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The Worst Gimmick Match Concept Ever


Liam O'Rourke

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Feast or Fired! Jesus wept! Mrs. NIB put Impact on the telly at the weekend, I had to explain why 4 people had "Money In The Bank" contracts. She then shot the whole thing down with this little gem:

 

"So, if I was in that match I'd grab a briefcase and open it immediately. If it was the fired one, I'd just hang around until someone else grabbed a case. Then I'd wallop them with my own case, nick theirs and leave them with the pink slip! Failing that, I'd just walk off and have no part in any of it."  :laugh:

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Great stuff. Pleased it has created some debate!

 

Onto the discussion..

 

The cage match is arguably one of the most well devised gimmick matches there has ever been. If done properly it can be an ingenious tool to further a storyline or to settle a score. The cowardly heel finally getting his comeuppance by not being able to escape the deserved beating about to be inflicted on him or two rivals intent on causing as much pain as possible with the brutal steel surroundings to leave only one man standing victorious over a bloodied foe.

Indeed, the perhaps not-so-humble cage match can also be used as a foundation of ingenuity and has been tweaked and developed upon on several occasion to make further historical match types such as Hell In A Cell and even the Elimination Chamber, with both ideas clearly stemming from the Steel Cage. Sadly it is also the father to a set of bastard children...

 

Al Snow and The Big Boss Man's feud fell victim to one of them. A bit of background, the storyline itself focusing around a treacherous Boss Man feeding Al Snows beloved dog Pepper to Snow (only a short while after desecrating the funeral of The Big Show's father and only a few years after imprisoning an innocent Nailz). Snow devised the Kennel from Hell match (a standard blue steel cage on the apron... surrounded by dogs... surrounded by a Cell) as a way for said specially trained killer Rottweilers to get revenge on Boss Man for his heinous act on their canine brother. As hard as it is to believe, the fans weren't into it and the only noises that could be heard were the sounds of dogs barking, shagging and most ironically shitting around the ring.

 

The Punjabi Prison was a Steel Cage match made of wood... and it as utter bollocks. Featuring Batista and The Great Khali, it was like a Steel cage match, there is a door to open by the referee.. but it was made of wood. Like a Steel Cage match, the challengers needed to climb a structure to get out... but made of wood. It made the Kennel From Hell match look like Micheals/Taker from KOTR and it was maybe somewhat of a saving grace that you could barely see any of the match... because of all the wood. Luckily, this one had crowd interaction, but I am pretty sure, even from here, I could have heard the fans in Rosemont, Illinois shitting all over this one like a set of well trained Rottweilers even if I turned the volume down to zero.

 

 

Love the show guys, award well and truly deserved.

 

 

EDIT: I didn't even remember there being 2 Punjabi Prison matches, my brain was doing me a favour blocking that out for so long.

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Three words which must suck the life from any and all wrestling fans "on a pole".

It's not too bad if it's a weapon which you can use if you get it I guess. Except we have 20 minutes of some daft arsehole stood on the second rope brushing some ten-a-penny object with his finger tips with no drama. Then when they do get it both people seem to be free to use it, so it defeats the whole "be the first to get it" as it has no real advantage, fucking ever. It just sucks the life out of the concept of a wresting match and adds no big spots or fresh drama like say a ladder match or cage match does.

 

It can be re branded how every you like to drop the "on a pole" name (Coal miners glove, Biker chain and so much other shit) if you put a weapon on a pole it's going to the shits. It's going to be so, so shit. Nothing makes me despise wrestling more than putting things on a fucking pole (except perhaps putting a woman on a forklift, but then that just makes so little sense lets not even go there).

 

There is a second layer of hell to the "on a pole" bollocks though. Those ones where you get the thing to win. At least with a weapon once we are done with all the pole climbing we get back some normality, but just winning by getting something from a pole has all the dull turgid wank of the first layer of wrestling's pole based hell with the added factor of no enjoyable finish. Two people on a ladder fighting for a belt has scope and drama and tension. Two people stood on the second rope reaching for a pink slip or a pinata just makes me want to slip into a coma.

