History Main / GimmickMatches

** In a famous version of this match between The Rock and Wrestling/MickFoley (then Mankind), Foley was incapacitated by multiple chairshots to the head, and Rock won by replaying tape of Foley saying "I quit!" on ''Raw'' prior to the pay-per-view (in the context of "this is what I '''will not''' say"). A few years later, when Foley challenged Wrestling/RicFlair to one of these matches, he tried to never say those two words in any of his promos leading up to the match so that the same trick wouldn't happen twice.[[note]]He would end up losing that match, too, after Flair threatened his friend, Wrestling/{{Melina}}, with a steel chair if he didn't quit.[[/note]]
** In a 2011 "I Quit" match between Wrestling/JohnCena[[note]](Who has an impressive record in "I Quit" matches (undefeated, which makes sense, considering being a {{Determinator}} is a big part of his gimmick.)[[/note]] and Wrestling/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.

** The first Iron Man match in WWE history at [=WrestleMania=] 12 completely subverts the concept of the Iron Man with Wrestling/ShawnMichaels and Wrestling/BretHart going the distance and lasting the full 60 minutes without a pinfall before Shawn Michaels wins the match in overtime,

** ''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 (though #30 has been the most common winning entry number, with 5 victories, and 13 winners have entered at #27 or later). Only Wrestling/JohnCena, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Wrestling/TripleH, Wrestling/BrockLesnar, 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.

** WCW's ''World War 3'' is a ''60-man'' battle royal spanned across three rings. After 40 of the 60 entrants were eliminated the remaining 20 would be combined into one ring, at which point standard battle royal rules applied.

* In ''Knucklehead'', a {{backyard|wrestling}} promoter neglects to adequately leash the bear, causing it to rampage before Wrestling/TheBigShow manages to hold it down.

* ''{{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 [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate 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.

*** It was used as the storyline reason for then-WWWF leaving the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance in 1963. NWA Champion Wrestling/BuddyRogers lost a one-fall match against Wrestling/LouThesz, and the WWWF refused to acknowledge the title switch since it wasn't done in a two-out-of-three-falls match. So they went on their own, naming Rogers as the first WWWF Champion.
*** It was also the catalyst for the creation of the AWA. In 1957, Édouard Carpentier defeated Lou Thesz for the NWA title in a two-out-of-three falls match. However, since one of those falls was won via DQ, there was a dispute among the NWA promoters over who should be the champion, with most promoters recognizing Thesz and other, renegade promoters recognizing Carpentier (and even sanctioning a title change between him and Verne Gagne, who was the one really pulling the strings at the time). After promoter Wally Karbo unsuccessfully lobbied for a title unification match between Gagne and the NWA champion, the two split off and formed the AWA.

** 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 [[TiebreakerRound Sudden Death]] almost always applied to draws.

** The earliest cage matches on record happened in Atlanta 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.

** Leva Bates proposed an "Arkham Asylum" cage match at SHINE 9, where the loser had to leave in a straitjacket (the restraining device, not the submission). The following year, [[Wrestling/KenAnderson Mr. Anderson]] and Samuel Shaw would have the "Straight Jacket" match to be nationally televised, but did not include the cage in TNA.

** WWF did a one-time variation of a hardcore match 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 UsefulNotes/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 [[Wrestling/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-usually a promotion will later sell tickets for later matches in that same arena and show the empty seats to them on a screen or something...or just use an arena they own).

*** One of the worst receieved uses of the empty arena match was done for the "New" Wrestling/{{A|mericanWrestlingAssociation}}WA pilot in 1989. This was because Greg Gagne ''lied'' and used a green screen of crowd footage with piped in noise.

* ''Animal Death Match'' -- An old fashioned "death match", going back to the carnivals before the establishment of professional wrestling's territorial system or even professional wrestling promotions proper, though they continued well into the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance's decline in the 1990s; a human wrestler has to wrestle megafauna of a different species. In North America this was/is usually a {{bear|sarebadnews}}, while in Asia this was/is typically a [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodile]]. While there are no reports of competitor dying in these matches, a bear named Smokey did manage to get loose and kill a non combatant in between shows, causing these matches to be mostly phased out by the 2000s outside of the most hardcore independent promotions. Tropes: [[NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals The non human]] often has a leash around its neck to keep it in the ring and away from spectators. The referee usually does a fast count on the non human as soon as its shoulders are down. The human wrestler [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere usually bolts from the ring at the bell]], regardless of the decision.

* ''Inferno Match'' -- Sometimes called a "{{ring of fire}}" match. Fire surrounds the ring, usually just under the bottom rope; the first person to catch on fire loses. Dramatic spots of trying to push a resisting opponent closer to the flames are common. Tropes: If the Inferno Match is someone's "specialty" they are bound to lose, particularly if they're the one wearing the most protective clothing. Invariably all that gets set on fire is a boot or a glove, since anything else would be far too risky in reality (incidentally, while we're on the subject, let's give props to Wrestling/{{WWE}} wrestler Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter, who took the match-losing burn from one of these ''on his back'' -- granted, he was clothed there, but it still takes balls).

** 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 played 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]]