wrestling / Columns

The 8 Ball 07.10.13: Top 8 Gimmick Matches

July 10, 2013 | Posted by David McGregor

Welcome to the 8 Ball for the wrestling section for 411, I am David McGregor and apparently 90% of those who read last week aren’t coming back!

The only thing I want to say about last week is that having an opinion that is controversial does not mean the same as someone trolling you. I can have a vastly different opinion to someone, but that doesn’t mean they are trolling me or vice versa. But this is the internet and people love to be outraged.

This week is going to be a bit different, I am going to look at the 8 most popular gimmick matches and then give my opinion on the greatest match that has taken place under those rules. So there really isn’t any kind of order to this, it is just 8 gimmick matches and their greatest match of all time. I doing this so I actually have to think of a decent idea every week and don’t fall back on gimmick match lists.

Top 8 Gimmick Matches

8th Place – Tables Match – Dudley Boys v Hardy Boys Royal Rumble 2000

If memory serves me right this was the second match of the night, and both teams went out and caused absolute chaos in MSG. This is still one of my favourite matches, mostly because it pushes everything to the very limit and doesn’t stop for a single breath at any point throughout the match. It was as if you were a child just throwing your action figures around the house, and yet it was 4 guys just giving everything in the ring. The whole match led to Bubba Ray Dudley falling from the top of the entrance into the stadium onto a plethora of tables, it just completely blew my mind when I saw it back in 2000.

The match was only about 15 minutes long, but in that short amount of time they had done so much. They had introduced ladders into the mix, people falling from the entrance way and multiple table spots. In the space of time from No Mercy 1999 until Wrestlemania 2000 both of these teams and Edge and Christian would become legends just by having insane and fantastic matches, but there is a little more on that later.

It is a bit sad that the Tables Match became a mid card staple until Sheamus beat Cena in one of the flukiest matches of all time. The main issue with the match is that we have seen people go through tables constantly for the past 13 years! Therefore why should we care so much when someone is put in a tables match? I believe that is why we don’t see great table matches like the Dudley’s v Hardy’s, there has been an extreme oversaturation of the market and there has never been a real attempt to innovate.

7th – Wargames Match – WarGames – The Great American Bash 1987

For all the WWE were labelled the “flashy” brand of sports entertainment in the 80’s, Jim Crockett could definitely put on a show with an epic and flashy feel. For instance Flair and Dusty would come down to the ring in $15,000 robes and they would have huge pyro displays. But nothing was flashier and more epic than WarGames. There were 10 men, 2 wrestling rings and a mammoth steel cage contraption. 10 men would enter at intervals until one team was victorious. Even now 26 years later the match is still remembered as one of the most entertaining parts of Jim Crockett Promotions.

I have watched every WarGames match there has been, but for me the original match back in 1987 will always be my favourite. The star power in the match, as well as the story that lead up to it was second to none. You had the Road Warriors and Nikita Koloff, Dusty Rhodes and Paul Ellering v The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, JJ Dillon and Tully Blanchard) in one of the hottest matches the crowd had ever seen. You have a who’s who of legends stepping into a huge structure to finally give the Horsemen their comeuppance. It was a great match, and as it has been rightfully said the first match is the most important match any stipulation can have. Therefore who’s better than the Horsemen and The Road Warriors to kick off an institution?

WarGames has gone the way of the Dodo since the doors of WCW shut for good. In fact there hasn’t been a normal WarGames match since 1997 when the NWO faced the Four Horsemen. Yet the match is one of the most demanded each and every year, which is interesting when we get gimmick matches thrown at us constantly yet one we truly want is refused. And they say Vince McMahon is a good businessman…

6th – Iron Man Match – The Rock v Triple H Judgement Day 2000

I believe that Iron Man Matches need to be constantly focusing on audience enjoyment; actually every match should take that approach. If the audience aren’t enjoying it then serious changes should be made. I wont go as far as to say that the audience didn’t like Michaels v Hart at Wrestlemania 12, but their interest was waning at various points of the match. But when you compare that to The Rock v Triple H in 2000, you realise that the audience doesn’t need a 60 minute mat classic to be captivated and in fact having that full hour gives you the opportunity to alter the style of the match constantly.

