10 Worst TNA Gimmick Wrestling Matches
8. The Steel Asylum
How does it work?
Take your average steel cage match, turn the roof into a dome (a la WWE’s Elimination Chamber match), and force the competitors within to climb through a tiny hole in the top of it. Oh, and paint the entire thing a ghastly shade of bright red.
Why is it awful?
In another act of flagrant plagiarism, TNA stole the Steel Asylum match from Mexico’s AAA (who had in turn borrowed a similar idea from WCW), and co-opted it for their X Division. It was a neat idea, and actually led to some decent matches, but the thing tended to fall apart when it mattered most: the climax.
Unfortunately, while most wrestlers can hold their own when it comes to climbing a vertical cage wall, even TNA’s most nimble X Division stars struggle to hang upside down from the roof of a steel dome before hoisting themselves up through it. Add to this the fact that the chunky florescent structure hindered fans’ view of the competitors within it - and that the last Steel Asylum match ended in a DQ finish (Homicide levelled his opponents with a nightstick, before catastrophically failing to climb out of the cage) - and it’s no surprise that the Steel Asylum was locked away for good.