Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Symphony of Destruction

Elias vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE Raw 7/19/21

ER: A 1999 style hardcore match that doesn't quite live up to WCW junkyard reckless stupidity, but due to the specific weapon stipulation managed to capture at least a degree of that unpredictability that comes with using non-conventional weapons. This match was the final Elias match in WWE, and to his credit he went out with his best performance of 2021. If WWE actually knew what they were doing week to week they could have easily billed this as a Loser Leaves Town match (instead they just aired vignettes a month later for his return that never happened), but it's still a perfectly fun violent weapons match to go out on. The entire ringside area is filled with musical instruments. It's incredibly stupid but it works because they went so over the top with the instrument selection, and they didn't cheat by fleshing out the match with non-instrument weapons. 

Instruments are great weapons because they are either very heavy or very lumpy, so they are either awkward as hell to land on or heavy as hell to be hit with, and we get plenty of both. Elias takes a nasty bump into a drum kit and there is probably no instrument more painful than a set of drums to bump into (there is one specific way that bumping onto a flute would be much worse, but it's a one in a million shot), and Elias's selling in this match is good enough that I assume his body was completely messed up by this band room brawl. Ryker hits some heavy shots with a huge keyboard, which Elias later pays back by hitting Ryker a few times with a fucking cello. Do you know how heavy cellos are? Not nearly as much as you think, actually. And, since you've never seen circles farther apart than the Venn diagram of WWE Raw viewers and Julian Lloyd Webber fans, Elias takes advantage of that. John Cena used to be really great at putting over the weight of foreign objects, and I have no doubt that there are thousands of kids who believed that the ring steps weighed 200 pounds just from watching how Cena would always labor to lift them over his head. Elias uses that same energy when lifting that cello over his head to smash Ryker, making a 7 lb. instrument look like 70. 

There are some big spots around a grand piano, and the WWE prop department deserves credit for finding a big ass piano just for this blowoff match. I suppose it's possible that Diana Krall had played the arena and the American Airlines Center staff had been looking for a way to get rid of this thing, but regardless, we got to see two guys take bumps on a big piano and that rocks. Also important, is that they fill the time in between weapons shots with hard strikes, with Elias throwing hard elbows after getting busted open, and Ryker throwing shots to Elias's temple to set up the big finish. The finish is the only cheat of the match, as Ryker does an awesome superplex from the top rope to the floor through a pair of tables. A superplex through a grand piano would have been one of the most memorable spots of the year, but I'm not going to hold that against them. Ryker was really good at making sure Elias was punched out on the apron to set up his superplex, making a big spot feel less cooperative than it should have looked, and the superplex itself was definitely something that should end a match. Elias's selling after the pinfall was so good that it would be easy to believe he was hurt, giving his final match the actual gravity that WWE didn't provide. 

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Fight Pit!

Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle NXT 5/27

ER: I appreciate this kind of creativity during a less than ideal period for pro wrestling. Give us a unicorn gimmick match that allows two tough dudes to grind each other to a pulp in slightly new ways. The Fight Pit structure is a combination of other cool gimmicks, part Lions Den part scaffold match (although the structure might have benefitted from a being a bit shorter, as there's no great way to organically get up on a 9' platform). Riddle leaps off the top right away and roll attacks into Thatcher, and before long Riddle is treating this thing like a game of Tony Hawk, giving us what I assume is our only WWE commentary mention of Anthony "Showtime" Pettis when he springs up the cage and whips a kick into Thatcher's mouth. We get some fine Grand Guignol with Thatcher rising from the mat with a bloody mouth, and then actually looking around for teeth! Maybe this is like when someone plans on getting a haircut anyway, so they lose a hair match. But damn the teeth looked like molars, and a good molar bridge will set him back $7,000, really should have taken more skin out of Riddle to get his mouth's worth. I liked Riddle's snap German and all of the sentons looked really hard (plus lead to a great moment of Riddle missing a senton up on the surrounding platform), and a lot of the grappling utilized the cage. I wish we got even more of the two of them bullying into around around the cage, as it's a unique form of grappling that we haven't seen among former Catch Point WWE guys.

