Wrestlintroduction: WarGames

Hi there readers and welcome to 'Noah's Ark of Wrestling', and another 'Wrestlintroduction' this time looking at the recently revived and mythic match type, WarGames! It's the answer to the world's trickiest question; what's better than one steel cage? A proper big one.

Welcome to Thunderdome

WarGames is a match unlike any other. The concept was conceived by wrestling legend, Dusty Rhodes, as a means to culminate his feud with The Four Horsemen in 1987, taking place at The Great American Bash, put on by the NWA and Jim Crockett Promotions. To contain such a battle, the idea was come up with that two rings would be needed, side-by-side, with a steel cage encompassing them. 

The opening stages of the match would see one representative of both teams starting in the ring, with another wrestler entering after a set period of time. The heels would tend to get the numbers advantage (2-on-1, 3-on-2 etc.) decided before the match with a coin toss or another contest. Once all members of the match are inside the cage, we transition into perhaps the coolest named time ever, 'The Match Beyond'.

From this point on, the match could be won. Apart from a couple instances, pinfalls were not an option, instead having to claim victory through either submission, forfeit or knockout. With that in play, WarGames led to some horrific bloodletting clashes, as is a staple of southern wrestling of the time. Most of these matches ended in some form of submission being applied, but reading some of the results from the Wikipedia entry make this match sound like outright torture;

'El Gigante ran in to surrender the match on Brian Pillman's behalf after he had been knocked out and legitimately injured by two botched powerbombs from Sid Vicious.'

'McMichael asked for the match to be stopped in order to prevent further punishment to Flair.'

'Animal forced the War Machine to submit by gouging his eyes with a spiked armband.'

Imagine them fucking things in your eyes. Christ.

Whilst this barbaric structure of death, misery, blood, bile, piss and vinegar laid claim to many a victim, it is important to remember that the build to the 1993 Fall Brawl gave us one of wrestling's most iconic moments;

Remember guys, WarGames was a WCW thing, so its worth keeping in mind that it had its fair share of zany shit going on at times, that's not even mentioning the whole Triple Cage incarnation of the match.

That's a real thing

So, with this being a product of non-WWE territories, the utilisation of it for the upcoming NXT Takeover is significant. For a few years not too long ago, it seemed that most things associated with WCW weren't really used in WWE, speculated as being Vince McMahon not wanting anything to do with his rivals' creations. However, with this, the return of Clash of the Champions and Starrcade coming up, it seems this has changed. With that, there's room for some of WCW's other cool features to pop up, like Halloween Havoc, or God knows, even a Triple Cage.

I haven't actually seen a WarGames match yet, and I am tempted to hold off from delving into WWE Network to make this one at Takeover my first. But, in case you can't wait til then and want to get your fix of the two ring, massive cage onslaught, here's a few links to bide you over;

The Super Powers vs The Four Horsemen - The Great American Bash 1987

The Road Warriors, The Midnight Express & Steve Williams vs The Fabulous Freebirds & The Samoan Swat Team - The Great American Bash 1989

Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck & Robert Parker vs Dusty Rhodes, Dustin Rhodes & The Nasty Boys - Fall Brawl 1994

Team WCW vs nWo Hollywood vs nWo Wolfpac - Fall Brawl 1998

Thank you for joining me in this edition of 'Wrestlintroduction', and hopefully its a nice primer for Takeover: WarGames. Let me know if there's any aspect of pro wrestling you'd like to be covered in a Wrestlintroduction and I'll get right on it. Until then, thanks again, and I'll catch your ass down the road.