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Survivor Series 2003 took place in lovely Dallas, Texas, and when you look back on it now, you realize it was the turning point for a lot of talents, as some storylines set into place here would lead to some people beginning to rise up the card in a big way, while others led to some people leaving the company, and one angle resulted in a main player disappearing and eventually returning with a beloved older gimmick.
The Undercard
The show opened with what was promoted as the Smackdown main event, as Kurt Angle led his team of Chris Benoit, John Cena, Bradshaw, and Hardcore Holly into battle against WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, US Champion Big Show, A-Train, Nathan Jones, and Matt Morgan. Lesnar and Angle had been feuding all year over the WWE Title, with Lesnar finally coming out on top of the feud after beating Angle in a one hour Ironman Match on Smackdown. Big Show was the US Champion at this point, but he rarely defended the title and often came to the ring without the belt, I think he defended the title on TV a grand total of maybe 2 or three times during his entire five month reign. Nathan Jones and Matt Morgan had both been brought up from developmental specifically for this match, and both disappeared again pretty quickly afterward. Lesnar was actually the smallest guy on his team if you can imagine that.
Meanwhile on the babyface side, Angle had an open slot and ended up picking John Cena, who was a heel at the time, but was raw enough at that point htat he was getting some cheers, so this was the first real attempt to get Cena over as a babyface. Hardcore Holly was just making his return after a year on the sidelines due to a broken neck suffered in a match with Lesnar, Lesnar had gone for a powerbomb, but Holly wasn’t cooperating because he’s Hardcore Holly and he likes screwing with rookies. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong rookie to screw with and ended up getting dropped on his head and sitting out for a year as a result. The first few eliminations went pretty quickly as Holly got disqualified almost immediately for getting a little overzealous and whacking Lesnar with a chair. Gotta protect a guy like Holly, I guess. After that Bradshaw eliminated A-Train with the Clothesline From Hell, only to then be eliminated by Big Show’s chokeslam, and all those eliminations happened in the first two minutes. We got a few more minutes or wrestling before Angle eliminated Morgan and then Jones right in a row, but right afterward ate an F5 to get eliminated himself. From there it was all the babyfaces as Benoit tapped Lesnar to the Crossface and then Cena hit Big Show with the chain and gave him the FU for the win. Obviously they were starting to build Benoit up for his big run at the title at Wrestlemania, but they ended up changing directions and having him beat Triple H for the World Title instead.
The second match was Molly Holly defending the Women’s Title against Lita. Speaking of people returning from broken necks, Lita was making a comeback after a year and a half on the sidelines, though her broken neck was not suffered in the ring, but rather while working on a guest TV appearance on some show. For those keeping score, Molly was in the prude virgin phase at this point, and on a personal not, Molly was looking quite fine here, and not only did she look good, but she was a great worker as well, and it’s a shame that she decided to leave the business because she’s exactly the kind of worker that women’s wrestling needs right now. Lita, on the other hand, had not quite regained her form just yet and was whiffing on a few things here. Molly picked up the win after ramming Lita into an exposed turnbuckle.
After the Women’s Title match, we moved on to Kane vs Shane McMahon in an Ambulance Match. Here’s the ridiculous backstory to this match: Kane lost a Title vs Mask match to Triple H the previous June and was forced to unmask, and ever since then had gone on this rampage where he was destroying everyone in his path, including former partner Rob Van Dam. They had basically taken Kane back to what he was when he first came to the WWF in 1997: an indestructible wrecking machine that couldn’t be hurt. However, after an angle where Kane attacked Linda McMahon, he wound up in a feud with Shane where Shane got in WAY more offense than he ever should have. Shane was regularly beating the crap out of Kane and taking relatively little abuse himself in the process, so what ended up happening was they took any good they could have gotten out of Kane’s renaissance and completely flushed it down the toilet by having him getting regularly smacked around by a non-wrestler. The confrontations got stupider and stupider, including one segment on Raw where Kane tied up Shane and then, and I’m not making this up, hooked up Shane’s nuts to a car battery and electrocuted him.
