History Main / GimmickMatches

** Variant: Only one wrestler's blindfolded and at the complete mercy of the one who can still see. This is another one almost exclusively set up evil boss characters to punish faces, though on WWE Smackdown heel Jamie Noble had a blindfold to punish him for all the abuse he put Nidia through while she had been temporarily blinded by Wrestling/YoshiroTajiri.

** Variant: Only one wrestler's blindfolded and at the complete mercy of the one who can still see. This is another one usually exclusive to evil boss characters.

* ''Steel Cage Match'' -- The ring is surrounded by a chainlink fence cage; you must win by pinfall, submission, or escaping the cage (either by exiting through the door, or climbing over the top[[note]]Sometimes the door is padlocked after the wrestlers enter, so that climbing out is the ''only'' way to escape. Well, unless something ridiculous happens like a wrestler getting bodyslammed through the floor of the ring and escaping ''under'' the cage. Yes, the WWE has actually ended a cage match in that manner.[[/note]]; this stipulation was popularised by the WWF). In traditional Wrestling/{{WWE}} cage matches the ONLY win method is escape, but modern matches usually ignore this as the drama of someone slowly climbing up gets old after awhile. Tropes: Good or bad, nobody tries for the pin, submission, or outside the door victories until they get desperate; everybody tries to climb over the top first. A wrestler perched on the top will often give up his impending victory and instead jump back into the cage with a splash, elbow drop, or other move.

** ''RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 men[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011 but back to 30 in 2012[[/note]] with a twist: It starts with two wrestlers in the ring, and a new wrestler is added every 2 minutes, Although it has had 1, 1 1/2 and 2 minute intervals, the actual timing of the entrances varies on how "into" the match the crowd are. An entire pay-per-view event is built around it, and since 1993 the winner gets a shot at one of the two top titles at Wrestlemania, that is held approximately two months afterwards. Tropes: Expect one of the first two wrestlers to last to the final four. If there's anybody that the evil boss has spent the last month trying to keep out of the match, watch him; he'll be the one to win it all. At one point, there will regularly be a dominant heel who goes on an elimination spree but doesn't actually win the match. Also, the last wrestler to enter ''rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/TheUndertaker have done so, and it can be said Cena's win was more because of the element of surprise -- this was Cena's return from an injury.

*** WWF did a one-time variation of this where they rented an entire arena and then...didn't sell tickets (instead broadcasting the match to a ''filled'' arena elsewhere[[note]]This was "Halftime Heat", a WWF event that was going up against the SuperBowl so they had to play their best hand[[/note]]). This was called the ''Empty Arena'' match and was basically a Hardcore Match but without the audience, allowing [[DwayneJohnson The Rock]] and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] to brawl all through the audience area that would normally be filled with people. Mankind won the WWF Championship by pinning The Rock using a forklift and a pallet (hey, his shoulders were down) and this match was never used again (due to the prohibitive cost).

** In a 2011 "I Quit" match between JohnCena[[note]]Who has an impressive record in "I Quit" matches, which makes sense, considering [[{{Determinator}} his gimmick.]][[/note]] and TheMiz, a similar tactic was used by Miz in order to seemingly win the match, but on the account of the referee finding the cellphone that played the supposed recording of (an out-of-context) Cena saying "I quit!", Miz ended up losing the match to Cena.

** A variation is the version of the submission man where a wrestler's manager, valet, or friend has to ''throw in the towel'' to stop the match. If this variant is used, there is most likely a FaceHeelTurn in the Face's valet's future. However, the most famous of these types of matches, BretHart vs. Bob Backlund, actually had Hart's corner man (Davey Boy Smith) knocked out, leaving Bret's ''mother'' to throw in the towel in his stead, persuaded by his brother OwenHart (though she probably didn't need much persuading after seeing Bret in Backlund's crossface chickenwing for a full five minutes), who had already turned heel owing to massive sibling rivalry; in fact, he was ''Backlund's'' cornerman in the match. The whole thing was teased as a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment for Owen -- until Bret's mom threw in the towel and Owen immediately started celebrating.[[note]]Backlund's 90's heel run began when he snapped at his former manager Arnold Skaaland for throwing in the towel during his match versus the Iron Sheik, ending his nearly six-year run as WWF Champion.[[/note]]

* ''First Blood Match'' -- The loser is whoever bleeds first, or, more correctly, who the referee sees as bleeding first. There is no other way to win, or lose. Tropes: Count on the Heel to somehow hide that he's bleeding from the referee, use particularly brutal methods to cause the Face to bleed, or use some technique to make bleeding less likely. (Ironically, this type of match is actually less brutal than a normal match in which a wrestler happens to start bleeding and yet still must continue to fight.) Most notably used in a match between StoneColdSteveAustin and Kane. The latter was given a ridiculously extreme advantage, because at the time he was masked and covered head to toe in a black-and-red costume, making it rather difficult for the referee to see if he was bleeding.

