History LoopholeAbuse / ProfessionalWrestling

** Since 2018 the women have their own Rumble, held the same night. It's unknown if this trope works both ways, as of 2023 no male wrestler has tried to enter the women's Rumble[[note]]Santino Marella was in the 2020 women's Rumble as "Santina" in an obvious comedy spot, as a callback to "her" winning a women's battle royal at ''Wrestlemania XXV'', but no male has entered and actually played it straight (no pun intended)[[/note]].

** Older fans may remember Wrestling/HonkyTonkMan exploiting the champion's advantage to the point that he got a record 454 day run with the WWF Intercontinental Championship, a record that would stand until '''2023''' when [[Wrestling/{{Walter}} Gunther]] broke it[[note]]As of this writing he still holds the title[[/note]]. And after 454 days the match where he finally lost the belt [[SquashMatch lasted 31 seconds]].

* Classic ProfessionalWrestling trope. The most obvious is the loophole that a title (usually) can't change hands unless the victory is 'clean'; if a heel champ were to, say, disqualify himself by hitting an opponent (perhaps restrained by his allies) in the groin, or with a foreign object, or stay outside the ring over 10 seconds and get counted out, he'd retain it.[[note]]On occasion, this loophole is temporarily closed for champions particularly prone to exploiting it: the likes of Wrestling/{{Edge}} and Wrestling/RandyOrton have defended the WWE Championship in matches with a special stipulation dictating that they would lose the title if they were disqualified. Another instance saw Orton try to take the easy way out so blatantly that the match was restarted multiple times.[[/note]] Then there's the classic No Holds Barred/Street Fight/Hardcore match, where there Ain't No Rules. Aside from 'win via pinfall or submission'.

** A similar thing occured at King of the Ring 1999, where a stipulation had been made so that none of the Corporate Ministry could interfere with Vince and Shane McMahon vs Steve Austin. But there was nothing stopping the Corporate Ministry pretending to throw the Big Boss Man out of the organisation on the Go-Home Raw before the PPV, Boss Man going into the rafters and lifting the title belt away whenever it looked like Austin was going to get it, and then re-add Boss Man back into the Corporate Ministry the next night on RAW. (This was never stated outright, but hinted heavily given the heroes return Boss Man got from the rest of the ministry when he was re-admitted)

* Another oddity comes from the creation of the Outlaw Rule. What is the Outlaws Rule? You have to pin one of your opponents to win a tag match. Why is it called the Outlaw Rule? Because the New Age Outlaws once won a championship triple threat match by having Billy Gunn pin Road Dogg, despite ''being on the same team'' (The standardisation of the tag rules means that it wouldn't be possible anymore in a normal triple threat, but it's still on the books in case of it being a Tornado Tag match)

** Since 2018 the women have their own Rumble, held the same night. It's unknown if this trope works both ways, as of 2022 no male wrestler has tried to enter the women's Rumble[[note]]Santino Marella was in the 2020 women's Rumble as "Santina" in an obvious comedy spot, as a callback to "her" winning a women's battle royal at ''Wrestlemania XXV'', but no male has entered and actually played it straight (no pun intended)[[/note]].

* Classic ProfessionalWrestling trope. The most obvious is the loophole that a title (usually) can't change hands unless the victory is 'clean'; if a heel champ were to, say, disqualify himself by hitting an opponent (perhaps restrained by his allies) in the groin, or with a foreign object, or stay outside the ring over 10 seconds and get counted out, he'd retain it. Then there's the classic No Holds Barred/Street Fight/Hardcore match, where there Ain't No Rules. Aside from 'win via pinfall or submission'.

** Four: Elimination by going ''over the top rope'' only, between the ropes or under the bottom rope doesn't count[[note]]A prime example of WCW's laziness was removing this rule for the last of their ''World War 3'' shows because some people didn't want to bump over the top rope or look weak, [[Wrestling/HulkHogan brother]].[[/note]] Many wrestlers had this happen and they were safe because of it.

* When it comes to an "open" championship match (which is "open" to anyone standing in the ring when the opening bell chimes), you can run across the ring upon the bell being ringed and stay underneath until the right moment; the match would still be valid. A [[Wrestling/{{Hornswoggle}} certain leprechaun]] was able to win the Cruiserweight Championship by doing just that at ''The Great American Bash'' in 2007!

