Petty Annoyances

[The King of Old School]

5 minutes ago, boshealecta said:

Keep seeing Summerslam adverts. Winds me up that the PPV during the summer, named after the summer, has branding and a logo that looks the opposite and hot and summery and more cold. Really annoying me more than it should 

Completely agree.

Bring back the Orange branding from the 80's/early 90's!

[boshealecta]

50 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

Completely agree.

Bring back the Orange branding from the 80's/early 90's!

Exactly. Even the green they had in the early 2000’s and the yellow more recently still worked. You can’t beat some bright orange fiery logo with a VO saying “As nuptials turn to napalm for the match made in HHHHHELL!”

[LaGoosh]

In the past 2-3 years triple threat matches are now automatically no dq, apparently. Has this always been the case? I feel like it's very recent. 

I hate it. It makes no sense! Why are they no dq? If someone cheats you just disqualify them and it turns into a singles match. It shouldn't be anymore complicated than that!

[theringmaster]

I'm pretty sure they have always been no dq, it's just one of those rules that people don't realise, like sliding your leg under the rope is classified as a rope break. Always been there but wwe (or more accurately Vince) keeps changing their mind on if it should be highlighted. 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

12 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

In the past 2-3 years triple threat matches are now automatically no dq, apparently. Has this always been the case? I feel like it's very recent. 

I hate it. It makes no sense! Why are they no dq? If someone cheats you just disqualify them and it turns into a singles match. It shouldn't be anymore complicated than that!

It was a story point in Summerslam 1999 I believe. Jesse Ventura as special ref in a triple threat with Austin, HHH, and Mankind. Trips used a chair and Ventura refused to count a pin, even though it wasn't a DQ offense.

[JLM]

Excalibur keeps calling Toni Storm’s Baldo Bomb the Sky High. Nigel and Tony get move names wrong all the time, but Excalibur is supposed to be the nerd who knows the moves. He’s lucky I don’t Twitter. 

[MVP RULZ]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

In the past 2-3 years triple threat matches are now automatically no dq, apparently. Has this always been the case? I feel like it's very recent. 

I hate it. It makes no sense! Why are they no dq? If someone cheats you just disqualify them and it turns into a singles match. It shouldn't be anymore complicated than that!

I'm pretty sure they've always been no DQ since the early 2000s at least 

I was more confused on Raw when Bronson Reed interfered in the Jey vs Bron portion of the gauntlet and Michael Cole said its no DQ remember

Is it? Have Gauntlet Matches always been no DQ?  I feel like they haven't as it really makes no sense as each individual gauntlet match is surely just a standard match so why no DQ? When there is an obvious winner if someone is DQ/Counted out.

Why would the 2 people who start the Match wrestle say 5 (or however number of people are in the match ) separate matches at 10 minutes each when you can just grab a chair and smack them within the 5 seconds and pin them and move on

I know It's wrestling and half of what we see has no logic but that really stood out as being a stupid rule that I'd never seen mentioned in a Gauntlet match previously

[King Mal the Glorious]

2 hours ago, JLM said:

Excalibur keeps calling Toni Storm’s Baldo Bomb the Sky High. Nigel and Tony get move names wrong all the time, but Excalibur is supposed to be the nerd who knows the moves. He’s lucky I don’t Twitter. 

I'm having a blank (and haven't seen an Albert match in 20ish years), what's the difference?

[JLM]

The Baldo bomb you grab them by the neck/head and it’s a sort of two handed sit out choke slam.  The person taking the move grabs onto the attacker’s arms, so they can only go as high as the attacker’s arms are long. Also in kayfabe it’s more like the attacker is deadlifting them off the ground by the neck, so it’s more of a feat of strength. Also ideally you want to roar like a wild man to convey the exertion like Albert did every time. Toni should definitely add the grunt. 
 

The sky high/rydeen bomb the attacker’s hands are on the opponent’s rib cage/under the arm pits. Known in toddler circles as “uppies” position. This allows them to be launched high  into the air. Typically they’re already running or jumping or have some of kind of momentum going into the move, and they post off the attacker’s shoulders on the way up to get as much height as possible. So the attacker is more helping them on their way using their own momentum and guiding them down, rather than yanking them off the ground. This allows for maximum height without the attacker having to be that tall. D’Lo also typically added a bit of a spin/rotation to it on the way, unless he was catching them out of a leapfrog, which also looked tremendous. 

I love them both and it is definitely a petty annoyance but I would like to hear Excalibur say Baldo Bomb on TV on a regular basis. 

 

Edited July 16, 2025 by JLM

[boshealecta]

6 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

In the past 2-3 years triple threat matches are now automatically no dq, apparently. Has this always been the case? I feel like it's very recent. 

I hate it. It makes no sense! Why are they no dq? If someone cheats you just disqualify them and it turns into a singles match. It shouldn't be anymore complicated than that!

