History Main / GimmickMatches

* ''{{ComicBook/Wonder Woman|2006}}'' volume three has Black Canary disguise Wonder Woman and herself as "The Orphan Sisters" tag team in order to save [[DistressedDude Sergeant Steel]] from [[GrandTheftMe Doctor Psycho]], the latter forcing the former to work in an illegal {{fight club|bing}} owned by Roulette. Their opponents refuse to tag in the first match, there's covert outside inteference and the climax features a handicap match that begins with the heroes having the numerical advantage but ends with assailants storming the cage against them.

* ''{{ComicBook/Wonder Woman|2006}}'' volume three has Black Canary disguise Wonder Woman and herself as "The Orphan Sisters" tag team in order to save [[DistressedDude Sergeant Steel]] from [[GrandTheftMe Doctor Psycho]], the latter forcing the former to work in an illegal {{fight club|bing}} owned by Roulette. Their opponents refuse to tag in the first match, there's two instances of outside inteference and the climax features a handicap match that begins with the heroes having the numerical advantage before numerous assailants storm the cage against them.

* One story in the 1960s ''Manga/{{Batman}}'' manga climaxes with Batman invading a wrestling show to challenge a heel wrestler who's been committing real crimes to a "loser unmasks" match.

** WWE has the ''Money in the Bank'' Match, originally at Wrestling/WrestleMania, later with [[Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank 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 or she wants within one calendar year of winning it.\\

** At ''TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2020'', "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt and Wrestling/RandyOrton had a "Firefly Inferno Match" where instead of the ring being surrounded by fire, the fire was on the barricades, giving them more freedom of movement as they could leave the ring. The object was still to set your opponent on fire. Similar to MVP, Wyatt, who was wearing a jacket, took the match-losing burn on his back. The two continued to brawl after the winner was declared, with the [[InfernalRetaliation still burning]] Fiend chasing Orton back to ring where Orton knocked him unconscious with his RKO finisher, after which he doused Fiend's prone body with gasoline and set it on fire. [[note]](Because there was a virtual (i.e. no live) audience at Tropicana Field, where the event took place, the WWE was able to take advantage of production techniques to allow Windham Rotunda (who plays Bray Wyatt/The Fiend) to quickly move from the ring and ring technicians replace his body with a lifelike mannequin without it being shown on camera (to the pay-per-view audience) or to the virtual audience.)[[/note]]

** Rounds tend to be an unpopular gimmick, with The American Wrestling Federation's attempt to revive them in the USA instead nearly killing it off for good there. The format has remained somewhat popular in some regions such as the UK, however. Impact Wrestling, which has a sizable British following, has made an attempt to revive the format in the States with their Grand Championship.

** Origins of the ladder match are disputed with most crediting their innovation in 1972 to Dan Kroffat of Canada's Stampede Wrestling, though Kendo Nagasaki, who later introduced them to World Of Sport in the UK, may have came up with the idea independently around the same time.

** ''King Of The Mountain'' is a TNA-exclusive variant. In essence, it is a reverse ladder match (you must take the title belt from the ring announcer and hang it from a hook, by climbing a ladder). But before you can do that, you must first pin one of your four opponents. And when you are pinned, you have to spend 2 minutes in a penalty box outside the ring.
** WWE has the ''Money in the Bank'' Match, originally at Wrestling/WrestleMania, later with [[Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank 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.\\

** The earliest cage matches on record happened in Atlanta Georgia in rings surrounded by chicken wire to keep interference out/competitors in. As time went on, wire was swapped out for steel bars and eventually bars were swapped out for chain link fencing, which was easier to carry and much, ''much'' less unpleasant to bump into.

** Wrestling/{{CMLL}}, which has very few gimmick matches, does concede with an annual ''Cage Of Death'', in which multiple luchadores enter the cage and have to fight their way out, with the last one out having to [[DramaticUnmask give up his mask]] or [[TraumaticHaircut shave off his hair]].

** Big Japan Pro Wrestling had a variation of Hell In A Cell with a scaffold. The ring was covered in thumbtacks and "Japanese kenzans".

** Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling finally inaugurated their own version of [=WarGames=] (known as "Blood & Guts" [[AppropriatedAppelation in a snarky response to a comment Vince McMahon made about the kind of product WWE wouldn't be producing]]) in 2021, a year after the originally-planned match had been cancelled by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in favour of the Stadium Stampede cinematic match. Ironically, the rescheduled match still featured the Wrestling/InnerCircle, but rather than being the heels facing Wrestling/TheElite, they ended up as the faces opposing Wrestling/ThePinnacle instead. The match followed the traditional [=WarGames=] setup (although the roof on the cell was significantly higher than the WCW version and there was a slightly extended apron around the two rings leaving more room between the ropes and the cage walls), albeit with a [=5v5=] format to accomodate all members of both teams, and the match could only end by "Submit or surrender". The Inner Circle lost when Sammy Guevara surrendered to try and stop MJF from throwing Chris Jericho off the top of the cage (the two men having previously escaped the cage when Tully Blanchard stole the cage key and let MJF out), only for MJF to throw him off anyway[[note]]leading to a noticeable SpecialEffectsFailure when Jericho landed on a ''really'' obvious crash pad that had been unconvincingly tarted up to try and look like steel flooring[[/note]].

** Wrestling/LuchaUnderground has an event called Aztec Warfare which uses the same entry rules as the Royal Rumble (two wrestlers start in the ring and another one comes out at regular intervals until all contestants--in this case, twenty--have entered) but elimination is by pinfall or submission and anything goes. This plays into the more high-flying style of most of the competitors by allowing them to dive out of the ring for high-impact offensive maneuvers without eliminating themselves.

** St. Louis, Missouri wrestler Al Szasz, and [[BattleCouple his wife]], Chicago Wrestler Ada Ash, billed as "The WorldsStrongestMan and The World's Strongest Woman", became famous for taking on alligators ''and'' bears in the ring.

** One of the better pole matches was between José Rivera JR and Eddie Colon during what were presumed to be WWC's dying days. The pole was tall enough that they did not have to pretend to have trouble reaching the object, Wrestling/{{Carl|ito Colon}}y's shovel, and Rivera actually was disqualified for using it after Colon had been the one to retrieve it. It still had some questionable bits as apparently the two competitor's unauthorized use was the ''only'' way to force a disqualification but it exceeded the low expectations on every level.

** In WWE's version of FCW, a "Money In The Bank" variation of the pole match with multiple participants and the winner getting a title shot, was done fairly often, especially with female wrestlers.
* ''Barbed Wire'' -- depending on how "extreme" the competitors are, the turnbuckle pads are replaced with bared wire, the ring ropes are wrapped in it or the ropes are totally replaced by barbed wire. Tropes: Traditionally, American wire matches used rubber barbs since the 1970s but this was phased out since Wrestling/MickFoley's glory days (Japan, "Garbage" feds). Expect several excruciating spots where someone is tangled in the wire. A legendary Wrestling/{{ECW}} match between Wrestling/{{Sabu}} and Wrestling/TerryFunk ended with ring tech spending ten minutes cutting the two men free of the tangle of wire they ended up in. Wrestling/PaulHeyman never booked another barbed wire match (believing even that one got out of hand and not wanting anyone to try and top it), and when something is so far over the top that even Heyman backs off...

* ''LoserLeavesTown''/''Retirement Match'' -- a match that stipulates that the loser of the match had to leave town (whichever promotional territory they were in) or retire, often "for good", but usually for [[ThreeMonthRule three months]]. Generally used to cover for a wrestler's planned absence (for injury or a tour of a distant promotion - usually Japan). Tropes: Often resulted in an [[CharlieBrownFromOuttaTown oddly-familiar masked stranger]] showing up within a week or two of such a loss. Interestingly, in Memphis, the time-limit for losers leaving town was actually mentioned quite explicitly. Often the build up would mention that "the loser must leave the territory for a period of six months (or one year, or what have you)."