 

A special mention to ECW for taking the shitness of "bullshit on a pole" and spoiling the ladder match with it in the stairway to hell. Climb the ladder and get the barbwire/cane/whatever and be the first to use it (or maybe the second because you will have to climb down the ladder so you can be cut off). This from a company where using this stuff was the norm, as was doing stupid shit with a ladder for no fucking reason in many a match. It just made no sense. All it did is give us all the normal ECW ladder and cane/barbwire spots but with added "slowly climbing a ladder". I can live with out seeing sandman's fat stoned backside wiggle at me as he makes stretching above his head look harder work than achieving peace in the middle east.

I will be honest, I hate this stuff so much it's been so long since I watched it I may have added to the memory of just how awful these are.

 

 

The WW3 battle royal was the fucking pits, all the drudgery of a battle royal, (which have their place, I don't dismiss a battle royal used well) but with the added bonus of being able to see fuck all of it as you TV is cut up into three tiny fucking screens. And it was normally the main if I recall right, so it's going to feel a massive letdown to close the show.

 

 

I will say here though I thought the Kennel from Hell wasn't that bad a concept for a midcard comedy match blowoff to a feud built on dog theft, dog murder and the resulting canine gavage for poor old Al Snow. It needs some context that one I say.

 

I assume I will be back with more later to be honest.

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Last Rites

 

Concrete Crypt

 

The Lats Rites was during the Sting Vs Abyss stink-up-the-show-with-stupid-shit-athon with the prison yard match the month before wasn't it?

 

Was the concrete crypt just a handicap match for the most part, if I am remembering right it was a standard two on one, normal rules and winning methods and so on or have I remembered that all wrong. It was just if Taker lost Bearer would be buried alive in concrete, which is a bit far fetched for my taste and I'm happy to over look a lot of big logic holes to keep enjoying this panto in pants we call wrestling, but it was a step beyond for me

Or if Taker won he'd die as well as it transpired because, well, did we ever find out why? That said would any explanation of been better than just purging it from the mind like a childhood trauma as I assume we all did as soon as we could.

As a match I remember it having less drama than an episode of Casualty and worse acting than Hollyoaks too, but then I haven't watching it since it first aired because there are more enjoyable things to do like slitting your wrists or watching Piers Morgan.

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(deeeeep breath)

 

A few people have mentioned the Chamber Of Horrors but it deserves a detailed look. So, you have Sting, The Steiner Brothers and El Gigante versus Cactus Jack, Abdullah The Butcher, Big Van Vader and The Diamond Studd in a cage match to open the show. Bit much for an opener, but yeah, why not. Except instead of a regular cage match, around the ring we've got all manner of gimmicks like kendo sticks, handcuffs and, err, coffins outside the ring. OK, you want to work a little Halloween into proceedings, OK, you're going to test the patience of WCW's hardcore old school wrestling fanbase, but what the hell, something for everyone, right? Oh, by the way, we're going to dump a little cage in the middle of the ring that takes up so much room that the wrestlers are virtually prevented from doing anything decent in the ring. And within that cage, we're going to have a pretend electric chair in the middle of it and the winners are determined by the ones that can strap an opponent into the chair and flip the "fatal leaver." But hey, don't worry that this apparatus will further obstruct the view of what's going on, we're going to have the "Refer-Eye Camera" which in case you forgot, is exactly what it sounds like, a camera strapped to the referee's head so you can see the "action" - if that's not too strong a word - from his POV. This worked so well, they never used it again. I'm not sure what offends me more - maybe it's the fact a couple of the wrestlers actually bled to try and add drama to this bad slice of comedy-cum-horror. Or maybe it's the sounds of Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone, who between them would commentate on some of the LEGITIMATE most dramatic moments of the Monday Night Wars, desperately trying to portray shock at what they're seeing and fear for the wrestlers well-being when they should have been pissing themselves in disbelief.

