One Of Pro Wrestling's Rarest Match Types Is Returning To NXT After Almost 20 Years
At last night’s NXT tapings, it was revealed that the next TakeOver special will be titled “WAR GAMES” and feature a match with the same stipulation. It’s going to be Roderick Strong and the Authors of Pain vs SAnitY vs the Undisputed Era (Adam Cole/Kyle O’Reilly/Bobby Fish). If you’re a recent wrestling fan, or were super just loyal to WWF back in the day and never explored elsewhere, you probably don’t know what a War Games match is. This may ring a bell…
War Games was a match created by Dusty Rhodes to be used by the Four Horsemen in 1987 that was so successful it expanded to any and all teams (although the 4HW have been in over half of the War Games matches). Dusty got the idea after seeing Mad Max 3, and decided to unleash that utter chaos into the graps world. Two rings. Many men. One massive steel cage.
A common misconception about the match nowadays is that everyone’s just thrown into the rings at once and it’s an elimination tag. That is false, and it’s funny that we’ve gotten to this point, because War Games actually has very specific and intricate rules.
Two men start the match in the cage, and after five minutes, a coin flip decides which team will get another member entered into the match for a 2 minute advantage. Teams usually consist of five people each, but there’s been a ton of exceptions to this rule, and at NXT TakeOver War Games, we’ll be seeing three teams of three. So a new man enters every two minutes, either giving his team a numbers advantage or evening the odds, and this continues until everyone’s in the rings together, then the match becomes “The Match Beyond”. Then they basically fight to the death. When a member of one team gets submitted, knocked out cold, or verbally surrenders, his team loses. There are no pinfalls or disqualifications. It’s sick and the stipulation has a rich history of phenomenal matches worth going back and watching on the WWE Network. Here’s my personal favorites that I’d recommend…
Advertisement
The Road Warriors (Road Warrior Hawk and Road Warrior Animal), Nikita Koloff, Dusty Rhodes, and Paul Ellering vs The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Tully Blanchard, and James J. Dillon) at The Great American Bash ’87
Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, Lex Luger, Steve Williams, and Paul Ellering vs The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham, and James J. Dillon) in Greenboro, NC in ’88
The Road Warriors (Road Warrior Hawk and Road Warrior Animal), The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane), and Steve Williams vs The Fabulous Freebirds (Jimmy Garvin, Michael Hayes, and Terry Gordy) and The Samoan Swat Team (Fatu and Samu) at The Great American Bash ’89
The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Barry Windham, Sid Vicious, and Larry Zbyszko) vs Sting, Brian Pillman and the Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott Steiner) at WrestleWar ’91