wrestling / Columns

Now That’s Over The Top! Best Battle Royal Variation: WWF vs. WCW vs. TNA

January 28, 2017 | Posted by Jake Chambers

If you don’t love a Battle Royal then your wrestling soul has been corrupted by the evil spirits that make us believe in the science of things. Pro-wrestling is pure id; the pleasure principle manifested, and a Battle Royal is the art of pro-wrestling centrifuged down to it’s most raw component: people fighting wildly to stay alive.

A gaggle of wrestlers all jammed into that squared circle clubbering it out is about as primal a joy as there is in pro-wrestling. There’s no phoney drama, no feud, no confusing goals, just a schmozy slugfest where everyone is trying to toss each other over the top until one person is left. I even love just typing that, it’s such a pure, tangible goal. Throw all your opponents over the top rope until you’re that last person standing in the ring.

As it is in wrestling though, federations are always trying to find that next tweak on old standards that’ll help them garner some attention by looking innovative and cool. Obviously, the Royal Rumble is the best example of this, mixing the Gauntlet Match with a Battle Royal to hit the sweet spot of over-the-top-rope thrills and the surprise pacing of new entrant pops. However, not all attempts to re-invent have been as insanely successful.

At different times, the WWF, WCW and TNA have had interesting takes on the Battle Royal format, none of which remain in the culture today. All were fun though, and today let’s celebrate that wackiness and find out just which defunct Battle Royal variation was the best.

The 411mania Wrestling 3-Way Dance matches up three opponents in an intellectual battle every week. The biggest advantages and disadvantages of each contender will be highlighted before a final ranking will declare the ultimate winner. This week’s 3-Way Dance:

What Was the Best Battle Royal Variation?

WWF vs. WCW vs. TNA

Why this Battle Royal variation was good…

WWF Bunkhouse Battle Royal = Myth

If you only know the online streaming life of a pro-wrestling fan, than you don’t know what it was like to just hear about a match without knowing how you’ll ever get to see it. Back in the 80s you might read about a match in a wrestling magazine, or had a kid at school describe it to you, but unless you lived near a video store with a specific selection of tapes there was just no way to see most matches after they aired on TV.

The Bunkhouse Battle Royal was one of those mythical matches that was always talked about in my circles but rarely seen. WWF’s Even More Unusual Matches wasn’t a tape that was stocked at your average video store, so hearing back then about this crazy NO DQ Battle Royal where everyone dressed in different outfits or had different weapons, sounded like the perfect crossover of GI Joe and Saturday morning Superstars. A particular detail that got many an imagination going in my neighbourhood was Leaping Lanny Poffo wearing a suit of armour to the ring.

Of course, thanks to the wonder of YouTube, you don’t have to ride your BMX over to your cousins house on the other side of the quarry to see what Poffo did with that incredible, seemingly unbeatable advantage, because it’s now just a click away:

WCW World War 3 Battle Royal = 3 Rings

When WCW first announced they were going to do a 3-ring, 60-man battle royal, it was hard to even put together a list of the wrestlers that were even going to be in the thing.

Never a conservative company, or afraid of taking often insane chances with wacky gimmicks, WCW’s World War 3 concept was about as perfectly bloated and confusing as the state of the federation in the mid-90s, if not the popular and wacky pro-wrestling world at the time.

If you think that the Royal Rumble usually has a predictable 2-3 wrestlers per year who could win, and 27 other groan-inducing losers, imagine a line-up of 60 guys that included Joey Maggs and Mark Starr. However, there was something so stupidly fun about a PPV with 3 rings set-up in the arena, and a match that would have so much going on at once it was almost impossible to watch on TV.

TNA Reverse Battle Royal = Creative

Everything about TNA has been so backwards most of the time that it’s no surprise they thought up a Reverse Battle Royal. Instead of throwing people out of the ring, of course, in a reverse Battle Royal you’re outside the ring trying to get in. Makes sense on paper, but in execution…

I mean, it’s somewhat fun, right?

TNA doesn’t get enough credit for throwing ridiculous stuff against a wall. Unlike WCW who always had the budget to do like a Chamber of Horrors Match or the Doomsday Cage, TNA seemed to really push their resources with odd, complicated structures like the Elevation X Match or the X-Division TerrorDome, and you gotta at least respect their effort. I even liked when they had a 10,000 Thumbtacks Match, the weird Casket Match goth-variation Last Rites Match, and the original concept of the Monster’s Ball Match, where the wrestler were supposed to be locked in a box for 24-hours before the match to get them all crazy. The Reverse Battle Royal was another one of these dopey-yet-fun concepts where 16 guys start outside the ring and fight to be the first 8 to get inside, before moving on to be a regular battle royal. I mean, that’s a Battle Royal in reverse, no doubt.

