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The WarGames match is considered one of the most innovative yet barbaric creations in professional wrestling history. The brainchild of the legendary Dusty Rhodes, WarGames was a popular match type in NWA and WCW throughout the late 80s and early 90s.
The gimmick match made its return to WWE with a dedicated NXT TakeOver: WarGames event in 2017. While WWE owns the WarGames trademark, the format has been replicated by various promotions over the years, with AEW also offering its own 'Blood and Guts' version of the match.
Killian Dain (a.k.a. Big Damo) was involved in the first NXT WarGames match in 2017. During an appearance on Sportskeeda Wrestling's UnSKripted with Dr. Chris Featherstone, the recently released WWE Superstar spoke about the comparisons between WarGames and AEW's Blood and Guts.
Killian Dain said multi-man bouts such as WarGames weren't a common feature of the pro wrestling product he grew up watching. Big Damo emphasized the prestige of the match and how his predecessors had set the bar really high for WarGames.
The former NXT star revealed that when he was involved in the NXT WarGames contest in 2017, the main goal was to maintain the quality of the match's previous iterations.
"You know, trying the original WarGames was amazing. Like, when, as I was growing up watching this, you're kind of used to one-one-ones and two-and-twos, very seldom you might get a multi-man match, suddenly you've got multiple rings, a cage around it. There is so much going on. So for us, when we were doing the WarGames match like you're doing your best to try and replicate but not take away from what was there before," explained Dain.
"So far, everybody has done a great job" - Killian Dain on WWE and AEW's versions of the WarGames match
Dain credited AEW for doing a solid job with Blood and Guts, which was gorier than WWE's offering. The former Sanity member explained that WWE relied on stunts rather than blood to maximize the effect of a WarGames showdown.
The Irish Superstar noted how professional wrestling had come a long way since the 90s, as fans are now familiar with almost every match type. According to Killian Dain, both AEW and WWE had done justice with their respective interpretations of WarGames.
"I know AEW did a great job at that as well. They were able to go more into the blood and guts version of it as well, whereas we had to kind of go rely a little bit more on the stunts and everything else. I think both did a very good job because listen; it's almost impossible to replicate the stuff that we saw back then. That stuff was so new and so fresh. I'm talking about like, how long did you watch wrestling, and boom, you see something like that, and you're mind is blown. We are in an era now where they've seen everything, so you know, we've seen absolutely everything possible. So, how do you entertain them? How do you make them enjoy, so, me personally, so far, everybody has done a great job," added Big Damo.
WWE has featured six WarGames matches since the format's return in 2017, and the most recent one took place at the end of 2020. AEW's first-ever Blood and Guts match concluded in May 2021 with The Pinnacle picking up a victory over The Inner Circle following Chris Jericho's highly talked-about fall from the cage.
What are your thoughts regarding the different renditions of the WarGames match? Sound off in the comments section below.
If any quotes are used from this article, please add a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling and embed the UnSKripted video.
