We are quickly approaching Thanksgiving which can only mean one thing in the wrestling world…it’s almost time for The Survivor Series.  One of the main WWE PPVs every year (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series are the main 4), The Survivor Series got its start in 1987 when Vince McMahon decided to add a PPV event to go head to head against the NWA’s (WCW) Starrcade event on Thanksgiving night.  You may scoff at the idea of a wrestling PPV on Thanksgiving night but it was a HUGE tradition in the south.  Starrcade was a Thanksgiving night tradition.  Many local federations ran events that night too.  Family were looking for things to do after eating and before Black Friday.  When I was in IWA Mid-South, our biggest event of the year the first several years was our Thanksgiving night show.  While times have changed (NFL has football all day on Thanksgiving and the huge Black Friday deals start on Thanksgiving night instead of waiting until early Friday morning), the Survivor Series is still close to Thanksgiving.

In honor of this yearly tradition, I saw people posting photos of some of the more famous pairings from Survivor Series past.  The event used to be 5 on 5 elimination matches.  That was a great concept and one I wish continued on today.  You got to see several feuds put together into one match and you got to see unique pairings that you never would have seen  without the elimination match concept.

The 1987 Survivor Series was the first and what a team it had in the main event.  Team Captain: Andre The Giant joined by King Kong Bundy, One Man Gang, “Ravishing” Rick Rude and Butch Reed who beat Hulk Hogan’s team:

In 1989, the WWE started giving the teams names and dropped it to 4 men instead of 5.  The main event team that year was The Ultimate Warriors with team captain The Ultimate Warrior joined by The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart who beat The Heenan Family:

My favorite team from the 1989 Survivor Series though was The Rude Brood led by team captain “Ravishing’ Rick Rude joined by “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig and The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond) who beat Roddy’s Rowdies:

In one of my favorite photos I have seen of the old Survivor Series teams, nothing can top the 1990 Survivor Series photo for The Dream Team of “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes being joined by The Hart Foundation (Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart) and Koko B. Ware:

What in the hell is Dusty Rhodes wearing and why does he look like Slash from Guns N Roses?