Rants

Demolition/Powers of Pain Double Turn

By Scott Keith on 27 July 2019

Hey Scott, I’ve been watching some 1987-88 WWF compilations on YouTube and I’ve just made it into December ‘88. It got me thinking, what was the impetus behind the Demolition/Powers of Pain double turn at the Survivor Series? Ax and Smash were in the midst of an awesome heel run, while Warlord and Barbarian had received some pretty big face pops upon their WWF debut, so much so that fans actually cheered them and booed Demolition when the turns occurred.

Obviously in hindsight, it was the right call because Demolition became hugely popular, but in context the turns seemed kind of unnecessary. Was it as simple as the Powers needing a mouthpiece and the Demos being able to cut their own promos, or were live crowds already starting to cheer Ax and Smash?

The Powers of Pain were dead in the water as babyfaces by the time they did the double turn. It was a major problem for a team that Vince thought was going to come in and be a huge draw on top. And yeah, Demolition had been getting cheered since they won the titles, so it was a natural way to proceed with the feud and freshen everyone up.