Why this Battle Royal variation was not so good…

TNA Reverse Battle Royal = 6-Sided Ring

There were just too many sides to the ring to pull off this gimmick, especially if you’re using a small number of wrestlers. A Battle Royal looks cool when the ring is stuffed with guys fighting, but when you’re trying to repeat this concept around the ring you’re gonna need like 4x as many guys to make it look as crowded, especially when you’ve got two extra sides that can be used to access the ring. What the TNA mach led to was way too many guys wandering around not trying to get into the ring because obviously they weren’t supposed to win, and there was just so much space no one could reasonably look like they were trying to stop each other.

I think if you had one, 4-sided ring, and the 60-men of the World War 3 Battle Royal, it might still be a great concept. And if only one side of the ring was legal for getting into the ring, it would have be even better.

WCW World War 3 Battle Royal = Standard Def Split Screen

In the SD TV era, a 3-screen split on your tube TV was a blurry mess. Not to mention the typically terrible direction of WCW just made the presentation so hard to follow, the camera-people didn’t seem to know what to shoot, sometimes filming the same thing, other times focusing on places where nothing was happening.

A high def version of this match today would be better viewing, especially one shot by the expert tech people over at the WWE. Hell, could you imagine a WWE VR perspective where you’re watching from inside the middle ring?

WWF Bunkhouse Battle Royal = Couldn’t Live Up to the Hype

One of the bad things about the old VHS days was that when you actually did get to see some of this stuff it was never as good in reality as it was in your mind.

I’d imagined each guy with his own special weapon, like Corporal Kirchner with an army baton and Hillbilly Jim with a cattle prod, but the were no real weapons used other than ripped shirts, belts and boots. Lanny Poffo and his mythical suit of armour proved to be completely useless.

Of course, if you were an NWA fan you’d probably remember much more fondly the Bunkhouse Stampede version of this match, which featured most of their main event-ers at the time and was way more serious/extreme. I include the WWF version only because I remember the aura around it so vividly in my part of the country, and the fact that the tape which contained it was somewhat available, even if the match itself was nowhere near as great as the NWA versions, or the ones I put on in my basement with my He-Man action figures everyday after school.

Okay, so these are all reasonable options, but which is the best old Battle Royal variation?

#3 = Reverse Battle Royal

Trying to be the only person to get into the ring, instead of being the last one inside like in the other two battle royals, is conceptually a cool idea. It has the innovation of the World War 3 match, but isn’t as grand of a scale, and a version of this with the full roster might still be fun to see one day.

I’m also not a huge fan of a Battle Royal that turns into a singles match with the final two competitors, that always seems like a cop out. I prefer the simple ending of the Bunkhouse match: send the biggest guy over the top by using a “weapon”, making the actual gimmick of the match mean something.

#2 = Bunkhouse Battle Royal

While not as creative on paper as the Reverse Battle Royal, the potential for another great Bunkhouse Battle Royal in the WWE seems possible given all the hardcore antics we’ve seen in the wrestling world since. The only thing I can even think that compares to this match is the Wrestlemania X-7 Gimmick Battle Royal, which I didn’t include here because it adhered to general Battle Royal rules, and well, everyone saw that one.

While the Bunkhouse Battle Royal, like the Gimmick Battle Royal, found a way to capture the lovably cartoonish nature of the often forgotten mid-card weirdos in WWE/F history, it’s that un-seeable notion of the match that could make it interesting today. Like what if a Bunkhouse Battle Royal was only taking place on house shows, like all those weird Brock Lesnar singles matches or that AJ Styles/Kevin Owens Ironman Match from last year, and you couldn’t see it so easily. If there was a way the WWE could evoke this feeling again, like it did with the stuff on these “Unusual Matches” collections, that would be something.

#1 = World War 3

As I explained, growing up in the era of VHS put me in the position to hunt down tapes and events in order to see matches you only dreamed about. There was a mythical nature about the pro-wrestling universe that is mostly gone today. And in my opinion, the World War 3 Battle Royal is something every wrestling fan should be saddened has gone away because it’s so hard to picture something like it happening today. Therefore we can only really imagine what seeing the spectacle of this match live would feel like.

Having attended one Royal Rumble live, I know how the TV experience doesn’t necessarily capture the joy of seeing this match in person, especially one that might be considered dull to the TV audience. Whereas today when a PPV comes to town I’ve got no motivation to pay those ridiculous ticket prices to sit in uncomfortable seats, surrounded by people chanting and screaming, when it’s going to look better at home on TV and only cost me $10. Something like the World War 3 Battle Royal, on the other hand, is so big and unique that I think it would be worth going out of my way to see live.

Hopefully the pro-wrestling world will keep trying to surprise and thrill us with new ideas and crazy gimmicks. But for now, when we’re thinking back on the coolest Battle Royal variations, WCW’s World War 3 is the only one left in the “ring” for this week’s 411mania’s 3-Way Dance!

article topics :

TNA, WCW, WWE, Jake Chambers