10 Wrestlers Who Innovated New Stipulation Matches
1. Terry Funk - Empty Arena
It's very strange to consider that the empty arena match - this depressing monstrosity of form mandated by a generational crisis - was actually born out of choice.
It's not remotely strange to consider that the first match was pretty awesome and is remembered to this day because it was Terry Funk's idea and Terry Funk was in it.
"The empty arena was my idea," Funk told Sports Illustrated earlier this year. "Nobody told me what to say, nobody told me what to do. I was my own creator."
Lance Russell was also awesome. This "thing", as he called it - and he was right to, since it was unprecedented, and he was savvy enough to sell it as such - played out to the TV crew like a mystery. Russell wondered aloud whether it would look good enough to air, if it even happened. The groundbreaking match saw Funk attempt to claim a bounty put over Jerry Lawler's head with his own set of rules. There were to be none of the fans that roared Lawler out of agony so many times. No police. No referee.
It was just a fight.
And it was a captivating if not very good one; furious, flailing limbs barely landed, and when it more resembled a wrestling match, it never looked hokey; Funk made sure to blast Lawler with a piledriver on the concrete to maintain the tone of transgressive brutality.