In today’s world of professional wrestling, the WWE has 13 PPVs annually. At a rate of slightly over one a month, they come very fast with very little build up. But in the early days of PPV, there were only four “super-cards” a year. As 1990 rolled around, one of those events, The Survivior Series, was in serious trouble.
Wrestlemania was the company’s premiere event and always delivered a show fans were anxious to see. The Royal Rumble had a match with a popular gimmick that is still going strong today. SummerSlam usually had a very strong line-up of talent and several of the greatest matches in WWE history took place at this event. The Survivor Series, however, was a different event.
Originally designed to showcase another confrontation between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant after the enormous success of Wrestlemania III, the Survivor Series was given a gimmick that featured exclusively tag team wrestling. Teams of 5 (and later 4) wrestlers would compete against each other in elimination style matches. the teams would do battle until all of the members of an opposing team had been eliminated, leaving the remaining members of the victories team as the “survivors.”
While the idea of the match itself was an interesting one and the matches could be entertaining, the concept had some serious flaws that was leading to problems with attendance and buy rates. While the Survivor Series matches could be entertaining contests, ultimately, the show itself was largely meaningless. No titles were ever on the line, as every match was an elimination style tag team match. Also, no feuds were ever settled. Wrestling is based on building interest in a feud until the inevitable one on one showdown to settle the score. Nothing was ever resolved in these tag matches, no titles were ever contested, nothing ever came to a conclusion. This was something fans were starting to notice.
When it was time for the 1990 edition of the event, WWE tried to shake things up a bit. Instead of the matches declaring victors, the surviving members of each victorious team went on to a “final” Survivor Series contest, giving the fans an extra match and a subtle, tournament type undertone to the event.
Feeling that was not enough to spark interest, the WWE also decided to build anticipation with the inclusion of two “mysteries” that would be resolved during the event.
The first mystery that the WWE teased its audience with was the identity of the “secret” member of Ted Dibiase’s Million $ Team. Dibiase had been in the midst of a feud with Dusty Rhodes, who had a “Dream team” comprised of himself, Koko B. Ware and the Hart Foundation. Dibiase was going to be joined by the team of Rhythm and Blues and a surprise member. If fans wanted to see who the mystery man was, they had to attend the event, or purchase it on Pay Per View.
However, the biggest mystery of all surrounded a gigantic egg. For weeks leading up to the event, an enormous egg was brought out from arena to arena, used to hype the upcoming super card. Fans were told that the egg would hatch at The Survivor Series and anything could be inside! As the big day loomed nearer, speculation ran wild about what would be inside the egg. Many thought it would be a debuting wrestler or personality. Maybe it was some prize to be given away to a lucky fan in attendance. However, nobody was prepared for what actually happened.
With all of the initial elimination style matches under-way, fans in the Hartford Civic Center were awaiting the final match when the giant egg was brought out to ringside. “Mean” Gene Okerlund was on hand to witness the giant unveiling as the egg began to crack. After weeks, if not months, of build-up, the egg finally hatched and from it emerged….a giant turkey.
Yes, after an insane amount of anticipation and build up, what came out of the egg was a man dressed in a turkey costume. The millions of people watching the event at home, as well as the 16,000 in attendance that day (of which your humble columnist, at the tender age of 11, was one) witnessed one of the most embarrassing events in the history of professional wrestling.
Hector Guerrero, dressed in an absurd turkey suit, proceeding to flip and dance around the ring, making turkey noises and dancing with Mean Gene. Okerlund, using his vast announcing talents, deduced the name of the clucking man was “The Gobbledy Gooker.” Guerrero and Okerlund spent what seemed to be an eternity making fools of themselves as the capacity crowd booed heavily, praying for this event to end. Gorilla Monsoon and and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper tried to save this fiasco on commentary, claiming that the arena loved the Gobbledy Gooker, as they were barely audible over th sounds of the booing and jeering.
One has to wonder what WWE management was thinking in this situation. The gimmick is one of the worst ever devised in wrestling’s long history of horrible gimmicks. the fact that the man portraying the Gooker was a talented in ring performer from a legendary wrestling family made it all the more unfortunate. Somebody somewhere in the front office of the WWE thought that this idea would draw money. make no mistake about it, professional wrestling is a business. Everything they do is done with the intention of making a fan pay their hard earned dollars for a ticket to an event or a pay per view broadcast. It was believed that fans would see the Gobbledy Gooker, a grown man in a turkey costume, and shell out cash to see what he did next.
In order to try to deduce why anyone in their right mind would believe this insane idea would draw a single dollar, one has to understand that in professional wrestling, more than any other form of entertainment, you never can tell what will draw money. A perfect example of this occurred at the very same event.
While Survivor Series 1990 is infamous for the debut of the Gobbledy Gooker, it is also famous for the debut of another WWE wrestler. The afore mentioned surprise member of Ted Dibiase’s team was not a wrestler WWE fans were familiar with. He was a WCW wrestler who went by the name of “Mean” Mark Callous. Only with WCW for a short time, his contract was not renewed and he was signed by the WWE. Seeing his size and athletic ability, Vince McMahon felt he could make Callous a star. Upon entering the promotion at the Survivor Series, he was given the gimmick of an undead zombie who could not feel pain, as he was an animated corpse who would batter his opponents unmercifully. People who are not aware of wrestling history must feel that this idea was almost as bad a man in a turkey suit, if not worse. Who would ever buy into such a ludicrous idea as that? Surely this man was laughed out of the building almost as quickly as the Gooker was? However, those who are long time wrestling fans know that this was the debut of the Undertaker, one of the single most successful gimmicks in WWE history, one that is still going strong 20 years and several World title reigns later.
In the crazy world of pro wrestling, you never can tell what will connect with the fans.
This event was also the beginning of the end for Demolition as they would be gone 4 months later at Wrestlemania 7.