5 wrestlers you didn't know competed in WarGames
NXT brought back the WarGames match for the first time since 2000 at NXT Takeover: WarGames. The match featured three teams - SAnitY, The Undisputed Era, and The Authors of Pain with Roderick Strong.
WarGames is the brainchild of the legendary Dusty Rhodes. After watching Mel Gibson in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, he was inspired to create the match and the original intention of the creation was to make it a specialty match for The Four Horsemen.
The original format consisted of two teams with four or five men on each side. Two men would start and then another would be added at a certain interval.
The setup consisted of two rings side by side with an enclosed steel cage surrounding those rings. There are doors at opposite corners of the structure to keep the two teams apart and once all eight or ten men are in the ring, the only way to win is to make someone submit, surrender, or knock unconscious.
This Saturday will be the 32nd WarGames match in its storied history. We take a look at five people you didn't know competed in WarGames, starting with someone who will be at ringside Saturday.
#5 Paul Ellering
If Dusty Rhodes was still with us today, he would have a big smile on his face that WarGames is back. And that smile would be even bigger knowing that someone who competed in the very first WarGames will be at ringside for Takeover.
The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, was the scene of the first WarGames match. Paul Ellering competed alongside the tag team he managed for many years, The Road Warriors, with Dusty, and Nikita Koloff, against The Four Horsemen at The Great American Bash in 1987.
This Saturday, Ellering will accompany the current tag team he manages in The Authors of Pain. Akam and Rezar will team with Roderick Strong, and this team may have the advantage considering their leader fought inside this structure.