The 2018 Survivor Series was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was the 32nd annual Survivor Series and took place on November 18, 2018, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, held for featured wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live brand divisions. The theme of the event was brand supremacy, where all but one match involved wrestlers of the Raw brand facing wrestlers of the SmackDown brand.

Eight matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. The card was highlighted by two traditional Survivor Series elimination matches: Raw's men's and women's teams were victorious over SmackDown's. In the main event, Raw's Universal Champion Brock Lesnar defeated SmackDown's WWE Champion Daniel Bryan. Also on the card, Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey defeated SmackDown's Charlotte Flair via disqualification and Buddy Murphy retained the WWE Cruiserweight Championship against Mustafa Ali in the only title defense on the card, as well as the only non-interpromotional match, which was the only match featuring wrestlers from the 205 Live brand. Raw won brand supremacy with a clean sweep over SmackDown in all six interpromotional matches on the main card. SmackDown's lone win occurred on the Kickoff pre-show in the 10-on-10 tag team elimination match.

Survivor Series is an annual professional wrestling event produced every November by WWE since 1987, generally held the week of Thanksgiving. The second longest running pay-per-view (PPV) 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, 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 16, 2017, the 2018 event, which was the 32nd event in the Survivor Series chronology, was scheduled to be held on November 18, 2018, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. In addition to airing on traditional pay-per-view, the event was available to livestream on the WWE Network. Tickets went on sale on March 16.

Since WWE reintroduced the brand split in 2016, Survivor Series had centered around competition between wrestlers from Raw and SmackDown for brand supremacy. In addition to traditional Survivor Series matches between the two brands, the 2017 event began the theme of having the champions of the Raw brand facing their counterparts of the SmackDown brand in non-title matches. The 2018 event had Raw's Universal Champion against SmackDown's WWE Champion, Raw's Intercontinental Champion against SmackDown's United States Champion, and the Raw Tag Team Champions against the SmackDown Tag Team Champions. A match featuring the Raw Women's Champion against the SmackDown Women's Champion was planned, but called off due to the latter sustaining a legit injury just days prior to the event. The Raw Women's Champion was instead scheduled to face a former SmackDown Women's Champion. As the 205 Live brand's WWE Cruiserweight Championship was the only title of its kind in WWE, it was the only title defended on the show and the only non-interbrand match. This was also the only Survivor Series to include the 205 Live brand, and the first since the 2009 event to feature three brands.

The event comprised eight matches, including one on the Kickoff pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw, SmackDown Live, and the cruiserweight-exclusive 205 Live.

At Evolution, Ronda Rousey defeated Nikki Bella to retain the Raw Women's Championship, while Becky Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match to retain the SmackDown Women's Championship. During a backstage interview following her win, Rousey was confronted by Lynch and an interpromotional non-title match between the two champions was scheduled for Survivor Series the following night on Raw. On the November 12 episode of Raw, Lynch led the SmackDown women's division in an invasion of Raw and applied the "Dis-arm-her" on Rousey. During the melee, Lynch suffered a legit broken nose and concussion following a punch from Nia Jax. Due to the injury, Lynch was pulled from the Survivor Series match and chose Flair as her replacement.

At Crown Jewel, AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe to retain the WWE Championship, while Brock Lesnar defeated Braun Strowman to win the vacant Universal Championship, setting up a rematch between Styles and Lesnar from the previous year's event. On the final SmackDown before Survivor Series, Styles and Daniel Bryan had a heated exchange stemming from their WWE Championship match two weeks prior. As such, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon scheduled Styles to defend the championship against Bryan later that night. Bryan defeated Styles to become the new WWE Champion after hitting him with a low blow while the referee was knocked down, thus Bryan replaced Styles as Lesnar's opponent for Survivor Series. After the match, Bryan attacked Styles, turning heel.

During the Crown Jewel Kickoff pre-show, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Rusev to retain the United States Championship. Following the event, a match between Nakamura and Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins was scheduled for Survivor Series.