I thought the weak part of the match was getting onto the surrounding scaffold, as Riddle picks up Thatcher in a big double leg, but confusingly tries to place him up on the ledge, so after a bit it looks like a buddy helping his friend get over a tall fence, and then that friend kicks him in the face. There had to have been a better way up there, because none of what Riddle did to get the action up there made sense. Up top he really pasted Thatcher with elbows, dug the ankle lock with Riddle hanging over the side, and I actually thought they were nutty enough to go through with the butterfly suplex off the top. Riddle's corkscrew senton was cool enough, and I loved his wild animal thrashing once Thatcher hooked in the read naked, trying to shake him by running into the cage and taking that one final desperation attempt to shake him by just landing on him. WWE needs to be getting more outside the box during this whole mess, and this was a cool kind of box.

PAS: I am surprised Eric liked this as much as he did, I thought this was basically a failure. You have this set up, like this was a cage fight not a cage match, and instead of trying something different it was basically a WWE highspot cage match in a different cage. I thought the bloody mouth thing came off obviously fake and sort of silly, and the early half hearted attempts at shootstyle made the match neither fish nor foul. It picked up when they abandoned all of the pretense and just started doing spots, and I loved the rear naked choke finish, really made Thatcher look like a killer. Still they should have picked a lane and stayed in it.

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The Hollywood Backlot Brawl

Roddy Piper vs. Goldust WWF WrestleMania XII 3/31/96

ER: WWE did the impossible and managed to put on two straight nights of pre-recorded cinematic matches that were both completely different from the other and succeeded in two very different ways. I wasn't excited for the Boneyard Match and I was somehow even less excited for the Firefly FunHouse Match, so color me shocked when the former hit some wonderful peaks and the latter managed to be the only remotely interesting and engaging thing of the last 3 hours of Night 2. Several months ago I took a look at WWF's first big attempt to do one of these big pre-taped cinematic matches and never found time to post about it. This seems like a good time to talk about the Hollywood Backlot Brawl.

This was a truly bizarre match in nearly every way. It was originally supposed to be a Miami Street Fight with Goldust vs. Razor Ramon, but Razor put in his two weeks and then got suspended for a bad drug test, and for some reason I guess Vince just HAD to have a Goldust match not actually happen live at the arena. Vince just had to make people watch a pre-taped match on the Titan Tron, and so Roddy Piper came back for his first match in almost 2 years. I assume Piper was making movies with Billy Blanks instead of wrestling during this time, because he wasn't a super old guy at this point (he's younger here than AJ Styles is now) and was in fantastic cosmetic shape. But he hadn't been anywhere close to an active wrestler in 4 years, and so he comes out of retirement to work a short nasty fight with a high chance of injury, and the feud is based around homophobia and paid off with a running OJ gag that would have possibly been more fresh had it happened during Piper's previous wrestling match (again, two years prior).

The Backlot Brawl itself is short, just about 4 minutes, and everything done by both men seemed like it was done in an attempt to injure themselves. This was filmed somewhere a couple weeks before Mania, and Piper is waiting in a soaked backlot with a baseball bat. I mean, the entire area is soaked pavement. Piper had apparently soaked it down with a firehose, which definitely makes things more dangerous. If I was going to work a stiff brawl I would definitely want it to take place on not just an unforgiving surface, but a super slippery unforgiving surface. This whole thing is just so weird. Goldust cruises into the lot in a spray painted gold Cadillac, and Piper immediately breaks the driver side window with the bat. Goldust was sitting in the fucking driver's seat and Piper just shatters the window inches away from Goldust's head. Glass goes everywhere, Piper cuts his hand, Goldust is bleeding from somewhere, and that's just the first thing that goes wrong. Every spill in this looked painful as hell, both guys slipping on pavement, Goldust getting thrown into a catering table and head first into a couple of dumpsters that don't budge, both guys fighting on the Cadillac's hood (which is also super slippery, since Piper also soaked the car); Piper drops a painful looking fistdrop on the hood (painful because he slips and lands hard on his knee and hip), but then throws a very unfair and very unprofessional punch right to Goldust's head. Goddamn. But then he outdoes himself by punching Goldust again right in the face, a shot that reportedly broke his hand. And it sounded like a punch that would break a face and hand. This very short brawl is nothing but Piper wrecking Goldust with bat shots and punches, and Goldust taking painful bruising bumps onto wet concrete.