* ''PillowFight'' - Two or more female wrestlers begin the match with a bed full of pillows in the ring, and typically come to the ring in a nightgown, lingerie, or pajamas. Matches end in pinfall or submission. Again, it is typically used for comedy and fanservice. Notably, Torrie Wilson once ''picked up the bed with Candice Michelle on it and threw it''.

** Wrestling/JohnCena [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments infamously]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments won]] one of these against Wrestling/{{Batista}} in 2010 by [[DuctTapeForEverything duct-taping Batista's ankles to the turnbuckle.]] [[AintNoRule Hey, no one ever said you couldn't!]]

*** [[Wrestling/RandySavage Randy "Macho Man" Savage]] won a variant at Wrestlemania X against Crush in a similar way. In this variant, falls counted anywhere, and after being pinned, the wrestler had 60 seconds to return to the ring or lose the match. Savage pinned Crush, then [[CombatPragmatist tied him upside-down on a forklift]] so he couldn't get back in time.

ProfessionalWrestling employs a number of GimmickMatches (that is, matches whose rules are different from the standard, one-fall-to-a-finish wrestling match). Often these special matches develop their own tropes.

*** It was used as the storyline reason for then-WWWF leaving NWA in 1963. NWA Champion Buddy Rogers lost a one-fall match against Wrestling/LouThesz, and WWWF refused to acknowledge the title switch since it wasn't done with two out of three falls. So they went on their own, naming Rogers as the first WWWF Champion.

*** Infamously, when Wrestling/TripleH had one of these matches, it was impossible for him to win, as Viscera was too large to fit in the casket. ('Taker had two such matches against large opponents, and had double-wide caskets made for such a purpose. He beat Kamala, but lost to Yokozuna.)

** In one such match between Wrestling/BrockLesnar and Wrestling/TheBigShow, Lesnar loaded Show, but the stretcher broke under his weight. Lesnar [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome picked Show and the stretcher up with a forklift and drove across the finish line]].

* ''Move Match'' - The first wrestler who uses a particular move on their opponent wins. Usually a bodyslam; if so, usually one competitor is much, much larger than the other. The best known of these was Yokozuna's Bodyslam challenge, which Lex Luger won.

** Another famous "Move Match" was the "$15,000 Body Slam Challenge" between Andre The Giant and Big John Studd at the first WrestleMania. If Andre slammed Studd, Andre would win $15,000, though if Andre was slammed, he would have to retire. Who won? Well, Andre's last WWF match was six years later.

** At ''Bound For Glory 2005'': AJStyles fought ChristopherDaniels for the entire match without a single point earned by either man, until Styles finally gained a pinfall with ''2 seconds left'' for victory.

** ''RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 men[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011 but back to 30 in 2012[[/note]] with a twist: It starts with two wrestlers in the ring, and a new wrestler is added every 2 minutes. An entire pay-per-view event is built around it, and in recent years the winner gets a shot at one of the two brands' top title at the Wrestlemania to be held approximately two months afterward. Tropes: Expect one of the first two wrestlers to last to the final four. If there's anybody that the evil boss has spent the last month trying to keep out of the match, watch him; he'll be the one to win it all. At one point, there will regularly be a dominant heel who goes on an elimination spree but doesn't actually win the match. Also, the last wrestler to enter ''rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/TheUndertaker have done so, and it can be said Cena's win was more because of the element of surprise -- this was Cena's return from an injury.
** Although the Royal Rumble has had 1, 1 1/2 and 2 minute intervals, the actual timing of the entrances varies on how "into" the match the crowd are.

*** One female variation had the match "loser" be forced to perform a striptease or be fired. This would be better than it sounds, until the person being forced to do so was Daffney, a goth character.