** Probably the best use of such a stipulation (or close to it) in the WWE era was when Wrestling/VinceMcMahon stipulated that every singles match Wrestling/RicFlair wrestled would be a one-sided retirement match. He put on a winning streak up until Wrestlemania, when he put on a spectacular match with Shawn Michaels, which he lost and retired from WWE. (The less said about [[Wrestling/{{TNA}} what]] [[TenMinuteRetirement happened]] afterwards, the better - a view Flair himself agrees with.) This was Flair's second time losing one of these matches in WWE, in 1993 he asked to be let out of his contract to return to WCW (mainly because the people that caused him to leave WCW in the first place had been fired by Turner[[note]]Ric and Vince had come to an agreement when Flair got to the WWF that if Ric was unhappy Vince would let him go no questions asked so long as Ric put over a couple people on the way out, and both men honored this agreement. Flair did however have a modified no-compete clause, for his first few weeks back in WCW he could appear on TV but wasn't allowed to actually wrestle[[/note]]), Vince agreed and Ric lost a Loser Leaves the WWF match to Wrestling/CurtHennig on the third episode of ''Wrestling/MondayNightRaw'', ending his WWE career for 8 years.

*** In the 1950s, NWA LA introduced the "Beat The Champ" Television Title, with the added stipulation of the current "champion" taking on randomly selected challengers for five weeks, having to pay the former champion 100 USD if he failed.

To wit, Wrestling/EricBischoff decided to unmask him because he thought that wrestlers who hid their faces weren't "marketable". Mysterio and just about everyone around him were ''horrified'' at the idea of such a career-altering (and potentially career-wrecking) move being done for such a lame reason. When they went through with it, it severely damaged Rey's image (since [[Literature/TheDeathOfWCW he looked more like a 14 year old rather than a superhero-like luchador]]) and the de-masking itself was done in an extremely disrespectful fashion [[note]]As Mysterio noted in the 2009 book ''Rey Mysterio: Behind the Mask'', the two who unmasked him (Wrestling/KevinNash and Wrestling/ScottHall) began disrespectfully playing around with the mask in the ring, with the former sticking it on the back of his head. This sharply contrasted with lucha libre's attitude toward unmaskings, where such events are often the high point of the night or even the year; the winning wrestler is expected to take the mask and treat it well, as a sign of respect toward the beaten wrestler and the profession as a whole[[/note]]; worse, WCW hardly did anything to push him after he was unmasked despite promising they'd strap him to a rocket for doing so. Eventually, Rey and his uncle (better known as the original Rey Mysterio) successfully argued that Rey was representing his uncle's image in WWE since he dropped the Jr. from his name (the original Mysterio was a heavyweight, by the way). Pure LoopholeAbuse, but the commission liked his uncle and they hated Bischoff for what he did so they allowed it.

*** [[Wrestling/RandySavage Randy "Macho Man" Savage]] won a variant at Wrestlemania X against [[Wrestling/BrianAdams 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.
* ''Exploding Ring Match'' (or "C4 match") -- Sometimes seen in Japanese [[GarbageWrestler Garbage Wrestling]] promotions like Wrestling/{{FMW}}, a hardcore match in a ring rigged with explosives on a timer. In some versions the idea is to finish the match before the timer runs out and detonates the ring (although this does not necessarily end the match!), while in others the explosives are concentrated in a specific area, with the wrestlers struggling not to get pushed onto it. Frequently combined with the barbed wire match.

* ''2-out-of-3-falls'' -- The simplest of gimmick matches, this simply means that the wrestlers have a series of matches until one of them has won 2. Sometimes each fall will have its own gimmick from another match type on the list; this is called a ''Ring Master's Challenge'' or ''Three Stages Of Hell'' (usually dependent on how much {{garbage|Wrestler}} is involved). Tropes: This match is almost '''never''' decided after two falls; the competitors win one apiece, leading to the third, deciding fall. Usually, if the match ends in two straight falls, then someone is either working a "losing streak" angle or is being buried. The Briscoe Brothers in Wrestling/RingOfHonor developed a reputation for winning these matches in two straight falls.

[[Wrestling/TotalNonstopActionWrestling TNA]] [[InsistentTerminology prefers to call their gimmick matches]] "concept matches."

Wrestling/ImpactWrestling (formerly known as TNA) [[InsistentTerminology prefers to call their gimmick matches]] "concept matches."

