10 Wrestling Matches That Broke All The Rules

There are few rules left in pro wrestling.

They are held in such little regard that even the better companies, AEW and NJPW, quite cheekily pretend that they aren't enforced because a disqualification would rob the fans of a conclusion. "The referee showing some leniency here," is the "IT'S BOSS TIME!" of the competition, but there is, at least, an in-universe explanation for why, effectively, every match is a No Disqualification match. It credits the viewer with a modicum of intelligence, recognising that they are intelligent enough to ask the question without providing that sufficient an answer. Kishin Liger might actually stab and kill Minoru Suzuki at King Of Pro Wrestling, but think of the fans who wouldn't get to see his seeping brain matter!

Meanwhile, in WWE, the company never can decide whether a rope break means anything in a match in which there are literally no other rules. The commentary teams never have a clue, but then, they know better how to sell an obnoxious internal tiff than the actual angles, so that's the least of their issues.

The following matches didn't necessarily break those rules: they broke and in some case advanced the very form of pro wrestling by recognising that tradition is a limitation.

Or is it...?

The main event of WrestleMania VI was a sky-scraping monster with several tentacles.

It didn't merely pit the two biggest stars in the company against one another in a super-sized stadium: it pit the two biggest stars in the company against one another in an unprecedented context. Major babyfaces didn't wrestle major babyfaces in the WWF. To crown a new WWF Champion, invariably, a temporary heel champion allowed for a safer transition, in order to avoid diluting the reaction of the new top man - or worse, it becoming apparent that the new top man could not replace the old hero.

Therein lay the fascination: the WWF used this division to drive the drama, the atmosphere, and the importance of the occasion. Without peeling back the curtain of why such matches never happened, Vince McMahon did a tremendous job of selling it as a coded, never-before-seen spectacle. The match itself lived up to the hype: an over-delivery of subtle character work structured with a mirror-man template used in many of the matches it inspired, Warrior, bumper payday aside, probably wishes he had triumphed over a transitional champion. Hogan kicked out at 3.0001, scolded God for failing him, and played the magnanimous loser (hero) in the post-match.

It was "goodnight jabroni mark" on Warrior's run.