Honestly, the match itself probably crosses over into HILARIOUSLY shit compared to something like the Uncensored 96 Doomsday cage debacle, but what makes the idiocy of the match itself stand out even more, is the choice of participants and the backdrop of the booking of the PPV on a whole. This match is loaded with Sting, the top babyface in the company, the Steiners, arguably their biggest tag team attraction, Cactus who is number two or three heel at this point, and a monster in waiting called Vader. On this show, you've got a title match of Lex Luger (boring everyone to death as a heel and obviously wishing he was somewhere else) defending against Ron Simmons who nobody was really bothered about. You've also got the fantastically illogical use of Rick Rude, your potential next big heel star, making his debut unannounced and unadvertised, under a mask, crushing Tom Zenk - who in yet more fantastic WCW booking, was going to be headlining house shows with Luger in the near future! To present a card as anaemic as Havoc 91 because you've loaded your bullshit comedy horror opener with good workers and star names is an absolute crime. The only saving grace of Havoc 91 is that some of the promo spots featured Elvira, and her tits were fucking spectacular.

I need to get a word in on Feast Or Fired. That TNA would brazenly steal something that WWE created and used to some dramatic effect is a given, namely the Money In The Bank briefcase gimmick. The fact that they would a) ramp it up to overkill and b) make it worse should also be a given. Overkill by the fact there are four briefcases - because hey, if one is good, then four must be four times as good, right? Making it worse is something TNA achieves twice, by jettisoning the ladder match, which is often exciting, in favour of a hideous cross-breed of the Battle Royal which is always boring, and the Gimmick On A Pole match, which is always dumb. However as others have already stated, it's the content of the cases that is the worst factor, the part that really insults my intelligence. One of those briefcases gets you fired. The Feast Or Fired is usually crammed full of lower midcard or opening match talents, quite a few of whom tend only to appear on TV to get beat or seem to be going nowhere. I'm sorry, but the Risk VS Reward payoff for some of those guys, with my "real life logic" hat on, is simply not adequate for them to try and get one of those briefcases. In a world where you're a loser in TNA, you're probably not heading to WWE any time soon. Assuming that participation in the match is something forced upon them, it's insulting to my intelligence that at least SOME of these lads don't just stay out of the way and not bother trying to retrieve a briefcase. Sorry, but you'd think "Fuck that" if someone asked you to try to succeed in anything where your actual SUCCESS had a 25% chance of you losing your job. Boring, dumb, and insulting my intelligence all at once?? That's TNA! Utter bollocks that the WINNER of a match - ANY MATCH - could end up at being disadvantaged by actually winning. Stupidest bullshit since Dallas Page lost the World title in a tag match that his team actually won, and then celebrated it. Fucking WCW! And fucking TNA too! UGH!

And.... my least favourite piece of throwing logic out the fucking window of all time - the Lockbox match. The match is a four on four elimination match where the winner of each fall AND the loser both leave the ring until the match boils down to one on one, and eventually you end up with four winners and four losers. OK, it flies a little in the face of having "teams" at all, since you have individual winners instead of a team winner at the end, but the concept at this point is not completely terrible. Four winners earning four prizes through capturing the four falls, OK, why not. However, like Feast Or Fired, it's the prizes that make this match the pile of white dogshit that it is. The prizes in Lockbox were keys that open four boxes which each contain a different prize. In the one and only instance of this logic bomb. Tara, ODB, Ayako Hamada & Angelina Love VS Daffney, Velvet Sky, Madison Rayne and Lacey Von Erich, one of the boxes contains Tara's Knockouts title. The others don't matter, they're just window dressing. Point is, a championship will be decided by this nonsense. The belt will be won and lost by the lottery of someone having the right key that opens the right box. Think about that for a second.

So what happened? Why, Tara and Angelina Love - partners, remember - got two of the keys, and Angie opened the box that contained the belt. So, not only do we have Angelina winning the belt by opening a fucking box, not only does she get to win the belt from her partner in the match, without actually pinning her, not only does Tara lose the belt to someone she didn't lose to, SHE DIDN'T FUCKING LOSE AT ALL! She won a pin in that match, and yet loses the title?? What the bloody fuck??? It's utter bullshit. It's completely senseless. A match, like Feast Or Fired, where it's totally up to bloody chance whether the winner of the match gets rewarded or fucked over. Tara has to win a fall in the elimination match to stand A CHANCE of retaining the title, and then that chance gets reduced to 25% because of this "shit in boxes" rubbish, and manages to lose the belt to one of her partners. Seriously, fuck you TNA. The day you go bust I will jump for joy, remembering bollocks like this.