* ''Lumberjack'' [[note]]a women's match of this type may also be called a Lumberjill match[[/note]] -- A pre-determined number of wrestlers surround the ring (usually 12, but can vary from 10 to 30), ostensibly to keep both competitors in the ring (of course everyone knows it's to keep the heel from running). Tropes: The Lumberjacks are usually divided evenly between faces and heels, each group on one side of the ring. If a wrestler leaves the ring (usually thrown out), they'll be helped out if they land within their corresponding group, and pounded on by the opposite. Also, before the match reaches the climax, a brawl will usually break out among the lumberjacks, generally the signal for outside interference -- which is almost always how the match ends. Will also be used by the Powers That Be to punish a wrestler (i.e., surrounding a face with heels and vice versa).

** Probably the best use of such a stipulation (or close to it) in the WWE era was when Wrestling/VinceMcMahon stipulated that every singles match Wrestling/RicFlair wrestled would be a one-sided retirement match. He put on a winning streak up until Wrestlemania, when he put on a spectacular match with Shawn Michaels, which he lost and retired from WWE. (The less said about [[Wrestling/{{TNA}} what]] [[TenMinuteRetirement happened]] afterwards, the better - a view Flair himself agrees with.)

* ''Bloodsport Match'' -- A type of match pioneered by the PPV series ''Josh Barnett's Bloodsport''. Matches must end with a knockout or submission, and take place on a ring mat with no turnbuckles or ropes. If a wrestler falls off the mat, the fight is reset in the centre. This results in a style of wrestling that is much closer to MMA or catch wrestling, and is usually thought of as one of the more successful attempts at translating the feel of shoot combat sports to the world of professional wrestling.

* ''Bloodsport Match'' -- A type of match pioneered by the PPV series ''Josh Barnett's Bloodsport''. Matches must end with a knockout or submission, and take place within a ring with no turnbuckles or ropes. This results in a style of wrestling that is much closer to MMA or catch wrestling, and is usually thought of as one of the more successful attempts at translating the feel of shoot combat sports to the world of professional wrestling.

** The earliest cage matches on record happened in Atlanta Georgia in rings surrounded by chicken wire to keep interference out/competitors in. As time went on, wire was swapped out for steel bars and eventually bars were swapped out for chain link fencing, which was easier to carry.

* ''Wrestling/HellInACell'' -- a Wrestling/{{WWE}} signature match; this variant of the Steel Cage match involves a larger cage which Wrestling/JimCornette admits to stealing from (or "researching" from) a Memphis territory, that includes the majority of the ringside area in its confines, and also has a roof, a la Wrestling/DustyRhodes's war games. Escape rules don't apply; the match ends only via pinfall or submission, and usually only in the ring. In earlier matches, big falls from the side or top of the cage were fairly commonplace (most famously, by Wrestling/MickFoley), but these have been toned down due to safety concerns.

** WCW's ''World War 3'' is a ''60-man'' battle royal spanned across three rings.

** ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 wrestlers[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011 but back to 30 in 2012, and 50 in the 2018 "Greatest Royal Rumble" event in Saudi Arabia (which was separate from the main annual Royal Rumble).[[/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 men's titles at Wrestling/WrestleMania, which is held approximately two months afterwards. It started out as a men-only event, although four women have entered the men's match; in 2018, a women's Royal Rumble match was added using the same rules, with the winner receiving a shot at one of the two top women's titles at [=WrestleMania=].[[note]]In the second year of the women's Royal Rumble, Wrestling/NiaJax entered both the men's and women's matches, and scored eliminations in both.[[/note]] 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 (or her); that wrestler will be the one to win it all. At one point, a dominant heel will go on an elimination spree but not actually win the match. Also, entrant #30 ''rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only Wrestling/JohnCena, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/CodyRhodes 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 ''months'' [[HealingFactor ahead of when it should even have been possible for him to be cleared]]. Notably, the Royal Rumble is considered by many wrestling fans to be ''the'' greatest match type in all of wrestling and one of the biggest highlights of WWE's yearly calendar.

