The SmarK Rant for WWF Survivor Series 1992 – 11.25.92

The SmarK Rant for WWF Survivor Series 1992 – 11.25.92

Originally written 12.09.25

It’s been a very long time (somewhere around 27-ish years) since I’ve reviewed this one, so given our look back at the Perfect face turn episode of Prime Time last week, it’s time to finally get a modern redo of this. Thanks as always to Fish & Chips for the PPV version.

Reverend Slick joins us with a sermon from the pulpit, and he’s REVIVED with a new attitude and hopes no one gets hurt tonight.

Live from Richfield, OH, drawing 17,500 and a 1.4 buyrate.

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bobby Heenan

High Energy v. The Headshrinkers

The poor Headshrinkers don’t even get an entrance early in their WWF run. Samu overpowers Owen as the crowd is surprisingly jacked here, but he misses a bodypress and Owen gets his own for one. Owen with dropkicks and it’s over to Koko for more dropkicks as they use the POWER OF PUFFY PANTS, but Koko tries ramming their heads together and that gets nothing. And then Afa hits Koko with his rooty poot stick from the floor and the Samoans take over. Fatu beats Koko down as Vince tells a whopper and says High Energy “have been exceedingly successful in the WWF thus far”. Had they even won a non-squash match at that point? Samu cuts off a comeback attempt from Koko with a clothesline and we get a rather dull heat segment on Koko as this is dragging pretty badly. Samu misses a charge and hits the post, allowing Owen to get the hot tag and run wild with more dropkicks. Owen to the top with a flying bodypress for two on Samu and a leg lariat puts Fatu on the floor. But then he walks into a powerslam from Samu and Fatu puts him away with the flying splash at 7:39. Just a glorified house show squash opener, it was fine for what it was. *1/2.

Meanwhile, Sean Mooney warns us that the nightstick match won’t be the squeamish or faint of heart. I love shoot comments that aren’t supposed to be shoot comments. And then we get comments from Nailz, who sounds like his voice might have been processed in post-production. Gotta say, Nailz continuing to claim his innocence might have made for an interesting storyline twist where it turns out that Bossman really was a corrupt guard who framed him and they could have done a double turn deal. I mean, they’d both be gone soon enough anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

Nightstick Match: Big Bossman v. Nailz

Nailz whips him into the corner right away as Bobby declares “You’re not gonna see any wrestling here!” Indeed. Nailz chokes him out and goes for the stick right away, but Bossman pulls him down. Nailz misses a charge and does a goofy sell off that, allowing Bossman to climb for the stick, but Nailz slams him off the top. I will say, the match has heat and people believed in Nailz as a character at the very least. Nailz with a backbreaker and he does more choking before going to a chinlock as Bobby again relates the tragic tale of Nailz getting a parking ticket while buying flowers for his mother on Mother’s Day, thus leading to his arrest and incarceration for 2400 days. Nailz goes for the nightstick and Bossman crotches him for a double down. They clothesline each other for another double down as Nailz has some the worst selling for a pushed guy that I’ve ever seen. Bossman finally gets the nightstick and beats him down with that, but Nailz goes to the nuts and beats him down with the nightstick as a result. But then Bossman hits him with the Bossman slam and pins him out of nowhere at 5:45. For a blowoff of a brutal blood feud, this was pretty lame. That being said, aside from Nailz and his selling, this was not as bad as I remembered. * Apparently they were going to do a rematch at Royal Rumble in an electric chair match, but Nailz left before we could be graced with that one.

Meanwhile, we hear from Flair and Ramon and get a recap of the awesome Perfect babyface turn angle, as they’re decked out in matching purple and Flair rants and raves. They really sold the main event as a big deal here.

Rick Martel v Tatanka

Tatanka hits him with chops and backdrops him out of the corner before sending him to the floor with dropkicks. Back in, Tatanka with an atomic drop and clothesline to the floor. Back in the ring, Martel tries some cheapshots and then catches Tatanka with a stungun to take over, before putting the boots to him and choking him out. Martel with a facelock while some clown wanders down to ringside making balloon animals. Man the lore of Welcome to Derry really is deep! And no I’m not watching it. That would take away from my Chair Company time. Martel with a neckbreaker for two while everyone is completely distracted by the clown, so Martel goes to a facelock because no one is paying attention to the match anyway. Martel misses a charge and hits the post, allowing Tatanka to beat on the arm with chops and get a backslide for ONE TWO THREE HE GOT HIM NO HE DIDN’T. Back to the arm as OH MY GOD IS THIS STUPID CLOWN STILL HERE? Martel sends Tatanka to the floor and then goes to work on the back as this fucking match is just never going to end, is it? Model goes up and Tatanka hits him on the way down and makes the comeback with the 70s Jay Strongbow shit and finishes with the Papoose To Go at 11:00. Very long, very dull, full of chinlocks, and it felt like a Coliseum Video Exclusive more than a PPV match. *1/2. Also that clown had the crowd completely distracted for the entire match anyway.

