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The Worst Gimmick Match Concept Ever

5K views 39 replies 35 participants last post by  NitroII 
#1 · (Edited)
So, for this week's podcast, we're going to evaluate different gimmick match concepts throughout history in search of the one that, whether it be through its convoluted nature, a propensity for generating absolutely awful matches, or being a concept that is utterly horrid on paper and in practice, is the absolute worst ever devised, and as always, we're looking for your opinions on the subject.

Which match concept did you dread the most or feel was utterly useless, and why do you feel it's the worst one ever put on a wrestling show? You can be as broad or obscure as you like in your nomination, and as always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly.

So what's your pick?

EDIT - The podcast discussing The Worst Gimmick Match Concepts Ever, featuring a great many of your contributions is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/xrjsh8/SCGRadio72-TheWorstGimmickMatchConceptEver.mp3
 
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#3 ·
I find the concept of the stretcher match to be really stupid as well.

The Singapore Cane match between Kane and Khali at Breaking Point.

The fluffy dice on a pole match to determine the #1 contender for the Diva's Championship was pretty cringe-inducing.
 
#4 ·
I would say the Scaffold Match. It is dangerous, no actual moves involved and it is not entertaining. Gimmick matches can be interesting, but this is boring. A close 2nd is the Judy Bagwell on a Forklift match or Viagra on a Pole.

Also the Uncensored 1996 match with Hogan and Macho Man vs Dungeon of Doom & Horsemen, that gimmick match was quite bad and took forever.

I would also put The King of The Road match between Dustin and Blacktop Bully. It was a match on tape and took place in the back of a truck. A Terrible concept, a No holds Barred Street fight would have been much better.
 
#5 ·
Viagra on a pole
 
#12 ·
See though, conceptually ya it is strange but as Roberts showed, with good enough psychology the match can be pulled off.

Im sure the answer to this is some indy concept Ive never heard of or forgot, but cmon guys, does it get worse than San Fransisco 49ers match conceptually? Grab these barely hanging on cardboard boxes hanging from a string on a post that was supposed to act as a pole variant but a hard enough irish whip will knock it off the post . Hope that the world title is there but hey, a picture of Scott Hall may be there too. Considering the problems with the dogs, the "Dog Kinnel from Hell" match has to be up there too. Funny enough, Im pretty sure these are two Russo innovations

edit: that one match from I think the dying AWA (maybe wrong) where the guy stands in a mini I think it was called "shark cage" and fights in it to get out or whatever... that is up there.
 
#13 ·
PG Hell in a Cell
 
#16 ·
Oh geez, this will be a long list.

Not necessarily in order:


1) Chamber of Horrors (Halloween Havoc 1991). It was this gigantic metal contraption where 2 teams of 4 battled (kinda like War Games):




Anyway, they had a special camera attached to a helmet that the referee wore to help the audience at home see, called the Refer-eye camera. You got to see what he saw, except with a person moving around, it wasn't a very good view most of the time. The match was also plagued with injuries, with both Vader and Cactus Jack being put in as substitutes. But it was the way you won that was so dumb. You had to call for a special chair to be brought down from being suspended over the ring. Once down, you had to put a guy from the opposing team in said chair, walk over to a switch on the side of the cage and flip it, effectively electrocuting the guy. So the gimmick was to murder someone. Problem was, the lever wouldn't stay up and kept falling down, making it clear that this whole thing was totally fake. And finally, Rick Steiner was put into the chair by Cactus Jack, Jack walks over to the switch, but in the meantime, Steiner suplexes Abdullah the Butcher into the chair, Jack doesn't realize it, he hits the switch, the lights flicker and pyro comes out of the chair and Abdullah is "dead". Except he got up 10 seconds later and starting beating up Jack for killing him, supposedly. It was terrible.


2. Kennel From Hell-don't think I need to explain this mess, it involved dogs around the outside of a cage, but within another cage, and they were pissing on the floor amidst trying to fuck each other.


3. Doomsday Cage (Uncensored 1996)-other than being booked horrendously, the idea of a triple cage was interesting. Not executed well, but interesting. What really fucked this match up was placement. The structure was so big that it couldn't be in the center of the arena. It was off to the side, where about 15% of the crowd could get a decent view. And even that view was blocked by all the cages and wires. So in essence, nobody could see shit. It was made even worse because Hogan and Savage had to start in the top cage and escape out through the bottom one. The top was high up, with the rafters in the background, which are DARK. The top wasn't lit, so people could, at best, see vague shadows doing stuff. Anyway, the wrestling sucked, too, but eventually Hogan and Savage make it to the bottom...and inexplicably leave the cage to go brawl in the ring with Z-Gangsta and Ultimate Solution. They had to leave to win, and they left...and the match continued. Then they returned, Luger went to hit Savage with a loaded glove. Savage ducked, and Flair was behind him. Luger stopped his motion...then punched anyway and knocked Flair out. Hogan and Savage left the Cage, but Savage ran back in, pinned Flair, THEN left and they won. The finish was totally blown, which is appropriate for such a shit match.


