10 Times WWE Gambled On A New Gimmick Match
Tables, ladders, and...sh*t?!
WWE gambled on several new gimmick matches throughout what hopefully was - cross everything and hope not to die through the negligence of your fellow man! - the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Frankly, some of the matches were to bleak to recount here or 200 or so words. Remember whatever the f*ck happened with the Viking Raiders and the Street Profits at Backlash 2020?
They worked a cinematic brawl segment around the Performance Center before being confronted by a group of ninjas led by Akira Tozawa. The fight sprawled to a dumpster, in which they were attacked by a tentacled monster. Given the rancid secret history of that particular institution, it's a wonder they weren't awarded a pat on the butt for a nice squat by whatever was in there.
In another bid to do something that wasn't soul-crushingly bleak empty arena wrestling, WWE also gambled on tweaking the Money In The Bank Ladder match. You know, to allow the audience to escape the horrors of the pandemic. WWE attempted to accomplish this, during a time in which the very concept of work or returning to it was precarious for many, by casting Vince and Stephanie McMahon as corporate overlords threatening the job security of independent contractors!
WWE felt the need to do something, anything, during the pandemic.
So what explains the friggin' Kennel From Hell...?!
10. Buried Alive
The WWF of the New Generation was an endlessly inventive beast that didn't know how best to siphon its creativity.
Devising a new occupational gimmick was easy (they just thought of a load of jobs and had any auld f*cker play them) but a new gimmick match less so - and yet, they managed it to varying success on a near bi-monthly basis in 1996. The Buried Alive match, dreamed up to prolong the epic Undertaker Vs. Mankind saga with a new tone of horror, endured for a long time.
Why?
You'd have to sample the pay-per-view audience. The matches almost invariably reeked, as most matches without a pinfall element do. Sans the sudden drama of a flash pin, the matches were bereft of heat, as fans waited for the combatants (the Undertaker Vs. not DDP, incredibly) to orbit the burial plot. The wrestlers themselves got there via plodding, fairly contrived brawling, one undermined by its glaring lack of chaos. It couldn't spill out anywhere, casting an illusion of red-mist hatred; it arrived, obviously, at its destination.
The struggle element just felt daft; they weren't avoiding the sting of losing to a heated rival but death itself.
Live, on pay-per-view!