Survivor Series (1998) - Background

Background

As the central focus of Survivor Series was the Deadly Games tournament, the build up involved many interlinking feuds. Arguably the cause of the tournament goes back to WrestleMania XIV in March, where Steve Austin won the WWF Championship. Austin's working class, blue collar style and manner clashed with WWF Chairman Mr. McMahon and his corporate notions of who he wanted to represent his company. He then set about trying to mould a challenger in his own image to dethrone Austin. Firstly he brought back Dude Love, though he soon abandoned his hippy style gimmick in favor of a suit - even wearing his false teeth (Foley was known for his scruffy look, including various missing teeth from a variety of hardcore matches). After two attempts, including one with McMahon as referee, Love still did not recover the gold and seemed to bring about more woe to McMahon. McMahon turned to Paul Bearer and sought about setting up his son Kane in a match at June's King of the Ring which Austin lost but only thanks to interference from Kane's (fictional) half-brother The Undertaker who, despite having animosity towards his brother, did not want to see him hurt - Austin won his title back the following evening. Having been thrown to the wayside by McMahon, Love returned to his psychologically fragile alter-ego Mankind, soon changing his dress from rags to an unintentionally scruffy parody of his father-figure McMahon. Both Mankind and Kane formed an ad-hoc tag team which McMahon sponsored in a bid to take on Undertaker, who had been defending Austin while similarly vying for a title shot. Shortly before August pay-per-view SummerSlam, it was revealed that Undertaker and Kane had been in cahoots. Austin retained the title at SummerSlam, but McMahon was not done. At the next pay-per-view, he forced Austin to face both Kane and Undertaker in a match that essentially became a handicap match after McMahon added the stipulation that the brothers could not pin each other. Austin lost the championship, but since he was simultaneously pinned by Kane and Undertaker the title was held up. To rectify the situation, McMahon booked a match between the two brothers at Judgment Day: In Your House. To further mock Steve Austin, he was designated as referee and McMahon threatened to fire him if he didn't perform his duties. Austin defied the order and attacked Undertaker after he had turned on Kane with Paul Bearer once again rejoining him and attacked Kane with a steel chair, then counted both brothers out because he wouldn't allow Undertaker to become the World Wrestling Federation Champion due to inference from Paul Bearer and declared himself the winner and champion. McMahon then made good on his threat to fire Austin, and the title was left vacant. To rectify this, Deadly Game was set up, a knock-out tournament contest between a wide array of wrestlers in the company.

Despite being fired, Austin was at Raw the night after Judgment Day and held McMahon hostage at gunpoint, though when Austin went to fire his gun it turned out to be a joke gun, with a sign saying BANG! 3:16 on it; Austin left the ring when McMahon soiled himself, having given him a piece of paper. Austin revealed the following week that the paper was a five-year contract that guaranteed him a championship match and most shockingly of all, the contract had been signed by Mr McMahon's son Shane, who had his owner rights suspended by his father and was demoted to a referee.

As well as Austin, McMahon seemed to have a new target of hatred. On November 2 edition of Raw, McMahon declared to the self-styled People's Champion that because he had a problem with the people, he had a problem with The Rock. He then ordered Rock into an Intercontinental match with Ken Shamrock, with Rock's tournament spot on the line. Shamrock hit him with a chair and thus he won, but only by disqualification and thus lost his tournament spot. Afterwards McMahon had The Rock arrested, much like he had done months before with Austin. The following week McMahon threatened him with expulsion from the company if he could not win a match against former Nation of Domination stable mate Mark Henry. Despite the odds being stacked in his favor with McMahon's entourage at ring side distracting the referee, Shane McMahon ran down after Rock had performed the Rock Bottom, a lifting side slam, on Henry and counted the pinfall to secure Rock's employment and, presumably, earning back his spot in the tournament although this was never specifically mentioned other than McMahon mentioning it on Heat.

While many wrestlers became the target of Vince McMahon's ire, one wrestler returned to being his favorite. With his son ostensibly turning on him, Mankind tried to cheer McMahon up and was treated as a surrogate child. McMahon awarded him a new belt, the WWF Hardcore Championship, as well as giving him a makeover, including a pedicure, haircut and tailored suit, gearing him up to win the tournament. As well as being a Hardcore Champion, Mankind had formed an ad hoc tag team with Al Snow, the humorous duo mocking each other's mascots who they talked to, Mr. Socko and Head. In a tag team match Mr. Socko went missing and it later transpired that Mr. McMahon had wrapped it round Al Snow's Head in order to provoke his wrath. Snow himself had also had several run-ins with Jeff Jarrett, after Jarrett had opened his guitar case only to find Head inside, instead of his trademark weapon.

Family problems were abound elsewhere with the return of Paul Bearer at Judgment Day. Bearer had been at Kane's side ever since his debut the previous October, but when Kane and Undertaker created an allegiance to take down Austin, Kane turned his back on Bearer and allowed Undertaker to beat him. When Bearer returned he seemed to be on Kane's side, but in fact he gave a chair to Undertaker to strike his son with, revealing on Raw that he had returned to being Undertaker's mentor.

Steven Regal had been having vignettes airing for his return for weeks under the gimmick of 'a man's man' but when he did make his appearance known, it was by attacking the European Champion X-Pac from behind on October 26. Another wrestler would make his debut standing by Mr. McMahon's side as a masked man in a SWAT style uniform, defending him from Austin's attacks. The enforcer turned out to be the returning Big Boss Man, after a stint in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), who had taken on the role of personal bodyguard for McMahon.

The two other feuds going into the event were both championship feuds. Marc Mero grew jealous of his valet Sable and the attention she gained, eventually having her fired by defeating her in a match. When she returned as a wrestler in her own right, Mero employed a new valet Jacqueline and the two naturally squared off. Firstly they had a bikini contest, which Sable won by popularity, but was disqualified as her bikini consisted of handprints. The two then had an arm wrestling contest, which ended with Jacqueline cracking the bikini contest trophy over the head of Sable. When Sable revealed the Women's Championship had been reactivated, the two met for a match on Raw, in which Jacqueline won due to Mero holding Sable's legs down. Sable was further humiliated when Jacqueline cut a piece of her hair and wrapped it into her own hair, but appeared on Raw, October 26, to demand a championship match.

The Headbangers had met the New Age Outlaws the previous month and after dominating most of the match, won via disqualification when the Road Dogg broke a boombox over Mosh's head. Despite titles not changing hands by disqualification, the Headbangers began to declare themselves champions, coming to the ring with toy replica belts and parodying New Age Outlaws pre-match speeches. With the dissolution of The Nation, D'Lo Brown and Mark Henry stayed together as a tag team and with Brown's feud with X-Pac over the European title, by messing with one D-Generate, he picked an unwitting fight with the Outlaws too.