Anyway, all this led to this final confrontation between the two, and once again, Shane completely dominated the match until the very end when Kane gave him a Tombstone on the floor and threw him into the back of the ambulance to pick up the win. You could make the point that Kane won the feud in the end, but by that point too much damage had been done and he was back to being midcard Kane despite the freshening up of his character, and yet another opportunity was lost.
After that wonderful match, we took a short break for a couple of non-wrestling segments. First, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar had a backstage confrontation with World Champion Bill Goldberg to set off the angle that would eventually lead to their infamous match at Wrestlemania 20, and then Eric Bischoff picked a fight with Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who (and I checked before writing this to make sure he didn’t) looked like he had something wrong with him. Anyway, Cuban came into the ring and shoved Bischoff, only to have Randy Orton run out and give him the RKO.
These segments were followed by Doug & Danny Basham defending the WWE Tag Team Title against Eddy & Chavo Guerrero. The Bashams were the champions after defeating the Guerreros shortly before this, and they were doing the S&M gimmick with Shaniqua (aka Tough Enough winner Linda Miles) portraying their dominatrix. The Guerreros were in the midst of a rough period, as Eddy had not only lost the US Title to Big Show, but the Guerreros went on to lose the tag title to the Bashams immediately afterward. The team was great for Chavo because it was the only time anyone ever cared about him. Nothing match that the Bashams won when Chavo and Eddy accidentally collided and Danny rolled Chavo up with a handful of tights for the win. Chavo and Eddy exchanged some heated words after the match to build to their split.
The Main Events
There were actually three main matches to Survivor Series 2003 instead of the usual two, and the first was the Raw elimination match with Steve Austin’s team of Shawn Michaels, Booker T, Rob Van Dam, and the Dudley Boyz taking on Eric Bischoff’s team of Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Christian, Mark Henry, and Scott Steiner. The story here was that the now non-wrestling Austin was fired from Raw by Eric Bischoff, but was then rehired by Linda McMahon as Bischoff’s new co-GM. Austin took the law into his own hands a lot and went around giving Stunners to anyone who gave him any problems, but then Linda admonished him that as co-GM, he wouldn’t be allowed to beat anyone up anymore unless he was physically provoked. This led to a string of incidents in which Austin interpreted the slightest physical contact as provocation. Finally, an exasperated Bischoff arranged for this Survivor Series elimination match in which they would each get a team of five and if Austin’s team won, Austin would be able to beat anyone up anytime he wanted, but if Bischoff’s team won then Austin would lose his job as co-GM. Austin already had four of his slots filled, but desperately needed a fifth man, so he went to Shawn Michaels, whom he had defeated at Wrestlemania 14 to win his first WWF Title and retired Shawn for several years in the process. Austin and Michaels still didn’t trust each other, but Austin had no choice but to rely on Shawn, and Shawn accepted.
Scott Steiner was the first man eliminated from this match, which just really drove home how far down the ladder he had fallen, in one year going from a huge, celebrated debut that immediately established him as a big deal to being the first guy eliminated. After Booker eliminated Steiner, Mark Henry came right in an eliminated Booker with his big powerslam, but then the Dudleyz came in and hit Henry with the 3D, followed by a Five Star Notebook Splash from RVD, and then all three of them covered Henry to eliminate him. This was a great way to have Mark Henry come in and wreak havoc to make him look like a monster, and even though he lost he still looked tough because it took three guys hitting their finishers and then all covering him to eliminate him.
