10 Wrestling Firsts That Happened Earlier Than You Think
3. The First Ladder & Cage Matches
Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X hasn't aged well, with wrestling's evolution towards hyper-athleticism and high danger making it one of the WWE Network's most dated retrospective viewing experiences in 2018, but it's a stone cold classic that was completely unlike anything most of the audience had seen at the time.
In WWE canon, it's the first ladder match in company history. In reality, that nod goes to Michaels and Bret Hart, who utilised the stipulation on the Wrestling Challenge in 1992. What's most remarkable, however, is that some fans even mistake it for the first ladder bout ever, when the stipulation actually originated in Stampede Wrestling in 1972, with Dan Krofatt and Tor Kamata fighting in the original.
Then there's the steel cage, one of the most famous stipulations in wrestling, and a concept that has been pimped to death by countless promotions over the decades. It was born all the way back in 1937, when a ring was surrounded by chicken wire in order to keep the competitors in, and interfering parties out, though it doesn't usually work that way today.