WarGames Match History: From Dusty Rhodes in 1987 to Survivor Series in Houston
Two rings, one cage and a fake Sting: how the match Dusty Rhodes built for the Four Horsemen ended up headlining Survivor Series at Daikin Park on November 28.
Survivor Series: WarGames comes to Daikin Park in Houston on Saturday, November 28, 2026, the fifth year in a row that WWE has built its Thanksgiving weekend show around two rings inside one cage. Dusty Rhodes invented the match 39 years ago for a feud with the Four Horsemen. WWE's own history with it began in 2017 at the Toyota Center, a few blocks from where this year's cage will stand.
WWE has not announced the teams yet. What follows is how the match works, where it came from and who has won it since WWE took it over.
Dusty Rhodes and the first cage in Atlanta
Rhodes was booking for Jim Crockett Promotions in 1987, and the story usually told is that he got the idea from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. He wanted a setting where the Horsemen could not run away or get themselves disqualified, so he put two rings side by side under one long cage with a roof on top.
The first one, billed as "War Games: The Match Beyond," was held on July 4, 1987 at the Omni in Atlanta during the Great American Bash tour. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and Lex Luger came in with their manager J.J. Dillon. Across from them stood Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, the Road Warriors and their manager Paul Ellering. The Road Warriors dropped Dillon shoulder first with the Doomsday Device, and he gave up. Less than four weeks later they ran it again at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
The 1988 Bash tour carried WarGames to nearly a dozen towns that summer, including outdoor football stadiums in Charlotte and Greensboro, almost always with the Horsemen on one side.
How the match works
Each team starts with one wrestler in the cage. After five minutes, a second wrestler from the team holding the advantage comes in, and from then on the teams alternate at fixed intervals of two or three minutes, so the advantage swings back and forth. Once the last person is inside, the Match Beyond begins.
Under the Crockett rules there were no pinfalls, count outs or disqualifications, and you won only when somebody on the other side submitted or was too hurt to go on. WCW later allowed pinfalls. WWE kept them, allows submissions too, and took the roof off. It also added a rule the original never had: if any wrestler climbs out and leaves the cage, the whole team loses.
The heel team traditionally got the advantage on a coin toss. In recent years WWE has settled it with a match on Raw or SmackDown in the weeks before. In 2025, Charlotte Flair beat Asuka on SmackDown to win it for her team, and Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul did the same by beating The Usos on Raw.
The Fall Brawl years and a slow fade
WCW moved WarGames onto pay-per-view, first at WrestleWar in 1991 and 1992 and then at Fall Brawl every September from 1993 to 1998. The 1993 edition was held at the Astro Arena in Houston, and The Shockmaster, only weeks after his famous stumble through a wall on live television, made Booker T submit for the win.
The best remembered of them came at Fall Brawl 1996 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The nWo sent Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in with a fourth man dressed as Sting. The real Sting showed up, cleared out the impostor and then walked out on Lex Luger, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson because they had doubted him, and the nWo won. Sting did not wrestle again for more than a year, and he spent most of that time watching from the rafters in black and white face paint.
The later editions got stranger. The 1998 match had three teams of three, pinfalls counted, and Diamond Dallas Page pinned Stevie Ray to earn a WCW title shot. Vince Russo then turned it into a three level cage on Nitro on September 4, 2000, with the title belt waiting in the top cage. The winner had to carry it down and out the bottom, and Kevin Nash did. WCW closed the following spring, and WWE did nothing with the name for 17 years.
NXT brings it back, 2017 to 2021
NXT TakeOver: WarGames on November 18, 2017 at the Toyota Center was WWE's first WarGames match, booked the night before Survivor Series in the same arena. There were three teams. The Undisputed Era won after Adam Cole hit Eric Young with a kendo stick and then a Shining Wizard into a steel chair.
From there it became NXT's November tradition. Pete Dunne, Ricochet and the War Raiders beat the Undisputed Era in Los Angeles in 2018. The 2019 show in Rosemont, Illinois added the first women's WarGames, which Rhea Ripley's team won when she hit Shayna Baszler with a Riptide onto two chairs. Tommaso Ciampa won the men's main event that night by dropping Cole off the cage through two tables.
