5 mistakes WWE has made with Survivor Series this year
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the piece are those of the writer's and do not necessarily reflect those of Sportskeeda's
The Survivor Series PPV is one of the WWE's marquee annual events. The second large-scale pay-per-view event to be created after WrestleMania, the annual event is typically one of the most anticipated events of the year.
There was a time when the WWE was looking at dropping Survivor Series from their event schedule, but in recent years the event has regained some popularity thanks in part to including more Survivor Series style matches, where you have two teams, of 4-5 competitors each, competing against each other in a tag-team/elimination style match and pitting the RAW and SmackDown brands against each other.
Major emphasis has been placed on the rivalry, with brands invading each other's show much to the fans' delight, but this year it feels like the WWE has not put much effort into this event. When comparing it to how it treats its other 3 marquee events, Survivor Series feels unimportant.
Here's a list of five mistakes the WWE has made with this year's Survivor Series.
#5 Too little promo time
Throughout October, the WWE was busy heavily promoting the Super Show-Down event in Australia, Evolution and Crown Jewel, which happened on Nov 2nd.
Survivor Series is happening barely two weeks after the Crown Jewel show and prior to Crown Jewel, there was neither mention of the annual event nor story development leading to the brands squaring off against each other.
Both Evolution and Crown Jewel were history-making events. Evolution for being the first all-women event and Crown Jewel happening despite global controversy and concern about the WWE putting on an event in Saudi Arabia. Naturally, both events got a lot of promotional time and media attention
In comparison, the Survivors Series PPV has traditionally been one of the WWE’s 4 marquee annual events, along with The Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam, so one would assume the promotion and hype for the event would be on the same level.
Historically, Survivor Series has brought us major debuts, returns, heal turns, reunions and some of wrestling’s biggest moments including what some feel changed wrestling forever, The Montreal Screw Job. Survivor Series has played a major role in the WWE's history, so to give it next to no promotion or hype is puzzling.
A two week lead time for this event just doesn’t feel like Survivor Series is being given the respect it deserves. So much effort was put into Crown Jewel and Evolution that in comparison, Survivor Series feels like an afterthought.
Why should the WWE Universe even care? We’ve seen RAW vs SmackDown before, but at least the previous brand encounter was hyped up and built up properly. If last year’s Survivor Series, RAW vs SmackDown was a blockbuster movie, this year’s Survivor Series would be a sequel, released directly to video.