Shawn Michaels Explains Creating Iron Survivor Challenge Match When NXT Lost WarGames

NXT Deadline just concluded and what a Premium Live Event it turned out to be. One of the focal points of the show was the two Iron Survivor Challenge matches, where 5 men or women competed for the chance to face the NXT Women’s or NXT Champion in the future.

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This was the first time such a match was taking place in a WWE ring. Many fans were curious as to how this concept came to be. During the post-Deadline press conference, Shawn Michaels stated that when WarGames made its way to the main roster, they wanted to come up with a unique concept for Deadline.

“Honestly, yeah. I will say when … So, first of all, you know, WarGames went to the main roster and so sort of double. It was WarGames going to the main roster and then we sort of had the opportunity to have a premium live event in December. And so, yeah, that cost us to, again get a little creative and try to think of something, you know, as opposed to just having, I don’t know, an unthemed I guess type of premium live event.

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We wanted to see if we could think of a different concept and something that would be interesting enough that people would wanna tune into. And again, you know, WarGames is kind of a, you know, that’s a tough act to follow.

So, we wanted to make sure it was something that was interesting and also coming off of, you know, as we mentioned the other day. Coming off of Halloween Havoc. We didn’t want it to be a real stipulation based, which obviously WarGames is. So, we wanted to try something a little more technical, and that’s how we came up with the concept of the Iron Survivor Challenge.”

Given the success of the first two Iron Survivor Challenge matches, it will be interesting to see if WWE will make this an annual match type, like they did with WarGames. Stay tuned to Ringside News as we keep you updated on similar stories.

Transcription by Ringside News

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