For decades, WWE’s “Big Four” pay-per-views were appointment viewing. The calendar year would kick off with the Royal Rumble, the battle royal that dictated not only the main event of WrestleMania, but often the coronation of new stars spearheading the company. WrestleMania itself was almost always the best show of the year, steeped in spectacle and consequence, with talent and production putting their best foot forward in the hopes of creating pageantry the likes of which people had never seen before. SummerSlam would be the big party just before school went back in session, with classic matches like Bret Hart vs. The British Bulldog and the first TLC match setting new standards for in-ring action.

Finally, Survivor Series would feature all-star team ups in five-on-five elimination matches that would provide a glimpse into the feuds of the following year.

While the other three events continued to flourish, the popularity and influence of Survivor Series dwindled over the years, giving way to shows like Elimination Chamber and Money in the Bank which felt more impactful and consequential. But in 2022, that changed. The marriage of Survivor Series with one of wrestling’s most enduring and brutal matches, WarGames, reinvigorated the floundering brand seemingly overnight, injecting a renewed emphasis on creating standout stars and long-term stories. As this year's edition prepares to take over Vancouver on Saturday, "Survivor Series: WarGames" is once more in that fraternity of must-see WWE events. And it all traces back to the visionary mind of a plumber's son.

Pain to the Max

Originally introduced in the summer of 1987, the WarGames match, like so many 1980s professional wrestling innovations, was the brainchild of Dusty Rhodes, who was finding new ways to maximize his years-long feud with Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen. As part of the National Wrestling Alliance's Great American Bash Tour, inspired by the crude, apocalyptic structures of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise, the battleground itself consisted of two rings pushed together with one large, covered cage surrounding them. In line with not only the architecture, but the unrelenting violence of "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome," “War Games, The Match Beyond” could only be won by submission, forgoing the traditional pinfall victory option.

Rhodes, teaming with the Road Warriors, their manager Paul Ellring, and Nikita Koloff, won the inaugural match against the Horsemen and their handler J.J. Dillon. The five-on-five contest started with two men in the ring, followed by a coin toss to determine the next entrant, giving the winning team a one-man advantage every other entrance for five minutes at a time. The match technically did not begin until all 10 participants were inside the structure, at which point the match could be won by submission.

The group ran rematches all through the month of July, with Dillon being replaced by The War Machine after breaking his shoulder via the Road Warriors’ tandem finish, the Doomsday Device. From 1987 to 1991, some combination of Rhodes, The Road Warriors, and the Horsemen participated in the summer series, with newer acts like Sting, Lex Luger and the Steiner Brothers added to the mix over time.

WarGames, with all its heavy circumstance, brought on finality. Lined with all-star teams, the WarGames payoff more than often than not had late-'80s wrestling fans tapping their pockets for change.

In 1991, coinciding with the launch of WCW’s new “Fall Brawl” pay-per-view event, WarGames became the show's signature match. After signing with WCW in 1994, Hulk Hogan immediately became its World Heavyweight Champion, and after "retiring" Ric Flair and fending off the likes of Vader and Lex Luger, he found himself in the sights of Kevin Sullivan’s Dungeon of Doom. Sullivan, known as The Taskmaster for his Charles Manson-esque inflections and seeming mind control over his charges, assembled the squad of Kamala, The Zodiac, The Shark, and one half of the Faces on Fear, Meng. Hogan enlisted the who’s who of WCW babyfaces, with Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting coming together to form The Hulkamaniacs.

Dressed in military fatigue and dark face paint, Hogan’s small battalion won the match after he placed The Zodiac in a high-angle camel clutch, forcing him to submit. Hogan’s prize for winning was five minutes alone with Sullivan, but he was ultimately deterred, as Sullivan’s insurance policy — the 7-foot-4, 500-pound Paul Wight, then known as The Giant — attacked Hogan before he could do any real damage. One of the few WarGames matches with a true payoff, The Giant defeated Hogan for the WCW World Championship at the following month’s WCW pay-per-view event, Halloween Havoc.

“You Want a War?”

It’s not hyperbole to call WarGames 1996 one of the most significant events in modern wrestling.

It’s rare a show solidifies a villainous force and at the same time gives birth to one of the biggest heroes in the medium. That summer saw Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan run roughshod over WCW as the New World Order, a unit of former WWE stars determined to remake professional wrestling in their image. Hall and Nash outsmarted WCW by revealing Hogan as their third man, then defeating Sting, Luger and Savage — Hogan’s closest allies — in their initial match at Bash at the Beach. The following month, they once again secured the World Title for Hogan, assisting him in defeating The Giant at August’s “Hog Wild,” an outdoor event tied to the Sturgis Biker Rally in South Dakota.

With WCW’s forces in disarray and the most important prize in the business in nWo's possession, the 1996 WarGames match gave the stable a chance to further establish themselves as wrestling’s premiere unit. They recruited wrestling journeyman Jeff Farmer, who had most recently competed in WCW as Gulf War veteran Cobra, to impersonate WCW’s biggest babyface, Sting. He mimicked Sting’s hairstyle — now a wavy brown after years of his signature Springfield surfer cut — used Sting's face paint for plausible deniability, and attacked Sting’s closest friend Luger, causing Luger to question just who it was that had worked him over. Much in the way that Hogan had been the nWo’s “third man,” Farmer came out as the final member of the nWo’s four-man team.

