Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
‘The Survivor Series’ was the World Wrestling Federations annual pay per view that took place on or around Thanksgiving. Throughout the years, we saw this event debut the Undertaker, have a huge egg hatch and reveal the Gobbledy Gooker, Hulk Hogan lose his WWF title against the Undertaker, the debut of the Shield and so on and so on. We will focus on the 1993 edition of this event, in particular what was supposed to be the culmination of a bitter feud between Bret ‘the Hitman’ Hart and Jerry ‘the King’ Lawler. This is the story of that particular match that never happened, the original plans and what we got instead.
As we mentioned, the original plan was to have the feud between Bret Hart and Jerry Lawler end at Survivor Series ’93 with a traditional 4 on 4 elimination match. Bret would enlist three of his brothers and Lawler would introduce 3 masked knights to fight on his side. The match was heavily advertised on television and in the WWF magazine. The only problem was…the match never actually took place. At least the version that was initially promoted.
Before the event took place, Jerry Lawler was indicted on charges of sodomizing 15 year old girl. The WWF removed Lawler from the event and their roster until the King got all of his legal troubles squared away. With Lawler unavailable for this match, Vince McMahon had to scramble to find a suitable replacement. McMahon found it in the form of ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ Shawn Michaels. This was before the two wrestlers became legitimately bitter enemies. According to Bruce Prichard, Vince felt that HBK was a great worker and could carry this match, in addition he loved the way Bret and Shawn worked with each other in previous matchups.
That left us with Shawn’s teammates the masked knights consisting of the Black Knight, the Blue Knight and Red Knight. The WWF had been teasing fans that these Knights were going to play a major role in the match. Some of them were from other promotions and others were former WWF champions. The initial plan was to have Bret Hart unmask each knight during the course of the contest to reveal a shocking identity for each one. Vince worked with WWF consultant Jerry Jarrett on selecting each wrestler to portray a Knight.
One of the original selections was Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka, but Vince eventually changed his mind and removed him from the match feeling that Snuka was better suited as a babyface. A young up and coming wrestler from Tennessee named Glenn Jacobs was chosen to be the Black Knight, but Jarrett convinced McMahon that Jacobs was not yet ready for that big of a spotlight. Jarrett was able to replace Jacobs with another USWA wrestler named Jeff Gaylord. The wrestler selected to portray the Red Knight was none other than Terry Funk.
The night before the event, Funk got the word that he would submit to Bret’s sharpshooter and then be unmasked to reveal his true identity. When Funk found that out, he felt he would be perceived as a “jobber” and decided to quit the gig. He left a note to Vince McMahon in his hotel room that stated he needed to rush back home because his horse was sick. A running excuse/joke he had with Vince throughout the years. With Funk out, Vince had to find a quick replacement and decided to give the Red Knight gimmick to perennial enhancement worker Barry Horowitz.
The Blue Knight was none other than Greg ‘the Hammer’ Valentine. He returned to the WWF after a brief run with WCW, where he was fired after refusing to do a job to Sting. Valentine was all onboard to do the masked gimmick, until he discovered that Shawn Michaels replaced Jerry Lawler as team captain. Valentine said he absolutely hated Michaels and wanted to quit the gig, but decided against that realizing he didn’t need to burn anymore bridges with a major company.
With all the chaos behind the scenes involving various egos and personalities, McMahon decided to scrap his plan to put emphasis on the Knights. Instead, according to Bruce Prichard, the Knights were used simply as filler and were no longer going to be unmasked in a match storyline. The focus was put on the Hart family and the angle that would play out after the match was over. Bruce Hart had pitched an idea to turn heel on his brother Bret and start a feud, but Bret lobbied that his younger brother Owen get that spot instead. As it all turned out, that was the best thing that came from this entire match saga.
Cecigi
This gimmick could’ve worked better if the Knights were played by people from Bret’s past.
For example, the first Knight gets eliminated and unmasked, and he could revealed to be Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, with Vince and Heenan saying “Oh my God, it’s Jim Neidhart! He and Bret were in the Hart Foundation.”
Then, the second Knight gets eliminated and would be revealed to be someone Bret had previously feuded with.
And finally, you have the third and final Knight unmasked and revealed to be Owen, who then cuts a big promo about how sick he is of being in Bret’s shadow, and their feud would be off to the races.
Also, Bret, Bruce, and Keith could easily tag with either Smith or Ross.