Stipulations maketh the match.
Well, at least they do in some cases, just think of the last man standing match, the
table match, the ladder match, the chairs match is admittedly a bit naff, but nowhere
near as naff as WWE have managed over the years.
Because believe it or not, the company that gave us Santino Marella, Lord Tensai and Doink
the Clown has had some pretty bizarre stipulations for some of its matches.
Don’t believe me?
Well, how about pinata on a pole?
Kendo stick on a pole?
Judy Bagwell on a pole?
Stick ‘on a pole’ on the end of any word and surely it’s been a WWE match.
Santa Claus on a pole.
Warsaw on a pole.
Vole on a pole.
Your own dignity on a pole.
But even those clearly made up ones aren’t as bizarre as the rest of the matches on this
list.
I am El Fakidor Laurie Blake and here are seven of the weirdest stipulations in WWE
history.
Ladder match for the custody of Dominick Back at SummerSlam 2005, WWE was gearing up
for one of the most ridiculous matches in their ridiculous history.
Leading into the biggest party of the summer, Rey Mysterio was feuding with the late great
Eddie Guerrero over his own actual biological son Dominick, with Eddie claiming to have
secrets about Dominick that he would only reveal if Mysterio gave in to Guerrero’s
authority.
Unlike Kurt Angle’s actual biological son Jason Jordan, Dominic was only a child at
the time, and so the battling was left to his masked daddy Rey, and it was decided that
the only way possible of sorting this issue out was to have a ladder match, with legal
papers suspended over the ring which would give the winner of the match custody of Dominick.
Because even child services can’t argue with a WWE official.
At one point it looked as though Eddie was actually going to win, after he hit the three
amigos onto a ladder, but Mrs Excuse Me herself Vicki Guerrero put a stop to it by pushing
over the ladder.
I mean, she’s got two kids already.
Mysterio ascended the ladder and all was well.
He got to keep his son, who we’re sure wasn’t scarred for life by this at all.
See that man there, he might be your daddy after this.
Cry Baby Match Our more observant viewers will notice that
a lot of these matches come from the 90s or early 2000s, and there’s a good reason for
that: WWF was mental.
It doesn’t come much more mental than the Cry Baby match between Razor Ramon and the
1-2-3 Kid at In Your House 1996.
The feud between the two men had gotten so out of hand that there was only one way of
possibly settling it.
Which is of course to have a match where the winner got to put the other in an adult sized
nappy.
Diaper if you’re American, and also wrong.
The match itself was completely normal, with no incontinence themed hijinks whatsoever,
how very un-WWE, but the looming threat of the diaper was enough to make men both claw
for the win.
Razor Ramon picked up the win, which meant the 1-2-3 Kid had to don the diaper which
must have been very embarrassing but also quite comfortable.
Just me?
He wasn’t actually forced to cry while wearing it, but given WWE’s recent taste for bodily
fluids (think Drake Maverick), you wouldn’t have been surprised.
Incredibly, and thankfully, this match has never made a comeback, and there’s a good
reason for that.
It was stupid.
Bra and panties match The first of the two matches on this list
that would not be all that welcome in modern WWE, and for very good reason.
Not only is the stipulation just unbelievably sexist, it was down right uncomfortable to
watch.
Especially as King was often on commentary screaming bra and panties, bra and panties,
and losing his mind over puppies, the puppies, in a way no one has done since, except those
drunk people on Buzzfeed.
Who blooming love puppies, but at least those ones are dogs.
As I’m sure many of you will know, the premise of the match was that to win, you would have
to strip your opponent down to their underwear.
Tasteful.
Actual athletes forced to have a fight where you could only win by taking your opponent’s
clothes off.
Is it any wonder WWE’s female viewership has never been all that high?
It’s incredible that anyone was ever convinced to do this kind of match, but given WWE’s
tendency to hire models rather than athletes in the early-2000s, perhaps it wasn’t as
tricky as you would want to hope.
Thankfully we have moved way past that time, and now the women, or The Man, are often the
best thing to watch on WWE TV, and that’s because they’re actually athletes and not
play things for Vince’s less progressive tastes.
Hair match There have been plenty of these in the past,
with arguably the two most famous coming in the early to mid 2000s.
Pretty simple really.
The loser gets all their hair shaved off by their opponent.
No big deal if you ask me.
Two men to suffer this fate are still rather prominent in WWE, currently going under the
names Kurt Angle and Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
Angle’s was the first barnet to be banished, after he lost against Edge at Judgement Day
2002.
