10 Most Ridiculous Variations Of WWE Matches

Innovation is essential to progress. Especially in professional wrestling.

Without innovation, we would still be stuck with four hour-long grapple-fests that, while resembling actual Greco-Roman wrestling, would bore the audience to tears (if there even was an audience anymore). It was because of innovation that the Hardyz and Edge & Christian moved from just tag team matches to tag team ladder matches to triangle ladder matches (now with the Dudley Boyz) to the iconic TLC matches, which, to this day, have yet to be matched in quality.

Furthermore, it was because of innovation that those three-team ladder matches moved on from being focused on midcard teams and midcard belts to drastically altering the main event scene, with Money in the Bank becoming an annual staple.

However, some innovations are just misguided. A few add a rule to a match that renders said match illogical. Sometimes, the rules themselves are outright confusing. And others, the match is altered in a way where you’re embarrassed as a fan to be watching it.

Frankly, there's a whole slew of match types which should have never left the creative meetings.

Much has been written about December to Dismember 2006, not least of which its debacle of a main event, the "Extreme" Elimination Chamber. What was so "extreme" about it?

Two men (Rob Van Dam and Hardcore Holly) would start off one-on-one like a standard Chamber match, and also like a standard Chamber, a new wrestler would come out of their pod every five minutes. However, in every pod, each wrestler had a weapon they could use upon entering the match. CM Punk had a steel chair, Test had a crowbar, Bobby Lashley had a table, and Big Show had a barbed wire baseball bat.

Obviously, the question is: Why do you need weapons to make an Elimination Chamber seem extreme?

By 2006, the Elimination Chamber was still fairly new, and hadn’t been run into the ground. Matches such as the inaugural contest from Survivor Series 2002 showed how brutal and chaotic things could get just from having six men inside the steel structure. Adding gimmicky weapons is redundant at best, and at worst, reeks of desperately trying to make the match feel like it was ECW. Ironically, it was arguably the most tepid Elimination Chamber at that point. Lashley, the winner and Vince’s obsession at the time, emerged from the match completely unscathed, despite going one-on-one with the Big Show, who had a barbed wire baseball bat!

Nothing says ECW Champion quite like a ripped adonis protected by management.