On a final note about shitty gimmick matches in general, I'm starting to go over a little Buddhist, because I swear blind when WCW died, it ended up reincarnated as TNA. Relentless, hamfisted fuckery spanning decade after decade between them.

 

(breath out)

 

That was cathartic. Thanks lads.

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I see all your ridiculous gimmick matches and raise you by Dusty's pre-War Games creation: The Bunkhouse Stampede.

 

The rules are simple: It's ostensibly a battle royal in a steel cage. Yes, as if getting your opponents out over the top rope wasn't tricky enough, you now have to get them out over the top of a steel cage (or through the door) so both feet hit the floor. Obviously pleased with the success of Magnum TA & Tully Blanchard's I Quit match in a cage at Starrcade '85 (The Gathering), somebody at Crockett Promotions must have been thinking about what else they could stick in the cage and thought a Battle Royal would be a great idea.

 

As if that idea wasn't bad enough the Bunkhouse Stampede was part of an annual tournament in which people would qualify for by winning Bunkhouse Stampedes on the house show loop before getting their chance to compete in the final Bunkhouse Stampede on a PPV or some other big TV event. The winner of which would then win a big bronze cowboy boot.

 

The concept lasted four years before being killed off, the final one went out on PPV from Nassau Colosseum, Uniondale New York and can be watched on the Network with an undercard which features Nikita Koloff trading hammerlocks with Bobby Eaton in a time limit draw for the TV Title, Larry Zbysko winning the NWA Western States Heritage title in New York from Barry Windham, Ric Flair desperately trying to get a performance out of Road Warrior Hawk with the NWA World title on the line.

 

The Icing on the shit cake was the Bunkhouse Stampede itself. Dusty (naturally), Post-horsemen Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, The Warlord, The Barbarian, Ivan Koloff and Road Warrior Animal (because both Roadies needed a payday), having already been through a qualifying Bunkhouse Stampede no doubt overcoming such bunkhouse legends as Pistol Pez Whatley, Paul Garner and The Jeffers Brothers, all in their "bunkhouse gear" trackies, apart from Lex who obviously had to show off the total package, bumbling and brawling around a steel cage for 10 or so minutes, occasionally climbing the cage before realising that the aim of the match is to stay in the cage and half heartedly brawling before retreating to the safety of the ring. Most of the eliminations happened somewhat anticlimactically through the cage door and, surprisingly, the winner of the giant boot (as with all the other three) is Dusty himself who once again has to figure out what he's going to do with four giant brass cowboy boots.

 

Some of the angles at the time were forwarded, The Warlord & Animal's elimination seemed to be building to a feud between the Powers Of Pain & The Road Wariors and Luger managed to take out both his horsemen nemeses along with himself but the match, and PPV in itself was just interminably dull. Still, I'm surprised nobody at TNA has attempted to shoehorn it into the Lockdown lineup every year.

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A couple for me that come to my mind as bad gimmick matches are:

 

The Hardcore Invitational  Junkyard Battle Royal from Bash at the Beach 1998 which included around 20 wrestlers including Finlay, Regal, Brian Knobs in a actual junkyard with flaming cars, an overhead camera and just some utter lunacy. Which resulted in half of the wrestlers getting injured.

 

Also the "Skins Match" between Tank Abbott vs Big Al which was a "leather jacket on a pole" match which ended with Tank pulling a stanley knife out on Big Al.

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I think Feast or Fired is close to being a good gimmick match and with a few tweaks and good booking you've got something. The first change I'd make is to get rid of the idea of winning your pink slip. That's what the loose of the match should get by simply having one more competitor than title shot then at least you get some jeopardy at the end of the match instead of a rip off deal or no deal.

 

I also hate when you have no holds barred matches when a banned moved hasn't been apart of the storyline. Generally I dislike how a load of gimmick matches are no different to each other.

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