Published: 2 hours ago by Dave Adamson | Last Updated: 15 hours ago by Dave Adamson
Dave has been a website writer for WrestleTalk since October 2022, having previously written for Den of Geek, among a number of wrestling, movie and television-related sites. Dave has been around the independent wrestling scene for more than a decade, including behind-the-scenes.
WWE
A staple of NWA and WCW, before being brought into the WWE fold, the WarGames match has been a part of Survivor Series since 2022.
The Boston, Massachusetts PLE wouldn’t be the first time WWE has used WarGames, however, with the match type making its return at NXT TakeOver in 2017.
It’s been five years since NXT has used WarGames, and a return could be something that builds to a bigger Survivor Series plan:
WarGames!
Between 2017 and 2021, it was an annual feature in the build-up to the match for William Regal to deliver “WarGames” in a style that no doubt led to many fans anticipating that moment as much as the match itself.
Such was the popularity of the match type that WWE would extend WarGames to the women’s roster in 2019, with Team Ripley (Rhea Ripley Candice LeRae, Tegan Nox & Dakota Kai) seeing victory over Team Baszler (Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair & Kay Lee Ray) in November of that year.
The final NXT WarGames (without the TakeOver name) took place in December 2021, with Survivor Series adopting the match type for men’s and women’s matches in November the following year.
Bringing it back to NXT
This isn’t to suggest that WarGames should no longer be a factor in Survivor Series, just that there exists an opportunity to extend it back in the direction of NXT with a purpose.
WWE Survivor Series is currently a one-night-only event, although Triple H has previously spoken about the possibility of more PLEs moving to two nights in the style of WrestleMania and SummerSlam.
Adding NXT WarGames to the weekend of Survivor Series would give a full weekend of live (and broadcast) WWE action for fans in whichever city the main PLE happens to be taking place.
“Super-serving your fanbase”
Addressing the more two-night PLEs, Triple H commented that “super-serving your fanbase and the people that watch”, with a full weekend of such action being a clear way of delivering on that intention.
WWE and NXT events have been linked like this previously, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it will continue, from time to time, as a business plan.
Detracting from Survivor Series?
There is always, of course, the possibility that a potential four WarGames matches across two nights would exhaust an audience or possibly detract from what takes place at Survivor Series itself.
When it comes to detracting from the main roster show, that’s a possibility if the fans attending the main PLE are more invested in what takes place on NXT, but storytelling and star power play a factor should be a clear factor in this.
As for exhausting the fans, that’s a challenge that would, no doubt, have to be addressed, even with shows taking place on separate nights. WWE have managed to keep fans engaged with two-night WrestleMania and SummerSlam PLEs over recent years and we’ve come a long way from the fourteen-match card of Survivor Series in 1998 (excluding the dark match and three Sunday Night Heat matches).
Tolerances change over time, with WWE currently regularly delivering five match cards for PLEs, but the only real test for the success of a weekend of WarGames would be delivering it.
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