WWE Survivor Series 1998: Deadly Game

WWE Survivor Series 98': Deadly Game

St. Louis, MO - November 1998

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into the show, the WWE World Championship was vacant, the Intercontinental Championship was held by Ken Shamrock, the European Champion was X-Pac, Christian was the Light Heavyweight Champion, Mankind was the Hardcore Champion (though I'm not sure how often that title was even being defended at this point), and the Women's Championship was held by Jacqueline. The New Age Outlaws were the WWE World Tag Team Champions.

This show probably deserves more of a backstory than I can necessarily give it - its been a long, long time since 1998. In the summer of that year, Steve Austin was at his babyface peak and had been feuding extensively with The Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, and, more than anyone else, Vince McMahon. Throughout the summer and early fall, McMahon worked tirelessly to wrest the WWE Championship from Austin (which he'd won by defeating and essentially retiring Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV), stacking the odds against him at every subsequent PPV. Eventually, this led to the WWE Championship being vacated and put up in a one-night-tournament at Survivor Series (hence the subtitle "Deadly Game"). Going into the show, I remember knowing that Austin would somehow get screwed - I mean, he wasn't going to go into WrestleMania XV as the champion - but there was definitely question about who would win the title? Austin was coming off a lengthy rivalry with The Undertaker, so he seemed improbable. They'd built up Ken Shamrock by giving him the King of the Ring win in the spring and then the Intercontinental Championship...but he never really got over to the extent he needed to to be a legit WrestleMania main eventer. Mankind had "gone corporate" in the build to the show, but was an obvious red herring. According to JR's commentary, Triple H was recuperating from knee surgery - though I'm not sure if that was kayfabe or not. People talk about the WWE being overloaded with talent during the Attitude Era, but its important to remember that, for most of 98', the battle with WCW was still raging and guys like Triple H and The Rock weren't main eventers yet. It really wasn't until at least a year later, with the arrival of guys like Big Show, Jericho, and the meteoric rise of Kurt Angle (as well as the envelope-pushing Edge & Christian/Hardys feud of late 99' and January 2000 arrival of the Radicalz) that the WWE's depth chart became deeper than WCW's. In late 98', WCW's roster was inarguably stronger than the WWE's - and this show's match listing makes that clear.



To start things off, Mankind makes his way down the aisle (in a suit and tie) to face a Mystery Opponent. The crowd chants "HBK!" but instead Vince gives a grand introduction to...Duane Gill. Mankind makes quick work of Gill who actually got a mini-push after this - as "Gillberg," a Goldberg spoof. This was more angle than match, so I'm not going to be too harsh in my rating. (2/5)

Jeff Jarrett comes out with Debra for his tournament match against Al Snow. Jarrett and Snow bring intensity and a quick pace to this match, but its not like either was going to end up the World Champion by the end of the night so its really just filler. Inoffensive match with a runtime under 5 minutes. (2/5)

Steve Austin takes on The Big Bossman next. Austin is mega-over. Bossman's all-black SWAT team look makes him look slim, but it also makes him less imposing. I mean, for awhile there, Bossman could've been considered a super heavyweight, but he doesn't look all that much bigger than Austin when they go toe-to-toe. Like the opener, this one is more angle than match as they brawl for a little bit until Bossman purposefully gets himself DQ'd by attacking Austin with his nightstick. (2/5)

X-Pac takes on "The Man's Man" William Regal next. Finally, an actual match with actual wrestling holds! While this was the first genuinely competitive match of the night, Pac and Regal just don't click - which is surprising considering they're two of the most talented technical wrestlers the WWE had on its roster at the time. Regal was fantastic in 94'/95', but I think he was battling personal demons at this time and seems lifeless and unmotivated. Considering this is the first true match of the show and what these two could've accomplished, I was disappointed with what we got. The ending feels particularly weird because it makes it seem like X-Pac retreated from the fight when usually the heel is made to look cowardly. (1/5)

The Intercontinental Champion, Ken Shamrock, takes on Goldust in the next match of the tournament. The crowd is as dead for this as they were for the last match (very), but I liked this one a touch more - likely because I've become a big Dustin Rhodes mark. At this point, Goldust was technically babyface but the act - which had been "retired" for a little while before getting revived a few weeks before this show - was no longer hot. Shamrock, meanwhile, had gotten a fairly substantial push in 98' but the pieces never clicked the right way to get him over as a top guy (which was definitely the intention when he came in from the UFC). Anyway, better than the previous match, but still not very good. (1.5/5)