With the man advantage after winning 1996's coin toss, the nWo laid waste to the WCW team of Luger, Arn Anderson and Ric Flair, the latter still competing in the annual match after pioneering it nine years earlier. The actual Sting eventually arrived and took out all of the members of the nWo, but upon seeing his would-be teammates refuse to approach, assist, or encourage him, Sting left the ring, allowing the nWo to recover and cause Luger to submit to a combination Scorpion Death Lock/face lock executed by Farmer and Hogan.

The dominance and dysfunction helped the nWo secure power in WCW for the better part of the next year, until a Brandon Lee-inspired “Crow Sting” resurfaced, channeling that disrespect and mistrust into a turn as the company’s dark hero, ultimately defeating Hogan for the WCW title at Starrcade 1997.

Old Battles, New Armies

Upon WCW’s closure in 2001, WWE absorbed its libraries, championships, namesakes and events. While shows like “The Great American Bash” continued to exist under the new umbrella, the WarGames match itself sat dormant for more than a decade.

In 2017, as his fellow Floridian Hogan did before him, the “Panama City Playboy” Adam Cole assembled a team of talented contemporaries dubbed The Undisputed Era and immediately looked to take claim over WWE’s NXT kingdom. The initial "NXT: WarGames" event featured a triple threat version of the match, as the trio of Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly defeated Sanity and The Authors of Pain with Roderick Strong. WWE’s version of the match included pinfall as a win condition, making way for the utilization of a steel chair to secure the victory.

The Undisputed Era went on to star in the match four years consecutively, memorably competing against the likes of Ricochet, Pete Dunne and Pat McAfee along the way.

Aesthetically, WWE’s version of the match channeled its inner Funkadelic, removing the roof off the cages to allow more offensive opportunities for its participants. It’s likely that no one’s left a stronger impression after that change than Iyo Sky, then known as Io Shirai, or “The Genius of the Sky.”

In 2019, NXT debuted the first-ever women’s WarGames matchup, with Rhea Ripley leading a team against all-time dominant NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Bazler. The following year, with a better understanding of what can and can’t be done in such a new environment, Iyo began her run of four straight WarGames matches — a run which continues into 2024. Early in the match, with teammates and opponents distracted, she scaled the cage and prepared to dive onto them — but in a moment of creativity and daring, she placed a trash can over her head, covering herself down to her waist, then dove into the awaiting crowd.

While the initial match between Team Bazler and Team Ripley allowed the women’s division to show their penchant for violence and physicality, Sky helped to add the unique grace WWE's female athletes bring, making their annual inclusion into the match so valuable.

Line in the Sand

In 2022, WarGames finally moved to WWE’s main roster, attaching itself to a dying Survivor Series brand, with both men’s and women’s matches replacing the pay-per-view's traditional 10-person elimination matches.

Both Damage CTRL and The Bloodline have stayed at its forefront, with the former competing in both 2022 and 2023, and the latter headlining one of the most anticipated WWE matches in recent memory.

In 2022, the Bloodline reached its apex. With the loyalty of “Honorary Uce” Sami Zayn in question, he took out longtime friend Kevin Owens to solidify, at the time, his allegiance to his Tribal Chief, helping the Bloodline secure the victory. In a full-circle moment, the 2023 version then saw Cody Rhodes compete in the match his father created 36 years prior, defeating the Judgement Day with Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, Zayn and Randy Orton in tow.

This Saturday, Solo Sikoa now leads his own team against his 2022 teammates, with Tonga Loa, Tama Tonga, Jacob Fatu and Bronson Reed flanking him as he looks to cement himself as the true Tribal Chief.

Roman Reigns, once firmly in control of the desires of his cousins the Usos and Zayn, hopes to hold the group together for the greater good, enlisting the help of CM Punk as the wild card to make this thing work.

Part of what’s so intriguing about the WWE’s reintroduction of WarGames is that while there are strong stakes, wrestling fans are also watching fresh matchups and stories begin to unfold. What happens when it’s just Reigns and Fatu alone? The Usos have been jonesing to compete with the former Guerillas of Destiny. Now it’s on the table. On the women’s side, in such a violent matchup, does Tiffany Strattion look for an opening to cash in her Money in the Bank contract on her teammate, WWE Women’s Champion Nia Jax? And will Jade Cargill’s attacker figure into the match?

WarGames, at its inception, existed as an ongoing contest to highlight the top acts of Jim Crockett Promotions throughout the summers of the late 1980s, aiming to leave viewers wanting more at every stop. As it became a staple event tied to WCW’s “Fall Brawl,” the stakes rose, becoming less about bragging rights and more about absolute power over promotions. Between the scale, the production and sheer creativity among participants, that mix of WCW era nostalgia and modern athleticism have now elevated Survivor Series back in the WWE's “Big Four” pay-per view conversation. What’s left to be seen is just how much Saturday's soldiers are willing to leave on the battlefield to earn the spoils of war.