Shawn Michaels On How WWE Creative Plans Played Into New Match Creation

"The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes carved out the foundation for an enthralling new match concept, which saw its debut in 1987 for NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions. Known as WarGames, the dual-cage structure later gained popularity, emerging in other prominent promotions like World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and making its WWE debut in 2017 for an annual pay-per-view known as "NXT" TakeOver: WarGames.

For five years straight, WarGames became a staple late-year theme for WWE's "NXT" developmental brand. This year, though, Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque announced that it'd make its way to the main roster instead at Survivor Series WarGames, which meant that "NXT" had to quickly scramble and configure a new match concept. Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative Shawn Michaels later made the announcement for a "revolutionary" new match type in place of "NXT's" usual WarGames feature, known as the Iron Survivor Challenge.

Following the debut of the new stipulation at NXT Deadline on Saturday, Michaels admitted that the loss of the WarGames forced "NXT" to "get a little creative" and think of something when they were presented with the chance to host a premium live event in December. "We wanted to see if we could think of a different concept and something that would be interesting enough that people would want to tune into," Michaels confirmed at the post-show media press conference.

Michaels reiterated the need for "NXT" to craft a compelling match to be included at their Deadline event, saying that WarGames was "a tough act to follow," so they created "something a little more technical." In addition, following the brand's Halloween Havoc event on October 22, officials weren't keen on their next event being "really stipulation based." As a result, a men's and women's Iron Survivor Challenge match took place at Deadline, but the entire card and event name wasn't themed around it.