How AEW Taught WWE A Lesson Last Night
No escape. No cowardice.
WWE has broken the premise of the Steel Cage match for years and years - ironically, by perfecting its tweak on it so immediately and immaculately that nothing could follow.
At SummerSlam 1994, the WWF, years away from adjusting its product with a blood and guts TV-14 edge, promoted their version of a Steel Cage match. Vince McMahon loathed the blade - to him, it was a lurid, sponsor-repelling echo of a territorial past he took glee in destroying - and so Bret Vs. Owen Hart took an enforced, different approach under PG guidelines. Removed entirely from the mesh bloodbaths of yore, Bret and Owen worked a match built on the theme of escapology stipulated by WWE's reimagined rules.
It was a superb, almost improbable triumph; Owen's frantic escapes depicted him as the slimy little sh*t in dire need of a kicking, whereas Bret worked his escape attempts with his trademark, ingenious sense of strategy. Where the old, traditional Cage match was premised on pure animosity - they were booked specifically to contain that animosity - this was built on sheer anxiety.
That thread wasn't entirely abandoned, in 1994, but the match, not unlike a straight singles bout, was settled by skill and athleticism. The Cage was once literally constructed to prohibit escape. It was a genuine drawing card for years because fans had been effectively conditioned to expect guaranteed, blood-stained babyface retribution. The WWF's rules were oxymoronic, but Bret and Owen, all-time masters of the craft, extracted a classic from what was considered by loyalists at the time a transgression.
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