Rock and Triple H went from straight up wrestling match to Hardcore Match to all out brawl, and it made for one of the most interesting 60-minute matches anybody had ever seen. There was the usual rest periods, but it was masked in a way that was much more entertaining. I’m not saying that this is the greatest Iron Man Match ever, but it is the one I enjoyed the most. With a full 60 minutes you have a lot you can do, and a clusterfuck during any other match could be easily fitted into an Iron Man Match. That’s exactly what Rock and Triple H did, they had Undertaker returning, the McMahon’s going insane outside, DX getting involved and Shawn Michaels referring the match. This meant that there was something happening every moment, which is what a match of this length needs.

I really like the idea of the Iron Man Match, but I think that 60 minutes is just too long for the audience to stay involved with the match without gimmicks needing to be put in place. However a 30-minute Iron Man Match is much more streamlined and a lot easier to keep connected with. Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle had one of the best 30 Minute Iron Man Matches at the WWE Homecoming Raw. That was a much better match than any of the previous 60-minute incarnations were, and it shows that the premise of the gimmick is a good one but the time limit spoils the whole match.

5th – TLC Match – Edge and Christian v Dudleys v Hardys – Summerslam 2000

I don’t think I have watched the same guys have a match as many times and be completely enthralled each and every time. For about 2 years these 6 guys were facing each other every month in some form or fashion and not one of us got bored as they innovated with ease each time. For me their very best match was TLC 1 at Summerslam 2000, they took everything that they had learned for the past year and went completely all out in created a chaotic masterpiece. Some feel that they went further in TLC 2, but for me Summerslam 2000 was like a perfect crescendo leading to the match. It wasn’t as if I was bored of their antics after 2000, but their definite best days were during that year.

4 out of the 6 members of this group went on to become legitimate world champions, and then there is Matt Hardy who went on to be ECW champion. And for a good while the match they laid the foundations for was still one of the most exciting matches we had seen for some time, but then they made a PPV out of the match and that went screeching downhill. I think the biggest mistake the WWE ever made was having the TLC match be downgraded to two man match. It was never going to be as exciting with just two men yet the WWE insisted it would work. That kind of thing may work in WWE 13, but in the real world certain matches are created from certain dynamics. This is the reason the 3 teams of 3 didn’t work out very well for WarGames, same can be said for TLC.

4th – Hell in a Cell Match – Shawn Michaels v The Undertaker – Badd Blood 1997

It’s quite crazy that after 16 years they still have yet to top the very first Hell in a Cell. Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker didn’t just lay the foundations of the match they set the bar so high that no one has ever been able to reach it. There have been a few great Hell in a Cell matches, but there is so many memorable moments from that first match that it just can’t be topped. And more importantly it was a really good match, and no other match has been able to get that mix of great moment and great match right.

The sad thing about the Hell in a Cell match nowadays is that its nothing compared to what it used to be. Even though I felt that Mankind v The Undertaker was overrated they still went out and creating an era defining moment, and then went 15 minutes longer than they ever needed to. But now the roster is fine with having a semi decent match in the ring, and not even trying to involve any of the chaos we witnessed in the early days of the match. The Hell in a Cell match is pretty much just a boring Cage Match these days, and is barely floating by on its legend that Undertaker, Mankind and Shawn Michaels created.

Someone doesn’t need to get thrown off the Cell anytime soon, but they need to do something soon or else that match is going to no value to the audience in 5 or 10 years. The only reason gimmick matches work is that there are moments that can only happen in those matches, such as someone being set on fire in an Inferno Match or someone being buried alive in a Buried Alive Match. For a lot of people that moment for the Cell is someone being thrown off the top of the cage, and yet that hasn’t happened in 13 years. The audience will get bored eventually and the WWE will have completely destroyed one of its most lucrative matches of all time.

3rd – Cage Match – Ric Flair v Harley Race – Starrcade 1983

The Steel Cage Match has been one of the oldest gimmick matches in all of professional wrestling, and yet it is still going strong in 2013. Sure the match has been downgraded a hell of a lot from its days as the go to feud ender for the NWA. But nowadays it is more of a main event of Raw match as opposed to something of meaning, but the innovations that have stemmed from the humble cage match is where the true legacy will lie for the cage.

