The Origins Of Wrestling’s 6 Favourite Foreign Objects

Invention:

While Lucien B. Smith is often credited as the inventor of barbed wire, it was Joseph Glidden who received the patent (in 1874) and perfected it to the modern-day product. It was hyped as "lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust", though Native American tribes dubbed it “the devil’s rope”. It is the latter description that is most applicable for barbed wire’s use in professional wrestling.

Innovation:

Though it could be argued that the use of Chicken Coop matches and chicken wire in American territories is a precursor to Barbed Wire matches and barbed wire, it is the creation of the Deathmatch that popularised the vandal deterrent in pro-wrestling. The brutal match was first booked in 1989 by Atsushi Onita in his Japanese hardcore promotion Frontier Martial-arts Wrestling.

Innovator:

Two men are bound together in barbed wire’s wrestling legacy – Terry Funk and Mick Foley. Funk was a prominent member of the FMW roster when the Deathmatch was in its infancy. Foley, however, has brought the barbaric weapon to the widest audience. He also deserves considerable credit for working with real barbed wire in WWE while his opponents often used gimmicked clipped wire.