WWE Survivor Series: 5 Best World Championship matches in the PPV's history
Survivor Series is a WWE Pay-Per-View event with many years of history behind it. The show was first held in 1987, a few months after WrestleMania III. That made Survivor Series the second of the "big four" PPVs that WWE became known for (SummerSlam would follow in 1988 and Royal Rumble debuted in 1989). Over the last 33 years, the focus has shifted away from the original concept of 5-on-5 elimination tag team matches and the show is generally a regular PPV with only one or two of those elimination-style matches.
This year is the first Survivor Series that will feature a World Title match since 2015, as WWE has put a majority of the focus on the brand versus brand story. Rey Mysterio vs. Brock Lesnar has the chance to be an extremely good match since in recent years Brock has had some outstanding matches with smaller men. He did it with AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, and Finn Balor recently, and Rey could be the next on that list.
Could the Mysterio vs. Lesnar match end up on a list like this next year? We'll have to wait and see. Until then, these are the top 5 World Title matches in Survivor Series history.
#5 Hulk Hogan (C) vs. The Undertaker (1991)
Owing to the original concept of Survivor Series being based on 4-on-4 and 5-on-5 elimination tag matches, the first four editions of the show did not feature a match for the WWE Championship. The fifth Survivor Series was a special event, however. It was the one-year anniversary of the debut of The Undertaker, who was brought in as the fifth man for an elimination match by Ted DiBiase.
One year later, The Undertaker had gained a lot of momentum as he was billed as undefeated, and therefore found himself challenging Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship.
The match itself wasn't very good, but Undertaker defeating Hogan to win the title at that point did two things. One, it showed signs that the fans weren't as madly in love with Hogan as they had been before, as the live audience cheered for The Deadman's victory, and two, the chaos surrounding this match and the subsequent rematch a few days later led to the championship being vacated.
The title being held up with no champion led to WWE putting the championship on the line in the following month's Royal Rumble match. That, of course, was the famous 1992 Royal Rumble that saw Ric Flair win the belt and then cut the legendary "with a tear in my eye" promo.
'Taker vs. Hogan wasn't what you would call a "barnburner" or "slobberknocker" or "banger" (which I believe is the preferred term for the kids today), but the result started a chain reaction that would change the company massively.