Invent A Gimmick Match!

[air_raid]

It's possible we did this before and it might die on its arse, but here goes.

I recently (finally) deigned to look up what the "Casino Battle Royal" was, and despite being just a twist on a Royal Rumble, I thought it was inspired. I think what can be done in a match is very close to already existing apart from random nonsense like "this match can only be won by count-out", "this title can not change hands by submission on a Friday" and other stuff from Dave Rayne's rule book, but I think with a little twist you can create new dynamics on existing match types.

So - challenge. Come up with something new, even if its just mangling some existing rules, that give you chances to do something different. Especially if you can tell different stories to ones we've already seen. And give it a name. Here's two I came up with, apologies if some indy in Bumfuck, Idaho already did them.

Chase The Ace

A twist on the scramble match and inspired by the card game of the same name, a time-limited match where instead of simply "last person to get a pin" is the winner, the most recent winner of the fall is the "Ace" and thus the only person in the match that CAN be pinned. Fairly obviously, last person designated the Ace when the bell rings is the winner. Makes best sense if it's a title match as its the easiest fair way to determine who starts the match as the Ace, although if booked by WWE I'm sure it would be a Beat The Clock Challenge episode of Raw. Psychology wise its standard triple threat/four+ corners dynamics that people just want to break up pins except everyones trying to pin one wrestler which inevitably breaks off into separate fights, with the slight twist that if you're fighting someone who isn't the Ace, you've got to keep looking over your shoulder and checking they aren't in trouble/in danger of getting pinned by someone that isn't you. Near the end of the match - at least the first one - you can do some shenanigans of people desperately going for the pin on the wrong opponent because between all the violence/potentially rapid-fire pinfalls going on, they've lost track of who the Ace actually is.

Winner Stays On

Similar, but crossed with gauntlet rules a twist on what we've all played in various forms in video games, bar games, real sports etc - instead of a straightforward gauntlet which goes until everyone's been pinned once, this runs for a time limit with the wrestlers replacing the pinned person in a fixed order in rotation. Booked carefully to mix up the combinations in the ring, it would work best with four to six wrestlers because the ones waiting their turn could each occupy a corner outside the ring - more than six would become crowded. I'm hesitant to suggest Chamber-style pods or King Of The Mountain style mini cages restraining the entrants waiting because one of the finishes I'd want to book would be the next guy due in diving into the ring with 15 seconds left on the clock, smacking one opponent with a chair to get the other disqualified, then taking a quick and easy pin on the guy he just walloped, to win a fall just in time and win the match. You could incorporate a rule where the ref has discretion to disqualify the wrestler "in possession" for perceived time-wasting e.g. excessive rest holds, constantly leaving the ring, not going for the pin to eliminate the current opponent if they're just trying to run down the clock rather than be the aggressor. There's lots of things you could do, I can imagine a heel in the first 10-15 minutes getting himself quickly disqualified every time he's in, to try and stay fresh while everyone else beats each other up and pins each other for the whole time, and he gets really smug... which transforms into panic with about three minutes left as he realizes he may very well not get chance to get back in. Actually that would work well in concert with the finish I described above. In my head... it's The Miz. I think there's also a finish where - again, only in an early edition of the match - the pins become so frantic with people being tired and the next guy in being so sudden that the ref loses their ability to control the wrestlers - I imagine a "you're next" situation every time the next wrestler comes in and ref indicates to the waiting wrestlers who's turn in next, but among the chaos someone runs in that isn't actually next in the "batting order" but the ref counts their pin anyway. You either have the wronged wrestler - whose turn it WAS - be a rightfully disgruntled hero who pursues the cheating-bastard winner in the weeks that follow, or if its a heel that got outsmarted, you laugh at them. Again, I keep seeing Miz in several of these scenarios. He's such a twat, in the best possible sense.

Yes, I know they're both really basic twists on 30-minute multi-man matches where "last pin" is what matters as opposed to "most pins" like an Iron Man match but I think there's just enough difference to tell different stories. Anyone else?