** Yoshimoto Ladies Pro Wrestling Jd(Jaguar Yokota's promotion prior to the Athress program) had the LSD (Long Strong Distance) gimmicks for pretty much any multiple fall match, with [=LSD1H=] being the "standard" one hour time limit ironman match. LSD could be applied to ''anything'' though, and was to many of the other gimmick matches on this page. The hour number could very well be half or even the entire length of the show([=LSD2H=] TagTeam [[ImprovisedWeapon Weapons]] [[GarbageWrestler Death Match]]) and SuddenDeath almost always applied to draws.

*** In the St Louis territory a "running" gauntlet was called a "handicap match", which would always stopped as soon as the "handicapped" wrestler was beaten. The term gauntlet was adopted for this stipulation in post territorial St. Louis as one fall became became "standard" for handicap matches.

*** In the St Lois territory a "running" gauntlet was called a "handicap match", which would always stopped as soon as the "handicapped" wrestler was beaten. The term gauntlet was adopted for this stipulation in post territorial St. Louis as one fall became became "standard" for handicap matches.

** A variation, the ''Wrestling/EliminationChamber'', has been a signature match of WWE since its inception in 2002, and specifically has been attached to their ''Wrestling/{{No Way Out|WWE}}'' pay-per-view (which in recent years has actually been named for the chamber). In this match, four men start behind Plexiglas cages within a much larger structure, not unlike Wrestling/HellInACell, with the other two men start outside the Plexiglas like a regular match. Every two or three minutes, another is released. It is, as the name indicated, an elimination match: five competitors must be defeated for there to be a victor. Tends to get bloody, as the chamber has much less give than most types of cage.

** There was also a HIAC derivative between Wrestling/AlSnow and the Wrestling/BigBossMan at ''[[Wrestling/UnforgivenWWE Unforgiven]] 1999'', which was [[EpicFail infamous for all the wrong reasons]]. The "Kennel from Hell" consisted of a regular steel cage inside the bigger cage, with "[[AngryGuardDog 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 [[NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals 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.

*** ''Three Faces:'' Not as uncommon as you might think, this happens usually when an evil boss wants to punish a face stable. Expect the more vicious face to win, usually by using heel tactics, and like it so much he goes [[HeelFaceTurn full heel]].

** Wrestling/{{WWE}} brought back the [=WarGames=] format to Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}} in 2017, dedicating one of their ''[=TakeOver=]''[= PPVs=] to it. This was closer to a [=WarGames=] match InNameOnly, ironically incorporating aspects from the Elimination Chamber which had itself been inspired by [=WarGames=]. There was a totally different 3v3v3 format where one member of each team started in the two rings while the other 6 men were confined in cages outside the rings and randomly released to reinforce their starting man after a countdown. Additionally, the cage was open-topped to give the wrestlers more room for high-flying maneuvers without banging their heads, but any wrestler who left the cage would forfeit the match for his team, to retain the "no escape" aspect of the original. The first pinfall or submission won it. Despite the changes, the revived [=WarGames=] was considered a smashing success and was brought back again next year to similar acclaim (although this time with the more traditional 4v4 with one man entering at a time format), now a staple of NXT. The third installment in 2019 saw WWE do a Women's [=WarGames=] match. The 2020 Women's War Games match marks the ''second'' time in history that the face team gained the advantage in a War Games match (with Shotzi Blackheart defeating Raquel Gonzales in a match to determine who would have the advantage). Ironically, despite having secured the advantage, the faces promptly ''lost.''

** ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' -- WWE's signature variation of the Battle Royal has 30 wrestlers[[note]]20 in 1988, expanded to 40 in 2011 but back to 30 in 2012, and 50 in the 2018 "Greatest Royal Rumble" event in Saudi Arabia (which was separate from the main annual Royal Rumble).[[/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 men's titles at Wrestling/WrestleMania, which is held approximately two months afterwards. It started out as a men-only event, although four women have entered the men's match; in 2018, a women's Royal Rumble match was added using the same rules, with the winner receiving a shot at one of the two top women's titles at [=WrestleMania=].[[note]]In the second year of the women's Royal Rumble, Wrestling/NiaJax entered both the men's and women's matches, and scored eliminations in both.[[/note]] 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 (or her); that wrestler will be the one to win it all. At one point, a dominant heel will go on an elimination spree but not actually win the match. Also, entrant #30 ''rarely'' wins, despite the obvious theoretical advantage to entering last. Only Wrestling/JohnCena, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, and Wrestling/TripleH 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.

