Survivor Series 2013 PPV buys: A steep drop from previous years

Survivor Series at one point was a really big deal, mostly because it was one of the original so-called "Big Four" pay-per-views (PPV) on the WWE schedule, dubbed as such because there was a time, believe it or not, when the promotion only offered that many pay events in a calendar year.

Now, there are 13.

That leads to a watering down of the product and the loss of meaning for once great concepts. Of the "Big Four", Survivor Series, the traditional Thanksgiving holiday offering, has been hit the hardest.

Well, preliminary numbers are in for this year's version of the show, which aired on Nov. 24, 2013, from the TD Garden Arena in Boston, Massachusetts, and they're not good. According to the Wrestling Observer, the event garnered 95,000 buys domestically and 84,000 buys internationally for a total of 179,000 buys.

Here's how that compares to recent years:

2012: 208,000 buys
2011: 312,000 buys
2010: 244,000 buys

That's a fairly big decline, though it was not unexpected. This year's show was headlined by a WWE championship match pitting Randy Orton vs. Big Show with a weak undercard that included a John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio world heavyweight title rematch and a 3-on-2 handicap match between The Shield and CM Punk & Daniel Bryan.

It should be noted that WWE is extremely close to starting its own network and offering events like Survivor Series for free to paying subscribers, so these numbers aren't nearly as important as they were in times past. It is, however, a strong indicator that Orton vs. Show was not a headlining match anyone wanted to pay to see.

Surprise, surprise.