10 Wrestling Moments That Changed Everything
4. The Terri Invitational Tournament Finals
By now, you might have spotted that entries on this list are in chronological order. That seemed like the best way to do it, because it avoids diminishing one moment's impact over another. They're all vital, evolutionary changes that raised the stakes, after all.
Perhaps it's the only reason why the finals of a gimmick tournament called "TIT" made it to number four.
At No Mercy 1999, The Hardy Boyz met Edge and Christian in a first-ever Tag-Team Ladder Match. The winners would get $100,000 and Terri Runnels as their manager. That, as anyone who's seen the thing knows, wasn't the real story. Together, this quarter of hungry young tag-teamers set the stage for later TLC bump-fests with The Dudley Boyz by putting on a classic.
Unlike earlier ladder-based matches, The Hardyz and E&C presented a stunt show string of viciously painful spots that focused on using the ladder as a weapon rather than for climbing. It was genius, albeit risky, and it expanded what kind of things fans expected to see when ladders were around.
No wonder they received a standing ovation the next night on Raw.