10 Biggest WTF Moments In WWE Survivor Series History

Survivor Series is the third biggest show of the year. That's my opinion. You take all of the memorable moments of a WrestleMania, the traditional stipulation match that the Royal Rumble boasts, stick them in a blender together and you get the thing that sends WWE off for its winter hibernation - you know, the part of the year when absolutely nobody watches.

Survivor Series' birth was a bit of a WTF Moment in its own right, as Vince McMahon needed an event to go head-to-head with Starrcade. The WTF Moment of it all wasn't the inception of the show itself, it's that fact that Vince told any cable companies that if they aired Starrcade over his shiny new show, they wouldn't be offered the chance to air the following year's WrestleMania. I think Chandler Bing would normally say "WHOOOOOOPA" right about now...

Being the third biggest event in WWE's calendar, those fabled double crooked letters have provided us with many a memorable moment over the past 31 years - many of them shocking as they were epic. We're going to focus on the more shocking moments in the following list, ranging from unexpected returns, baffling debuts, and absolute nonsense happening in a match. Here are the 10 biggest WTF Moments in Survivor Series history...

10. The Cerebral Numpty

I still don't know whether to crap or wind my watch a year removed from this bemusing finish happening - and I don't even know what to crap or wind my watch even means. I've just heard Stone Cold Steve Austin mention it on a number of occasions.

Towards the end of last year's traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series tag team match, Triple H thought to himself 'bloody hell, I'm not the centre of attention here. A member of the current generation is threatening to steal my spotlight. MY Spotlight?! How dare he! PASS THE SHOVEL!'

It was all going so well until The Game thought he had to mess with every single person watching last year's show, including a certain Monster Among Men who didn't come out of this looking good whatsoever.

• Kurt Angle turned on and buried - WrestleMania feud set up in the process as HHH seemingly had turned his back on Raw and align with SmackDown Live.


• And then rather bewilderingly, Shane McMahon turned on and buried - an awkward Christmas 2017 dinner in the offing.

That's the Triple H show, everybody. Why can't the wholesome father figure we see in NXT stay that way on the main roster?

9. Back From The Dead... Again!

Undertaker's snakeskin pants from the 2000 edition of the show just missed out on a place in this list. I know, I'm shocked too.

As bad as those pants were, it's 'Taker's 2005 return that makes the top 10 because, in my opinion, it was one too many comings back from the dead for my liking. We'd seen it happen following the Rumble '94 and Survivor Series '03 deaths (I'm sure there's more), and now he was back once again two months after being brutally murdered by Randy Orton.

At No Mercy The Deadman became even deader (?) following a defeat to The Viper and his dad, Bob, in a casket match as The Ortons turned into Kane and set the casket on fire. As you do...

Then, following the conclusion of the men's tag match at the 2005 event where Randal was the sole survivor, a set of druids - the non-penis variety - appeared with a casket. A bolt of lightning hit the body box as it burst into flames. 'Taker emerged from the fire, and oh my goodness as silly as it was it was one hell of an epic return.

And if that wasn't enough, look at that full beard! Phwoah!

8. The Shield's Debut

Few WWE Superstars have been afforded a debut like this - ah, the time before the current promotion then oblivion if your name's not Elias for NXT talent was such a lovely place.

During the WWE Championship triple threat match at the 2012 event, three men dressed in black got involved and the rest is unadulterated liquid wrestling. I often wonder how Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins would have done if they debuted with those infamous riot shields...

Anyway, the trio were completely unknown to WWE main roster fans which made the debut all the more impactful. Who were these three ruggedly beautiful men in their turtlenecks, we all asked - well, those of us who didn't really watch ROH and CZW et al asked.

This debut is a fitting commentary of NXT's success. While the yellow brand is arguably the best content WWE offers these days, it really has robbed us of truly shocking debuts like this one and that's sad.

Let's not get too emotional, Ryback was sent through the table, the other two didn't get away much better off - and the crowd salivated at what they were watching.

7. The F*****g Gooker

WWE wanted to give us a mascot like the teams in the NFL have. That's all they wanted to do, apparently. They didn't mean to give us something for our repressed memory banks to chew on, honest.

For weeks, WWE teased the egg you see above with the promise that it would hatch at the 1990 Survivor Series. What would be inside, would it be Ted DiBiase's mystery partner? Would it be Mr. Motivator? Would it be something that we wouldn't regret for the rest of our time on this fine plant?