[Chris B]

Back in my e-fedding days (he says with impeccable cool), I came up with two I quite liked:

Total Tag Hell

An Ultimate X match, but in a cage. With ladders. The idea being that it's actually fairly easy to get to the X/Titles, but it's all about cutting people off and setting up stunts.

My World Match

I Quit/Last Man Standing blend - feud ender match, for the most part. To win, you have to either make your opponent say I Quit or knock them out.

And a simple one someone else came up with that I really liked - Odd Man Out match. Two start in the ring, one on the apron. The one on the apron can be tagged in at any point. 

[BomberPat]

It would probably be dreadful, but in the vein of old Southern rasslin' trying anything once, and nicking ideas from Wild West movies, I read somewhere about how Apache Dog Soldiers would pin a sacred arrow to the ground and tether themselves to it, essentially forcing them to stay in one place and fight 'til the death.

An "Apache Dog Soldier Match" felt like something that one of the Southern territories would have done, kind of an inverted Dog Collar/strap match - rather than being chained to each other, both wrestlers are tethered to opposite turnbuckles, with just enough slack to meet in the middle of the ring.

The other I'm sure has been done, but a while back I wanted to do a match - I think I called it Double Jeopardy at the time, though that name has been used for other gimmicks - where rather than two out of three falls, the winner has to get two consecutive falls, with the count reset if they dropped a fall to their opponent. I think someone else might have done it after I thought of it, and that's why I scrapped it. Though, again, was probably done before anyway. 

[air_raid]

38 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Odd Man Out match

That's cool in a chaotic way. I'd like it better as a tag match, I think WCW already did it as their take on a triple threat in the mid 90s, possibly Flair vs Sting vs Luger comes to mind. But as a team match where there's a wildcard on the apron? Gold. Reminds me of a night at football where only six lads turned up so we played 2 on 2 with one keeper and a spare "neutral" defender, so any two had to beat three at a time to get a shot on goal. We switched up the teams every three goals. I can tell you, being the neutral defender was fucking exhausting as you were perpetually trying to rob the ball from whoever had it. Then you'd hoof it as far as possible and watch the other four chase after it.

29 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

"Apache Dog Soldier Match"

Fond (I guess) memories of something I created which was trying to do something a bit more chaotic/battlefield like. I called it "Stab In The Dark" - pretty sure I'd been to Laser Quest that day - two teams where the teams' total guys (10? 12?) started out in different parts of the building and had to spread out to start finding each other and beating each other up... it was falls anywhere and you could win by pinfall, submission or "capturing the other team's flag"... ugh.

I just remembered "Captain's Fall" eliminators are fun. There's a fun dynamic... yay, we're up six men to three..... FUCK, protect the captain, he just ate a Rainmaker, we might be fucked.

Edited September 15, 2023 by air_raid

[Keith Houchen]

@Loki I don’t suppose you still have the transcript of Exiled Championship Wrestlings “Paedogeddon Chamber” at all?

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Roman Colesium match

 

There are various 'pits' around the stadium and it's covered in soft sand. Each pit contains various weapons and/or objects to use. In a similar vein to the old stadium/Colesium matches, before someone hits their finisher they have to get the thumbs up from the crowd (or the 'yes' chant) and if they don't, they need to give out more punishment until its deemed 'its time to finish it'. Minimum match time must be 10mins. Around the arena area there are cages with other wrestlers in who can come out if a wrestlers cheats or they do a finisher without the crowds approval. 

[Loki]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

The other I'm sure has been done, but a while back I wanted to do a match - I think I called it Double Jeopardy at the time, though that name has been used for other gimmicks - where rather than two out of three falls, the winner has to get two consecutive falls, with the count reset if they dropped a fall to their opponent. I think someone else might have done it after I thought of it, and that's why I scrapped it. Though, again, was probably done before anyway. 

