Professional wrestling match types
It was a Fight Club inspired concept hosted and commentated by Shane McMahon in Raw's third hour and didn't take place in the main arena, but rather in the basement of the WWE Performance Center, with only wrestlers and dancers present.
and Big Swole at Baker's real-life dental office,[36] a match entitled "The Elite Deletion" at Full Gear 2020, featuring Matt Hardy against Sammy Guevara and similar to the other "Deletion" matches involving Hardy,[17] and a tag team street fight pitting Darby Allin and Sting against Team Taz (Brian Cage and Ricky Starks) at Revolution 2021, which was held at an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia.
Vince Russo came up with this match; it was perceived to be a disaster because neither wrestler could work properly due to the placement of the casket in the center of the ring, which limited and obstructed their workspace.
[48] They have evolved a great deal over time, changing from chicken wire[49] to steel bars to chain-link fencing (the latter is now the standard, due to it being cheaper to manufacture, lighter to transport, and more flexible and thus safer for the wrestlers).
The first type was a match created by Scott Steiner in WCW, held within a small chain link cage in the shape of a circle placed in the middle of the ring.
The way to win this match is to put the opponent in the chair and switch the lever on (which was attached to the outer cage and six feet off the ground), so as, in kayfabe, the person is electrocuted.
The first match of this type occurred during the Impact Wrestling: Final Resolution taping on December 3, 2013, as Magnus defeated Jeff Hardy to become TNA World Heavyweight Champion.
The most notable match of this type occurred at WCW's Uncensored event in 1996, when Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage fought Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, The Barbarian, Lex Luger, Kevin Sullivan, Z-Gangsta, and The Ultimate Solution.
[56] A modified version of the Pit with chain-linked fencing was used at the Extreme Rules premium live event where Matt Riddle and Seth Rollins continued their rivalry (with UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier as a guest referee).
[60] The first Inferno match took place in 1987 at the Juan Pachin Vicens coliseum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where the ropes were simply soaked with gasoline and lit on fire.
The match was a total disaster as wrestlers such as Sabu, his uncle The Original Sheik and Atsushi Onita, due to unbearably hot conditions, dashed out of the ring after just a minute.
[61] The first WWF Inferno Match was between Kane and The Undertaker at Unforgiven (1998) pay-per-view in Greensboro, North Carolina, and it was a safer and much more professional affair where special effects and pyrotechnics experts were brought in from Hollywood to set up and control the fire around the ring.
The competitors in this match were Jack Evans, Trent Acid, H. C. Loc, Tony Devito, Dan Maff, B. J. Whitmer, Oman Turtuga, Diablo Santiago, Fast Eddie, Altar Boy Luke, Kevin Dunn and Kirby Marcos.
Mexico's AAA promotion tweaked the concept with the Domo de la Muerte ("Dome of Death"), which uses a similar cage but only allows victory by escaping through a hole at the top center.
At Uncensored in 1996, a "Doomsday Cage Match" was held where Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage faced off against the Alliance to End Hulkamania, which consisted of Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, The Taskmaster, Meng, The Barbarian, The Ultimate Solution and Z-Gangsta.
ECW held its own version of WarGames known as an "Ultimate Jeopardy steel cage match" (typically as part of an eponymous event), with weapons available, pinfalls counting, and the losing team receiving a stipulation as a penalty.
In addition to the blunt weapons and thumbtacks familiar to hardcore matches, deathmatches often include more dangerous elements, such as bricks, nails, staple guns, explosives, barbed wire, light tubes, glass shards, gardening tools (from trowels to weed whackers), and even fire produced from lighter fluid or gasoline.
A variation of the rules states that once a pinfall takes place, the pinned wrestler loses the match if they are unable to return to the ring within a specific amount of time – usually a referee's count of 10 or 30.
This match was only done once, where CM Punk faced Chavo Guerrero during an ECW show in Corpus Christi, Texas (which is located right on the Gulf of Mexico, the body of water used) in February 2008.
This happened in 2023 by CyberFight's DDT Pro Wrestling promotion, where Sanshiro Takagi competed against Minoru Suzuki on the Shinkansen TGV from Tokyo to Nagoya, with speeds exceeding 170 MPH on the train.
Royal Sambo matches typically consist of 10-16 participants entering two at a time at 60 second intervals, with both wrestlers' entrance themes crossfading back and forth over the speakers.
is Insane Championship Wrestling's (ICW) very own hybrid of WWE's Royal Rumble and Money in the Bank matches, and named for the Glaswegian term for a street fight.
An example of this match was on the first night of 2021's NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver between Leon Ruff, Isaiah "Swerve" Scott, Bronson Reed, Dexter Lumis and L. A. Knight.
Col. Robert Parker had to wear a chicken suit on the January 29, 1994 episode of WCW Saturday Night following his loss to Flyin' Brian Pillman at Clash of the Champions XXVI.
The Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal concept was introduced in WCW at the 1992 Halloween Havoc to determine the stipulation for the match pitting Sting versus Jake Roberts.
This often violent and brutal match is contested under hardcore rules, and it starts in a ring in the middle of the stadium or arena and progresses through various environments, such as bars, cargo loading areas and offices.
The Crazy 8 match, used mostly in the defunct Pro Wrestling Unplugged promotion, involves placing a championship belt at the top of a scaffold with the first wrestler to retrieve it being declared the winner.
At Slammiversary (2022), the first-ever Queen of the Mountain match took place, with Jordynne Grace defeating champion Tasha Steelz, along with Chelsea Green, Deonna Purrazzo and Mia Yim to win the Impact Knockouts Championship.
[155] On WWF Raw in June 1999, Ken Shamrock, who was the only participant confined to the straitjacket, still won his match with Jeff Jarrett after forcing him to submit to a headscissors submission hold.
Common restraints include a belt, bullrope (length of rope with a cowbell the center), steel chains, one to two-foot "leash", or leather strap, where the wrestlers are tied together at one wrist.
