WWE pay-per-view and livestreaming event
The 2021 NXT WarGames was the fifth annual and final NXT WarGames professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's NXT brand division, which reverted to being WWE's developmental territory in September. The event took place on December 5, 2021, at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, and was the first WarGames to livestream on Peacock. It was also the last WWE PPV and livestreaming event to carry the term "pay-per-view" as WWE began to use the term "premium live event" for these major events beginning with Day 1 the following month.
This was NXT's first WarGames event to not carry the NXT TakeOver name, as the events from 2017 to 2020 were held as a subseries of TakeOvers titled "TakeOver: WarGames". It was subsequently NXT's first PPV and livestreaming event following the discontinuation of the TakeOver series, and subsequently NXT's first event to not be promoted under the TakeOver name since Halftime Heat in February 2019. It was also the brand's first PPV and livestreaming event held following its restructuring as NXT 2.0, which reverted the brand to its original function as WWE's developmental territory. This was also NXT's last major event to air on traditional PPV, as in 2022, WWE shifted to only broadcasting NXT's major events on the livestreaming platforms. In 2022, the WarGames concept was moved to the main roster as part of Survivor Series with the NXT WarGames event being replaced by NXT Deadline.
There were five matches scheduled on the event's card, as well as one dark match that occurred before the live broadcast. Of the five matches that were broadcast live for the event, two were WarGames matches. In the main event, Team 2.0 (Bron Breakker, NXT North American Champion Carmelo Hayes, Grayson Waller, and Tony D'Angelo) defeated Team Black & Gold (Johnny Gargano, LA Knight, Pete Dunne, and NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa) in the men's WarGames match, while in the opening bout, Cora Jade, Io Shirai, Kay Lee Ray, and Raquel González defeated Toxic Attraction (NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose and NXT Women's Tag Team Champions Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne) and Dakota Kai in the women's WarGames match.