Top Five Favorite Gimmick Matches

Lowlife Louie Ramos and Brian Damage

What are your Top Five favorite gimmick matches? There are no right or wrong answers, just your personal favorites as a fan or as a wrestler as in Louie’s case. What do you guys have?

Louie

Ahhh great topic

So many great gimmick bouts to pick from 

Ill start the list with my personal favorite 

5) Fans bring the weapons match

This one you are only likely to see at a deathmatch tournament near you, but in reality the idea of this match was like many other hardcore ideas, born from ECW.

Back in its heyday,  fans would bring oven cookies sheets ,frying pans, crutches, a dozen eggs and even plastic dinosaurs and hand them to brawling wrestlers on the other side of the barricade 

As New Jack gained in popularity fans would bring vaccums and old Nintendo consoles to put in his trash can ,that was to be used during his many wars.

As deathmatch became popular, fans would actually create weapons for the wrestlers to use.  Stuff covered in barbed wire, carpet strips and thumbtacks became the norm to bring for these bouts…

4 ) Strap / chain match 

Not seen as much as in the early days, this match had 1 simple but brutal premise.  2 men are tied at the wrist with a chain or a leather strap..then all you have to do is beat your opponent so bad  that u can pretty much drag his carcass around the ring and touch all 4 corners to achieve victory. 

Usually these matches where violent, bloody affairs ,especially as the instrument of attachment was used to punch, drag or whip the opposition mercilessly. 

3 ) Steel cage

One of the oldest gimmick / stipulation matches ever. And still used to this day. It is varied as it is violent.

The traditional cage match would be fought inside a wire cage, with a door, which was supposed to keep combatants in and interlopers out. .some territories would institute the escape rule, where you rendered your opponent unconscious and either walked out the door or climbed out.

Years later we would see matches featuring cages that looked like jail cells, wooden cages wrapped in wire, cages with ceilings,  double cages double ring , a hell in a cell…and an elimination chamber.. all with their own rules, or lack thereof .

2) Royal Rumble

The brainchild of hall of famer Pat Patterson,  his involvement in the annual San Francisco battle royal ,which drew record crowds from the 60s until the last one in 1982, would lead him to pitch this idea to his boss, Vince McMahon.  At 1st not keen on the idea, the idea was given test runs on various non televised events. 

Eventually the idea fell on the ears of Dick Ebersol, friend of McMahon and a big wheel at NBC,  Ebersol told Vince to give the idea the cable tv treatment,  and the 1st “official” Royal Rumble took place on USA network.  

Simple premise.. a set amount of wrestlers pick numbers beforehand,  and enter the fray at eqully timed intervals according to number selected.  The match went from a trial event to probably the 2nd most important event of the WWE calendar year 

1) BARBED WIRE MATCH

All caps,  why, you may ask..because this is to me the best gimmick match ever devised.  Taking the idea of the steel cage and making it even more brutal ,as the ring ropes are removed,  and replaced with flesh tearing cattle grade barbed wire. Obviously you will never see one in the WWE, but companies such as Impact, AEW and New Japan have all hosted them, and they are a staple of deathmatch tournaments. Deathmatch legends like Matt Tremont have battled in over 50 no rope barbed wire matches. 

Like the steel cage, the Barbed wire match has seen it share of changes, like adding explosions,  putting only 2 sides of wire around the ring , and in some cases just wrapping the ropes with wire.

Danger at its finest.

Brian

War Games

I really enjoyed the NWA’s original version of the double ring, two caged roof match. There were some classic battles in there. When NXT took it over, I was admittedly a little peeved when they removed the roof in the War Games match. I can say I was wrong about that, because so much more can and was done with the roof off of the cages. Triple H and company who booked those matches did the concept proud in my opinion.

Chain/Dog Collar Match

Pure brutality if done right. So many great chain matches in the past and recently in AEW with CM Punk and MJF. Of course, the most violent and entertaining dog cllar match I ever saw was at Starrcade ’83 between Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper.

TLC Match

The bar was certainly raised when the Hardy Boys, Dudley Boyz and edge and Christian tore the roof of the building in their matches. It certainly shortened the career of Edge for a few years, but man, how entertaining were they?

Royal Rumble

This is still a match I look forward too every year. WWE makes it feel important and is usually filled with a few surprises and shocking eliminations. A great concept that keeps getting bigger and bigger every year.

Money in the Bank

Lately, this has been my favorite type of match. It involves ladders and a briefcase, high above that contains a contract that guarantees whoever wins a WWE title opportunity. These matches have a lot of high spots and an unpredictability about them that makes them so good.