WWE announced on Wednesday night that “WarGames” would be returning to sports entertainment for the first time in almost 20 years.
WWE reached back to the ‘90s to bring us ‘WarGames’ and the nostalgia is real
This is ... awesome!
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
“NXT Take Over: WarGames” will feature the gimmick match, which was a staple of NWA and WCW from 1987 to its final match in 2000. For those unfamiliar with the match, it involves two teams of superstars fighting in rings that are attached to each other, and covered in a giant steel cage.
Earlier this year legendary wrestling promoter Jim Cornette was asked on a podcast why WWE didn’t use the WarGames gimmick match. His response was that he was told the company didn’t like the format because it was too difficult to shoot on TV and too confusing for viewers. The announcement that NXT will host the match could serve as a pilot to see if the format can work in 2017, potentially for a WWE debut down the road.
Rumors circulated around this time that Triple H had pushed for the concept to be re-used, but WWE CEO Vince McMahon didn’t believe it would work — which could have spurred this new initiative — time will tell.
The WarGames match in the past featured wrestling luminaries like Ric Flair, Steve Austin, Sting, and Kevin Nash — with its most-recent iteration coming in the abysmal Monday Nitro match in the late days of WCW that had Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, and the Harris Brothers face Sting, Goldberg, Booker T, and KroniK, which is as late-WCW as you can possibly get.
Honestly, the possibility of a NXT WarGames is super fun though. Bigger spots, hungrier superstars ... this could actually be really cool.
