Every WWE Gimmick Match And The Wrestlers That Defined Them
5. Steel Cage Match - Bret Hart
WWE, arguably, has destroyed the old, brutal mystique of the Steel Cage match.
The old premise was as badass as wrestling got: two men enter, one man leaves. WWE has muddied this with the escape element, which necessitates boring climbing and the psychological plot hole that is a babyface escaping from harm, and not brutalising his heel rival.
Wrestling tends to evolve by orders of magnitude. Not so much with WWE's Steel Cage match, the quintessential version of which remains Bret and Owen Hart's masterclass of athleticism and anxiety at SummerSlam 1994. They worked an unworkable stipulation, perfecting the imperfect.
A fitting testament of Bret's timeless genius.