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What's the story?
WWE and WCW Legend Ric Flair has used Twitter to wish Triple H and NXT the best of luck before the NXT TakeOver War Games special taking place tonight from the Toyota Center in Houston Texas.
Flair mentioned how the late great Dusty Rhodes would have been 'proud' to see the War Games concept that he came up with being used for the first time in WWE for tonight's triple threat Tag Team match between SAnitY (Eric Young, Killian Dain & Alexander Wolfe) vs. Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar) and Roderick Strong vs. Undisputed ERA (Adam Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly).
Also, check out below to see what the son of Dusty Rhodes, current veteran WWE Superstar Goldust, had to say on the event.
In case you didn't know...
War Games was an idea that Dusty Rhodes came up with back in 1987. It involved two rings being beside one another inside of a large steel cage, and two teams would face off against one another.
The bout would start off with two wrestlers in the structure, one from each team, with the doors locked, Then every couple of minutes, one person from two of the groups would enter next (decided beforehand, usually by coin flip), and then the rest would enter one by one until everyone was in the cage.
The match was created at the time specifically for Ric Flair's famous faction called The Four Horsewomen, and this is why Flair is synomous with War Games.
It was used originally by NWA, and then by WCW in the 1990's and 2000's. It has been used in different variations over the years by different promotions, and it is said WWE came up with The Elimination Chamber using War Games.
A few weeks ago, this NXT Takeover was set to just be a normal Takeover, with being labelled NXT Takeover:Houston. However, on the November 1st episode of NXT, General Manager William Regal announced that the three teams of Sanity, The Undisputed Era, and The Authors of Pain and Roderick Strong would face each other in a historic War Games match at the upcoming NXT TakeOver.
Triple H would then confirm the event in Houston would now be called NXT TakeOver: WarGames. It is the first official WG bout in almost two decades.
Over the past few days coming into TakeOver, Triple H has revealed that the structure for the contest would be not the same as the typical WG construction, as their will not be a roof on the cage surrounding the two rings.
This has annoyed some fans who loved the original.
The heart of the matter
The 16-time World Champion Ric Flair could not put it any better when he proclaimed 'WarGames was something that could only come from the mind of the great Dusty Rhodes'.
Current WWE Superstar Goldust, who is apparently going to be at ringside for tonight's WarGames match at NXT TakeOver, also used Twitter to pay tribute to his dad 'The American Dream' Rhodes, who died back in 2015 (at the time he was working for NXT behind the scenes, playing a big role in developing talent).
In the tweet, in which he also mentioned Flair, Goldust, who uses his name Dustin on social media, said he was thinking about his father heading into NXT TakeOver., referring to the time that they tagged together for a WG match back in 1994 at the WCW PPV Fall Brawl.
What's next?
NXT TakeOver:War Games will occur tonight from the Toyota Center in Houston Texas at 7p.m. Eastern Time.
There is the WarGames match SAnitY (Eric Young, Killian Dain & Alexander Wolfe) vs. Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar) and Roderick Strong vs. Undisputed ERA (Adam Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly. Paul Ellering, the manager of The Authors of Pain, wr with the first ever WarGames match back in 1987.
The other two main matches set for tonight's special is the NXT Women's Title Fatal 4-Way with Kairi Sane vs. Ember Moon vs. Nikki Cross vs. Peyton Royce and the NXT Title Match between Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Andrade Almas.
Author's take
Despite WWE's changes to War Games for NXT Takeover, I am still very intrigued to see it play out for the first time in their company. The fact Triple H managed to get Vince McMahon to approve a very non-WWE type of match is something we should be grateful for, even if everything is not the same.
Ric Flair's words should show that if he is more than ok with how the structure will look tonight, than everyone else should be ok with it.It is nice to see Goldust's warm reception to his father's invention being used in WWE too.
The guys in tonight's WG are all potential future stars, with Adam Cole, Roderick Strong and Eric Young the biggest names in the match. Will NXT TakeOver:WarGames tonight out do the main roster's Survivor Series PPV tomorrow night?
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