10 Times WWE Survivor Series Decisions Backfired
7. New York Hates Michaels (1996)
This was less a Survivor Series idea and more a long-running WWE campaign that opened many eyes. Although Michaels hadn't been the strongest draw since becoming WWE Champion eight months earlier, the company still pushed forward with him as their billboard. Repackaging him as a smiling do-gooder, while shaving away the edge that made him such a hard-to-hate villain, didn't help either.
A year's worth of questionable presentation plowed into a sharp curve when the fans inside Madison Square Garden gave babyface Michaels an especially hostile reaction, the forefather of the kinds of responses John Cena and Roman Reigns would one day get. The match's story saw Michaels get distracted when Sid assaulted his mentor, Jose Lothario. Even when Michaels showed compassion for his fallen mentor, the crowd continued cheering Sid, especially when he cracked the champion with a TV camera. The attempt at garnering sympathy simply wasn't going to work.