It is the Thunderdome fights in this film inspired the late professional wrestler Dusty Rhodes to propose and introduce a distinctive wrestling match format known as the War Games match. In this type of match, two teams consisting of five wrestlers each fight in a double-joined ring surrounded by locked steel cages. The first two opponents will fight for five minutes before the next wrestler is released from a cell. While it is by convention the next wrestler is chosen by a coin toss or by the ABAB form, usually the wrestler from the heel faction will be released first, in order to generate more heat from the audience. Subsequently a wrestler will be released from his cage after every two minutes. A team can win either by submission, making the opponent quit or knocking out an opponent unconscious (the pinfall victory was allowed much later on), while escaping from the cell results in a disqualification for that team. The match was first premiered in National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) on 4 July 1987 and was held on certain road shows. Between the years from 1993 to 2000 (except 1999), the match was held at World Championship Wrestling (WCW) annually during the start of autumn, at the September PPV event known as Fall Brawl. However, this form of match would not be shown again (while they are format spin-offs introduced during the gap) until being reintroduced on an annual basis in November 2017 (the Saturday before Thanksgiving week) by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s NXT division own PPV NXT:Takeover War Games.