5 Worst WWE Extreme Rules Match Gimmicks
By Tim Sherry
credit: wwe.com
5. Stretcher Match
I’m sorry to break this everyone, but the stretcher match is just dumb. Let’s really breakdown the silliness of this gimmick. So the idea is to incapacitate your opponent long enough to put him on a stretcher, push the stretcher from the ringside area past a line at the top of the entrance ramp. You know that people actually perform that same function as an everyday job, right? So if you have the guy down and out for that long, wouldn’t it be the same as having him in the ring so you can pin him?
This match is a reach and has never worked out as an entertaining match. The Extreme Rules pay per view while still a part of One Night Stand had this match in 2007 and 2008. In 07′ Rob Van Dam and Randy Orton failed to impress and in 08′, Shawn Michaels and Batista didn’t either. I will give the 2003 Judgement Day Stretcher Match between The Big Show and Brock Lesnar a passing grade but literally, every other installment of it has been bad. And how could it not be? One wrestler pushing another like it’s a Mom pushing a child in shopping cart through a grocery store doesn’t exactly make for compelling TV.
Luckily for all of us, the gimmick has only been used once since 2009 in the form of Money In The Bank qualifier between Kane and John Cena in June of 2014 which was, as you can imagine, terrible. All in all the Stretcher Match has been employed 9 times and hopefully we’ll never see a tenth.