The 2017 Survivor Series was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE, held for wrestlers from the promotion's main roster brands, Raw and SmackDown. It was the 31st annual Survivor Series and took place on November 19, 2017, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. After the 2016 event had several interpromotional matches between the two brands, the theme of the 2017 event became brand supremacy in which every match on the main card involved wrestlers from the two brands in direct competition, including the titular Survivor Series match, a tag team elimination match that pits teams of multiple wrestlers against each other.
Ten matches were contested at the event, including three on the Kickoff pre-show. Two Survivor Series matches were held, one each for the men and women. The main event was the men's Survivor Series match in which Team Raw defeated Team SmackDown, and as a result, Kurt Angle kept his position as Raw General Manager, while the undercard featured the women's iteration where Team Raw was also victorious. The champions of each brand also faced their counterparts in non-title matches; except for SmackDown's WWE Champion AJ Styles, who lost to Raw's Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, all SmackDown champions were victorious. Also on the main card, Raw's The Shield (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose) defeated SmackDown's The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods), which was also The Shield's first match together since Payback in June 2014. Raw won brand supremacy by winning four of the seven matches on the main card. On the pre-show, which consisted of non-interbrand matches, Enzo Amore defeated Kalisto to retain Raw's WWE Cruiserweight Championship in what was the only title match of the night.
Production Background
Survivor Series is an annual professional wrestling event, produced every November by WWE since 1987, generally held around Thanksgiving in the United States. It was originally broadcast exclusively via pay-per-view (PPV) before it began simultaneously livestreaming on the WWE Network in 2014. In what has become the second longest-running PPV event in history (behind WWE's WrestleMania), it is one of the promotion's original four PPVs, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble, referred to as the "Big Four". The event is traditionally characterized by having Survivor Series matches, which are tag team elimination matches that typically pits teams of four or five wrestlers against each other. Announced on November 17, 2016, the 31st Survivor Series event was scheduled to be held on November 19, 2017, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Travel packages became available on December 6, 2016, while individual tickets went on sale on December 9.
In July 2016, WWE reintroduced the brand extension, again splitting the main roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform. Subsequently, the 2016 Survivor Series featured several interpromotional matches to determine which was the better brand, similar to the previous Bragging Rights event. This would be the genesis for what became the brand supremacy theme of the 2017 event, in which every match on the main card was an interpromotional match. This included two Survivor Series matches, one each for the men and women, as well as every champion from Raw facing their SmackDown counterpart in non-title matches: Raw's Universal Champion against SmackDown's WWE Champion, the Raw Women's Champion against the SmackDown Women's Champion, Raw's Intercontinental Champion against SmackDown's United States Champion, and the Raw Tag Team Champions against the SmackDown Tag Team Champions. As Raw's WWE Cruiserweight Championship was the only title of its kind in WWE, it was the only title to be defended, which occurred on the Kickoff pre-show.
Storylines The event comprised 10 matches, including three on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw, SmackDown Live, and the cruiserweight-exclusive 205 Live.
At Raw's No Mercy event, Brock Lesnar defeated Braun Strowman to retain the Universal Championship, while at SmackDown's Hell in a Cell event, Jinder Mahal retained the WWE Championship against Shinsuke Nakamura. On the October 17 episode of SmackDown, Mahal said that he had defeated every worthy opponent on the SmackDown roster and that at Survivor Series, he wanted to face Raw's top champion, Brock Lesnar; this challenge was made prior to the official announcement that all of Raw's champions would face their SmackDown counterparts. AJ Styles took exception to Mahal's claim and challenged Mahal for the WWE Championship. Mahal said that Styles was a joke, and Styles attacked Mahal and The Singh Brothers (Samir Singh and Sunil Singh). Backstage, Mahal confronted SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan about the incident, and said that one of The Singh Brothers should make Styles pay and Bryan agreed; Styles defeated both Sunil and Samir, respectively, on the following two episodes. On the October 23 episode of Raw, Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman laughed at Mahal's challenge but accepted nevertheless. On the November 7 episode of SmackDown, Styles defeated Mahal to win the WWE Championship, thus replacing Mahal as Lesnar's opponent at Survivor Series. Lesnar and Heyman appeared on Raw the following week to address Lesnar's new opponent, stating that Styles was the ultimate underdog, but that Lesnar was the number one champion in WWE history. The following night on SmackDown, Styles and Bryan mocked Lesnar and Heyman, and said that Styles would overcome Lesnar.
