10 Wrestlers Who Innovated New Stipulation Matches
9. Dusty Rhodes - Bunkhouse Stampede
The Bunkhouse Stampede was a less-celebrated Dusty Rhodes creation, but one that is remembered affectionately enough in certain circles. People mourned the wilderness years of one Dusty creation, and it wasn't this, to put it that way.
But it was cool idea, and a damn popular one in certain areas, consistent with the blood and guts ethos of awesome, prime Jim Crockett Promotions. It was a slight - but very characterful - tweak on the Battle Royal that was aged very quickly by its successor counterpart up north.
Many of the combatants entered the ring in their street clothes, to get the match over as a scrap more real or more violent than the wrestling, and weapons were permitted. Of course, this being wrestling, signature weapons were used, quite charmingly, including the spikes worn by the Road Warriors. Powder flew across the ring, chains were scraped against faces, throats were strangled: it was a fun and violent match, but it wasn't unique enough to become truly iconic, nor did it present the very best of the promotion's style.
The Bunkhouse Stampede had a distinct and earthy southern flavour, hence why its aesthetic hasn't carried over - and the 1988 event was so horrendously organised and received that it developed a stigma so rotten that the quality of the earlier, wilder matches have been condemned by association.