Very few individual matches change the course of wrestling history. Even fewer change the style of the whole sport. When WWE began to get back in the fight, so to speak, with WCW in the late 90s, it was due to the introduction of what the company termed "The Attitude Era" -- a more raunchy, violent product that some critics dismissed as being derivative of ECW's programming. Still WWE had the bigger viewership by far, so they were seen as the originators. When Mankind and The Undertaker clashed in a Hell in a Cell match at King of the Ring 1998, that extreme violence found its largest audience ever. The match started on top of the cage structure, and Undertaker immediately threw Mankind off the roof. The ECW alumnus crashed through a table, then climbed back up the cage. 'Taker chokeslammed Mankind on top of the cell, but the ceiling gave way and he crashed in the ring, where a steel chair hit him in the face. The above shot was captured shortly thereafter, as commentator Jim Ross erroneously reported that Mankind was smiling through his pain (in actuality, he was trying to stick his tongue through a hole that had been torn in his mouth). Not only were both men hurt in the match, but a legion of imitators found their careers shortened, as well. Violence became the order of the day, and many men who had watched this encounter as fans tried to emulate it without receiving the same sort of financial compensation. It would take a real-life tragedy years later to force WWE -- and by extension, the wrestling world -- to finally tone it down.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