The Rock makes his way down the aisle for his tournament match. The Rock never "officially" turned babyface, but was mega-over at this point just because of how charismatic he was. His opponent is supposed to be Triple H, but because the DX leader is rehabbing from an injury, Brisco and Patterson announce his replacement - The Big Bossman. Bossman gets rolled up in less than 5 seconds, much to the delight of the audience, and The Rock advances. Again, more angle than match, but the crowd doesn't seem to mind that this show has had barely any wrestling on it. (2/5)

The Undertaker faces Kane in the next tournament match. Like The Rock, Kane was a quasi-babyface at this point - not yet tagging with X-Pac, but in a sympathetic position after being betrayed by Paul Bearer at the previous month's Judgment Day show. I don't recall any particularly great Taker/Kane matches, but in most of the reviews I read for this show, the writer noted that this was one of the worst bouts they ever had (and I'd have to agree). Part of the problem is that, as its a tournament match, there aren't the bells-and-whistles that these two characters need when facing each other. The Undertaker wasn't a wrestling zombie in 98', but he also was close to a decade away from incorporating MMA-inspired submissions and showing off his athleticism the way he would starting in 06' or so. Kane is, to me, one of the most overrated big men ever, a guy who wrestled for decades but doesn't have a single all-time great match anywhere on his resume. The Undertaker wins with interference from Bearer around the 8 minute mark. It could've been worse and gone 10. (1/5)

Mankind takes on Al Snow in the second round of the tournament. I'm not sure if it was explained earlier that Mankind's matches were no DQ, but there's some blatant weapon use in the second match and the ref doesn't really bother counting either guy out (when, in the first round, X-Pac and Regal's match nearly ended with a double countout I think?). This is probably the best match of the night so far just because Mankind's passion and intensity was so evident. And why wouldn't it have been? After a star-making performance at King of the Ring that year, he was more over than he'd ever been and was clearly set for a strong run against Vince McMahon. Snow also seems to appreciate getting a little bit of spotlight, though, like every match in this tournament thus far, its really all about furthering the night's main storyline - of Vince manipulating outcomes to make sure Austin and The Rock did not become WWE Champion - rather than actually delivering quality matches or building up midcarders like Snow. (2/5)

The next tournament bout is The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock. These two wrestled a ton of times in 98' but neither was much of a ring general yet (or ever?) so I don't recall them putting on too many classics. The Rock was a charisma bomb so the crowd is fully into this match and Shamrock is perfectly fine playing the intense shootfighter - basically himself. The best part of this match is the finishing stretch, which sees The Big Bossman making his return to ringside to ostensibly give Shamrock the assist. Instead, though, The Rock intercepts the Bossman's nightstick pass and ends up clocking Shamrock over the skull with it to get the victory. Because of the expert timing, it comes off 100% believable that Bossman was trying to exact revenge on The Rock - and not secretly in kahoots with him (sorry for the spoiler). Good action with a great finish makes this my match of the night so far. (2.5/5)

The first non-tournament match on the card is next - Sable challenging Jacqueline for the WWE Women's Championship. The Women's Championship had been abandoned in 94'-95' (with Alundra Blayze/Madusa famously throwing it in a dumpster on an episode of Nitro), but was revived in September as an additional prop for this feud - which was really about Sable's on-screen separation from "Marvelous" Marc Mero. I was expecting this to be a woeful match, but it was surprisingly solid - not great, not even average, but much better than one might expect considering that Sable, to my knowledge, was untrained and had probably less than 5 singles matches under her belt at this point. She's helped tremendously by having Mero and Jacqueline bumping for her, especially Mero (who impressively and selflessly helped his wife execute a Sablebomb on the arena floor). It was a team effort to make this work (and that team included Shane McMahon as the ref) but they pulled it off. Again, not good, but not the disaster it could've and arguably should've been. (2/5)

Mankind takes on "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in the next match of the tournament. When people talk about Austin's all-time great opponents, the names that always come up are Bret Hart and The Rock, but I love the chemistry he had with Mick Foley. Against Foley, Austin would bring out his best southern brawling self, nothing but fists and stomps and back-body drops on the floor and physicality. Austin and Foley just look like two guys that were 100% on the same page in the ring against each other, Foley perfectly happy tip-toeing the line between being a nasty, brutal heel and a total coward. The finish sees Shane McMahon turn heel because no McMahon can ever stay face for long. I don't remember all the mini-details from the Austin/McMahon saga so I'm not sure why Shane McMahon, who had just prevented Austin from being fired by kayfabe signing him to a new contract behind his father's back, would turn on him, but I also don't recall it being a huge shocker. Anyway, this is the best match of the night up to this point and its not even close. (3/5)