Of course that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been some fantastic cage matches, and indeed there still will be in the future, but there has been so many innovations from the simple cage match that more people will likely remember the WarGames and Hell in a Cell Matches to the Cage Matches just because they are more grandiose and larger than life. But for me there is no better Steel Cage Match than Flair v Harley Race at the inaugural Starrcade in 1983. It had everything that a steel cage was supposed to have over the years; it had blood, hatred and a damn good match attached to it. Sure it might be easy to have a great match when you have the talent of Flair and Race in the ring, but that intense storyline had to be there in the lead up for this to be a huge as it proved to be. They basically built the Starrcade house on that match, and if Wrestlemania had failed that would have been the closest thing to a Wrestelmania the professional wrestling world would have!

The state of the Steel Cage Match is pretty murky at the moment, it is in a very useful place but no one will ever take it as legitimately as it was discussed 20 years ago. When a match can pop up on any given Raw episode then you know that match isn’t highly thought of as one of the premier gimmick matches of your company. But the match has never died out, and that’s with 20 years of people innovating and coming up with new and vibrant ideas. I think the Steel Cage Match is here to stay, but just not in the premium spot that it used to be. Although it did just end the Lesnar and Triple H feud so maybe Vince is trying to reclaim that prestige?

2nd – Last Man Standing Match – Chris Jericho v Triple H – Fully Loaded 2000

The Last Man Standing Match is actually one of my favourite gimmick matches; there was a long spell in which the WWE had great match after great match under this stipulation. My personal favourite is actually Batista v Undertaker from Backlash 2007, but even I can realise when a match is topped in each and every way. And Jericho and Triple H put on an amazing show in 2000 when they went nearly 30 minutes in a bloody and brutal Last Man Standing Match.

I think this was Jericho’s first truly great match in the WWE. He had had some good matches and some great moments, but he was yet to have that epic one on one match with a true main event level player. This was his chance and he ran with it, and regardless of the failure to push him after it, in that 30 minutes he was a star and proved undoubtedly why he should be in the main event scene of the WWE. It is just a shame it took about 8 years before he was an actual permanent fixture of the main event scene of the WWE. Although that is still pretty debateable even today. But regardless of whether or not Vince realises, Jericho is a one of a kind talent and Fully Loaded 2000 was the first time the WWE audience were able to see it in all its glory.

As I previously mentioned I love Last Man Standing Matches, I think they are one of the very few matches that WWE just completely understands how to get right. Some of the time they will end of a tacky note, but they usually have a fantastic timing and a great drama being built throughout the match. Also the end of the match almost always ends with a big campy effect, such as Cena flying through a stage light or part of the staging going flying. Those kinds of moments I have always found really entertaining, I understand that it is tacky and camp but it is fun and without that wrestling is just extremely homeotic. I have no problem with that but that’s not what I turn on the WWE for, there are others that do that much better.

1st – Ladder Match – Chris Benoit v Chris Jericho – Royal Rumble 2001

I never really wanted to bring Benoit into my articles, mainly because the guy is a dirty lowlife and no matter how good he was in the ring it doesn’t excuse his actions out of it. But in cases like this where a match is clearly great I am not just going to pick another match just to avoid the controversy of Benoit. It may not happen often but once in a blue moon the bastard will get some credit for the stuff he did when he was alive.

That brings me onto the ladder match from the 2001 Royal Rumble. This is my favourite ladder match of all time, it has enough psychology in there that it isn’t a huge spotfest and it has enough dramatic moments for it not to be a boring psychological battle. As much as wrestling is all about the psychological aspect of entertainment, in a match like this there has to be a certain amount of theatrics to keep the crowd captivated. This was the perfect mixture, you had both of these guys trying to outdo each other and then you have the horrific spots that I will remember for a long time! It’s awkward to watch now, in hindsight, but that chair shot to Benoit was one of the sickest things I have ever saw. These guys took the ladder match and did something completely different with it, they trimmed the guys off of the TLC and kept in the chaos and it made for the best ladder match I have ever seen.

The ladder match has been played out over the years, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t still be one of the most entertaining matches. The WWE still treat the Ladder Match as a slightly special occurrence and that helps a lot. But what has kept the Ladder Match going is that the wrestlers have been able to innovate and create some of the most spectacular matches anyone has ever seen through this stipulation. Even with countless ladder matches having taken place, I know that come Sunday the Money in the Bank Ladder Match is still going to be the best match of the card.

Choose Next Week’s Topic

Worst WWE Title Matches
People Who Should Have Been World Champion
Best Pyro

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David McGregor

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