Survivor Series is one of WWE’s biggest pay-per-views of the year – and it also happens to be somewhat of a birthplace of legends.
WWE are set to go all out for their fifth and final major premium live event of 2023 – with Survivor Series the company’s second oldest annual event behind flagship show WrestleMania.
Survivor Series is best known for being centered around the concept of brand supremacy between RAW, SmackDown, and later NXT, but was once renowned for being the birthplace of legends.
Here, talkSPORT.com looks back at some of WWE’s biggest stars who have also debuted on one of the biggest stages of them all.
Note this is strictly for wrestlers themselves so the Elimination Chamber, which debuted at Survivor Series in 2002 before becoming its own event, will not be included.
5. Sting (2014)
Due to loyalty to WCW and worries about how his character would be handled, Sting evaded WWE for years.
Potential matchups with the best in the business appeared to be a dream consigned to the scrapheap until his shock appearance at Survivor Series.
Team John Cena were competing against Team Authority in a five-on-five elimination match in the main event.
Triple H looked to have handed Team Authority the win when he dragged an unbeknown Seth Rollins onto Dolph Ziggler for the cover before Sting’s iconic music hit.
The six-time WCW champion had a stare-down with Triple H in the ring, before hitting him with a Scorpion Death Drop.
Sting then put Ziggler on top of Rollins as the referee counted to three which gave Team Cena the win.
For pure impact and excitement, it was right up there with the best WWE debuts in history.
However, unfortunately, it’s hard to ignore what happened next which, in hindsight, has reframed the feeling behind his Survivor Series appearance as wasted potential.
Sting’s attack on Triple H set up a WrestleMania 31 match in 2015, which the former lost – perhaps proving correct his doubts over WWE’s booking when he was at his peak.
He then suffered a serious neck injury that ultimately forced him into premature retirement.
4. Kurt Angle (1999)
Despite signing a five-year deal with the company in 1998, it took Angle over a year to make his televised debut in WWE.
The Olympic Gold medallist made light work of Shawn Stasiak by defeating him in less than six minutes in the second match of the Survivor Series card.
The quick squash match was the perfect introduction for fans to the wrestling machine, with Angle impressing as much for his mic skills as his grappling.
Discussing his debut in 2019, Angle told WWE’s The Bump: “The match was okay. For my first match, I got through it, and I think that’s all I could ask for.
“But the more you go, the more you improve. A couple of years later, I was actually a much better wrestler.
“It was a good debut, everyone is picking on me because it was Shawn Stasiak, but Shawn was actually a really good wrestler back then.”
Angle got over with his American hero gimmick, based on his gold medal win at the 1996 Olympics, and Survivor Series became the launch pad for one of the greatest rookie years in WWE history.
After being inducted into the Hall of Fame by John Cena in 2016, Angle retired after losing to Baron Corbin at WrestleMania 35.
3. The Rock (1996)
Dwayne Johnson’s title as WWE’s most famous Hollywood export means he occasionally tops these types of lists.
However, the eyebrow-raising electrifying version of the Rock that would later catapult him into global stardom was not born until he joined the Nation of Domination a year after his Survivor Series debut.
Known then as Rocky Maivia – a combination of his father’s and grandfather’s ring names – The Great One debuted alongside Jake Roberts, Marc Mero, and The Stalker against Crush, Goldust, Jerry Lawler, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley [later Triple H] in a traditional Survivor Series elimination match.
The Rock was the sole survivor by eliminating Crush and Goldust to win the match for his team.
Last week, the Fast and Furious actor revealed a conversation he had with Vince McMahon barely minutes before having never even wrestled a match at a house show.
Rock told The Joe Rogan Experience: “He [McMahon] goes, ‘You’re gonna win the whole thing. I’m gonna throw you right into the fire.’ I’ll never forget this.
“He’s like, ‘You’re either gonna f****** sink or you’re gonna swim—it’s New York City. It’s up to you.'”
The Rocky Mavia version of Johnson sunk meaning the historic significance of the match is what earns its ranking here.
Perhaps if he hadn’t been pushed into such a prominent position before he was ready he wouldn’t have been so quickly rejected by fans – which necessitated the need to turn heel and become the Rock.
Thankfully for everyone, he later learned to swim and went on to become a 10-time world champion and headline five WrestleMania’s.
2. The Shield (2014)
The Shield not only have a claim to be one of WWE’s most successful stables of all time but two of their three members are among the biggest stars of their generation.
In 2014, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose [now AEW’s Jon Moxley] made their WWE debuts in emphatic style.
The trio, unknown to sections of the WWE Universe at the time, helped CM Punk retain his WWE Championship against John Cena and Ryback by triple powerbombing the latter through an announce table.
It allowed Punk to pin Cena, who was already down due to Ryback’s Shellshock finisher and record a 365th day as WWE Champion.
The Shield went unbeaten for months as Rollins and Reigns won tag team gold, while Ambrose held the United States Championship.
Their obvious individual star power led to their break-up, with all three winning world titles and becoming the faces of modern wrestling.
The Shield reunited sporadically before their final reunion in April 2019, which was Ambrose’s last match in WWE before leaving and subsequently joining rival promotion AEW.
Rollins meanwhile patrols RAW as the world heavyweight champion while Reigns has cemented his legacy as the top attraction in the entire industry.
The Tribal Chief is the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, the longest-reigning titleholder since Hulk Hogan in the 1980s, and has headlined WrestleMania seven times.
Their impact separately and apart is set in stone for a generation and it can all be traced back to that first outing at Survivor Series.
1. The Undertaker (1990)
The single greatest character in pro wrestling history was born at Survivor Series in 1990 and retired at the same event three decades later.
The Undertaker made his official WWE debut as the mystery partner of Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team.
They were taking on The Dream Team of Bret Hart, Dusty Rhodes, Koko B. Ware, and Jim Neidhart.
‘Taker made an immediate impact by eliminating Ware and Rhodes, before being counted out by the referee.
The Million Dollar Team were victorious, though, as The Deadman went on to establish himself as one of the biggest stars in WWE.
It could have been so different as the man now known as Mark Calaway revealed his anxiety going into his initial WWE appearance.
He told the BBC: “They were doing a big promotion and had a big egg on the set. I thought that egg was going to be me because they had so many gimmicks. I really didn’t want to be the Eggman.”
Seven world title reigns and a famous 21-0 streak at WrestleMania later the Undertaker brought his 30-year career full circle by officially retiring during his ‘Final Farewell’ at Survivor Series in 2020.
