Survivor Series

The Survivor Series is an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event held in November by WWE. It is one of the "Big Four" events, along with WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam, as it is one of the original four pay-per-views produced by WWE.

Survivor Series is the 2nd longest running pay-per-view event in WWE history, behind WrestleMania. The first Survivor Series, held in 1987, came on the heels of the success of WrestleMania III, as the then-WWF began to see the lucrative potential of the pay-per-view market. On February 11, 2010, WWE announced that it would drop the Survivor Series name and rebrand the event. However, in June 2010, the event was added back onto WWE's pay-per-view schedule.

Original concept

The original concept for the Survivor Series was to have an annual pay-per-view event that focused on tag team wrestling. Another contributing factor to the birth of the Survivor Series was to capitalize on the big time feud between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant, who wrestled each other at WrestleMania III. Additionally, the WWF had several elimination tag-team matches earlier in 1987, albeit with three-man teams and the feuds loosely related.

Survivor Series (2008)

Survivor Series (2008) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), took place on November 23, 2008, at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, It was presented by THQ's WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009. The event, the 22nd Survivor Series, featured talent from WWE's all three brands, Raw, SmackDown and ECW. Six professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's card. The event received 319,000 pay-per-view buys, less than the previous year's event.

The main event was for the World Heavyweight Championship between John Cena, and the champion, Chris Jericho, which Cena won by pinfall after executing an FU. Another match on the event was the SmackDown main event, which saw Edge return and defeat Vladimir Kozlov, and the champion Triple H, in a Triple Threat match to win the WWE Championship. The undercard matches included The Undertaker versus The Big Show in a Casket Match and three five-on-five elimination tag team matches.

Survivor Series (2011)

Survivor Series (2011) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by WWE that took place on November 20, 2011 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was the 25th annual Survivor Series event and the first one to take place in Madison Square Garden since the 2002 event. It sold out in only 90 minutes.

Seven matches took place at the event, six of which were broadcast live on pay-per-view. The Main events from this installment of Survivor Series would have a lasting effect on the next year in the WWE. In the main event from the Raw brand, The Rock, in his first match since WrestleMania XX in 2004, teamed with John Cena and defeated The Miz and R-Truth. The main event from the SmackDown brand saw Big Show defeat World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry by disqualification. In another predominant match on the card, CM Punk was victorious over Alberto Del Rio by submission to win the WWE Championship, a reign that would continue until January 27, 2013 and become the sixth longest in the company's history.

Survivor Series (2001)

Survivor Series (2001) was the 15th annual Survivor Series pay-per-view professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and presented by Microsoft's Xbox. It took place on November 18, 2001, at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was also the last Survivor Series to be produced under the World Wrestling Federation branding, as the company would be forced to change its name several months later as the result of a verdict in the World Wildlife Fund's lawsuit against the company.

The 2001 edition of Survivor Series marked the end of The Invasion angle, which had dominated WWF storylines since March when Vince McMahon purchased World Championship Wrestling.

Background

The event featured eight professional wrestling matches with outcomes predetermined by WWF script writers. The matches featured wrestlers portraying their characters in planned storylines that took place before, during and after the event.

The largest storyline that had pervaded the WWF in the preceding months was, as mentioned above, The Invasion, which came about due to the actual purchase of World Championship Wrestling by the WWF just prior to WrestleMania X-Seven. The storyline eventually grew into a WWF vs. WCW faction battle, and eventually Extreme Championship Wrestling became a part of the battle by joining forces with WCW to create The Alliance.

Survivor Series (1997)

Survivor Series (1997) was the 11th annual Survivor Series pay-per-view professional wrestling event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It was the third consecutive Survivor Series presented by Milton Bradley's Karate Fighters, and took place on November 9, 1997, at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The tagline "Gang Rulz" refers to the various wrestling stables that feuded with each other coming to this event.

The main event was a standard wrestling match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, in which Bret Hart defended the title against Shawn Michaels. It would be the last of three WWF World Heavyweight Championship matches between the two, who had previously headlined the 1992 Survivor Series and WrestleMania XII together. Michaels won the title in controversial fashion when Vince McMahon ordered match referee Earl Hebner to end the match as Michaels held Hart in Hart's own finishing maneuver, the Sharpshooter, even though Hart had not submitted. This incident became known as the Montreal Screwjob and marked Hart's last appearance on WWE programming until 2010. This was also the last time that Hart held a title in WWE until May 2010, and the last time he headlined a WWE pay-per-view until SummerSlam 2010.

Survivor Series (2009)

Survivor Series (2009) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which took place on November 22, 2009, at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.. It was the 23rd annual Survivor Series event. It featured talent from the Raw, SmackDown and ECW brands. There were six matches on the card of the event.

There were two matches that were deemed the main events of the program. The first was the triple threat match featuring The Undertaker defending the World Heavyweight Championship successfully against both halves of the Unified WWE Tag Team Champions Chris Jericho and The Big Show. This was also followed by the other main event match: another triple threat with John Cena defending the WWE Championship against Triple H and Shawn Michaels. Four matches comprised the undercard of the event with three being elimination tag team matches, often thought of as a Survivor Series "tradition". The first was the team of WWE United States Champion The Miz, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, Jack Swagger, and Dolph Ziggler defeating WWE Intercontinental Champion John Morrison, Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, Finlay, and Evan Bourne. This was later followed by Kofi Kingston leading the team of Christian, Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP), Mark Henry, and R-Truth with a win over Randy Orton, CM Punk, William Regal, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase. The third of these matches held was composed of Mickie James, WWE Divas Champion Melina, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, and Eve Torres getting a win over that of WWE Women's Champion Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, Alicia Fox, and Layla. Also featured was a singles match that saw Batista defeat Rey Mysterio.