EVERY Wrestling Gimmick Match Ranked From Worst To Best
83. Reduced Clothing
This covers your Evening Gown and Bra & Panties matches and the like. Gross. If you insist on molesting yourself, do it to content made by 100% willing participants.
82. Substance
The 'Substance' match is ironically named on Wikipedia, since it is invariably a very shallow affair designed to build either to a slapstick spot or an ugly excuse for Jerry Lawler to rip it clean off. The former saw Hunter Hearst Helmsley get slopped in pig sh*t by Phineas Godwinn; the latter was presented regularly, in "mud" and "gravy" and the like, in a misogynistic exercise to titillate the lads. Every version of this match ever was awful.
81. Non-Wrestling
This entry covers your matches that involve wrestlers but are not in fact wrestling matches. No, this doesn't cover your average NXT match, but rather worked sumo matches, boxing matches, arm wrestling matches and the like. They are all, every last one of them, irredeemably sh*te: object-defeating exercises that present an exponentially worse version of a sport to a set of fans that aren't even interested in the good version of said sport.
80. Blindfold
A deep sea lobster could see through those things, the slapstick comedy is often as a brutal as a "missed" Shane McMahon punch, and while there's always the chance that the blindfolds might slip off, schadenfreude is the absolute most you can hope for in terms of entertainment value. Otherwise, it's very much in the genre of "you'd rather you family walked in on you watching depraved smut".
79. Object On A Pole
Beloved by Vince Russo, who booked one every other week, they were all abysmal. Unless there's an attendant risk of a spectacular bump from a ladder, nobody wants to watch a wrestler climb for an excruciating period of time - especially when they're retrieving something like a bottle of viagra or a bottle of champagne. Trivial, unexciting, a boring exercise in low-stakes anti-drama, that Russo was allowed to work for as long as he did is as profound a failing of humankind as the state of the ozone layer.
78. Trading Places
Promoted a few times by WWE in the 2000s, the Trading Places match saw each wrestler dress up as the other. A thinly-veiled excuse for the worst comedy you'll ever see, because Goldust was involved in one of them, it was also a thinly-veiled excuse for homophobia - the William Regal character was appalled at the idea of cosplaying as him. An alternate, clunky name for the stip is the 'This Sort Of Sh*te Ultimately Led To The Formation Of AEW' match.
77. Strange Bedfellows
What was once an excuse to do unique, frivolous matches on TV - this guy is teaming with their fiercest rival, whoa! - actually became one of WWE's key storyline drivers during far too many WrestleMania seasons. The whole Can They Co-Exist? b*llocks remains WWE's biggest insult to the intelligence. They think you are stupid. They really hate you. They wouldn't trust you to tie your shoelaces without Michael Cole screaming "This bunny ear should have a long tail!"
76. Move
A relic, thankfully, this entry covers the matches that can only be won by using a particular manoeuvre - the powerbomb, more often not. WCW promoted such a match between Sid and Kevin Nash, where WWE - who of course were better than those yokels who went out of business - booked equally dismal Last Ride matches between the Undertaker and JBL and the Undertaker Vs. Mr. Kennedy. The matches were never any good, and surely, the last thing you want to do is give JBL less to do in a wrestling ring. As broad and as boring as drama gets.
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