4. King of the Road Match (Uncensored 1995)-boy, the first 2 Uncensoreds really had some awful gimmick matches. This one involved Dustin Rhodes vs Blacktop Bully. The match took place in the back of a fenced off 18 wheeler truck. Both guys started at the back, and had to make it to the front and blow a horn located there to win. It was shitty brawling mostly, you could BARELY see anything and the truck had hay stacks scattered everywhere. Oh did I mention this truck was IN MOTION? Yeah, it was out, driving around buttfuck, nowhere while these guys were going at it. WCW hired a helicopter crew to shoot it from above, and a police escort. At one point, the truck gets stuck in traffic as its going through a TRAILER PARK. Bully takes a bump when the truck makes a sharp turn. Eventually, he blows the horn and wins. The funniest part? Both guys bladed during the match, which was a big no-no at the time in WCW, and were promptly fired after the event. I think deep down, WCW was offended by what took place and fired them to salvage their dignity. Which leads us to...


5. Martial Arts match (Uncensored 1995)-this and the King of the Road match took place one after another as the FIRST TWO matches at Uncensored 1995. This gem took place between Jim Duggan and Meng. Ultimately, the big problem with this match was quite simple-it was a martial arts match that featured one martial arts moves. The rest was typical 80s WWF big men lumbering around, doing nothing. Meng applied about 50 nerve holds because their stamina sucked. Duggan powered back by using the martial art of pulling off his boot and hitting Meng with it. Meng does another nerve hold, Duggan headbutts him, but because Meng is from Samoa (or Tonga, whatever), he feels no pain in his head and Duggan knocks himself out. And then we got a screwjob finish, featuring Meng's manager, Col. Rob Parker, who distracts Sonny Onoo, the referee, and Meng hits the single martial arts move in the match, a Savat Kick to Duggan, and wins. Atrocious.


6. Barbed Wire First Blood Steel Cage match (Uncensored 1999)-starting to see a theme here with Uncensored? Hogan vs Flair in this one. Rules are simple-first guy to bleed loses. Apparently these rules actually aren't that simple, though. 5 minutes in, Flair gigs. Match continues. Why? I dunno. Then Hogan tries to pin Flair, but the ref won't count for him because that's not how you win. So how DO you win? I dunno. 2 minutes after that, Hogan juices. Match continues. Why? I dunno. Flair puts Hogan in the Figure 4, Hogan grabs the ropes because apparently you can still submit, I think? David Flair tries to interfere on Hogan's behalf, Arn runs down and takes him out, he tosses a tire iron into the cage, Flair uses it, Hogan is down and Flair puts the Figure 4 on again, the ref FAST COUNTS to screw Hogan (Flair is the babyface, Hogan is the heel) and this travesty ends. Remember when the ref told Hogan he can't count a pin because that's not how you win? The match ended via pinfall. Again, I dunno


7. TNA Reverse Battle Royal-already discussed by someone else

8. Ultimate X/Submission match (Victory Road 2010)-Ultimate X is a good gimmick match. So are submission matches. But for some baffling reason, TNA tried to combine them together. See, one participant, Douglas Williams, was afraid of heights (kayfabe). So they booked an Ultimate X match. The gimmick was that a match that should be spectacular won't be because one guy is afraid of what makes it spectacular. Hell of a selling point. So they decided to throw in the submission stipulation for no reason so that he could win without having to climb. Which is what happened. An ULTIMATE X MATCH ended by Douglas Williams putting Brian Kendrick in a Cobra Clutch. Ridiculous.


9. Punjabi Prison-others have elaborated on it, but the idea of doors opening for a minute and then being closed and locked, plus multiple cages to escape from was just too complicated and really stupid.

10. Penalty Box match (Sin 2001)-it was Team Canada vs the Filthy Animals. This retarded match had Jim Duggan as the special ref, and anytime someone broke the rules, they were sent to a penalty box outside the ring for a varying length of time. Said time was completely at Duggan's discretion. One guy was given a minute penalty for an illegal tag, someone else was given a penalty for not breaking a 5 count. Mike Awesome pulled out a pair of scissors and attempted to stab someone, and got 2 minutes for attempted murder. Eventually Tigress and Major Gunns, the valets, had a cat fight and were given penalties when they weren't even in the match. It was a total clusterfuck.
 
