Friday, March 29, 2024
Editorial15 Ridiculously Dangerous Wrestling Gimmick Matches

15 Ridiculously Dangerous Wrestling Gimmick Matches

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Hi all! Here is a continuation from my previous piece, as I didn’t want to try and cram 55 different gimmick matches in to one sitting. If you missed the other, there is a link provided below. This time, we are taking a look at 15 of the most dangerous wrestling gimmick matches in the history of the business. If you like mindless violence and gore, this one is especially for you. Did I miss anything obvious? Please let me know if so.

Also Read: 40 Ridiculously Funny Wrestling Gimmick Matches

1. 10,000 Thumbtacks

The first entry comes from a PPV match at TNA Turning Point 2007. Rhino was originally scheduled to be Abyss’ partner, but due to injury, Raven was called upon to take his place. Black Reign (AKA Goldust) cuts a promo with his pet rat… which he enjoys licking, before this gets underway.

If you think one bag of thumbtacks is already too much, this one takes the biscuit. Not only do they have boards of tacks surrounding the ring, but there’s a bag of tacks hanging from a pole as well. There’s no special way to win; all you have to do is survive long enough to get the pinfall.

2. 200 Light Tubes

I couldn’t find a decent match for this gimmick, so the video shows highlights from a CZW bout. You can add any number before the light tubes to make it the way you want. You think Cody Rhodes blading on a random episode of Dynamite is bad? Watch almost any match involving light tubes.

Personally, I don’t get the appeal, but some wrestlers make a living out of being this unnecessarily hardcore. Current AEW World Champion Jon Moxley and WWE superstar Drew Gulak had to work matches like these in the early days of their careers.

3. Anal Explosion

No… I’m not kidding. In a unique match between an unmasked Hayabusa (named “H”) and masked arch rival Mr. Gannosuke (fake Hayabusa), the stipulation deciding the winner was when one of them inserts a firecracker in to their opponents ass and lights it. Only in Japan! The worst we got in America is sticking a fat backside in to someone’s face. It’s difficult for some to understand how this could come to fruition, but rest assured, the rivalry between Hayabusa and Mr. Gannosuke was so heated that anyone knowledgeable of their history won’t be surprised this happened.

To anyone unaware, it’s likely perceived as ridiculously funny and dangerous all at the same time. The ultimate form of humiliation could also go down as one of the most extreme gimmicks ever witnessed. If there’s any injustice here, it’s that both these guys were phenomenal wrestlers, and instead of getting a proper match… the fans got this instead. Was it worth the price of admission?

4. Barbed Wire Exploding C4

If there is any video to watch in its entirety, it’s this barbaric match to decide the undisputed “King Of The Deathmatch”. With narration from Mick Foley himself, his soft-spoken tone tells the story of when Cactus Jack took on Terry Funk in the ’95 finals. The legend of this encounter continues to permeate among wrestling fans to this day, as we know there will likely be nothing like it again.

dangerous wrestling gimmick matches

Not only has it got barbed wire surrounding the ring, but it’s also rigged up with C4 explosives. When they fall on to barbed wire mats, some have been set up with C4 to go off. And to make it even more dangerous? The ring is set to explode after a specified time limit. This heated rivalry had been going on across two continents, so to put them in this environment was not exactly farfetched for the time. Allow Mick Foley to describe it as eloquently as one can.

5. Bungee

I almost put this in to the previous article because it’s probably more funny than it is dangerous, but then I saw what happened after its conclusion. The Global Wrestling Federation set this up in 1991.

Seriously… it’s not very long, and knowing what happened to Owen Hart eight years later, it begs the question of why did they find it necessary to have a match like this? Who is it appealing to, bungee enthusiasts??

