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Over the course of wrestling history, the promotions have managed to throw in some interesting stipulations which gave us some legendary matches.Gimmick matches have been some sort of a main stay when it came to pay-per-views and the promoters were not hesitant to use them on a weekly basis as well. While stipulations like Hell in a cell, War-games or TLC easily added more interest quotient to the matches there were others that made no sense at all.They didnt serve the purpose of evoking reaction from the fans and mostly made professional wrestling look like a circus. And here is an honor to all those ridiculous ideas that the promoters might be regretting by now.
#10 Scaffold Match
Though two people fighting on top of a platform setup well above the ring sounds cool, on the bigger picture the match was clearly something that a majority didn’t want.
First of all, there was a big amount of risk on the wellbeing of the wrestler who was competing in this. One could easily take the wrong fall and end up in the grave in no time. Secondly, there weren’t much potential in the match.
The only thing that the wrestler had to do was throw his opponent off the scaffold and they couldn’t even do good moves on top of that.
And most importantly, it was a pain in the neck for all the fans that had to keep their head up to follow whatever action that they could see.
#9 Object on a Pole Match
The Idea of retrieval matches were always a hit with the fans. However, this stipulation was something which didn’t sit well.
There are a lot of possibilities in this match but the pole being in one corner was simply pathetic. The ring has no less than four corners, and the company is trying to make us believe that one wrestler can’t simply knock his opponent to one corner and grab the item from the other.
To make matter worse, the objects were weirder as well they ranged from WWE contracts to Viagra. I mean who would want to win a match to get some Viagra?
#8 Gulf of Mexico Match
The original ECW is credited to some very interesting stipulations in their matches but when WWE decided to run a relaunch, they had matches like this.
Objective of the Gulf of Mexico match was to throw your opponent into the Gulf of Mexico as the name suggested. The match was contested between CM Punk and Chavo Guerrero and instead of starting the match out in the street to gain advantage, the two decided to start it in the ring.
They then fought all the way into the streets and Chavo eventually got thrown into the chilling waters. The best part was that the fans didn’t get to see the bizarre ending in person though they were cursed of seeing it on the big screen.
#7 Blindfold match
Wrestling without any doubt is a sport which requires all the senses in full throttle. And many promotions though that taking away one of the most important sense would make the contest more interesting.
It didn’t turn out that way as most of these matches seemed ridiculous. The wrestlers mostly had no idea where they were most of the time and we were expecting them to deliver a pitch perfect finisher or buildup some athletic moves.
If wrestling wasn’t fake, these types of matches would’ve easily led to someone breaking their neck or on a lighter, killing the referee.
#6 Shark Cage Match
No, this does not involve a shark but it does involve a cage which is a hornswoggle compare to the cages we see today.
So there as this cage which wasn’t big enough to hold the Big Show and there were two men fighting inside it. There was no use of the ring whatsoever, as the only purpose that it served was to play stage for the awful cage.
Most of the wrestler even struggle to perform their moves in the vast squared circle and then there was this match which happened inside a container in which one didn’t even have the freedom to stretch out his arms.
#5 Kennel from Hell Match
Dogs are simply put one of the most dangerous things to have around when a wrestling match is going on and WWE somehow though that it would be a great idea to use them.
The match took place between Al Snow and Big Boss Man in 1999 and they fought inside a steel cage. The cage however had a cell attached to it with guard dogs between the ring and the cell door.
The purpose of the dogs was to prevent the wrestlers from getting out of the cage which was the only way to win the match as well. It was one of the lowest points that he WWE had back in the Attitude Era and Al Snow somehow managed to win the match by escaping the cage as well.
#4 Raw Bowl
The college football has given WWE some big names and at one particular point, the company went a bit far to thank the sport.
They decided to put up a match called the Raw Bowl in 1996 and had four tag teams who wore college football jerseys. The ring was designed to look like a football ground and even the referee was dressed in football clothes.
There was even timeouts allotted to the teams in between the match which had the lights of legends like Razor Ramon and Owen Hart. And as a cherry on the top, the company even gave a trophy to the team that won just to make sure that the fans didn’t know that they were watching wrestling.
#3 Lions Den Match
UFC is pretty much a great competition to WWE at the moment but they were nowhere near the international status that they have now.
However, Vince McMahon had the idea of having a UFC like match in his WWE and to make the fans realize it was wrestling, he gave a pretty good name as well.
The match was contested inside a circular like structure with the referee standing on top to call the submissions and the knockouts.
The main problem with the match was that the fans and the camera man had no idea what was going inside the ring as it was too hard to follow the action with such big fences.
#2 Electrified cage match
Like the original ECW, TNA has also had some good gimmick matches in their history. The X-Division and the lethal lockdown matches were the high points of the company.
However, this was a match that many wouldn’t want to remember. It was a simple steel cage match with the steel being electrified. So whenever a wrestler touches the steel, he gets electrocuted. And to add in the special effects, the company would flicker the lights when someone touched the steel.
The legendary Team 3D and Latin American Exchange were the teams lucky enough to fight out the match in-between the six sides of steel and it is only understandable why TNA didn’t use the match after that.
#1 Triple Cage Match
The idea of three cages being stacked up around a ring may sound cool in the start but it was sure to change the opinion as the match progressed.
The prime example of how the match was messed up came in WCW where the company decided to throw in David Arquette (who is an actor with no wrestling experience at all), Jeff Jarrett and Diamond Dallas Page to battle it out for the WCW world championship.
Cage was divided into three compartments with the size getting smaller as we climbed further. In order to get into the second cell, the wrestlers had to go through a small hole in the first one by using a ladder. In the second cage there were weapons which they could use at their will.
And then there was the third cage where the men couldn’t even throw a proper swinging punch. The title was hanged on top of the third cage which surprisingly wasn’t taken by the first wrestler who reached there as he was busy waiting for his opponents to get up there.
