Dusty Rhodes Tribute: 10 Awesome Moments To Remember
9. War Games: The Match Beyond
As a creative contributor, Rhodes gave us some incredibly memorable and influential angles and matches, but possibly his most well-remembered is the match concept that is still celebrated today, with fans pining for WWE to resurrect it in the modern era. For the uninitiated, the concept of War Games is like a mixture of the Royal Rumble and Hell in a Cell, with two teams of five men squaring off in a cage, beginning with one representative from each side and then adding an additional member every few minutes until all combatants have entered the fray, at which point the match can only end by submission. Miraculously, the heels always managed to get lucky enough to win the coin toss and the good guys always had the odds stacked against them. The first War Games series featured Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering vs. The Four Horsemen - Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson and Lex Luger - plus their manager JJ Dillon. It was a brutal affair and headlined the 1987 Great American Bash tour. The match continued on for a decade, giving us some of the greatest bouts in NWA/WCW history - especially WrestleWar 1992 - until the company bastardized it during the years of its death throes. But those early matches, and the concept itself, will live forever in wrestling lore.
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