6. Crisis Big Born Deathmatch

Oh my god. Ok, how do I explain this. A Crisis Big Born Deathmatch is a combination of several types of deathmatch all rolled in to one glorious layer of pastry. The combatants in the video include: Shadow VII, Shadow WX, Shadow Winger & The Great Pogo vs. Jason The Terrible, Shoji Nakamaki, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Masked GK

Here’s an extensive list of foreign objects included in this extreme encounter:

  • Barbed Wire Boards
  • Dry Ice
  • Bed Of Nails
  • Thumbtacks
  • Electrified Light Tube Boards
  • Cactuses (Cacti)
  • Coffin
  • Tank of Scorpions
  • Nail + Barbed Wire Baseball Bats
  • Electrified Heaters

Let’s just say the match is an acquired taste. It’s definitely not going to appeal to the majority. And no, Vince Russo had nothing to do with this monstrosity.

7. Electric Pool

Watch out for old ECW legend Mike Awesome here as The Gladiator. What do you get when you surround the ring with water, set it to explode if anyone is thrown in, along with electrified barbed wire surrounding the ring (except for one side)? An Electric Pool match of course! Or as some fans call it… the No Rope Electrified Barbed Wire Swimming Pool Dynamite Double Hell Death Match.

Oh yes! And if anyone falls in, they are eliminated from the match. Don’t worry, no wrestlers were killed in the making of this gimmick; although it does look like one of them is getting impaled in the gut with a scythe. Whoever thought of this must have been taking something psychedelic. Where do we go from here? The only way this could have been more extreme is if they had sharks circling while random goons throw grenades in to the ring. Wait a minute… I’ve trademarked that idea. You can’t have it!

8. Hangman’s Horror

Remember when Daniel Bryan got fired for simulating a choke hold on Justin Roberts? Well, TNA went ahead and booked a match with this stipulation years before. In a heated feud between Raven & Vampiro in 2004, they had a match which could only be won if you placed a dog collar around an opponent’s neck and choked them out to the point they could no longer answer the referee.

And it wasn’t a one-time thing, as Raven worked another of these against Abyss a few years later. Hangman’s Horror is so aptly named it needs little description. Again, luckily no one was seriously injured from the simulated display of murder. Watch out for a CM Punk cameo at the end… yes, sixteen years ago he was one of Raven’s minions.

9. Hellfire Deathmatch

I consider the Hellfire Deathmatch the most dangerous in the history of wrestling. Why? Because it made the Inferno matches look like a quiet stroll in the park. The issue with the Hellfire Deathmatch is that it got out of hand very quickly. After viewing, it seems like  everyone involved hadn’t done enough to control the spread of the fire, nor had they put wrestlers in to test how hot it would be.

This could have cost several wrestlers their lives, but luckily they were responsive enough to escape before they could be trapped in a ring going up in flames. The referee called it off after a couple of minutes, and officials were quick to pour buckets of water on to the burned wrestlers. Let this be a lesson to anyone who wants to use fire in a wrestling match… test, test, test, and just to be sure, test again! Even so, there should always be a backup plan, because fire is wild and doesn’t always do what you’re expecting.

10. Hardcore Match… With A Horse

Most hardcore matches are not extreme enough to make this list, but one of them does stand out to me. Crazily enough, WWE actually posted this incident on their YouTube channel! That was not something I was expecting. So one day in WCW during the year 2000, officials went ahead and booked Terry Funk & Chris Candido in a hardcore match. Sounds pretty standard. And it didn’t take long for it to spiral out of hand to the point Funk & Candido found themselves on the premises of a stable with no one around to stop them.

With horses looking frantic in their confined stables, you’re thinking great… they are safe in there. But no, Funk & Candido decide to enter one. The horse is tied up, but watch what happens when Terry Funk gives Candido a piledriver. The video isn’t long, so I ain’t going to tell you what happens when you can see it for yourselves. Sometimes, animals and wrestling don’t mix!

11. Junkyard Invitational

For some reason, this match is almost impossible to find unless you acquire the WCW Bash At The Beach ’99 PPV. However, I did manage to find a video with French commentary on Facebook at the following link: Junkyard Invitational

This match is dangerous and dumb in several ways. Firstly, all the trashed cars were not altered to ensure the wrestler’s safety. Secondly, the winner would be the first wrestler to escape the junkyard, but this wasn’t clearly explained to the audience. Thirdly, the lighting sucks because they are in a junkyard and it was never designed to be used in a cinematic fashion. The helicopter helped a little with this. Also, it wasn’t always easy to tell who was who, as the wrestlers were in street clothes.