#26 ·
1) Chamber of Horrors (Halloween Havoc 1991). It was this gigantic metal contraption where 2 teams of 4 battled (kinda like War Games):




Anyway, they had a special camera attached to a helmet that the referee wore to help the audience at home see, called the Refer-eye camera. You got to see what he saw, except with a person moving around, it wasn't a very good view most of the time. The match was also plagued with injuries, with both Vader and Cactus Jack being put in as substitutes. But it was the way you won that was so dumb. You had to call for a special chair to be brought down from being suspended over the ring. Once down, you had to put a guy from the opposing team in said chair, walk over to a switch on the side of the cage and flip it, effectively electrocuting the guy. So the gimmick was to murder someone. Problem was, the lever wouldn't stay up and kept falling down, making it clear that this whole thing was totally fake. And finally, Rick Steiner was put into the chair by Cactus Jack, Jack walks over to the switch, but in the meantime, Steiner suplexes Abdullah the Butcher into the chair, Jack doesn't realize it, he hits the switch, the lights flicker and pyro comes out of the chair and Abdullah is "dead". Except he got up 10 seconds later and starting beating up Jack for killing him, supposedly. It was terrible.
This match is beyond absurd. Everything you said was totally true.

But the match itself was so bad because there was no room inside the cage at all once the chair lowered. You had about 5 feet on the floor and with the chair in the ring there was no room at all in the ring either.

Oh and they had some coffins outside the ring. Inside the coffins were random guys with black hoods that attacked everyone. They all got their asses kicked.
 
#19 ·
The Dupp Cup.

It was TNA's version of the Hardcore Division. Anyone could enter themselves into the match from wrestlers, referees, commentators to backstage workers, and the only way to win the match was to score 10 points. The winner won the Dupp Cup and a date with Fluff Duff, The Dupp's manager and sister, who they teased an incestuous relationship with.

The rules of the match were:

-If you put someone through a table, it is 2 ½ points
-If it's a burning table, you get 5 points
-If you put your opponent's head in the toilet, it is 2 ½ points
-If it has shit in it, it is 3 ½ points
-If you goose a woman (grab her ass), it is 2 ½ points
-If you goose a man (grab his ass), it is 3 ½ points
-If you hit Jeremy Borash, you get 2 ½ points.
-If you hit the ticket lady, you get 2 ½ points.
-If you have sex with a farm animal during the match, you get 2 ½ points
-If you spank your opponent with the stick horse, you get 2 ½ points
-But if the person likes it, you lose 2 ½ points
-If you introduce an opponent to Jay (whatever/whomever that is), you get 2 ½ points
-If you cry like a big old pussy, you lose 5 points
-If you stick your opponent's head in the cotton candy machine for one full rotation, you get 10 points.
-If you take a weapon from a fan and use it, it's 1 point.

WCW's World War 3 was a massive clusterfuck. You couldn't keep up with any of the action in the 3 rings until the final 10 were left and they all went into the middle ring to finish off the match.

Bunkhouse Stampede was ridiculous. It was a Battle Royal inside a Steel Cage and you had to eliminate the participants by throwing them out of the cage door or over the cage walls.
 
#21 ·
When I first looked at the topic a few of the gimmick matches already posted came to mind, so I'll bring up the Coal Miners Glove match between Sting and Jake Roberts at Halloween Havoc 92. It was a Spin the Wheel make a deal gimmick they were doing and to even include any match that involves a coal miners glove seems bizarre to begin with.
 
#25 ·
I don't know if this counts but i hate Gimmick PPVs. Hell In a Cell, TLC, Money In The Bank. The actual concept of the all these matches should be big blow offs for long term feuds and the MITB is just a very lazy way for WWE not to bother putting stock in someone to push and instead use the holder as a get out of jail card when they run out of booking ideas. The PPV concept has devalued some of the best and brutal matches from when i was younger. Oh and also the casket match.hate hate hate hate those.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Others:

King of the Mountain-first, you have to pin or submit someone, then that opponent goes to a penalty box, while the person who scored the pin now becomes "eligible" to grab a title, climb a ladder and hang it up on a hook. So its a reverse ladder match. Foolish as it is to win not by grabbing the title, but by giving it up, the whole being eligible and ineligible until you get a pin/submission and the penalty box makes it needlessly complicated and cluttered. Where it differs from others is in one category. As horrendously stupid as the Chamber of Horrors, King of the Road, Kennel From Hell and whatnot were, they were done one time, those in charged realized it was a mega fail, and they abandoned the concept for good. Since 2004, TNA has done a total of ELEVEN (11) of these matches. Imagine there being 11 Chamber of Horrors matches. It boggles the mind, and its sad that they keep doing them.


