This past SummerSlam weekend was exciting for wrestling fans around the world, but this weekend was especially exciting for NXT fans, and fans of long running grudge feuds.
We say that because NXT Takeover Brooklyn IV–which took place the day before SummerSlam–saw Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa square off in this next installment of their bitter feud for the third Takeover main event in a row. Except, this next match between them was not just any ole NXT Championship contest. To round out their trilogy of matches in hopes to settle their exhausting rivalry, NXT had to bring back a special match type. A match type that is tailored specifically for feuds like this: the Last Man Standing match.
The concept of Last Man Standing is simple. Two men slug it out in a brawl with no holds barred until one man can no longer stand to their feet at the count of ten. We saw such a match wrap up the AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura rivalry earlier this year, but the match type has had a long and storied history in WWE dating back since 1999.
As a modern spin off of the Texas Death Match, WWE tested out the Last Man Standing concept in a main event between The Rock and Mankind at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and the match has been off to the races ever since.
This match has given us some of the bloodiest, most intense squabbles in WWE history. Since Ciampa vs Gargano III had us hankering for more matches of its kind, here are our favorite Last Man Standing matches to wet your whistle till Brooklyn.