And then Goldust runs Piper down with the Cadillac. Goldust gets his lone piece of offense, a shot to Piper's balls, and then gets in the car, guns it towards Piper...and I keep waiting for Piper to move out of the way, and he doesn't. I'm sure the car wasn't going more than 20 MPH, but 20 MPH looks different when it's bearing down on you. Piper doesn't move, he jumps on the hood, and then Goldust throws it in reverse to get the hell out of the backlot, intentionally slamming into a parked white Bronco, scraping up against that dumpster (even after hitting it with a car, the dumpster still probably did more net damage to Goldust than he did to the dumpster), and finally shakes Piper off the hood. Other stuff happens back in front of fans, but nobody cares about that part of the match as none of it was going to approach anything as cool as the first 4 minutes of hyper dangerous outdoor play fighting.

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Gulf of Mexico Match

Chavo Guerrero v. CM Punk WWECW 2/5/08

PAS: This is a Gulf of Mexico match, where the only way you can win the match is to throw your opponent into the Gulf of Mexico. This was a really fun brawl with Chavo looking totally awesome, he opens the match by taking a huge bump to the floor and is great both brawling and bumping throughout. Early WWE Punk was really hit and miss, but this is one of his better matches. They brawl out into the street, a sedan slams it's breaks on only to have Punk hurled onto the hood. They also smash the windshield of a truck and Chavo scares away some guys fishing and hurls the tackle box at Punk. The current looked really strong every time they showed it, which really added to the danger of the match, this wasn't chucking someone into a swimming pool, the loser really could get swept under. Great hidden gem of a match, and a fun way to spend 10 minutes.

ER: This is a total hidden gem! I had never heard of this match before, and the stip is straight out of the silliest one off gimmicks. When Phil told me about it I thought he was confused and thinking of that Rey/Swagger match where Swagger gets rana'd into the ocean. But this was totally great, and tt would still be pretty great for its crowd brawling alone, without the stip. They spill to the floor almost immediately, but they don't fill the time with Irish whips or walking into place, they punch each other all around, they're wearing bad jeans and shirts - the kind you save for come-as-you-are street fights and mowing the lawn - and they awesomely punch out into the street. The rental car slamming on its brakes was some terrific bullshit, but the best was yet to come as they fight over to a malecon and tease getting tossed over. Well Chavo does go over, and Punk foolishly acts like he's going to dive onto him (great camera angle showing how far he would have plunged). The best stuff is by the water though, with that fast current, Chavo trying a freaking vertical suplex right next to the water, a bunch of great moments of one trying to dunk the other, like someone's face getting forced into barbed wire, and then Chavo finally gets dropped in. The was a joyous and perfectly ridiculous 10 minutes. I need to go back to watching more WWECW.

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Dungeon Match

Owen Hart v. Ken Shamrock WWF 7/26/98

This is a submissions match held in Stu Hart's dungeon which is a small paneled basement. Really violent in a way I didn't remember Attitude era WWE being. Both guys spent much of this match viciously slamming each other's heads hard into wood panelling. Shamrock also had some really nasty looking grounded punches, and there were some hard throws onto a thin mat. I liked how Owen used the plumbing pipe for a hurricanrana, felt like something he developed wrestling Bruce when they were kids. They did do some of the dumb movie filming tricks I hate when the WWF did, but otherwise this was a killer five minutes. I even liked the finish with Severn getting cold cocked and then Owen drilling Shamrock in the head with a weight, and Severn being too groggy to see Owen tapping Shamrock's limp arm.

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Cell Block Match

Shank v. Timber the Lumberjack - NWA Wildside 7/1/00

Shank is one of my favorite gimmicks in wrestling history. He was a guy working a babyface convict gimmick where he would threaten to rape and murder his opponents. He set up this match by laying in wait outside of Timbers family's house and discussing how his grandmothers body would never be found. The Cell Block match is a cage set up in the unpaved parking lot outside the Wildside arena, no ring, just a cage on dirt. This is a match I have wanted to see since it happened, so I was amped that I unearthed a copy. The match has amazing opening, Timber is in the cage screaming for Shank to get in there, and Shank appears from out of a hole with sod placed over it and jumps Timber from behind. The punches and kicks in this really felt like a pair of guys fighting over weight time in a yard. Shank really stomps like his trying to mush someones head. They also both land some really brain damaging unprotected chair shots. Finish was kind of silly, but nutso, Shank pries Timber's axehandle into the top of the cage and uses it a platform to hit an moonsault where he hits his knee into Timber's temple. Shank then just squeezes his way out of a hole in the cage, before he is jumped by Terry Knight and Jeff G. Bailey.  This wasn't long, but really violent feeling, and Shank rising from underground like a raised vampire was one my favorite freakshow spots ever.

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