In 2020, during the pandemic, the event moved to the closed set at the Capitol Wrestling Center in Orlando, and the Undisputed Era beat a team led by Pat McAfee. The 2021 edition dropped the TakeOver name. Bron Breakker's Team 2.0 beat Team Black & Gold, and Cora Jade pinned Jacy Jayne for the women's side. A year later WWE moved the whole idea to the main roster and replaced the NXT event with Deadline.
Survivor Series: WarGames, 2022 to 2025
The first main roster version, in Boston in 2022, belonged to The Bloodline. Jey Uso pinned Kevin Owens after Sami Zayn stopped a count and then kicked Owens low. In the women's match, Becky Lynch dropped a leg on Dakota Kai from the top of the cage through a table.
Randy Orton returned in Rosemont in 2023 after about 18 months out with a back injury, entering last for the team that beat The Judgment Day and Drew McIntyre. Cody Rhodes scored the pin on Damian Priest. CM Punk came back after the main event, his first WWE appearance since 2014. In Vancouver a year later, Punk was in the cage on Roman Reigns's team against Solo Sikoa's version of The Bloodline, and Reigns speared Sikoa for the win.
Survivor Series went outdoors for the first time in 2025 at Petco Park in San Diego. It was the first WarGames held in a stadium since the 1988 Crockett tour. AJ Lee, back in WWE for the first time since 2015, made Becky Lynch tap to the Black Widow. In the main event, a masked man later revealed as Austin Theory attacked CM Punk from the top of the cage, and Bron Breakker speared Punk to win it for a team that also included Brock Lesnar, Logan Paul and McIntyre.
Every WWE WarGames winner
| Date | Venue | Men's winners | Women's winners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 18, 2017 | Toyota Center, Houston | The Undisputed Era | No match |
| Nov. 17, 2018 | Staples Center, Los Angeles | Dunne, Ricochet and the War Raiders | No match |
| Nov. 23, 2019 | Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Ill. | Team Ciampa | Team Ripley |
| Dec. 6, 2020 | Capitol Wrestling Center, Orlando | The Undisputed Era | Team Candice |
| Dec. 5, 2021 | Performance Center, Orlando | Team 2.0 | Jade, Shirai, Ray and González |
| Nov. 26, 2022 | TD Garden, Boston | The Bloodline | Team Belair |
| Nov. 25, 2023 | Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Ill. | Rhodes, Rollins, Jey Uso, Zayn and Orton | Team Belair |
| Nov. 30, 2024 | Rogers Arena, Vancouver | Team Reigns with CM Punk | Team Ripley |
| Nov. 29, 2025 | Petco Park, San Diego | The Vision, Paul, McIntyre and Lesnar | Lee, Bliss, Flair, Sky and Ripley |
What we know about Houston
WWE announced the date and venue on July 13, and tickets went on sale on August 7. Daikin Park, the Astros' ballpark, hosted the 2020 Royal Rumble when it was still called Minute Maid Park. The show streams on ESPN's service in the United States and on Netflix in most other countries, with a traditional pay-per-view option as well.
It is the 40th Survivor Series and the second in a row in a stadium. Reigns has been on the poster since August and is advertised for the show, as we covered in our look at his November schedule, though WWE has not put him in a match. Reigns has wrestled inside the cage at three of the four Survivor Series: WarGames shows so far. The city has hosted the match twice before, at Fall Brawl in 1993 and at the 2017 TakeOver, but never in a ballpark.
Questions
Who invented the WarGames match?
Dusty Rhodes, while booking Jim Crockett Promotions in 1987. The first one was held on July 4, 1987 at the Omni in Atlanta, with Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, the Road Warriors and Paul Ellering beating the Four Horsemen and J.J. Dillon.
How do you win a WarGames match in WWE?
By pinfall or submission once every wrestler has entered the cage. If any member of a team escapes the cage, that whole team loses. The original Crockett version allowed only submissions or a wrestler being unable to continue.
When is Survivor Series: WarGames 2026?
Saturday, November 28, 2026 at Daikin Park in Houston. It is the 40th Survivor Series and the fifth under the WarGames name.
Who has won WarGames the most times in WWE?
Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair, with three wins each. Ripley led the winning teams in NXT in 2019 and at Survivor Series in 2024 and was on the winning side again in 2025. Belair won in 2022, 2023 and 2024. On the men's side, the Undisputed Era won twice in NXT, and Roman Reigns was on the winning team in 2022 and 2024.
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