8 Wrestlers Who Gear Up For Big Matches

Finn Bálor's 'Demon' persona returned last night at SummerSlam, which was awesome.

But WWE had been hyping up the return of the Demon so much, the hullabaloo went from enthusiastic to ridiculous in record time. All sense of subtlety was abandoned gleefully as they beat it into our heads on Raw that 'The Demon' would appear once more.

That being said, it was awesome to see Finn in warpaint once again. It lends these "contests" a big-match feel that is so often missing from actual big matches in WWE these days.

With the exception of Finn, gearing up for a major encounter in some special way is something of a lost art in WWE. Sure, HHH will go hard on an elaborate entrance at WrestleMania every year until one of Bray Wyatt's goofy prophecies finally comes true and the world ends, but he's been doing so for so long that it borders on parody at this point.

Those moments where an individual wrestler brings something new to the table, gear-wise, when big matches arrive are fewer and farther between than ever.

But when they happen, it's absolute magic, granting electricity and gravitas to a match in marvelously visual fashion.

Check out these masters of pomp and circumstance to see how it's done.

Vampiro has never been a stranger to fireballs and other theatrics. In WCW, his battles with Sting and The Kiss Demon often involved all sorts of over-the-top trappings.

But it wasn't until his return to the ring in Lucha Underground that he truly took his wrestling attire to another level. Challenged to a Cero Miedo match by the 'Breaker of Bones', Pentagon Jr., Vampiro decked himself out like a satanic pope, complete with mitre, chasuble, and a thurible on a chain. Not since Friar Ferguson had the squared circle seen such dread-inducing priestly garments. (Though for different reasons, of course.)

All this finery was stripped from him as he went to war with Pentagon, bloodying himself in the process (and later, revealing himself as Pentagon's mysterious master), but there's no denying that gearing up in this manner made the match feel far more epic than it might have otherwise.