This reminds me of those reports of boxing matches from the nineteenth century where they'd do 60 rounds bare-knuckle.  Crowds used to have the patience for hours-long fights, now I reckon you'd struggle anything past an hour.  I like the idea though!

 

6 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

@Loki I don’t suppose you still have the transcript of Exiled Championship Wrestlings “Paedogeddon Chamber” at all?

I have a few of the old matches on an old laptop but not that one   As I recall it involved releasing a celebrity nonce into the chamber every 5 minutes?
 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Loki

[Keith Houchen]

5 minutes ago, Loki said:

have a few of the old matches on an old laptop but not that one   As I recall it involved releasing a celebrity nonce into the chamber every 5 minutes?

That’s the fella, it was a one on one match for the title, but in each chamber was a nonce who would disrupt the action. “Michael Jackson emitted a huge girly scream as the DOB scraped his face along the walls of the chamber, his paper thin skin tearing with each Hee Hee” was a highlight. 
 

You could probably do the match for real in AEW, thinking about it. 

[air_raid]

Memories of Bound For Gory, yet again.

16 minutes ago, Big'Olympic_Hero'Pete said:

Around the arena area there are cages with other wrestlers in who can come out if a wrestlers cheats or they do a finisher without the crowds approval. 

Random other wrestlers introduced as an element of chaos without prejudice, I like. Back in the day Luger would have been good for that because you simply couldn't be sure who he'd betray.

17 minutes ago, Loki said:

This reminds me of those reports of boxing matches from the nineteenth century where they'd do 60 rounds bare-knuckle.  Crowds used to have the patience for hours-long fights, now I reckon you'd struggle anything past an hour.

Hogwash! Why, I once watched Gentleman Jim Corbett fight an Eskimo fellow, bare-knuckled for 113 rounds! Back then, of course, if a fight lasted less than 50 rounds, we demanded our nickel back.

[CleetusVanDamme]

This isn't original at all and I'm pretty much just doing WarGames: Russo's Revenge and swapping out a title for a briefcase, but I want the MITB triple cage. Ladder matches have long gotten stale, the amazing looking triple cage has long needed a return, why not kill two birds with one stone? The winner is the person who gets the briefcase out through the bottom door. As well as spectacle spots, you have great scope for story telling with the daredevils risking it all to go up the cages, while some cowards/giants confidently stay at the bottom. Plus, you still need a ladder to get up to the second cage anyway, have one at the top needed to get the briefcase too, it's perfect. It's still MITB, just better. Book it

[air_raid]

Just now, CleetusVanDamme said:

This isn't original at all and I'm pretty much just doing WarGames: Russo's Revenge and swapping out a title for a briefcase, but I want the MITB triple cage.

Two of my least original ideas ever were Survivor Series in a cage, or the natural evolution of War Games taken up to 11 - War In A Cell. Except it would still be submission only, as it was back in the day, not pinfalls like in WWE.

[Mr.Showtime]

Ooh, how about an Iron Man match, but every 20 minutes there's a new stipulation? So mashing it up with a Three Stages of Hell match, kinda. Also, the ring is floating on an exploding swimming pool.

[SuperBacon]

Dolph Ziggler Death Match Rumble. 

29 other wrestlers get to kill Dolph live on PPV. I'd pay for it.

[air_raid]

57 minutes ago, Mr.Showtime said:

Ooh, how about an Iron Man match, but every 20 minutes there's a new stipulation?

Like it. Or every fall?

And you can randomise it. Like Po Na Na used to spin the wheel to see what drink was 70p for the next ten minutes. AEW would call it Dealers Choice, I reckon.

57 minutes ago, Mr.Showtime said:

Also, the ring is floating on an exploding swimming pool.

Onita did that, I think.

Edited September 15, 2023 by air_raid

[Just Some Guy]

If its not too far off topic can I suggest a gimmick championship?

A tag team championship where only the pinned man loses the belt to the wrestler scoring the pin.