10 Biggest WWE Survivor Series Debuts
Arriving And Surviving
What is it about WWE's November classic that allows so many to make their mark for the very first time?
At the inaugural Survivor Series, The Jumping Bomb Angels dazzled a growing pay-per-view audience despite Stephanie McMahon not actually inventing women's wrestling until almost 20 years later. The Japanese pair's futuristic assaults made them overnight sensations in a doomed late-1980s Women's revival.
Nearly a decade later and not far removed from an All Japan Women's card considered one of the industry's best ever pay-per-views, Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, Tomoko Watanabe, Chaparita Asari, Kyoko Inoue and Sakie Hasegawa all took their WWE bow at the event.
The prodigious talents may have been better served entering a winner-take-all Elimination Chamber, itself birthed at the Survivor Series in 2002 on the same night new arrival Scott Steiner impolitely demanded the 'f***ing mic', unaware that he was heard loud and clear. The Madison Square Garden crowd that night exploded for 'Big Poppa Pump', perhaps stifling memories of having to cheer Flash Funk through the door at the same event six years earlier.
Even perennial nearly-but-not-quite Bruce Hart got a turn at the Thanksgiving spectacular. Making up the Hart numbers in 1993, he knocked Shawn Michaels all over the shop four years before the rest of his family wanted to do it for real.
It remains to this day one of the places to kickstart careers, only enhancing the iconic status of the branding in the process. The ones that make it there, seemingly make it anywhere.
10. The Gobbledy Gooker (1990)
Few lists on any moments from Survivor Series history would be complete without ripping the p*ss out of one of Vince McMahon's biggest brainfarts.
Several weeks before the 1990 edition of the show, a ginormous egg appeared by the entrance on television. There wasn't a spot of explanation as to how or why it was there, nor what on earth could have possibly laid it. Then-WWE Champion The Ultimate Warrior was talking out his a*se an awful lot at the time, but even he certainly wasn't birthing a zygote that substantial.
It did, in traditional WWE fashion, build a bit of intrigue. Fans were willing to treat the odd device for what it was - an opportunity to debut a new superstar, albeit in ludicrous circumstances.
It was somehow both a massive surprise and a crushing disappointment when a giant chicken emerged from the egg. Hector Guerrero's in-ring talents were reduced to feathered forward rolls as the bizarre manifestation jigged and jived with Mean Gene to the sound of ferocious boos.
The character was apparently supposed to be WWE's new crowd-stirring mascot akin to the types seen at professional sports events. As if drawing reactions from supporters wasn't the job of every wrestler.