Intercontinental Champion The Miz kept his spot in the Survivor Series match by retaining his title against Matt Hardy on the October 30 episode of Raw. Baron Corbin also kept his spot by retaining the United States Championship against Sin Cara on the November 14 episode of SmackDown. Also on the October 30 episode of Raw, Alexa Bliss retained the Raw Women's Championship against Mickie James, keeping her in the Survivor Series match against the SmackDown Women's Champion; her opponent was originally Natalya, but was changed to Charlotte Flair, who defeated Natalya for the title on the November 14 episode of SmackDown. On the November 6 episode of Raw, Cesaro and Sheamus defeated Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins to become the Raw Tag Team Champions, thus making them the champions for the Survivor Series match against The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) who, despite losing by count-out, retained their SmackDown Tag Team Championship against Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin on the November 7 episode of SmackDown.
As Raw General Manager Kurt Angle was about to reveal the men's Survivor Series team for Team Raw on the October 23 episode of Raw, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon with several SmackDown wrestlers came through the crowd. They proceeded to the backstage area and attacked the wrestlers of Raw. The following night on SmackDown, SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan was surprised that Angle and members of the Raw brand did not invade SmackDown, but warned Shane that they would eventually show up for retribution. That same episode, Team SmackDown got its first member when Randy Orton qualified by defeating Sami Zayn. The following week, Shane made himself the captain of Team SmackDown and explained their invasion of Raw, stating that SmackDown had always been looked at as the inferior brand. He also said that Raw would pay for injuring Bryan, who Kane had attacked with a chokeslam the previous night on Raw. Later that episode, Bobby Roode and Shinsuke Nakamura qualified for the team by defeating Dolph Ziggler and Kevin Owens, respectively. The last spot for Team SmackDown was originally going to be determined the following week in a match between AJ Styles and Rusev, but that match was canceled after Styles was scheduled to face Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship that episode. Rusev instead faced Orton to qualify, but failed to defeat him. The following day on Twitter, Shane named John Cena, a non-exclusive wrestler who could appear on both Raw and SmackDown, the final member of Team SmackDown.
Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon made her return on the October 30 episode of Raw and confronted Kurt Angle; her last appearance as Raw's Commissioner was at WrestleMania 33. She said that SmackDown's invasion was an embarrassment to Angle and the entire Raw locker room. She then gave Angle the opportunity to redeem himself by naming Angle the captain of Team Raw. However, she said that if Team Raw were to lose at Survivor Series, Angle would be fired as the Raw General Manager. Afterwards on Twitter, Angle named Braun Strowman as his first pick for Team Raw. The following week, after their match ended in a double count-out, Samoa Joe and Finn Bálor were both added to Team Raw by Angle. Later that episode, Angle named Jason Jordan as the final member of Team Raw. The very next week, however, Stephanie disagreed with Angle's final pick and said that she wanted to decimate SmackDown. Later in the show, Jordan was (storyline) injured by a returning Bray Wyatt, and rendered unable to compete by Angle. Jordan begged Angle to not remove him from the Survivor Series match. Angle could not bring himself to do it, after which, Chief Operating Officer Triple H returned (his first appearance on Raw since WrestleMania 33), attacked Jordan with a Pedigree, and declared himself Jordan's replacement. The following night on SmackDown, during a tag team match between The New Day and Owens and Zayn, Raw invaded SmackDown by attacking the roster. After everyone was taken out, Shane McMahon was attacked, suffering an Angle Slam by Angle and two Triple Powerbombs by The Shield.
The women's Survivor Series team for Team Raw began to take shape also on the October 23 episode of Raw. A triple threat match between Alicia Fox, Bayley, and Sasha Banks was scheduled to determine the captain for Team Raw, which was won by Fox. The following week, Fox was originally scheduled to face Bayley, but as Team Raw's captain, she instead had Nia Jax face Bayley, which Jax won. After the match, Fox chose Jax as her first pick for Team Raw. Fox then added Asuka to the team after the latter defeated enhancement talent Stacy Coates. Later, she added Banks to the team after Banks and Bayley defeated Fox and Jax in a tag team match. Bayley won the final spot on Team Raw by defeating Dana Brooke and Mickie James in a triple threat match on the November 13 episode of Raw. On the October 24 episode of SmackDown, Becky Lynch, Carmella, Charlotte Flair, Naomi, and Tamina were named as the five members of Team SmackDown; Becky Lynch became captain by defeating the other four in a fatal five-way match. The following week, Becky said that Team SmackDown needed to be ready if Raw were to invade them. Then-SmackDown Women's Champion Natalya interrupted and said it was unfortunate that she was not the captain, but would defeat Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss. She also said that Lynch needed to find who the weak link was on their team. Flair was then removed from the team after winning the SmackDown Women's Championship, and she was replaced by former champion Natalya.