** Subverted again in 2022 on Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} when Grayson Waller filed a restraining order against LA Knight, then later attempted to have him arrested after Knight had attacked him the previous week. Knight then showed footage of Waller hitting him with a jumping cutter the week prior to Knight's attack, and explained that the order works both ways, meaning Waller broke it first and invalidated it. Waller then tried to explain that in Australia restraining orders only go one way. [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown It didn't work, and the police officers left him alone in the ring with Knight.]]
* Another subversion of the "restraining order" angle occurred in 2001 as TheUndertaker started feuding with Wrestling/TripleH and demanded a match against him at Wrestling/WrestleMania. His wife Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon obtained a restraining order against Undertaker, meaning he couldn't come within 25 feet of her...but the order didn't say anything about Undertaker's brother {{Wrestling/Kane}}, who would go after Stephanie on Undertaker's orders. It only ended after Undertaker threatened to have Kane toss Stephanie off of a high platform backstage, when WWF Commissioner Wrestling/WilliamRegal relented and gave Undertaker his match.

* At ''[=WrestleMania=] 31'', Wrestling/SethRollins cashed in his briefcase on the champion, Wrestling/BrockLesnar. What's unusual about that? Lesnar was ''in the middle'' of a championship match with Wrestling/RomanReigns at the time. Apparently there wasn't any rule saying that he couldn't cash in ''during'' a championship match, thus making it into a triple threat, which he then proceeded to win.

** One: Have to been seen by the referee in order for an elimination to count. Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin took advantage of this at the 1997 Rumble while the referees had to deal with Wrestling/TerryFunk and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] when Wrestling/BretHart eliminated him, but Austin got back into the ring because of the distraction and the ring announcers didn't have a say, the referees did.

* This is the main reason why Wrestling/ReyMysterio was allowed to keep his mask in WWE in spite of having been unmasked in WCW. He was unmasked as Rey Misterio ''Jr.''[[note]]The "i" is the correct Spanish spelling; it was changed to be spelled with a "y" in WWE to make the connection to the English word mystery more apparent[[/note]], and by dropping the "Jr." In his ring name, he was representing his uncle's image on TV [[note]]His uncle, the original Rey Misterio, was unmasked in 1988 and had never re-masked. Enough time had passed, however, so he was allowed to re-mask if he ever so chose, which he did as part of the plan.[[/note]]. At least, that's the ''official'' ruling -- the real reason is because Wrestling/EricBischoff's handling of his unmasking was extremely disrespectful, especially when his reasoning for doing so was that masked wrestlers weren't "marketable" (which, as the thousands of Rey Mysterio masks amongst legions of WWE fans can tell you, is the ''farthest'' from the truth). This angered the commission enough to allow Rey to re-mask without any repercussions. (Even then- Mysterio would wrestle under the mask in the United States and in most countries, but wrestled unmasked in events in Mexico, either past WCW's closing or in WWE, until 2006, passing the time period given before a unmasked wrestler is allowed to re-mask.)

[[/folder]]

** Eleven: In the days (2007 and earlier) when a Superstar was officially entered in a match by the choosing of a slip of paper with a number on it from a backstage bingo tumbler, a non-entrant could technically steal an entrant's number or simply intimidate him into handing it over, as Wrestling/KurtAngle did to Nunzio in 2005. And because the paper didn't actually have anyone's name on it, it counted for everyone. The modern twist on this is simply beating the crap out of one of the people in the match and stealing their spot that way, as seen in 2019 with Nia Jax replacing R-Truth

*** One loophole that was considered, but never actually played, involved Zach Gowen, a one-legged wrestler--the script said he could not be eliminated because he doesn't ''have'' "both feet".
** Four: Elimination by going ''over the top rope'' only, between the ropes or under the bottom rope doesn't count. Many wrestlers had this happen and they were safe because of it.

** Eleven: In the days (2007 and earlier) when a Superstar was officially entered in a match by the choosing of a slip of paper with a number on it from a backstage bingo tumbler, a non-entrant could technically steal an entrant's number or simply intimidate him into handing it over, as Wrestling/KurtAngle did to Nunzio in 2005. And because the paper didn't actually have anyone's name on it, it counted for everyone.