EVERY Wrestling Gimmick Match Ranked From Worst To Best
14. Falls Count Anywhere
Almost always an absolute riot of a time, because you'd have to be a dog sh*t wrestler to not get fans going crazy and star-struck when you're brawling directly in front of them. And, obviously, the fact that falls do in fact count anywhere widens the scope for creative backstage chaos and wild stunts. It's only possible to do a bad Falls Count Anywhere match, a haven of creativity, if you don't possess a creative bone in your body. A match that can be both hysterically funny with slapstick and ultra-violent with plunder, it can also hide the limitations of those involved. A recipe for guaranteed entertainment.
13. Luchas De Apuestas
In Mexico, the grand tradition of Mask Vs. Hair and the various derivatives is an eternally brilliant fusion of stakes, theatre, personal animosity and mystery. You're guaranteed to see something you've never seen before, and that something means absolutely everything to the competitors involved. The deepest source of personal pride is on the line. It is drama idealised - wrestling idealised, even. While it is unique to the culture of lucha libre, the US scene should attempt something that strikes such a vein of overwhelming emotion.
12. Elimination Chamber
A near-guarantee of compelling action, while it has never reached the same peaks, the Elimination Chamber has proved itself a more consistent attraction than Hell In A Cell. Now that the structure itself has undergone a redesign, you see none of the (understandably) awkward and tentative bumps to the steel grids that separate the ropes and the cage. That space allows for cool spots - the visual of a body getting smashed through a pod hasn't lost its potency, all these years later - and the multi-person match structure allows WWE to interweave various beats on the "Road" to WrestleMania. That layout is also useful in portraying a wrestler like a total killer (Goldberg, Shayna Baszler, Brock Lesnar) or crafting what probably remains the best match-within-a-match in WWE history (the impossibly dramatic Daniel Bryan Vs. Santino Marella sequence).
The match is showing its age - there's only so much you can do with it after more than two decades - but only once was it anything less than very good.
11. Dog Collar
The hit rate on the Dog Collar match is outrageous, and, distinct from something awful like the Chairs match, there being one primary weapon works in its favour. The weapon is heavy-duty, looks like it sucks to take, and the idea that the wrestlers are bound to one another lends the match a hateful intimacy: there's just one thing - to pummel his enemy senseless - that the wrestler is literally bound and determined to do. Unlimited creativity is not always a great thing, and the Dog Collar is like a great, rigid set of dramatic rules: it focuses the talent and forces them to extract more meaning from fewer ideas.
It's almost a perfect stip, but there's just one ultimately trivial problem: in the modern contests, awkward moments arise when the chain refuses to play along with the sort of ambitious spot Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine didn't touch in their gritty, minimalist classic. Think MJF frantically working out how to manoeuvre the chain from the inside of the ring to the apron, or Dax Harwood tying it around his head like a child struggling with spaghetti.
10. I Quit
Virtually every memorable match fought under the stip was incredible because the core premise is simply that alluring: in a world in which macho energy powers everything, the idea that a wrestler would quit and surrender out loud seems impossible. Ric Flair Vs. Terry Funk was immortal in this regard, and similarly, even though he was the heel who practically always loses, it seemed impossible, after promising victory to his mother, that Eddie Kingston would say those words at AEW Full Gear 2020. Unthinkable stakes fused with ultra-violence, the I Quit match is almost invariably a guarantee of brilliance.
9. Iron Man
Some wrestling fans are weirdly cynical about a proven critical hit with a staggering hit:miss ratio. The argument that the falls "don't count" until the finish is baffling. The match is the closest wrestling gets to points-based sport - there's nothing like your team getting an equaliser against the run of play. Even if the talents involved aren't as good as MJF and Bryan Danielson - who perfected the genre at AEW Revolution '23 by generating "Fight Forever!" chants purely by selling in the last 10 heart-stopping moments - WWE proved that the match can be successfully gimmicked within an inch of its life with plunder and or an extravagance of falls. At its best, the Iron Man is a masterclass and flex of pacing - and pacing is that which separates a very good match from a great one.
8. Cage of Death (ROH Vs. CZW Only)
ROH and CZW in collaboration, for a magical period in 2006, utterly embarrassed countless wrestling promotions on many different levels. The intricate, subplot-rich inter-promotional rivalry blew the WWECW Invasion out of the water like a breaching orca, and while it was nowhere near as influential nor lucrative, it was a far better beginning-to-end story than the WCW Vs. nWo feud and the NJPW Vs. UWF-i programme that inspired it. The premise - the snooty technical league fighting for territory against the boorish death match savages - was as believable as pro wrestling conflict gets. Moreover, in promoting the phenomenal Cage of Death blow-off, ROH and CZW rebooted the spirit of WarGames to far better artistic effect than AEW, NXT and the WWE main roster. Violent, dramatic, unpredictable, euphoric, that masterpiece grasped the core idea - vengeance - better than even the NWA during its pomp. Chris Hero entered an all-time f*ck around/find out performance by first lounging on the ropes, watching his evil masterplan unfold, before eating a fork to the face courtesy of vengeful cult hero Homicide. Utter perfection.
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