Apparently Hak (aka The Sandman) was originally booked to win it, but due to showing up late (& drunk) for a meeting, it was decided Fit Finlay would be the victor instead. And what did he get for his trouble? A trophy made out of junk. Amazing. Kevin Sullivan stated the match cost $100,000 to produce, but Eric Bischoff adamantly disputes this figure in the interview below. The worst thing to come out of this was the list of injuries, which included: concussions, neck injuries and lacerations.

12. Piranha Deathmatch

Needs little explanation. The winner is the first wrestler to put their opponent in to a tank full of flesh eating piranhas. How does this happen? Why would anyone want to see this happen? And how can wrestling recover from such a travesty?

Luckily, many fans didn’t hear about it. But now that it’s been shared here, it continues to ruin the lives of anyone who chooses to witness the brutality of piranhas deciding the fate of a wrestling match. What is it with mixing animals and wrestling??

13. Scaffold (Skywalkers) / Elevation X

I’ve always been a huge fan of Ultimate X, but what about Elevation X? Or scaffold matches in general? Is it right to risk wrestlers by having them drop from great heights? What if they slip and land wrong? Here’s a quote from Don West which sums this gimmick up perfectly:

“Let me tell you something Mike, Rhino’s scared, you’re scared, i’m scared, everybody in this freakin’ building is scared, and let me tell you something… he may not act like it, but ‘The phenomenal’ AJ Styles is scared”

Someone in the crowd is literally praying for AJ Styles & Rhino before this can get underway. And what’s the point? It’s not like they’re getting a great match out of this. It’s all about the danger factor… but they aren’t daredevils, they’re professional wrestlers.

Of course, they took every precaution to ensure their safety, but as we’ve seen in the past, all it takes is one unfortunate mistake. There’s been some serious injuries sustained from matches like these, for example, Jim Cornette’s knee injury after falling from scaffolding in the Skywalkers match at NWA/JCP Starrcade 1986.

14. Taipei Deathmatch

In one of the bloodiest matches in American Wrestling history, the two brothers Ian & Axl Rotten faced off at ECW Hardcore Heaven 1995. But the former tag team partners didn’t want any old regular wrestling match no… they wanted a Taipei Deathmatch. This time, they would wrap their hands, glue them up, and stick broken shards of glass to them. And it is absolutely as brutal as it sounds. The match is pretty bad for today’s standards, but at the time it set a new precedent. It became infamous for setting the bar on how brutal wrestling could be.

Remember that the year is 1995, and most American audiences had never seen anything this barbaric. ECW gained a following of bloodthirsty fans who wanted something different to the more cartoony products of the WWF & WCW. It sent a message that ECW catered for a maturer audience, and whether it’s admired or frowned upon fifteen years later, Axl vs. Ian Rotten helped to build ECW by spilling more blood than anyone had ever seen before. Totally unnecessary, but they inadvertently encouraged the niche, hardcore form of wrestling we still find today in the independents.

15. Unlucky 13

And to end this on something a little tamer than previous examples, is the Unlucky 13 match. The concept is simple really… to win, you have to get a staple gun and staple thirteen objects to your opponent’s body. The number can be changed to Unlucky 7 for example, if the match calls for fewer objects to be needed. Not much else to it really, but we don’t see these in bigger promotions so I felt like adding it for anyone who has never heard of it. We rarely see guys like Tommy Dreamer & Sami Callihan making use of a stapler, but never a heavy duty staple gun; which is obviously more dangerous and will get the blood flowing.

That’s all from me! There are more examples I could have included, but these fifteen entries stood out the most to me. Which ridiculously dangerous wrestling gimmick match do you think is the most dangerous? And do you see WWE or AEW using any of them? Will Impact Wrestling bring back 10,000 Thumbtacks, Hangman’s Horror or Elevation X? Please us know in the comments. Thanks for reading!