No. It was the Gobbeldy Gooker. A bloke - poor Héctor Guerrero, no less - in a turkey costume because LOOK AT THAT TURKEY DANCE. ISN'T IT SO FUN TO WATCH?! LOOK AT HIM GO!

Despite this show taking place at the height of the cartoonish WWE we all know and love, the crowd in Hartford, CT crapped all over this segment. Not even Mean Gene could save it, and that's saying something.

6. Austin 3:16 Says... Not Much, Because He's Just Been Hit By A Car

WWE promoted Stone Cold Steve Austin to not only appear, but to take part in a triple threat match for the WWE Championship right up until the start of Survivor Series 1999, even though nine days before the event took place they learned that Austin needed to take time off for spinal surgery. Some would say card subject to change, others would say that's some immoral promotion on all kinds of WTF-related levels.

To write Stone Cold out of the show, WWE had a car run him over and played out a wonderful whodunit storyline that wouldn't reach its conclusion for around a year.

Big Show would take Austin's place in the triple threat main event of the night, winning his first WWE Championship by beating Rocky and Triple H. The rest of us were left wondering if Austin was dead or not - in a kayfabe sense, of course.

5. Heyman Screws Brock

We still don't know why this one happened, therefore, WTF.

In the buildup to the 2002 Survivor Series WWE Championship match, Paul Heyman was telling his client Brock Lesnar that Big Show was too big, too strong, too powerful, too hot, too sweaty, too everything for him to handle.

This was strange, as Brock had beaten everyone to within an inch of their respective lives since his main roster debut a few months prior while Show was colder than something really cold on a really cold winter's night. Surely, The Next Big Thing-cum-Current Biggest Thing would see off a Superstar like Show with ease... nope.

With the referee for the bout down, and with Lesnar nailing an F5, a second ref came out to make the count. As he was in the process of doing so, Heyman pulled him out of the ring, Show used his cast for a KO punch before hitting a Chokeslam of his own on a steel chair for the win.

4. The Corporate Champion

They wouldn't do it, would they? A year removed from that night in Montreal, WWE wouldn't stage their own mock screwjob just to stick two more fingers up at Bret Hart et al? They wouldn't dare, would they?

They would, lol.

Watching the Deadly Games tournament back is like watching some form of murder mystery novel come to life. Everyone watching was being pulled one way as it looked like The Corporation's choice of Mankind was being handed an easy route to the final, but in the end, they provided us with a twist that very few saw coming.

Back in '98 The Rock was well over the 'die Rocky die' phase of his career, and was ascending the ranks to become arguably the most popular guy on the show. After making it over such a massive hurdle early on in his career, those in charge wouldn't undo all the great work he'd produced just to turn him heel again, would they? WOULD THEY?!

They would, lol.

It looked like Rocky would have to overcome insurmountable odds to win the WWF Championship until a fake screwjob happened and the Corporate Champion was born. The shock, the horror.

3. That's Gotta Be, That's Gotta Be Sting!

Let's forget about everything that came after this night, let's even forget about the fact that WWE didn't allow The Stinger to have his far superior WCW theme on their show. Let's just remember the fact that WWE finally got the man that avoided their advances for around 30 years.

Some will point to the fact that Sting's debut wasn't that much of a surprise thanks to an appearance on WWE programming during Warrior Week during the spring of 2014, but I'm not having that. As a man that was more of a WCW child - because we didn't have Sky, Ok?! - before watching more and more WWE as I got older, seeing Sting in a WWE ring on a WWE pay-per-view was orgasmic.

It just didn't look real. But it was.

It's just a shame that what followed either didn't make any sense, or involved The Stinger going down with an injury. The statue thing was canny at least...

2. 1:26

I remember being so pissed off at this match the day after it happened. Having seen the utter monstrosity that was Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg at WrestleMania XX, I wanted to see that wrong righted with an absolute barnburner of a match. What we got instead, of course, was a bout so short and so shocking all of our houses almost fell down.

Of course, WWE did this because it was so bloody unexpected that it would get way more attention than if they did a normal match. They're really clever when they want to be, they really are.

You all know how it went down, and you all know how you felt upon seeing it happen. Therefore, a number two spot on this list of WTF Moments is more than warranted.

1. One Night In Montreal

Urgh. I'm sick of talking and typing about this, but what else could be number one in a list of the 10 biggest WTF Moments in Survivor Series history?