Been watching some early WWE triple threat matches from the Attitude era and sometimes DQs are in effect, sometimes not. But if it’s automatically a no DQ match then why do they release submissions when they reach the ropes. Unless it’s Hell in a Cell, then DQs can happen if Seth Rollins goes too far. 

I also saw a weird table match between the Dudley’s and DX but tags were in effect and both had to go through a table. Surely soon as one person went through a table, just never tag out because then they can’t put your partner through one. 

[Mark Impact]

I always understood that the no DQ thing in triple threats was down to there being no direct beneficiary of someone being DQ'd because there's a third party in the match who might not have been affected by the offence. Really, it should be if someone is DQ'd or counted out they should be eliminated and the other two continue on in a "standard" match, but we are getting to make sense of something that defies normal logic that exists inside the wrestling bubble. 

Rope breaks make sense even with no DQ stip' because the finish need to take place within the confines of the ring, unless it's falls count anywhere. The ref might count to break, but it's the equivalent of a boxing ref resetting the fighters if they are clinched at the ropes for example. 

Edited July 16, 2025 by Mark Impact

[BomberPat]

You're getting into one of my soapbox topics with all of this - I hate how WWE treat DQs and rope breaks, and multi-person matches in general.

"It's no DQ, so there are no rope breaks!" - no, this is bollocks. The ropes don't cause a break because of the risk of a DQ, but because they represent the outer plane of the ring. The referee can't disqualify you for using the ropes for leverage, but it's still not a legal pin or hold.

That's a point of contention I used to have while refereeing from time to time, in a broader sense - in a No DQ match, I would always still try and enforce the rules, because the rules still exist, I'm just not empowered to disqualify them. I shouldn't just be standing around while wrestlers cheat and use weapons and everything else. Every time someone in a WWE match uses a weapon in a multi-man match and Michael Cole screams "IT'S ALL LEGAL~!" it gets on my tits - because, sure, maybe it is, but God forbid you give the moment any drama or allow it to add any heat to the match by pointing out that it should be against the rules and is still dangerous or underhanded, or whatever the story calls for. 

I don't know what the solution to multi-man matches being No DQ is, but just blanket treating them all as No DQ feels a complete cop-out, and undermines any other No DQ match as being particularly dangerous or risky or an escalation from an ordinary match, if any three or four way is the same by default. Either a DQ should just stop the match, and the fact that one person doesn't benefit from that shouldn't be seen as a drawback but as a story opportunity, or it should eliminate the DQ'd person from the match. It's not like there's a shortage of ways to get away with cheating in a match where there's also at least one extra body that can be distracting the ref anyway, but then WWE doesn't have heels really cheat and doesn't book for heat, and that's the bigger problem - any No DQ match doesn't matter if audiences aren't taught to see breaking the rules as being underhanded or villainous, and if heels haven't been getting away with cheating in every other match.

[Ro_y Disco]

The way I view the rules of a triple threat (or fatal four-way etc) are the intent of the match. Multi-man matches are rarely used for a deeply heated feud, so the wrestlers just want to wrestle. If they're faces, they want to compete as cleanly as possible. If they're heels, maybe they'll take advantage of being able to cheat & not be disqualified for it.

Wrestlers generally, even heels, don't look to intentionally injure their opponents in a match, so would normally steer clear of anything dangerous or cheat in ways that wouldn't cause injury.

A similar comparison is a ladder match. It's also no DQ, but very rarely do you see weapons other than ladders being used because, again, they're rarely feud enders and the wrestlers want to compete within the confines of a match, rather than setting out to injure their opponent.

ECW was often good at this, where every match was essentially no-DQ, but the wrestlers wrestled and the intent of weapon use mattered.

[air_raid]

18 hours ago, Ro_y Disco said:

A similar comparison is a ladder match. It's also no DQ, but very rarely do you see weapons other than ladders being used because, again, they're rarely feud enders and the wrestlers want to compete within the confines of a match, rather than setting out to injure their opponent.

Welcome to my petty annoyance ; the differentiation between "ladder match" and "TLC match" in WWE. They are the same match ; there are no DQs and you climb the ladder to retrieve the hanging prize. There is no logical reason why a wrestler wouldn't choose to use, for instance, a chair or a table in a ladder match, it's just that they won't, if the match is advertised as just a "ladder match" instead of a "TLC match" despite history of chairs and tables being used in such ladder matches at, for instance, SummerSlam 98 and WrestleMania 16 before the "TLC" tagline existed. No kayfabe logic in the wrestlers' behaviour.

[Lorne Malvo]

I used to make my own headcanon when I was a kid for things that didn't make sense. I think in the Ladder match / TLC case I told myself that it was built into the contracts that every use of a weapon that wasn't meant to be part of the match -  i.e. using a chair in a ladder match - would result in the winners purse getting docked, so you're giving yourself a better chance of winning the match but your payday won't be as big.

I also used to tell myself that all of the wrestlers had a running bet backstage on who could successfully powerbomb Billy Kidman. Why else would they keep trying it?!

I was one fun child.