In the next match, The Undertaker takes on The Rock. This one is not as good as the match that comes before it, but it is at least interesting to watch as we're talking about two of the biggest WWE stars ever, though not necessarily a pairing that had many famous matches. In fact, I had to look up whether they had a PPV match against each other on any other show and found that they did and I reviewed one of them - No Way Out 2002. About that encounter, I wrote in 2015 that I was shocked that they didn't have a lengthy feud in the late 90s (they did wrestle at King of the Ring 99', a show that kinda looks worthy of a rewatch on paper) but that the match did not live up to my expectations. This one even less so as its a tournament match and The Undertaker wasn't moving too great at this point in his career. If I'm not mistaken, The Undertaker was wrestling most of 98' with lingering injuries, which explains his sluggishness. Like most every match in this tournament, we don't get a clean winner as Kane shows up and takes out both men, getting The Undertaker disqualified so that he can't win the title. If I didn't know better, I would've sworn this was a set-up for another Kane/Taker match at WrestleMania XV, but actually, over the next few weeks, The Undertaker began assembling his Ministry of Darkness and feuding with the Corporation while Kane had his own feud with the Corporation and aligned himself with DX. All this storyline progression stuff is way more interesting to think about than watching this match, which was nothing special. (1.5/5)

The WWE World Tag Team Champions, The New Age Outlaws, defend the straps in a triangle tag match against The Headbangers and D'Lo Brown and Mark Henry next. One would think that after a bunch of brief, run-in heavy singles matches that a tag match would freshen up the show, but this match is just so terrible that it has the opposite effect. The problem here is that not one of these six guys is an interesting enough in-ring worker to carry things - it is a hodge-podge of average-to-below-average workers and while the Outlaws' catch phrases were over, they were never a captivating team between bells. The Headbangers look noticeably out of place in the context of late 98', a gimmick that might have been slightly interesting had it been done in 94', but was the opposite of edgy in 98'. The match goes 10 minutes but feels like twice that. An absolute bore from beginning to end. A year later, the WWE would actually have a bit of a tag team renaissance with the arrival/rise of the Dudleys, The Hardy Boys, and Edge & Christian. (0/5)

Main event time - The Rock vs. Mankind for the vacant WWE Championship. Easily the best match on the entire show, this one isn't as brutal as their Royal Rumble 99' match nor is it as unique as their Halftime Heat match, but it is still very, very good, a match where everything just works. It is also, to my knowledge, the only Rock/Mankind PPV match where, technically, Foley is the heel and The Rock is the babyface (scratch that - these two wrestled at In Your House: A Cold Day in Hell in 97'). Foley is definitely the MVP here, as the veteran it was likely him who was setting the pace and orchestrating the match's flow, but its also noticeable how much better The Rock looks against a guy that was actually game for stealing the show (something I'm not sure The Undertaker was particularly interested in or that Ken Shamrock was able to do on his best day). The wrestling on this show is so uniformly poor that the excitement, suspense, and physicality these two produce astounds. The finish is a repeat of the Montreal Screwjob and while this would become an overused trope sooner than later, its use here was, at the time, an effective way to check many boxes. Plus, with Steve Austin showing up to close out the show, its not like the audience wasn't still given something to cheer for when all was said and done. These days, it often feels like the "troll job" is the point while, in this instance, the Montreal re-enactment was just a small piece of a larger angle that saw the crowning of a new Corporate Champion, the continuance of Mankind's separate storyline with Vince, and Austin's hunt for the Championship he never really lost. A very good match, some good post-match minutes. I wouldn't necessarily call it all a "must watch," but its as close as you get on this card. (3.5/5)



With a Kwang Score of 1.86-out-of-5, Survivor Series 98': Deadly Game is not going to please fans looking for a well-rounded show with great wrestling on it, fun gimmicks, and a variety of talent on display. However, the show isn't without its nostalgic charms. Vince McMahon was at top form here. Steve Austin, Kane, and Mankind were all at (storyline-wise) fascinating parts of their career, especially the latter two, who were caught somewhere between face and heel. The Rock's performance across three matches is exceptional and shows just how prepared he was to become the company's top heel. The Sable match is a pleasant surprise in that its not a complete turd. Plus, every match except the awful tag match and the awesome main event, has a fairly brief run time, making the show easy to watch and hard to get totally bored with. Unlike other shows, where one might "cherry pick" the best matches, this show, even during its worst times, kind of needs to be viewed as a whole because of the way the show is structured around one central story arc. If you're at all curious about reliving that story - or experiencing it for the first time - you might find yourself enjoying this more than the Kwang Score would indicate.


FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver