Throwback Thursday: Looking back at WWE Survivor Series 1991

Each and every Thursday I will look back at a different pay-per-view event from the past via the WWE Network. Want to see a certain event covered? Send your suggestions to @VaughnMJohnson on Twitter.

Last time, I covered the WWE SummerSlam 2000

WWE Survivor Series 1991

Date: Nov. 27, 1991

Venue: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit

Some random notes

This was the fifth annual Survivor Series, but the first not to take place on Thanksgiving.

This particular Survivor Series was held the day before Thanksgiving in 1991.

Although Survivor Series was major event for WWE, this edition also doubled as a near three-hour commercial for WWE's next pay-per-view, Tuesday in Texas, which took place six days later in San Antonio.

The WWE Network version of the show opened with footage of Jake "The Snake" Roberts' attack on Randy Savage with his king cobra, Lucifer. At least I believe this was Lucifer and not Damien.

WWE president Jack Tunney then showed up and said that Roberts and Savage were not going to compete at Survivor Series. Instead, they were going to face each other in a one-on-one match at Tuesday in Texas.

However, there would be no reptiles allowed at ringside during the match.

Savage and Roberts did make appearances on Survivor Series, as they were both interviewed by "Mean" Gene Okerlund in the arena to hype their match for Tuesday in Texas.

Roberts conducted his interview while wearing a marvelous sweater that I am sure made him the epitome of fashion in 1991. I am sure of it.

Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan were on hand to call the matches. Heenan mentioned multiple times during the show that he was celebrating Thanksgiving in Beverly Hills, Calif. He invited Monsoon and others to join him for the nominal fee of $8.

He said that he charged his mom only $6 because she was his mom.

With that said, let's get to the matches:

Survivor Series – Ric Flair, The Mountie, Ted DiBiase & The Warlord def. Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Virgil & The British Bulldog

This was a fascinating time in the wrestling business, as Flair had recently done the unthinkable: Leave the National Wrestling Alliance/World Championship Wrestling for the glitz and the glamour of WWE.

He even showed up to the WWE with his former employer's world championship, better known to wrestling fans as simply the "big gold belt." Flair wore the title on WWE television and claimed to be the "real world's champion."

This obviously rubbed WWE's champion, Hulk Hogan, the wrong way and it also got under Tunney's skin, and he warned Flair that if he wore the belt on television that it would be distorted. On this night, Flair made his WWE pay-per-view debut and bucked Tunney's edict, and showed off a belt anyway.

The only problem was that it wasn't it wasn't the big gold one.

WWE tried to block it out on television, but it was clear that Flair was holding up one of the WWE tag team title belts. It even had the WWE's logo on one of the straps. The only question was whether he borrowed Hawk's or Animal's title.

Flair's story was a major part of this match, but it wasn't the only story that was being told.

There was Hart going against The Mountie and Virgil going against his former boss, DiBiase.

But the main story was Flair's rivalry with Piper. Piper chomped at the bit waiting to get his hands on Flair. Once he finally did, he took full advantage, but it wasn't enough to eliminate Flair from the match.

Flair recovered and eventually landed the first elimination by pinning Bulldog while he was preoccupied with The Mountie.

With Flair in the ring, Piper jumped on the opportunity to get his hands on him again. However, he had to fight through Flair's entire team in order to do that. That didn't workout too well for Piper.

Piper slapped on the figure four, but DiBiase helped out his teammate and broke it up. Piper eventually crawled over to Virgil and tagged him in, which allowed him to get his moment in the sun.

But Virgil's moment eventually fizzled when he ran into DiBiase and The Warlord. However, Piper and Hart rescued Virgil, which allowed Piper to pin Warlord for the match's second elimination.

The match eventually broke down when all six men jumped into the ring to fight. The referee lost complete control and disqualified everyone but Flair, as Piper tossed him out of the ring before the brawl began, which made Flair the sole survivor.

Heenan could not have been happier with the outcome.

Survivor Series – Sgt. Slaughter, Jim Duggan, The Texas Tornado & Tito Santana def. Col. Mustafa, The Berzerker, Skinner & Hercules

Earlier in the year, Slaughter was on the same side as Mustafa (Iron Sheik) and General Adnan as an Iraqi sympathizer.

After losing to Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 7, Slaughter came crawling back to his native country with his tail tucked between his legs, begging for forgiveness and for it to embrace him like it did before he sided with Iraq.

To help with this endeavor, he tagged along with the one man that was just as patriotic for America as he was, Duggan.

Slaughter eventually got his hands on Mustafa during the match and quickly pinned him for the match's first elimination. The bad guys lost another member of their team later when Santana pinned Hercules, giving the good guys a 4-2 advantage.

Moments later, The Berzerker was left as the last man standing for his team after Slaughter scored a surprise pin fall on Skinner.

The Berzerker put up a good fight, but he eventually succumbed to Duggan's clothesline from a three-point stance to clinch a clean sweep for the good guys.

WWE championship – The Undertaker def. Hulk Hogan

It wasn't the first time Hogan wrestled in the middle of the show, but this was the first singles match of any kind in the history of Survivor Series to this point.

I'm not sure why this match didn't end the show given its importance. I guess WWE didn't want to send the fans home upset given the match's outcome.

The Undertaker may be revered by fans of all ages today, but during his early days in WWE, children were petrified of him. I was one of those petrified children that didn't quite know what to make of him.

We all had good reason to be deftly afraid of The Undertaker, as he was the antithesis of all the bright lights and neon colors of WWE at the time. He was unlike anything we had ever seen before in wrestling.

We had only seen people like The Undertaker in horror movies murdering people, and there he was putting our beloved Hogan in danger. In our minds, he could actually end people's lives. That is what all of the big, scary monster did in the movies. Why couldn't he?

Hogan showed none of the fear the children in the audience had, as he flipped over The Undertaker's coffin before entering the ring. The only emotion Hogan showed was anger, as he was ready to get his hands on The Undertaker.

All of Hogan's vim and vigor was no match for The Undertaker, who rarely left his feet at the time. The first time The Undertaker knocked Hogan down, the champion's expression quickly went from anger to concern, as he realized that he was dealing with someone — or something — much different than his previous foes.

Hogan's offense had little effect on The Undertaker. Even when Hogan clotheslined The Undertaker out of the ring, the challenger landed on his feet.

The Undertaker even landed the tombstone, which no one had gotten up from yet, but just like Hogan did time and time again in the past, he somehow mustered up the energy to mount a comeback.

Hogan immediately got up from the tombstone and hulked up on The Undertaker. Hogan landed a series of strikes that took The Undertaker down to one knee.

Hogan eventually slammed The Undertaker right as Flair marched down to the ring. Flair grabbed the WWE title, which prompted Hogan to punch him in the face.

Hogan quickly got back into the ring, but Paul Bearer's distraction allowed The Undertaker to get Hogan up for the tombstone. At the same time, Flair slid a steel chair into the ring for The Undertaker to drop Hogan on.

The Undertaker did just that and pinned Hogan to win his first WWE championship. He did so only a little more than a year after making his WWE television debut at this very event.

Officials got into the ring after the match to check on Hogan, who lied in the ring in a bad way. While Hogan lied in the ring, WWE cameras were focused on children in the stands that were crying over their fallen hero.

I always loved how Monsoon could just diagnose injuries by looking at the injured wrestler. He somehow knew that Hogan had suffered either a broken neck or a broken clavicle — one of the two. Hogan eventually got up and walked out of the arena, proving that his injuries were not nearly that serious.

The paralyzed football player Heenan referred to while Hogan lied in the ring was Detroit Lions offensive lineman Mike Utley, who injured his spinal cored during a game against the Los Angeles Rams only 10 days before this event.

The injury caused him to be paralyzed from the chest down.

I'm not sure why Heenan brought Utley up in all of this, as if Hogan was remotely hurt by what The Undertaker did to him. I guess WWE thought it would be timely. In reality, it sounded kind of silly.

The Undertaker's first title reign lasted only six days, as he lost it in controversial fashion to Hogan at Tuesday in Texas. The title was quickly vacated by Tunney and eventually put up for grabs in the 1992 Royal Rumble, which is in my opinion, the greatest Royal Rumble of all time.

After the match Piper and Flair cut promos reacting to the title change. They were as loud and as crazy as you expect from the Hot Rod and the Nature Boy.

Survivor Series – The Nasty Boys & The Beverly Brothers def. The Rockers & The Bushwackers

For whatever reason, this match was the longest on the show at a little more than 23 minutes.

Bushwacker Luke was the first to be eliminated followed by his partner Bushwacker Butch.

Despite being outnumbered, Shawn Michaels managed to eliminate one of the Beverly Brothers to give the Rockers some hope.

But this was when things began to get interesting, as this match served as the beginning of the Rockers' breakup. Michaels worked the match with a little more of an edge than usual. He also seemed reluctant to tag in his partner, Marty Jannetty.

Monsoon even wondered on commentary why Michaels was slow to tag Jannetty in. It didn't help matters when Jannetty picked up one of the Nasty Boys, causing his leg to hit Michaels in the face.

The other Nasty took advantage of the miscue and pinned Michaels to eliminate him. Michaels didn't take his elimination lightly. He scolded Jannetty and even shoved him before leaving the ring.

With Michaels gone, that left Jannetty on his own to fight off both of the Nasty Boys and one of the Beverly Brothers. Jannetty gave it his best shot, but was eventually overwhelmed by the bad guys.

The tension between Michaels and Jannetty culminated in the most memorable episode of Brutus Beefcake's Barber Shop, when Michaels super kicked Jannetty and sent him flying through a glass window.

According to Heenan, Jannetty jumped through the window on his own.

Survivor Series – The Legion of Doom & Big Boss Man def. The Natural Disasters & Irwin R. Schyster

Both teams cut very loud promos before the match. That was to be expected.

What caught me by surprise was Sean Mooney cutting off Hawk while he was yelling his catchphrase, "Oh, what a rush!"

Hawk expressed his unhappiness with Mooney by saying, "Mooney, don't you ever…" That was all Hawk had to say to get his point across. He eventually finished the catchphrase.

The crazy thing about this match was that it was the only 3-on-3 Survivor Series match in history. It was supposed to be 4-on-4, but Roberts and Savage were removed from the card.

The good guys ran roughshod over the early portion of the match until I.R.S. got a hold of his briefcase and clobbered Boss Man in the head with it to send him to the showers.

The bad guys took advantage of having the man advantage by pummeling Animal. Animal eventually fended the bad guys off to tag in Hawk and swing the momentum back in their favor.

I.R.S. attempted to use his briefcase again, this time on Hawk, but Hawk ducked out of the way, making Typhoon the victim of the illegal attack. Hawk quickly pinned Typhoon to send him packing and even the odds.

Earthquake was not happy with what I.R.S. did to his tag team partner and eventually abandoned I.R.S., leaving him to fight Hawk and Animal on his own.

That was not a position any man deserved to be in. Nonetheless, I.R.S was in that position and he stood no chance whatsoever. Knowing this, I.RS. attempted to leave, but Big Boss Man cut him off at the pass.

I.R.S retreated back into the ring, where he ran into Hawk and Animal, who promptly finished him off to win the match.

The show ended with Okerlund interviewing The Undertaker and Bearer somewhere in the depths of Joe Louis Arena. It essentially served as the final hype for Tuesday in Texas.