10 Most Extreme Rules In WWE History

The blow-off match to a peculiar little midcard feud between the late Big Bossman and Al Snow in summer 1999, this gimmick was screwed up on so many levels that it’s still astonishing to this day that the WWF greenlit it in the first place.

I understand that the grudge was so personal - the Bossman had killed Al’s pet dog Pepper and somehow tricked him into eating it - that it needed a big moment to end it, but this was ridiculous.

Because a simple cage match just wouldn’t be enough (when is it ever enough these days?), the traditional blue-barred cage was surrounded with a larger cell - literally, the Hell In A Cell structure - and half-starved and crazed attack dogs would patrol the no-man’s land between the two structures.

The trouble was that the animals were docile, easily bored and far more likely to p*ss and sh*t around the ring and attempt to have sex with one another than snarl viciously for the cameras.

For the first ten minutes or so, the bitter enemies tried to avoid one another, clambering around the cages. As with the Punjabi Prison years later, the two cages made it nearly impossible for the audience and cameras outside to see what was going on inside.

Meanwhile, the awkward and inappropriate behaviour on the part of the dogs meant that the cameramen could rarely (if ever) get them in shot, so the WWF television producers couldn’t even get a cool visual out of them.

Finally, both men completely blew the finish, and the climax to this clusterf*ck led to Al Snow simply leaving the cage and slamming the door to win. Behind him, his arch-nemesis the Bossman had somehow made his way to the top of the Cell. To this day, whoever knows how it was supposed to end isn’t telling.