Junkyard Invitational-anyone remember this? It was a big hardcore match WCW came up with where all the participants were put in a junkyard to brawl around, and the winner was the guy who could escape over/through a fence first.


Graveyard Match-a somewhat forgotten cornucopia of crap. This happened at Bash at the Beach 2000 between the Demon and Vampiro. The match took place in a graveyard. The PPV was at night, and cemeteries are naturally not well lit. You can guess what happened-viewers at home could barely see anything. Mostly it was just shitty brawling, the highlight being Vampiro jumping out of a tree onto the Demon. Did I mention that you won by escaping the graveyard and making it back to the arena before your opponent? Did I also mention that the arena was like...10 minutes walk away from said graveyard? It was really damn stupid.

Cuffed in a Cage match-another Russo creation, it was a multi-team tag match where the object was to handcuff your opponents to the sides of the cage, rendering them helpless. This, naturally, led to a bunch of guys, hanging around doing nothing while others tried to work. They got in the way and it was shit.

Brawl For All-surprised this hasn't been mentioned. This whole tournament was a disaster. For the uninitiated, Brawl For All was held in 1998 and was WWE's attempt at a legit, shoot boxing tournament. Oh where to begin on this parade of failure. First off, the very notion. Wrestling is supposed to be real, or that's the illusion. So what exactly, in the pro wrestling universe, is different between a wrestler and "shoot fighter"? A real fighter and...a real fighter? This was one of those things Russo could never get his head around, and he did it constantly in WCW and TNA. Anyway, having "real fights" among all these other "real fights"didn't really impress the audience. They came to see wild brawls, over the top characters, swearing and tits. Not two amateurs boxing. As a result, the crowd heat for these matches was almost non-existent. Not to mention they had to set up the ring differently than for regular wrestling. This wasn't even official boxing, as it was 3 one minute rounds, and you got points for things like takedowns. It was optional to enter, so some guys who felt tough signed up. And then many of them signed out and were put on the injured reserve. You see, it turns out setting up legitimate fights between guys not trained for such events is dangerous and people can get hurt. This happened to a ton of guys in the tournament, most famously Dr. Death Steve Williams, who got knocked out by Bart Gunn, fell over and "tore his ass muscle", according to him. Funnily enough, that was the best fight of the whole thing. Oh, did I mention this tournament was set up so Dr. Death could win? Yeah, Steve Williams was a hell of an athlete. Amateur wrestler and college football player, he went to All Japan and had a monster run in the early-mid 90s. Since the Japanese puro style works notoriously stiffer than here in North America, they figured he'd be a cinch to win. It'd give him momentum and he could go on to feud with Austin as a big time heel. Except this is a shoot fight, where anything can happen. And anything did happen, as I mentioned. Bart Gunn, long split from his Smoking Gunns partner Billy, had a good left hook and scored an upset win over Dr. Death, knocking him out (literally and of the tournament), as well as injuring him. Ultimately, he went on to win the whole thing. And his big reward was time off to train for his WM15 Brawl For All bout with IBA Super Heavyweight Champion Eric "Butterbean" Esch, who absolutely murdered Gunn in 27 seconds. Yeah, they took this amateur and put him in there to work with an actual heavyweight boxing champion, known as the King of the 4 Rounders and a popular knockout artist. Check it out:






So yeah, incredibly dumb idea that resulted in lots of injuries, no wrestling fan or boxing fan caring and a forgettable WM match. No wonder WWE never brings it up to remind us.
 
#31 ·
I want to thank everybody for the contributions, we got to read many of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/xrjsh8/SCGRadio72-TheWorstGimmickMatchConceptEver.mp3

Join us our show on The Worst Gimmick Match Concepts Ever, as the panel discuss every ridiculous stipulation under the sun, including Kennel From Hell, the Punjabi Prison, TNA's multiple horrific offerings, King Of The Road, Chamber of Horrors, Inferno Matches, Scaffold Matches, the San Francisco 49ers match, World War 3, the Anus Explosion Death Match (seriously) and many, many more, in search of the very worst one ever created. A tremendously fun show this week, check it out and let us know what you think!
 
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