Randy Savage & Mr. Perfect v. Ric Flair & Razor Ramon

https://youtu.be/t-0t_717jVw?si=swnhFQw5saA34a77

Interesting that this match features three of the all time great classical music entrance themes, arguably the three most famous ever. Although I guess it turned out that “Exodus” as originally used wasn’t a public domain piece and was actually a contemporary piece of music from a 1960 movie, and no one realized it because it sounded “classical”. So they had to record a slightly redone version to avoid royalites and that became the famous Perfect theme. Also In “Today I Learned”, the Ramon theme is just the instrumental introduction from the Eagles’ “Those Shoes” done on a loop. Never made that connection before. Perfecto grabs a headlock on Ramon and gets shoved off, but then takes him down with a drop toehold and schools him on the mat a little bit. Over to Flair and Perfect slugs him into the corner and backdrops him out before running wild with clotheslines and sending him to the floor with a Flair Flip. So Macho tosses him back in and comes in with a double axehandle before also running wild on the heels. Finally Razor gets a cheapshot from the apron to slow the Macho Madness and tosses him into the corner with a double choke. Flair comes in and works Savage over in the corner. Razor with an abdominal stretch and gets some help from Flair, but Savage fights out. Vince: “Apparently this wouldn’t be a submission hold unless Razor could get his foot around the foot of Savage”. Gee I’m wondering if someone in Gorilla might have been in his headset on that one?

The heels switch off on a half-crab to keep Macho in the corner while Perfect contemplates walking out on Savage, but the fans talk him into returning. That was a nice little bit of drama to show that he’s still having trouble adjusting to being a good guy. So the heels use this distraction and beat Savage down behind the ref’s back, and that gets two for Flair. Macho with a backslide for ONE TWO THREE HE GOT HIM NO HE DIDN’T. Razor cuts him off with an elbowdrop for two. Chokeslam gets two. Flair goes up and Savage slams him off after too much showboating, and it’s HOT TAG Perfect. He hits Ramon with an impressive hair toss and slugs away in the corner before running wild with kneelifts on the heels. Flair and Savage brawl on the floor as poor Macho takes a chairshot, leaving Perfect by himself to fight. Ref gets bumped off that and Perfect backdrops out of the Razor’s Edge and NOW YOU’RE GONNA SEE A PERFECTPLEX, which gets two. So NOW YOURE GONNA SEE ANOTHER PERFECTPLEX on Flair, and that gets two as well. So the heels double-team Perfect and get DQ’d for kicking too much ass at 16:30. Disappointing finish but the match was really heated and fun. ***1/2. Really though, what finish could you have viably done there?

Yokozuna v. Virgil

Virgil gets a bit of offense and then Yoko proceeds to destroying him with a superkick and belly to belly suplex. Virgil fights back again, but walks into a sideslam and eats the HULKBUSTER legdrop. Virgil tries a rollup and Yoko sits on him to block, and the Banzai Drop finishes for the first time on PPV at 3:40. Vince probably had a money boner after watching this complete squash destruction and hearing the crowd’s awed reaction.

Meanwhile, Perfect and Savage have gifts for the Heenan Family, with two turkeys and a tiny little weasel sized chicken for Bobby.

The Nasty Boys & The Natural Disasters v. The Beverly Brothers & Money Inc.

Last appearance on WWF PPV for the Nasty Boys as a team, if we don’t count their individual Royal Rumble appearances in 93. We start with Blake and BUFFOON, as Jimmy Hart puts it so eloquently. Said Buffoon throws Blake around to get revenge for that slight on his workrate, and then the Nasties come in and work him over as well. Over to Beau and he also gets beat up with a pumphandle slam from Sags, but comes back with a butterfly suplex. Dibiase puts Sags down with a clothesline out of the corner and IRS gets a legdrop for two. Sags makes his own comeback and fights off the heels in an awkward sequence that kind of fizzles out, leading to the Beverlies double-teaming him instead. The Nasties don’t seem to be adjusted to working as babyfaces yet. Beau with a legdrop for two and Blake gets a neckbreaker for two. We hit the chinlock and they collide for a double down, and that brings in Earthquake to clean house. It’s BREAKING LOOSE IN TULSA and Quake squishes Beau at 9:21 to eliminate the Beverlies. So we get the weird psychology of the babyfaces having a 2-on-1 advantage on the heel tag team champions. Money Inc teams up with a double suplex on Quake for two. IRS with a chinlock but eventually it’s hot tag Buffoon and he splashes Irwin for two. Dibase gets tossed, but he trips up Shockmaster from the apron (Fred Ottman clumsy? That’s unpossible!) and Irwin gets the cheap pin at 16:00, and then Sags rolls up IRS for the winning pin at 16:05. The whole Money Inc-Nasties thing ended up going nowhere and this was kind of a boring waste of time. The Steiners really re-energized the tag team division when they came in. *1/2

