and nails some referees, basically making him a heel (although, not completely until Feburary). Great match, best of Diesel’s career. Bret and Diesel had such great chemistry.

They put over Diesel snapping after the event video package.

Survivor Series 95 is an interesting event. All of the matches accomplish something and range from average to good.

The opener had some good wrestling, even if the Barry Horowitz story is a little misplaced. Kid stuff though was good.

Women’s Survivor Series match was very good. Too bad the division died about 6 weeks later.

Bam Bam putting over Goldust is well done.

If you are an Undertaker fan, the Darkside vs. Royals match is great. If not, it’s okay, I guess. It further establishes Undertaker, whether he needed it or not.

Wildcard match was a little confusing, but still good and helped make Ahmed a star. I would think it was strange that the Bulldog was getting a World title shot after seeing it.

Bret vs. Diesel is a great match, and a great culmination of Bret’s story in 1994 where he lost the title and never got a fair shake to regain it. The reason why Bret vs. Diesel works and nothing else in 1995 does is because you actually believe these two are the top guys in the WWF.

Random note: I don’t know how people feel about Mr. Perfect’s commentary. He puts himself over constantly…but I think he’s supposed to as that was his character. I personally don’t mind it.

Anyway, you see some traces of the Attitude Era at Survivor Series 95 with Goldust and how Bret vs. Diesel was worked. This is a damn good show and I’m pretty sure the best show the WWF had in 1995.

Final Grade: A-