10 Fascinating WWE Survivor Series 1995 Facts
Bret regains the gold at an event that mapped out the WWE of tomorrow.
For those out there who claim that WWE in 1995 was a festering pile of cow dung, baking beneath the sweltering rays of a midday sun....well, they're not wrong. Vince McMahon's cracked-and-crumbled empire never looked more bombed out than it did in the barren 1995 wasteland, with sparse crowds, witless humor, and roster boasting dimmer star-power than ever before.
One of the exceptions to this general rule was the 1995 Survivor Series. The ninth annual November installment is actually the best event bearing the name since the original pair in 1987-88. Even though the vast majority of 1995 WWE was garbage, the Survivor Series was golden, easily their best card of the year (which is like being valedictorian of summer school).
The main event was hard-hitting and violent. There was an elimination match that broke face/heel barriers, pitting enemies on the same team, and friends against each other. The opener was all about displaying cultured daredevilry from small, faster wrestlers. In many ways, the 1995 Survivor Series dipped WWE's toes into waters of the future Attitude Era. It was an experimental show that made a point to be less like their recent selves, and take a chance at an extreme reinvention.
Here are ten facts about the 1995 Survivor Series you may not have known.
10. It Was The First Sunday Survivor Series
And so the Thanksgiving night/eve tradition comes to a close. Before 1995, SummerSlam solely took place on Monday nights, while Survivor Series skewed closer to the mid-week Thanksgiving holiday. Everything changed when both events were moved to Sundays in 1995, in total alignment with the rest of the pay-per-view calendar.
At the time, WWE was running monthly marathon tapings for Raw and Superstars on the Monday and Tuesday following pay-per-views, and was able to save money by filming so much at one time. Having Survivor Series on a Wednesday or Thursday would probably put a dent into this formula, so syncing up the pay-per-views to Sundays seemed wise.
Since then, only three WWE pay-per-views have taken place outside of Sundays: part of the May 1996 In Your House (which was compromised by a power outage due to a severe storm), and two Taboo Tuesday events in 2004 and 2005.