WWE: 7 Innovations Jim Cornette Did That Changed Wrestling

4. He May Have Created The Triple Threat Match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTsKJHyGQos (Go to 25:00 in the video above.) When Cornette was booking his Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion in the early 1990s, he wasn't afraid to try new things. At that time in wrestling, there weren't as many match concepts in the business. There were singles matches, there were tag matches with 2, 3 or more men on a team, WWE had introduced Survivor Series matches by that point and NWA/WCW had War Games. Triple threat matches? They didn't start until the 1990s. Cornette is credited with coming up with the triple threat match. The video above focused on a match from the spring of 1993 with the following match: Jimmy Golden, Robert Fuller and Dutch Mantell (now known as Zeb Colter) vs. Tom Pritchard, Stan Lane and Bobby Eaton vs. Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson and Arn Anderson. The match was a wild brawl with weapons used by everybody in the match and even a table w as propped up in the corner. The crowd went wild as Cornette was even thrown into the announce table even though he was just an announcer. Cornette's team of the Heavenly Bodies with Bobby Eaton won this bloodbath much to the dismay of the crowd. Much like everything in wrestling, the triple threat match changed. Over the years, the triple threat match has evolved to where it can be a three way elimination match or the way WWE usually does it (like at WrestleMania 30's main event) where the first fall wins the match. The triple threat isn't popular with everybody because the idea of somebody losing a match without getting pinned or submitted is uncommon, but it's important to have different match types or everything else would get stale. Cornette had the mind to create something new. Great job, Jimmy.