** There was also a Hell in a Cell derivative between Al Snow and the Big Bossman at Unforgiven 1999, which was [[EpicFail infamous for all the wrong reasons]]. The "Kennel from Hell" consisted of a regular steel cage inside the Hell in a Cell cage, with "vicious attack dogs" in the cell portion. Thus, the wrestlers supposedly couldn't leave the ring cage without getting mauled by the dogs. But the "vicious" dogs did nothing but wag their tails and poop around the ring, making the match an even bigger joke than the stupid premise would have suggested.

*** WWF did a one-time variation of this where they rented an entire arena and then...didn't sell tickets (instead broadcasting the match to a ''filled'' arena elsewhere[[hottip:*:This was "Halftime Heat", a WWF event that was going up against the SuperBowl so they had to play their best hand]]). This was called the ''Empty Arena'' match and was basically a Hardcore Match but without the audience, allowing [[DwayneJohnson The Rock]] and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] to brawl all through the audience area that would normally be filled with people. Mankind won the WWF Championship by pinning The Rock using a forklift and a pallet (hey, his shoulders were down) and this match was never used again (due to the prohibitive cost).

** In a 2011 "I Quit" match between JohnCena[[hottip:*:Who has an impressive record in "I Quit" matches, which makes sense, considering [[{{Determinator}} his gimmick.]] and TheMiz, a similar tactic was used by Miz in order to seemingly win the match, but on the account of the referee finding the cellphone that played the supposed recording of (an out-of-context) Cena saying "I quit!", Miz ended up losing the match to Cena.

*** It was used as the storyline reason for then-WWWF leaving NWA in 1963. NWA Champion Buddy Rogers lost a one-fall match against Lou Thesz, and WWWF refused to acknowledge the title switch since it wasn't done with two out of three falls. So they went on their own, naming Rogers as the first WWWF Champion.

** Variant: Only one wrestlers blind folded and at the complete mercy of the one who can still see. This is another one usually exclusive to evil boss characters.

** ''Casket Match'': Involves putting the opponent inside a casket to achieve victory.

** ''RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 men[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011[[/note]] with a twist: It starts with two wrestlers in the ring, and a new wrestler is added every 2 minutes. An entire pay-per-view event is built around it, and in recent years the winner gets a shot at one of the two brands' top title at the Wrestlemania to be held approximately two months afterward. Tropes: Expect one of the first two wrestlers to last to the final four. If there's anybody that the evil boss has spent the last month trying to keep out of the match, watch him; he'll be the one to win it all. At one point, there will regularly be a dominant heel who goes on an elimination spree but doesn't actually win the match. Also, the last wrestler to enter ''[[strike: never]] rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/TheUndertaker have done so, and it can be said Cena's win was more because of the element of surprise -- this was Cena's return from an injury.

** WWE has the ''Money in the Bank'' Match, now with its own PPV; anywhere from six to ten wrestlers compete at once, and the prize being hung above the ring is a briefcase, inside which is a contract which the winner can use to get a world championship match anytime he wants within one calendar year of winning it. So far, every time the contract has been cashed in, the one doing the cashing won the title, usually by doing so right after the current champion has taken a nasty beating from a previous challenger and is in little to no condition to fight back. There were only two exceptions to the battered champion strategy. The first was RobVanDam's cashing against then-WWE Champion JohnCena at ECW One Night Stand, which RVD announced weeks beforehand and simply gave him "homefield" advantage. The other was on the 1000th episode of Raw where Cena did the same to CM punk.

* ''Steel Cage Match'' -- The ring is surrounded by a chainlink fence cage; you must win by pinfall, submission, or escaping the cage (either by exiting through the door, or climbing over the top; this stipulation was popularised by the WWF). In traditional Wrestling/{{WWE}} cage matches the ONLY win method is escape, but modern matches usually ignore this as the drama of someone slowly climbing up gets old after awhile. Tropes: Good or bad, nobody tries for the pin, submission, or outside the door victories until they get desperate; everybody tries to climb over the top first. A wrestler perched on the top will often give up his impending victory and instead jump back into the cage with a splash, elbow drop, or other move.

