Do We Really Need So Many Gimmick Matches in WWE?

A week after multiple Halloween-themed “street fights,” WWE has advertised a Guitar on a Pole match for Raw this week. When is enough going to be enough?

When I was just a young lad, I grew up watching WWE just like the rest of my friends and family. Now, being that these were the “dark ages” (ie, 1980s – I’m old), my exposure to the then World Wrestling Federation was on the syndicated shows – Superstars, mostly, but my grandparents would let me stay up when I was over at their house to watch Prime Time Wrestling.

Someone in the family had one of those special cable boxes – you know, the ones where the “pay” in “pay per view” wasn’t necessary. So we would go over and watch pay per views there, and do you know what no one ever said? “Boy, this match is good, but how much better would it be with pumpkin guts all over the ring?”

Back then, gimmick matches existed. But the whole point of them was to be a special occasion. It’s why the Royal Rumble is so different from your run of the mill battle royal. It’s why a Survivor Series elimination tag match is different from a standard 6-, 8-, or 10-person tag match.

The other gimmick matches? Street fights, cage matches, etc? Super rare occurrences. Extra violent matches – “unsanctioned” was a big word back in the day – were supposed to be the culmination of deeply personal battles. A random episode of Raw after a couple of heads of lettuce got thrown around is not that culmination, is it?

But here we are, with WWE promoting a “Guitar on a Pole Match” this week between Elias and Jason Jordan. I don’t think you need me to tell you this is a terrible idea. But what’s worse is the over-reliance on gimmick matches of late in WWE. Just last week, it was Halloween – time to throw pumpkins in the ring and paint kendo sticks like candy corn! And in another few weeks, it’s Thanksgiving – better be ready to take plenty of cornucopias to the cranium!