“War Games” is making a return to WWE at this year’s Survivor Series premium live event and major matches are being discussed.
WarGames is a specialized steel cage match in professional wrestling. The match usually involves two teams of either four, five, or more wrestlers locked inside a steel cage that encompasses two rings placed side by side. The cage may or may not have a roof, depending on which professional wrestling promotion the match is held in.
Created by Dusty Rhodes in 1987, the WarGames match was originally used in Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) of the National Wrestling Alliance, and later, held annually in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), usually at the Fall Brawl pay-per-view event. These original WarGames matches had a roof on the cage with no pinfalls as a win situation, although later WCW versions allowed pinfalls to win.
Since 2017, WWE, which purchased the assets of WCW in 2001, has held annual WarGames matches at WarGames branded events. WWE’s WarGames matches do not have a roof on the cage and also allow pinfalls as a win situation.
In June 2013, WWE released a DVD anthology set, War Games: WCW’s Most Notorious Matches.
During the November 2017 tapings for WWE NXT, it was announced that at NXT TakeOver: Houston, the main event would be a WarGames match. The event was subsequently renamed to NXT TakeOver: WarGames. This would be the first official WarGames match in nearly 20 years. The match was quite different from standard WarGames- including the cage having no roof (although escaping the cage forfeited the match for that person’s team), pinfalls being allowed, and all remaining members of a team entering at the same time. The match involved three teams, with The Undisputed Era defeating Sanity and Roderick Strong/The Authors of Pain.
NXT TakeOver events preceding WWE’s Survivor Series pay-per-view have since continued to be headlined by WarGames, with NXT TakeOver: WarGames (2019) featuring two WarGames matches, one of which was WWE’s first-ever women’s WarGames match.
In 2022, WWE moved the WarGames from NXT onto their main roster with both Men’s & Women’s matches taking place at Survivor Series (2022). The Women’s match featured Team Belair (Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss, Asuka, Mia Yim, and Becky Lynch) defeating Team Bayley (Damage CTRL (Bayley, Dakota Kai, and Iyo Sky), Nikki Cross, and Rhea Ripley). The main event consisted of The Bloodline (Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Solo Sikoa, and The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso)) (with Paul Heyman) defeating The Brawling Brutes (Sheamus, Ridge Holland, and Butch), Drew McIntyre, and Kevin Owens.
Now in 2023 WWE is discussing a major “War Games” match to take place at Survivor Series including The Bloodline and The Judgment Day members.
Current WWE creative plans call for
Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, Jimmy USO, Damian Priest, Finn Bálor
vs
John Cena, Cody Rhodes, Jay USO, LA Knight, Kevin Owens
This match which is sure to be a fan favorite will certainly blow the roof off the United Center in Chicago.
Stay tuned to SW for the latest updates.
