EVERY Wrestling Gimmick Match Ranked From Worst To Best
43. Fight Pit
A recent addition to the gimmick vernacular, the Fight Pit falls under "very good but flawed" - and, since all but one featured the disgraced Matt Riddle, it's not exactly fun to put over. The lack of ropes lends it a different dimension, best taken advantage of by wrestlers with the ability to credibly work in the shoot-style vein. Using the cage wall to do the Anthony Pettis kick is an additional bonus specific to the stip. The platform erected above detracts from the sought-after realism, though; it only exists as a contrivance from which to launch into a high spot.
The potential exists for WWE to persist with the match. Lola Vice could use it as her breakthrough moment.
42. Ambulance/Stretcher/Casket
The "walk and brawl towards a prop in which the loser is enclosed" match, to use a hardly snappy description, varies hugely. Virtually every WWE Casket match was bad, but Darby Allin's AEW Coffin match catalogue is studded with wild gems. He didn't even pioneer the idea of that genre being good - WWE has promoted some belting Ambulance and Stretcher matches - but he is the specialist of a genre that works best as a stunt festival, and not a tedious exercise in the grunting, histrionic struggle of closing a door with a limb stuck out.
41. Lion's Den
The Lion's Den was a rarely used structure back in the Attitude Era - a bespoke gimmick match with which to get Ken Shamrock over - and it was a lot of fun. For all intents and purposes an octagon, at SummerSlam 1998, Shamrock defeated Owen Hart in a lean, credible and unique match that, weirdly, WWE only revisited twice more. It was probably too much of a novelty to waste a big Brock Lesnar match on, but they could have given Daniel Bryan 10 minutes to do something interesting with it.
40. Pure Rules
The problem with the Pure Rules match is that, while the rules allow for a sense of tension and drama - wrestlers are allowed just three rope breaks, and two uses of closed fists result in disqualification - is, not to seem like a moron, that it's difficult to get swept up in the unadulterated drama of a contest when you need to think at the same time. The rules aren't especially complicated, and there's a unique quality to it, but it was abandoned in the first place because it was a bit pointless in a promotion in which strategic technical wrestling was already the norm.
39. Location-Based Hardcore
Sometimes daft but always interesting, it's just nice, what with there being no offseason and almost every wrestler alive doing long back-and-forths on TV every week, to watch a brawl unfold somewhere else. Undertaker and Mankind worked a fabulous Boiler Room Brawl at SummerSlam '96, the echoey surroundings in which put over the clanging pain of the plunder spots. Hell, Location-Based Hardcore is so easy that the WWF got something out of the Big Show in 1999 at Backlash.
The Gulf of Mexico match is never some amazing attraction, but is often a breeze to watch. The Attitude Era Dungeon match also worked well for its day, given that the unusual and unforgiving surfaces weren't meant to be bumped upon. A watchable distraction at its best, at its worst - the Ganryujima Island Death match - the location encourages tedious grappling for literally hours on end. If fans wanted a nice view, they'd simply make like Shinsuke Nakamura in WWE, and go on holiday.
38. Best Of Series
A rematch/TV time generator so easy to book it's a wonder you don't see the Best of Seven on US TV more often, it's a rare thing that never really lives up to its potential. It worked in an era when good wrestling for the sake of it was much more of a novelty, but was only recently dusted off during the Elite Vs. Death Triangle series. That peaked at spectacular, but, in an indictment of the idea, six of the most exciting and detail-oriented wrestlers alive ran out of ideas somewhat before they stipped-up the latter half of the programme. There's always the danger that the series peaks before the finish, with so much action to get through, and that was the case then, too: the sixth Falls Count Anywhere match was such twist-heavy excitement that Escalera de la Muerte wasn't quite as good.
37. Explosion Variations
Pictures of the exploding pool death match in FMW on September 25, 1994. pic.twitter.com/p3y8ihQhMK
— Bret (@BAHUFMW) July 1, 2021
The names, invariably, are considerably more badass than the actual matches. The Yokohama Amazon River Death Match. Swimming Pool Death Match. Anus Explosion Death Match. These names promise the most outrageous spectacles ever promoted in all of entertainment, but in reality, they were promoted when the Death Match boom was busting, just stacked gimmicks on top of gimmicks, and drifted further and further away from the gripping core premise of "move an inch and you'll explode". Really, these daft creations aren't too dissimilar to the Battle Royal and Rumble sub-genres: over-thought, better on paper, and nowhere near as good as the beautiful simplicity of the original.
36. Iron Survivor
It was thought for a long time that Money In The Bank was the last great WWE gimmick match - and while Iron Survivor is probably a bit too convoluted to one day carry a main roster PLE, it's also the best new WWE creation in years and years. A much better update on the Scramble, the idea is for each wrestler to strategically pick their spots: winning a fall earns a point, taking a fall incurs a 90-second trip to the penalty box. The back-and-forth excitement is constant, the time limit drama is hair-raising, and thus far, the stip has proven its worth in getting the opportunistic heel and never-say-die babyface over alike.
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