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.

The Survivor Series was originally created to be a "Thanksgiving tradition" as the first four Survivor Series events took place on Thanksgiving Day in November. After four years of taking place on Thanksgiving Eve following that, Survivor Series moved to a more-traditional Sunday PPV date.

Survivor Series matches
The event is usually characterized by having tag-team elimination matches, usually featuring teams of four or five wrestlers. These matches are generally referred to simply as "Survivor Series matches".

In an early break from the norm, the 1992 event had only one tag team elimination match, and is notable for featuring the first Casket match. The 1997 edition featured the now-infamous Montreal Screwjob, while the 1998 edition is the only one to not feature any elimination tag team matches, instead focusing on an elimination tournament for the WWE Championship, not seen since WrestleMania IV. The 2002 Survivor Series is notable for the debut of the Elimination Chamber match.