It’s a look he has adopted ever since, whereas his victorious opponent Edge still sports
his long flowing locks.
Compensating for something no doubt.
I’m not bitter.
Vince’s hair was on the line during the bizarre in itself Battle of the Billionaire’s
story line heading into WrestleMania 23.
Vince and some guy called Donald were feuding because...they were rich...and both men were
to choose their champion to fight for their honour and their hair.
Vince chose Umaga, and Don chose Bobby Lashley.
Lashley won the match which also saw Trump flatten Vince with a stinging fist, allowing
Trump to keep his golden hair?
I think it was his hair.
Does he wear a hairpiece or come it all the forward from the back.
Vince has since grown his hair back, and is as handsome as ever.
If they were going for a terrifying bald look however, they’ll never come close to matching
Minoru Suzuki at Wrestle Kingdom 12 after he lost his hair match.
Kiss me arse match By far the most recent match on this list,
and arguably the least hygienic.
A potential future match for Dean Ambrose then.
Following his return at WrestleMania 31, Celtic Warrior Sheamus had been playing the role
of bully, with his favourite victim coming in the form of Dolph Ziggler.
Sheamus had been attacking people from behind and then proclaiming that he was the only
man in all of WWE - maybe it’s an Irish thing - a claim that Dolph had an issue with
for several reasons of course.
Because Sheamus was a bully, his goal was to make Dolph look at pathetic as possible,
and so the Kiss Me Arse match was arranged for Extreme Rules 2015.
Much like TLC matches, the person who sets up the spot fell victim to it, and in this
case it was Sheamus who introduced the arse that lost the match.
But he’s no Warrior for no reason, as instead of kissing Dolph cheeks, Sheamus beat down
on Ziggler before rubbing his face all over his pasty bum.
Muscly, sweaty and hairy, Dolph Ziggler is one of WWE’s finest workers, but this was
not his finest moment.
Gravy Bowl match Another match Vince McMahon probably cannot
believe he managed to get away with, and that thing that you’re imagining when you hear
gravy bowl match is exactly what happened.
Two of WWE’s finest female talents in the early 2000s, Trish Stratus and Stacey Kiebler
were forced to have a match in a giant gravy bowl.
The excuse for holding the match was of course that it was Thanksgiving and everyone knows
that longstanding Thanksgiving tradition of getting two women to frolic in gravy.
You can almost hear Jerry Lawler squealing with delight.
Bra and gravy, bra and gravy.
It started innocently enough, with the ladies fighting over a dinner table full of Thanksgiving
food, but it wasn’t long before they were getting saucy.
It was an epic encounter, which involved Trish being dunked in the gravy several times before
she managed to get the better of her opponent.
What makes this even more ridiculous is that this was a title match.
The WWE women’s title was defended in a gravy bowl.
Fast forward 17 years and we’re talking about Ronda Rousey vs Becky Lynch headlining
WrestleMania...progress is good.
Gulf of Mexico match Let’s head back to 2008, a time when a man
called CM Punk was starting to make things happen in WWE and the never forgotten ECW.
Feuding in ECW with Chavo Geurrero, the two men decided that the best way to settle their
differences was to have a no DQ match.
Pretty simple stuff really, ECW and no-DQ go hand in hand after all.
But wait, this was no ordinary no-DQ match, no no no, this match had an added stipulation
that makes it one of the most ridiculous in history.
To win, you would have to throw your opponent into the Gulf of Mexico, presumably so they
could be taken by Poseidon.
Nowadays of course they would be reincarnated as a Woken Warrior.
No Way Out 2008 was the venue for the match, and although it had to end in the sea, it
started in the ring, which meant that they somehow had to fight while walking out of
the arena and to the closest bit of coast they could find.
Punk, because salt water isn’t straight edge, won the match by lobbing Chavo into
the ocean, never to be seen again...for a week or so.
It was a Get In The Sea match before Get In The Sea even existed.
--------
It’s TLC tonight!
Tables, Ladders and Chairs, hooray!
We’ve seen that winningest of combinations quite a few times over the years, but what
were the very best examples of the TLC match?
Well thankful for you I’ve made a video that will tell you all about it and you can
watch it by clicking the link onscreen now.
And why don’t you give us a subscribe to stay up to date on all of the latest wrestling
news.
I’ve been El Fakidor and that was lucha.