10 Wrestling Promotions That Did WarGames Better Than WWE

Major League Wrestling won't be high on many fans' watchlists, but they were red-hot during their first early noughties stint. Evoking a super-indie vibe with a card full of ECW castoffs and whatever other goobers Court Bauer could find, the group was a creative success amidst financial ruins, closing down for over a decade before a return in 2017 summoned an initially raucous fanbase.

Their return brought with it the WarGames match, held in September 2018, but the company's greatest use of the stipulation came fifteen years earlier in 2003. Pitting a Steve Corino-led team against a unit led by Terry Funk, MLW nailed the conception, producing not a methodically planned, beat-for-beat match, but a scrap fought drunkenly outside a boozer in the early hours of the morning. The spots weren't coherent and the story wasn't immediately obvious to casual punters, however, the atmosphere inside the building told enough of a story.

What goes oft-forgotten is that MLW legally owned the rights to use 'The Match Beyond', with WWE having neglected to file a copyright, instead reaching a deal with MLW in 2018 after they began using the stipulation, too, in 2017. WWE's carelessness was MLW's gain in this case - and what a gain it was.