10 Fascinating WWE Survivor Series 1995 Facts

4. The Main Event Made Some Corporate Partners Squeamish

Bret Hart Diesel Survivor Series 95
WWE.com

One of the benefits of WWE presenting safe, sanitized programming suitable for families was that it could avoid some of the tightening regulations that congressional bodies wanted to place on television (especially in the mid-nineties). WWE already had a negative image from the steroid trial, and was still recovering from those woes.

When Diesel and Bret Hart took turns teeing off on each other with plunder in the WWE Championship match, it caused a little unrest for Michael Ortman, WWE's Vice President of Distribution, whose job it was to keep the company "presentable" for future partners.

Ortman watched the show with some Canadian business partners. They were all more than alarmed by the violence, and the fact that Diesel clearly dropped an F-bomb at several junctures. McMahon reportedly soothed things over by telling Ortman and his colleagues that it was just a couple of wrestlers that got carried away, and that it wouldn't happen again (Wonder how they reacted to the Austin years?).

Contributor
Contributor

Justin has been a wrestling fan since 1989, and has been writing about it since 2009. Since 2014, Justin has been a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine. Justin also writes for History of Wrestling, and is a contributing author to James Dixon's Titan series.