In 1998, wrestling was at its peak, at least in the modern sense. Austin was at the top of the heap with The Rock following closely behind. Vince McMahon had left the announce table and transformed into the evil Mr. McMahon and the Undertaker was feared once again. DX was fresh, Shamrock was over and Regal was named Steve. All in all, the WWF/WWE was riding the wave of popularity and was slowly gaining ground on WCW and the NWO.

Flash forward to 2008 and the landscape is entirely different. Austin, Rock and Shamrock are all gone. McMahon enjoys staying behind the scenes, DX has been water-downed and Regal researched his family tree and is now named William. The one thing that has stayed the same is that it is the end of November and we're looking forward to the Thanksgiving classic, the Survivor Series. Since we are 10 years removed from the "new golden-age of wrestling," I thought we'd look back at 1998's version of the Series along with looking forward to this Sunday's offering.

1998's Survivor Series had the subtitle/theme of "Deadly Game" and featured a tournament to crown a new WWE champion after Steve Austin had been stripped of the title 2 months before. Can you image a brand without a champion for 2 whole months in today's environment? The major players in the tournament were Austin, The Rock and Mankind; each man with a viable chance of walking away with the belt. Austin was embroiled in his ever-running feud with Mr. McMahon; The Rock was making his mark as the new corporate rebel, while Mankind was looking for McMahon family acceptance. Any one of these men could be sitting at the top of the mountain at the end of the night with Mankind looking to be the chosen one. With his new haircut, shave, shirt and tie, Mankind was the epitome of the corporate champion…just without the championship. McMahon looked to change all of this by feeding Mankind little known local "enhancement" talent, Dwayne Gill in the first round. After a nice match with Al Snow and a Shane McMahon screw job of Steve Austin, Mankind was all set to face The Rock in the finals of the "Deadly Game." Here are 2 men, not named McMahon or Austin, headlining one of the big 4 Pay Per Views of the year. This is where things began to get interesting. During the all out brawl between the Rock and Mankind (the first in a series by the way), McMahon made his presence felt by taking a seat at ringside. The battle went back and forth with Mankind slowly gaining the upper hand. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the Rock counter with a Rock Bottom but only received a 2 count. Frustrated he grabbed Mankind's legs and locked in the ever controversial sharpshooter. McMahon signaled for the bell without a Mankind submission, proclaimed the Rock the new corporate champion and undoubtedly etched the Survivor Series into the WWE fan's mind forever.