** ''RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 men[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011[[/note]] with a twist: It starts with two wrestlers in the ring, and a new wrestler is added every 2 minutes. An entire pay-per-view event is built around it, and in recent years the winner gets a shot at one of the two brands' top title at the Wrestlemania to be held approximately two months afterward. Tropes: Expect one of the first two wrestlers to last to the final four. If there's anybody that the evil boss has spent the last month trying to keep out of the match, watch him; he'll be the one to win it all. At one point, there will regularly be a dominant heel who goes on an elimination spree but doesn't actually win the match. Also, the last wrestler to enter ''[[strike: never]] rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only JohnCena and TheUndertaker have done so, and it can be said Cena's win was more because of the element of surprise -- this was Cena's return from an injury.

** One [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome legendary]] Submission match actually ended without a submission, when a bleeding StoneColdSteveAustin refused to tap out to BretHart's Sharpshooter, despite having no way out of it. The match ended when Austin passed out from the pain instead of tapping out, eventually leading to a HeelFaceTurn out of a new respect fans had for his raw determination. At the same time, Bret made a FaceHeelTurn with his ruthlessness in the match, even going so far as to continue beating the unconscious Austin after the match had already been called in his favor.
* TheUndertaker has the following signature matches:

*** Infamously, when TripleH had one of these matches, it was impossible for him to win, as Viscera was too large to fit in the casket. ('Taker had two such matches against large opponents, and had double-wide caskets made for such a purpose. He beat Kamala, but lost to Yokozuna.)

** The original but often forgotten precursor to these was the ''Body Bag Match'' which he mostly fought against The Ultimate Warrior in 91.

* ''Scaffold Match'' - Two wrestlers or tag teams are on a narrow metal scaffold above the ring. Victory is either by throwing the opponent off the scaffold or some sort of capture the flag situation. Very old fashioned and all-but-obsolete gimmick that has some historical value. Scaffold matches have a reputation of being the worst out of all of wrestling's classic gimmick matches. The scaffold is very narrow and VERY high, making it difficult to have a good match up there. Sometimes wrestlers are so intimidated that they crawl around on it. There's also the risk of the match ending by accidental fall! The risk factor for this terrible match involves taking a fall off the scaffold that rivals MickFoley's Hell in the Cell dive for danger. JimCornette's knee injury from a botched scaffold fall almost crippled him. So, wrestling's worst gimmick match is also one of its most dangerous. The most recent serious scaffold match revival was undertaken by TNA. It wasn't any better or less dangerous than the scaffold matches from decades ago.
* ''Strap Match'' - Two wrestlers [[ChainedHeat tied to opposite ends of a belt, rope, steel chain, or anything similar]] in order to keep them in close proximity to each other. This can also be referred to as a "Dog Collar Match," when the competitors are shackled at the neck. When these matches don't have pinfall or submission stipulations, the winner is decided by who can touch all four corners of a ring first.

** In one such match between BrockLesnar and TheBigShow, Lesnar loaded Show, but the stretcher broke under his weight. Lesnar [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome picked Show and the stretcher up with a forklift and drove across the finish line]].

As a side note, it has been pointed out that for VinceRusso, the ultimate gimmick match would be a three round, one fall, submission, or knockout match, with nothing else going on. In other words, a regular wrestling match. [[AnAesop The lesson to be drawn here]] is that too much gimmickry reduces the value of any given gimmick.

** At King of the Ring 2000, Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco, two elderly male former wrestlers, had a match of this kind. Pure, refined NightmareFuel, even when [[ItMakesSenseInContext put in context]]; they were feuding with Crash Holly for the Hardcore Championship (which was then defended under a 24/7 rule, which meant the title could be on the line anytime, anywhere).

*** [[Wrestling/{{SMW}} Smoky Mountain Wrestling]] use a variant on this particular variant called a "coward waves the flag" match, where each team of two had a representative at ringside wielding a white surrender flag. The winners were the team who would make their opponent's representative wave the flag (in both instances where the match was used, the same finish was used where the losers rep was tricked into waving his flag by swining it at the other team's rep, which was seen by the referee as a "surrender")
** In a match billed as an I Quit between BethPhoenix and Melina, neither competitor was required to say the words "I Quit" into a microphone, but rather just tell the referee whether or not they gave up.

*** Smoky Mountain Wrestling use a variant on this particular variant called a "coward waves the flag" match, where each team of two had a representative at ringside wielding a white surrender flag. The winners were the team who would make their opponent's representative wave the flag (in both instances where the match was used, the same finish was used where the losers rep was tricked into waving his flag by swining it at the other team's rep, which was seen by the referee as a "surrender")