* ''Pure Wrestling Rules'' -- Most commonly appearing in Wrestling/RingOfHonor (they actually had a Pure Wrestling title for a while) but occasionally seen elsewhere. Each wrestler is allowed three rope breaks - once they are used up, the wrestler cannot use the ropes to escape pins or submissions. Closed fists are illegal, and using them will cause the wrestler to be penalized a rope break - if he is out of rope breaks, he will be disqualified.

** One of the better pole matches was between José Rivera JR and Eddie Colon during what were presumed to be WWC's dying days. The pole was tall enough that they did not have to pretend to have trouble reaching the object, Wrestling/{{Carl|ito Colon}}y's [[WeaponOfChoice shovel]], and Rivera actually was disqualified for using it after Colon had been the one to retrieve it. It still had some questionable bits as apparently the two competitor's unauthorized use was the ''only'' way to force a disqualification but it exceeded the low expectations on every level.

** John Cena and Randy Orton [[https://youtu.be/ndgVcE7w0uo once took on]] the '''entire''' [[Wrestling/{{WWERaw}} Raw]] roster. It was also an Elimination Match.

** John Cena took the challenge twice. The first time, the match was thrown out when Wrestling/{{Edge}} attacked Cena. The second time, Cena won in an unusual way. Masters eventually let go on purpose, attacked Cena for a bit, then attempted to lock him in the hold again, but Cena countered and locked Masters in his own hold and Masters submitted. Cena thus became the first person to win the Masterlock Challenge without breaking the hold.

*** At ''Money in the Bank 2020'', it held the men's and women's Money in the Bank matches at the same time and was called the "Corporate Ladder Match". The match was held at Titan Tower (WWE's headquarters) where the contestants start at the ground floor and had to fight their way up to the roof, where there was a ring with the briefcases suspended above it. In the women's match, the briefcase also contained the actual belt instead of a contract, as Wrestling/BeckyLynch was going on [[ActionMom maternity leave.]]

** ''Extreme Rules 2014'' had a parody called the [=WeeLC=] Match, with tiny ladders, chairs, tables, and even midget referees and announcers to accommodate the midget combatants Wrestling/{{Hornswoggle}} and El Torito. The object was pinfall or submission. To the surprise of everyone, what was supposed to just be a stupid comedy match turned out to be genuinely entertaining, with both wrestlers doing a really solid job and their companions Wrestling/ThreeMB and Los Matadores taking some ''sick'' bumps, getting the crowd fully invested.

* ''Last Man/Woman Standing'' -- A gimmick rarer than most (though with increasing frequency in WWE), this match sees two wrestlers fight in a no-disqualification match until one of them is down for a ten-second count. Tropes: the likelihood of a tie is somewhere around 50% but varying depending on the people involved. Such a match will have a lot of high spots and generally moves that would normally end a match will draw a 9 count, usually multiple times. Expect the finish to usually involve someone being thrown off or through something.

** According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, there is an actual law about this in Mexico: if you lose your mask in such a match, you may never wear that mask again. Despite [[Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr what you might expect]], this rule is generally and strictly enforced; in the case of Mysterio, he was allowed to keep wearing his mask in WWE, and in his post-WWE career with Wrestling/{{AAA}} and Wrestling/LuchaUnderground with no repercussions due to the circumstances and controversy surrounding his original de-masking in WCW. \\

* ''Barbed Wire'' -- depending on how "extreme" the competitors are, the turnbuckle pads are replaced with bared wire, the ring ropes are wrapped in it or the ropes are totally replaced by barbed wire. Tropes: Traditionally, American wire matches used rubber barbs since the 1970s but this was phased out since Wrestling/MickFoley's glory days (Japan, "Garbage" feds). Expect several excruciating spots where someone is tangled in the wire. (A legendary Wrestling/{{ECW}} match between Wrestling/{{Sabu}} and Wrestling/TerryFunk ended with ring tech spending ten minutes cutting the two men free of the tangle of wire they ended up in.)