During any good feud or program, often times, tensions rise so how that the need for some sort of gimmick match occurs. As we all know, the wrestling industry if filled with all sorts of gimmick matches from across every promotion. Some matches like WarGames in WWE / Blood And Guts in AEW / War Chamber are all derivatives of same concept.
Sometimes the gimmick matches are unique to a promotion - Doomsday Cages and Elimination Chambers spring to mind. Every so often though no matter how much fans love a good gimmick match, some just have to go and have overstayed their welcome.
9 Money In The Bank Cash Ins
Every year, a few months after WrestleMania the WWE hosts not one, but two televised car crashes at the Money In The Bank Premium Live Event (PLE). It isn’t even necessarily the match that needs to go, it’s the cash In itself that needs to go, which in turn, would mean that the match itself might need to go.
After all as rudimentary as a lot of aspects of the industry are, there aren’t a lot of things that can be done differently with the MITB match or cash in.
8 Loser Leaves Town
During the territory days, a Loser Leaves Town match was an awesome way for superstars to exit the promotion before heading on down the road. But as more and more people became hip to the business and there were less and fewer promotions, the need for Loser Leaves Town became outdated.
Even now, fans might know when superstars are leaving WWE, AEW, or New Japan, but there are better ways to write them out instead of the obvious Loser Leaves Town - unless the person leaving actually wins.
7 “Sanctioned” Unsanctioned Matches
Not too long ago - both AEW and NXT had two dreaded Unsanctioned matches between bitter rivals, Johnny Gargano and Grayson Waller in NXT and Chris Jericho against Adam Cole in AEW. As several meme makers already pointed out - “if it’s Unsanctioned, then why are signing contracts?!”
The Unsanctioned matches of old used to take place after the main card and the arena lights would go down for a Lights Out effect. But similar to Loser Leaves Town parameters forcing the concept into obsolescence, so it goes with Unsanctioned matches as well.
6 On A Pole
With a dearth of weapons to be found all over the arena and under the ring, it seems awfully silly to string one up on a pole - even if that’s the one that would be legal to use during the match.
But it’s the dying days of WCW and Vince Russo that fans have to thank for On A Pole matches becoming a laughable punchline in the business. From Viagra to Judy Bagwell and all points in between, the entire concept was worn out by Russo in less than a year.
5 Punjabi Prison
An Elevator Pitch in Hollywood is slang for an easy to comprehend idea that can be explained in the time it takes for a short elevator ride. The Punjabi Prison match is definitely not an Elevator Pitch type of match.
Take a bamboo cage with timed trap doors and surround it with another cage. Competitors have to escape both cages to win and there’s even a rope to swing from. While it hasn’t been done to death, just the pitch alone makes it sound like it had to go.
4 Bra And Panties
Of course this match type would be on here. While plenty of wrestling fans are males who certainly might enjoy watching a few ladies tear and rip at each other's clothes until they’re down to their skivvies - there’s just a time and place for that sort of thing.
Which isn’t when we’re watching wrestling matches! The Attitude Era special was definitely an “of its time” match type which felt more and more out of place during The Ruthless Aggression Era.
3 Broken Universe
Matt Hardy becoming Broken Matt was the perfect case of right time, wrong promotion. While in TNA, Matt came up with the wild character and thanks to his guidance, input, dollars, and then-TNA head Billy Corgan, the Broken Universe and Cinematic Matches became one of the hottest things in pro-wrestling.
With that momentum, the Hardys were once again signed to WWE, but the copyrights to the Broken Universe were held up for a few months. Once the matter was cleared up, the momentum had passed. Each subsequent Cinematic Match felt like a shell of what was done in Impact.
2 Elimination Chamber
The Road To WrestleMania always has a few huge potholes along the way. But a gaping wound in that hole is the Elimination Chamber. After one title challenger is determined via the Royal Rumble and surviving thirty men, and the other title challenger is determined via surviving the Chamber.
But while the Rumble is held in the highest of regards and traditions, for some reason The chamber is thought of as a shoehorned PPV between the Rumble and The Show Of Shows.
1 Hell In The Cell
The idea of a Steel Cage match isn’t to escape or bludgeon your opponent. The actual thought process behind it is to keep any interference from happening. With that in mind the first ever Hell In A Cell match made perfect sense - keep Triple H and Chyna from helping Shawn Michaels and stop HBK from escaping the cage.
But thanks to Mick Foley’s epic performance in the second match, every subsequent Cell match has been a 'can you top this' type of car crash. Even more glaring is that from the moment it became its own PPV, the match is no longer designed for bitter rivalries, but seemingly any title match or random feud that is determined should get a Cell match.
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