Survivor Series is an annual gimmick pay-per-view, produced every November by WWE since 1987. The second longest running pay-per-view event in history (behind WWE'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. In July, the brand extension returned, again splitting the roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands. Subsequently, the 2016 event, which was the thirtieth event in the Survivor Series chronology, featured several interpromotional matches to determine which was the better brand, similar to WWE's previous Bragging Rights pay-per-view. This was also the first Survivor Series event to take place in Canada since 1997, which was known for the infamous "Montreal Screwjob" incident.