Casket Match: Undertaker v. Kamala

There was many, many to come but believe it or not, this was the very first. Kamala runs away and finally throws chops on Taker, but Taker ropewalks him and hits him with a short arm clothesline before choking him out. Kamala finally clotheslines him to the floor and hits him with chops to take over and hits him with Kim Chee’s pith helmet in a devastating attack. Good thing they had that warning for the squeamish viewers earlier. Back in the ring, Kamala with a FULL BODY LIFT AND SLAM, but Taker no-sells that, not once, not twice, but THRICE. So Kamala hits him with some splashes, NOT ONCE, NOT TWICE, BUT THRICE, and Kim Chee tries to give Kamala the urn. But Kamala is a superstitious savage who doesn’t want to touch it, and that allows Taker to hit him with it and pin him at 5:15 before shoving him in the box to win. And the poor guy gets sealed into the casket as Taker nails it closed, doing kind of a terrible job at it. Bob Vila he is not. DUD

Meanwhile, Shawn Michaels tries to use the transitive property of math to prove that he is guaranteed to beat Bret Hart tonight because Bulldog beat Bret and he beat Bulldog. While I fully support using math in wrestling promos in all forms, I can’t support this kind of use of it because that theory never works.

WWF title: Bret Hart v. Shawn Michaels

https://youtu.be/YpJddNlGjxc?si=nA6fuHzulo_UKOst

This of course came about after Warrior and Bulldog got fired, resulting in the PPV card getting all rearranged from the original announced form and they were just like “Fuck it, let’s do a great match to end the show”. They do a dramatic lockup battle to start and Shawn takes him down, but Bret reverses and they make the ropes. They trade wristlocks and Shawn yanks the hair to win that, so Bret reverses to a top wristlock and Shawn teases a hairpull a few times, but can’t evade the eyes of Earl Hebner. I think we can all agree that thank god Hebner is there to prevent any shenanigans from occurring here in this WWF title match between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart at Survivor Series. They trade hammerlocks and Bret works the arm off that. Shawn blocks a rollup, but Bret gets a bodypress for two and a sunset flip for two. Back to the arm as Vince puts over ICOPRO for the first time tonight, but Shawn breaks free and Bret clotheslines him down for two. Bret tries a bodypress and Shawn hits him with a stungun to put him down to take over, however. Bret slugs back, but Shawn pokes him in the eye and causes Bret to charge and hit the post as a result. Shawn with the chinlock and Bret fights out of that, so Shawn dropkicks him for two. Backbreaker gets two and we go back to the chinlock. Bret fights out of that and catches Shawn with a neckbreaker. Shawn puts him down again and holds a facelock on the mat, but Bret fights out in the corner and makes the comeback. Bulldog sets up the middle rope elbow, but that misses. Shawn gets two off that, and a back elbow gets two. Back to the facelock and Shawn works on that, but Bret’s arm only drops twice and he powers out of it. Small package gets two. Bret comes back with a back suplex, and he catapults Shawn into the post and makes the comeback. Shawn gets crotched on the top rope and BAAAAACK body drop gets two. Legsweep gets two. Backbreaker and middle rope elbow get two. Superplex gets two. Shawn sends him to the floor and runs him into the post to buy time, and back in we get the Bret Hart Turnbuckle bump for two. Shawn backdrops him for two, but Bret rolls him up for two. Shawn catches him with the superkick and Bret is out, but Shawn decides he wants the teardrop suplex and Bret escapes that. So Shawn hits a back suplex instead and that gets two. Bret charges and crotches himself on the ropes, and Shawn decides to go up for a missile dropkick. But then Bret was faking injury, and he catches Shawn on the way down and hooks the Sharpshooter to finish at 26:30. I’d call this pretty comfortably the best of their trilogy of WWF title matches on PPV, although the other two were drastically different types of matches in a different era entirely. This one started kind of slow but the crowd was with them every step of the way, and the last 10 minutes were excellent. ****1/2

And of course, Bret celebrates with Santa Claus (not to be confused with future heel Xanta Claus) to end the show.

Definitely a “mileage may vary show”, as it wasn’t particularly memorable or high stakes as far as a PPV show went. Felt more like a Coliseum Video with a couple of really good matches, given that Shawn Michaels was in no way a serious threat to the World title back in 1992. The two big matches are defintely worth a look, but they’re both easily accessible from WWE itself on YouTube, and there’s really nothing else on this show to justify watching it. Mild recommendation to avoid overall.