Unfortunately for Austin, things started looking a little grim after that as Bischoff’s team went through RVD and the Dudleyz all in a row, leaving Michaels 3-on-1 against Orton, Jericho, and Christian, and Michaels did the king of selljobs here, making it look like Bischoff’s team was killing him in the ring. Right after getting left on his own, Michaels did his patented midair bladejob as he was being catapulted into the ringpost and tapped a gusher. Michaels came back and somehow was able to get through Christian and then Jericho to narrow it down to a 1-on-1 contest. The ref got bumped, allowing Austin to come in and hit the Stunner on Orton, but then when he rolled out of the ring to chase Bischoff to the back, Batista snuck in through the crowd and hit the Demon Bomb on Michaels, allowing Orton to crawl over and cover him for the win.
Austin turned around as the three count happened and was in shock when he came to the realization that his career had just come to an end. In the meantime, Michaels is laying nearly dead in the ring as Austin comes back to check on him, and he finally stirs and comes to his senses, then looks at Austin and simply says “I’m sorry.†Austin walks Michaels to the back and everybody was waiting for him to hit the Stunner on Michaels, but he never did. Instead, he came back to the ring and gave a nice speech putting over Dallas and how much he appreciates the fans, and talking about how he started his career in Dallas and now would end it there. Jonathan Coachman came out with some cops and tried to have them eject Austin, but Austin beat up the cops and then gave Coach a Stunner on his way out…until a week later when he was back.
Up next, we got the Undertaker vs Vince McMahon in a Buried Alive match. The angle here was basically that Undertaker had been working for Vince for 13 years and got tired of getting screwed over, so he was going to bury him once and for all here, while Vince just wanted to end Undertaker’s career. Fortunately, this match was the complete opposite of the Kane-Shane match from earlier as Vince started bleeding almost immediately after the match started and then the whole match was just Undertaker beating the crap out of Vince, including ramming him crotch-first into the ringpost, a really sick headshot with a metal shovel, and Undertaker slamming the steel steps on top of Vince’s ankle. Vince did get in a hail mary low blow and a shot with the shovel to knock Undertaker into the grave, but Undertaker recovered immediately and threw Vince into the grave instead. Undertaker went over to the payloader they had set up at graveside to cover Vince, but Kane’s pyro exploded right around him and Kane came out to attack the Undertaker, throwing him into the grave and allowing Vince to get into the payloader and dump a whole lot of dirt on the grave to win the match and apparently end the Undertaker’s career and his life as well. This would be roughly death #457 for the Undertaker, who has died and reanimated more times than Jason Voorhees, but luckily for all the fans who missed the classic Undertaker, he would make his return in the Deadman gimmick to face Kane at Wrestlemania 20.
The show closed with Bill Goldberg defending the World Title against former champion Triple H, who had been wrestling very sparingly for about three months due to a groin injury he suffered in August. The matches he did wrestle, including this one, saw Hunter wearing long tights, presumably to cover up whatever protective wrappings he had on the inside of his leg. Triple H had Pillmanized Goldberg’s ankle on Raw leading into the PPV, but Goldberg, perhaps unwisely, forged ahead with the match anyway. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because you had Hunter working over Goldberg’s ankle the entire match, and since Goldberg was so limited, this kept him from blowing through his three moves too early in the match. Unfortunately, even though Triple H really could carry anyone at this point, Goldberg even had a hard time with the selling. They really could have thrown any muscled-up stiff into his spot in WCW and gotten the same results. Anyway, Triple H tried to use the sledgehammer, but Goldberg got ahold of it, and when Evolution ran in to try and interfere, Goldberg laid them all out with spears, and then he tosses the sledgehammer away and hits the spear and Jackhammer on Triple H to pick up the win and retain the World Title.
Final Analysis
Survivor Series 2003 was similar to Survivor Series 2002 in that there was the same general feeling of apathy surrounding the product, minus the good wrestling from the 2002 edition. By far the best thing on the show was the closing minutes of the Raw elimination match as Shawn Michaels was fighting for his life, but other than that this show is a total wash. Don’t go out of your way to find a copy of this one.
I’ll be back all too soon with my look back at Survivor Series 2004, but until then all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and you can catch me on Myspace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Thanks as always for reading, and I’ll see you soon.
