10 Times WWE Survivor Series Decisions Backfired
The November classic has dealt with backlash and meaninglessness.
WWE's Survivor Series remains a part of the "Classic Four" pay-per-views, but due to its gradual devaluation over the years, it's hard to call the quartet the "Big Four" any longer. WrestleMania remains the king, while SummerSlam and Royal Rumble maintain their top-shelf relevance, but the same can't be said for Survivor Series.
When you look at the past decade of Survivor Series events, there are very few moments that stand out. Sure, there's Sting's debut in 2014, The Shield's debut in 2012, and The Rock's 2011 performance that served as his first match in close to eight years, but beyond those occurrences, Survivor Series has mostly been throwaway. If there weren't elimination matches that honor the event's original concept, you could hardly distinguish a modern Survivor Series from a Fastlane or a Battleground.
In other ways, Survivor Series is historic, albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons. Moments like The Undertaker's 1990 debut, the Hulk-Andre pseudo-rematch in 1987, and (of course) Montreal resonate through time, but there are times where the company's plans simply flop. With the thirtieth incarnation of Survivor Series forthcoming, the event understandably has a history rife with infamous occurrences.
NOTE: The Montreal Screwjob was intentionally omitted from the list. Many still disagree with it, but it certainly cast more eyes on a WWE product that needed it, and Vince McMahon certainly used its notoriety to alter the company in amazing ways.
10. The Gobbledy Gooker (1990)
Well, you figured this atrocity had to make the cut. Eddie Guerrero's older brother Hector was shoehorned into a plumage-adorned turkey costume, and hatched from a jumbo-sized egg at the 1990 Survivor Series. That egg appeared at TV tapings for months prior to the pay-per-view, with the promise of some major surprise hatching from it on Thanksgiving night.
Not only was the Gooker overshadowed by the other surprise of the evening (a debuting Undertaker, who had the role down pat from day one), but the negative reaction to an anthropomorphic turkey that danced with Mean Gene Okerlund led to Gooker being shelved very quickly. All of the hype was for nothing, except providing WrestleCrap with its eventual patron saint.