Wrestling Six Packs: Worst Gimmick Matches



One of the worst gimmick matches ever
Photo Credit: WWE.com


Hell in a Cell is this Sunday. While yeah, the whole gimmick match PPV concept is kind of played out, it's pretty undeniable that Hell in the Cell is one of the greatest gimmick matches ideated of all-time. However, as we've seen throughout the years, gimmick matches can get pretty damn awful. Here are six of the worst.

1. Kennel from Hell

This is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the worst gimmick match of all-time. From the heights of Russo's insanity, he thought he was a good idea to embellish Hell in a Cell by adding dogs to the outside for a Big Bossman/Al Snow match on free TV. The dogs were obviously trained and friendly or else there'd have been problems. Still, that kind of situation doesn't exactly lend itself to a hazard. Y'know, since the dogs really aren't hazardous if they don't viciously attack the person who gets tossed to the outside. The funny thing though? They did provide a hazard, just not through biting or being vicious. Yeah, one of the dogs totally dropped a deuce on the outside. Thankfully, this one was one and done.

2. Doomsday Gauntlet

Yeah, I voluntarily watched the one and only incarnation of this terrible, terrible, awful, truly horrible abomination of a match. Any match where the action is trained away from the center of the ring has trouble succeeding from jump. Falls count anywhere matches can work because hey, you can still see the guys brawling in the crowd with a well-placed spotlight. But putting that away-from-the-ring action in a clunky, overbearing structure that obscures the shit out of the action? Yeah. Let's not forget that Randy Savage pinned a guy who was supposedly already eliminated to win the match. The very definition of convoluted.

3. _______ on a Pole Match

This is Vince Russo's trademark. It's become a running gag in the wrestling community, and yet he'll still pull it out every once in awhile. The sad part is, it's a derivative of the ladder match, which in and of itself is an awesome gimmick match. But when you start putting inane bullshit on those poles and running them every week? Well yeah. The worst was when Russo actually put Buff Bagwell's mom on a pole. Or was it the best in some kind of meta-WrestleCrap, so-bad-it's-good moment? Who knows.

4. King of the Mountain

Most ladder matches require you to take the Championship belt off the ring at the top of the ladder. There's symbolism in play here. You got guys climbing to the top of the mountain to grab the prize, symbolizing the arduous journey to get to a moment of glory. In true TNA fashion, King of the Mountain makes the winner make the arduous journey to put the belt back on the ring... only to take it right back off again. Un-fucking-real. And to make things even more convoluted, if you score a pinfall or submission in the match, you send the guy you just beat into a penalty box. Could we add any more rules to the fray? Simpler is better. And yet this has become one of TNA's signature gimmick matches. If that's not a microcosm of what that company is, I don't know what is.

5. Lockbox Challenge

I hate to pick on TNA here, but... no I don't, I love picking on them because they deserve every bashing they get. I couldn't believe this when I saw it earlier this year on Impact, and the kicker was that Christy Hemme started off explaining it by saying the rules were simple. Ha. Anyway, any match where you can have someone getting a decisive pinfall victory and still lose their title, or get a pinfall win and get "rewarded" with having to do a striptease is utter bullshit.

6. Buried Alive

Hell in a Cell has become one of Undertaker's three signature matches, along with the casket match and Buried Alive. The first two are actually good gimmick matches. The Buried Alive? Yeah, not so much, especially since out of kayfabe, being buried with all the dirt they provide is a death sentence. A cubic foot of dirt can weigh in upwards of 150 pounds depending on the consistency of the soil. Multiply that with the amounts used to bury the loser? That would be murder. It kills the believability and accentuates all the terrible things about both pro wrestling and the Undertaker as a character.

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