The Best Of The Rest 11.12.08: Volume 65 – Used To Perfection – The Cage Match

Hello all and welcome back to the “Best Of The Rest!” Before we get to this week’s column I would just like to take a moment of silence in memory of “The Honk-A-Meter,” you left us to soon…
Ok now that that is over, we move to now! What’s new in the wrestling world? Well in TNA the mEm is runnin’ wild like it’s 1996, and the E is preparing for Survivor Series… but we’ll discuss the current happenings next week. For this column it’s the next installment of “Used To Perfection!” Last time I tackled that topic of kicking out of finishers, well for this edition I will look at one of the more rudimentary matches in professional wrestling… The Steel Cage Match. We’ll look at its original purpose, what is has become, and examples of when it has been Used to Perfection. But enough of the previews, it’s time for the feature presentation… LET’S GET DOWN TO IT!!!

The cage match is one of the oldest traditions in wrestling, dating back to way before I can remember. As old a tradition is it, it still can be just as exciting as anything else in wrestling. Growing up watch wrestling, the cage match was typically used for two reasons: to prevent outside interference, or because a feud had reached such an intense level that the score needed to be settled within the (cue commentator Vince McMahon voice) “confines of a steel cage!!!” The earliest cage match that I can remember came at WrestleMania 2 when Hulk Hogan battled King Kong Bundy in the oh’ so fun big blue cage. This match, of course, became a cage match due to constant outside interference in previous encounters. That match instilled in my mind what the reason for the cage should be. During the 80’s the cage matches were pretty few and far between, most them were damn fine matches. They always had the same type of reasoning behind them; the action needed to be contained so the issue could finally be put to rest. As we moved into the 90’s cage matches were fewer and farther between, the big blue cage would occasionally make an appearance and WCW always had their War Games but it was rare to see the steel structure. Toward the end of the 90’s, and the dawning of the Attitude era, the blue bars were replaced by chain link and we were seeing much more of the steel cage.

Today the cage match, along with many other gimmick matches, are just a “Why not?” type of thing. Cage matches will randomly be thrown into shows or feuds with no real explanation at times. For Christ’s sake there is a PPV with nothing but cage matches. Cheapening gimmicks on full display. There are still some true cage matches but they get lost in the mix among the 20 other unnecessary ones. I recall being at a Raw in Austin several years ago and Vince came on the Titantron and stated that the main event would be Triple H Vs. Kurt Angle in a cage match, and I thought to myself “why?” Granted Kurt and Trips would feuding at the time but it was simply a transitional feud and certainly didn’t need to reach the level of a cage match, and even with the cage there was still interference in the match which just make you wonder why some more. Now-a-days in the E they’ll have a brief explanation of why, but the point is they shouldn’t have to explain why a cage match is going to occur, the feud should speak for itself. For example, the recent Jericho-Punk and Batista-Jeri matches had brief back-story, but I didn’t see a reason for the E to have two cage matches within two months on free TV. It is this constant use that has made the cage lose its value. Fans don’t shill out the money for the cage matches anymore because we have been spoiled and see them on Raw/SmackDown all the time. This is the same reason that the E has to continue to come up with new gimmicks like the Hell In A Cell and the Elimination Chamber, they’ve cheapened the cage and they now need something bigger and flashier to appeal to the fan enough to make him want to pay to see it. We’ve gotten very far away from what the intended purpose of the cage match is, we’ve moved very far away from the days of Flair-Race. The cage match is the big cheese, the big showdown, the grand finale to blood feuds, but today it has just been turned into “another match” that anyone can be a part of.

Now this isn’t to say that all of today’s cage matches have nothing to offer, many modern cage matches are indeed classics. The question is, what makes a great cage match? Depending on what kind of match you prefer, you can argue different examples of “perfect” cage matches. Some say that Bret Hart Vs. Owen Hart was one of greatest cage matches ever because it showed that a cage match didn’t have to be a bloodbath to be memorable, while others love there violence and will cite other matches like for their intensity and ample amount of blood. A great example of mixing these two qualities would be the somewhat forgotten classic that Trips and Mick Foley had at SummerSlam 1997. This feud was burning up and the hate was on display. Night in and night out they would try to tear each other limb from limb, but with constant outside interference Foley often would get the short end of the stick. Perfect elements you need to step up a cage match, and this two delivered a memorable battle. Take that same set up, fast forward to 2005, and replace the names Triple H and Mick Foley with Edge and Matt Hardy and you have yet another great example of a cage match. These two needed to take their feud to the next level, they needed to be locked in the cage and battle it out. This was one of the last great cage matches the E has had; everything in this match clicked. These are some great examples of epic cage matches, but for my money we don’t have to travel very far back in time to find an example of the cage match being… wait for it… Used to Perfection. I know I completely buried the concept of LockDown a bit earlier in this column, but this year’s event gave us one of the greatest cage matches in quite some time. The Samoa Joe-Kurt Angle match was a perfect example of how to have a great cage match. The intensity of this feud warranted a cage, and the constant outside interference just made it more necessary. And in the vein of Bret-Owen, Joe and Kurt didn’t have to bleed buckets to have an epic encounter. These two were locked within the cage and there was no where to go, they had to settle the score once and for all. It was a catch-as-catch-can battle for most the match with the occasional brawling but the entire match the cage served its original purpose, contain the action. It wasn’t until the very end of the match that the cage came in to play, as Joe rammed Angle’s face into the cage one time, knocking him loopy, allowing Joe to take advantage and ultimately win the match. Just like the first cage match I saw, this match was played out exactly to its purpose. It’s proof that the art of the cage match is not lost; it’s merely that they are being over done.

Well that’s it for me this week, be sure and come back next week for more BOTR goodness.

Remember feedback, as always, is welcome at [email protected] or directly below. Be sure and leave some of your personal favorite cage matches!!!

*This Week’s YouTube Sendoff*

^I literally thought I would never stop laughing after the college brochure part.

Take care and I’ll see you back here next week.

-Alex