Well, WWE’s 1999 season is almost over and we’re looking at the biggest event of the fall: Survivor Series 1999!
This event took place at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and drew over 18,730 fans for the main event with Triple H defending his WWE Championship against The Rock and Steve Austin.
However, the posters always said “Card Subject to Change” and after getting hit by a car at the event, Austin was taken out and Big Show took his place. What madman would hit someone with a car at a live event? Stick around for “Into the Vault 2000” unless I can’t keep from spoiling it.
The Best
The last Series match of the evening had no business slapping as hard as it did but man, with enough time having the combination of Edge & Christian and the Hardy Boyz will deliver a banger.
That was the case when the two rival teams faced off against the combination of The Hollys and Too Cool! This match was very well-paced and had a lot of excitement as everyone got to get their sh** in. With these guys involved, it was going to be eventful but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
So, Austin’s not in action on this show after being taken out by Rikishi—there’s your 23-year-old spoiler alert—who hit him with a car. Austin was the receiving end of a lot of misfortune when you think about it.
Anyway, the triple threat match saw Triple H defend his WWE title against The Rock and Big Show.
Again, it was a WWE PPV brawl main event and I’ve heard some say it was a bit overbooked but I really enjoyed it. The thing about overbooking in WWE during this period is that it made sense as the Attitude Era was the Wild West. It’s not the must-watch match of the evening but it was a solid end to the show.
The Rest
The one thing I liked about the opener is that it was the start of a very old-school Survivor Series where you had several Survivor Series matches instead of one. Beyond that, this match wasn’t it.
I like that it had just enough time and didn’t just eat up 15 minutes with two teams that weren’t really well matched. WWE should’ve found another team to face APA and the Dudley Boyz or got D’Lo and the Headbangers a better fourth man.
The second match was Kurt Angle’s first nationally televised match. He looked pretty green but showed that he could do what he was executing and knew what he was doing. He just didn’t have a crowd connection at this point—and didn’t actually try to get it.
Stasiak was the same but with more experience. He didn’t really help Kurt much outside of doing the match. On a basic level, this wasn’t bad and would’ve been serviceable on HeAT.
The Mean Street Posse and British Bulldog getting spanked by Steve Blackman, Mark Henry, Val Venis, and Gangrel was a gross Survivor Series match. I will say that I liked the odd babyface team. It was a very 80s and early 90s Survivor Series.
Skip the eight-woman tag match with Debra, Moolah, Mae Young, and Tori taking on Ivory, Jacqueline, Luna, and Terri Runnels. It was less than two minutes and could have been a pre-show match. Then again, it was just a minute and change, so it wasn’t really hurting anyone.
The heel team was the better-composed team although Terri could’ve been dropped. Across the ring was a mess of a team.
Kane vs. X-Pac is another match that could’ve been a pre-show or HeAT bout. It was four minutes and change and it just seemed like it was there to get the crowd to simmer down. On the one hand, those kinds of matches are fine and necessary.
However, there was nothing to cool the crowd down from as the four prior matches were mostly skippable. These two should’ve been given a little more room to groove.
Big Show claps the monster squad of Big Boss Man, Mideon, Prince Albert, and Viscera. Not only that but he does it in under a minute. Oh yeah, this was another Series match. Skip-a-rooni material.
Chyna was well-protected in 1999. She was given quite the push with the IC title and typically had good in-ring superstars as her foes. The match against Chris Jericho was no different.
It was only going to be so good—mainly because of Chyna’s skill limitations—they had the perfect amount of room to groove and delivered another pretty damn entertaining match. That’s a common thing about Chyna’s Intercontinental title run: “entertaining match.”
While the Tag Team title match between champions Mankind & Al Snow and the New Age Outlaws probably wasn’t meant to be a cool-down match, it kind of did that as it followed the best Survivor Series 4v4 of the night and came before a good main event.
Now, the match wasn’t bad as I love a brawl but it was just placed in a bad spot and I wasn’t particularly jacked about it. I’d say that if it was earlier in the card or on TV, it would be better than “OK” or “acceptable.”
This bout was definitely better than the three matches before the final Series match.
WWE Survivor Series 1999 Verdict: Bronze Medal (5/10)
This show was a pretty mixed bag with a banger, a strong main event, some decent enough matches, then…the rest. The show went on like a bad three-hour RAW as some of this stuff could’ve been on TV while the rest would’ve made for a really fun, breezy PPV. As it stands, it’s merely so-so. It’s not awful but not good either.
Part of this is down to card placement. Some matches could’ve been moved to better spots as not to bog down the show. Survivor Series 1999 was the equivalent of getting nuked Hot Pocket or microwave burrito only for it to be freezing cold in the middle.
The match of the night honors goes to the Survivor Series match that saw the team of Edge & Christian and Hardy Boyz face off against Too Cool and the Hollys.
