WarGames to replace Raw vs. SmackDown concept at Survivor Series

News
1

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2022/09/19/wargames-to-replace-raw-vs-smackdown-concept-at-survivor-series/

This year’s Survivor Series will include two WarGames matches, the first time the concept has been utilized for a main roster pay-per-view.

The Ringer, which has a working relationship with WWE, was the outlet that revealed the concept for this year’s event and spoke with Paul Levesque, the company’s chief content officer.

We’ll have a men’s WarGames match and a women’s WarGames match. The tradition of the Survivor Series has ebbed and flowed and changed slightly over time, but this will be similar to that.

This will not be Raw versus SmackDown. It will be much more story-line driven. I still look at it as a traditional component to Survivor Series in there because it’s large teams of people competing. We just upped the ante a little bit with WarGames and made it evolve.

The idea of WarGames will replace the Raw vs. SmackDown theme that Survivor Series has utilized on a yearly basis and had felt outdated for a long time.

WarGames was developed by Jim Crockett Promotions and introduced at the Great American Bash in July 1987 at The Omni where The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, and Paul Ellering defeated Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Tully Blanchard, and J.J. Dillon.

The concept became a signature for JCP and later WCW with over thirty versions of WarGames throughout their joint history.

In 2017, the concept was adopted by WWE and introduced at NXT TakeOver in November that year and became its own annual event. Two years later, they added a women’s match. Under the NXT 2.0 banner, they staged two WarGames matches last December.

In speaking with The Ringer, Levesque also shared his viewpoint on utilizing blood, which was a hallmark of past WarGames matches:

The world has changed. The world has evolved. I don’t think it’s necessary,” Levesque said. There is still blood in WWE, but there are medical personnel to check on wrestlers if there is an inadvertent cut. “If we have talent that gets for a long period of time, but we’ve changed that practice. And it’s irresponsible to go back.

Survivor Series takes place from the TD Garden in Boston on Saturday, November 26th.

WrestleTix reported that the event sold out on the day of the public on-sale last month.

2

This is awesome. I really hope it is The Bloodline vs Zayn, Owens and 2 others. I’d like it to be DIY personally.

2 Likes
3

Please just do a proper WarGames match. two teams of 4-5 with “submission or surrender” rules. No triple threat and no pinfalls! If you can’t figure how to book that finish, then you don’t have a match-up worthy of the gimmick.

4

Bloodline has to be on one side. Can’t wait

2 Likes
5

This is awesome news.

6

I wanna watch this :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

Nice! Raw vs Smackdown concept was meaningless with the constant reshuffling of the rosters and guys appearing on both shows. I would love to see bloodline vs whomever with the star of the match being Sammy (and Jey going out early). I’m actually really looking forward to survivor series for the first time in a long time.

8

I always liked the NXT ones.

9

They be all been good matches, I just prefer the “submit or surrender” part of the gimmick. It’s an added element when you’ve got a feud properly booked to warrant a WarGames match.

(And despite all of the cool spots we’ve seen, I also prefer the roof on the cage)

10
11

All true, and the same tired points that people have been making since the day that Triple H took over. What’s interesting is that everything above also applied to Tony Khan for a couple years, and now that AEW is being compared against its own history as well, the reviews have been more mixed (still positive, but not as universally praised). Same with HHH’s NXT.

When you set the standard for decades, that’s what’s bound to happen to new competition that pops up, even when it’s from within.

3 Likes
12

A lot of these points just scream “dammed if he does, he’s damned if he doesn’t”’. If he mentions a promotion like PWG, he’ll be accused of “trying to be the cool uncle”, if he refuses to acknowledge smaller promotions, he’ll get shit in for that as well. It’s ironic to, because like @RocketKing said, most of these points can be said about it Tony Khan as well.