IWE Survivor Series (2020)

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Revision as of 00:33, 31 October 2020

Survivor Series is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and IWE Network event, produced by IWE for their Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. It is scheduled to take place on November 22, 2020 at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. It will be the thirty-fourth event under the Survivor Series chronology and will feature IWE's virtual fan viewing experience called ThunderDome. It will also celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of The Undertaker's IWE debut. The PPV will be sponsored by Cyberpunk 2077.

Production

Background

Survivor Series is an annual gimmick pay-per-view, produced every November by IWE since 1987. The second longest running pay-per-view event in history (behind IWE's WrestleMania), it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam, dubbed 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. Since IWE reintroduced the brand split in 2016, Survivor Series has centered around competition between Raw and SmackDown for brand supremacy. In September 2019, NXT, previously a developmental territory exclusive to the IWE Network, debuted on the USA Network, solidifying its status as IWE's third major brand, and was subsequently added to the brand competition theme. The 2020 event will be the 34th event under the Survivor Series chronology.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, IWE presented the majority of its programming from the IWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida since mid-March with no fans in attendance, although in late May, the promotion began using Performance Center trainees to serve as the live audience, which was further expanded to friends and family members of the wrestlers in mid-June. On August 17, IWE announced that all future shows and pay-per-views would be held at the Amway Center, a larger venue also located in Orlando, for the "foreseeable future", beginning with the August 21 episode of SmackDown. Furthermore, the shows now feature a new fan viewing experience called the "IWE ThunderDome", which utilizes drones, lasers, pyro, smoke, and projections. Approximately one thousand LED boards were installed in the Amway Center to allow fans to virtually attend the events for free and be seen on the rows and rows of LED boards. Arena audio is also mixed with that of the virtual fans so that chants from the fans can be heard. IWE's initial agreement with the Amway Center expired on October 31, but with the option to extend the contract with a two weeks notice. On October 12, PWInsider revealed that the contract was extended until the end of November.

Storylines

The show will comprise matches that usually result from scripted storylines, (although some can come about due to shoot/unscripted fights), where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by IWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines are produced on IWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

Matches

Notes

a. ^ The event will be held without a paying audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, though it will still feature a live crowd of virtual fans via IWE's ThunderDome viewing experience.

References

External links