Wild Wrestling Matches That Never Happened Again

Throughout the history of the professional wrestling industry, especially in the modern era, there have been many unique, wild, and some may even say crazy, match types. From WarGames, which originated in NWA and WCW, to its newer AEW counterpart in Blood & Guts, to Chris Jericho's creation of the Money in the Bank ladder match, to even the three Punjabi Prison matches in history, as well as multiple "Deletion" themed TNA matches, there is no shortage of interesting match concepts over the years.

Entire pay-per-views and premium live events have been centered around a specific match type, and even in "WWE NXT," there's a match to crown the developmental brand's Iron Survivor every year. There are, however, even more fascinating match types that have only happened once in wrestling history, and many are cinematic instead of inside an arena or stadium. 

The Wyatt Swamp fight featured the late Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman fighting on the "Wyatt Compound." Wyatt's genius later also led to the fan-favorite Firefly Funhouse match with John Cena, which went through various area of WWE, as well as Cena's own career. Another wild match type that fans are highly unlikely to see ever again is the Boneyard Match, a cinematic (and meme-able) classic between AJ Styles and The Undertaker, which ended up being "The Deadman's" final match in WWE after he "buried" Styles in an open grave. While the company, and 'Taker specifically, have seen many Buried Alive Matches, the Boneyard Match and the cinematic aspect is unlikely to be repeated.

While many of those once in a lifetime matches stem from the pandemic era and the major companies' needs to entertain audiences stuck at home, there are even more one-off matches that have stunned fans, both live in person and sitting at home, over the years, in both good and bad ways.

Chyna won her first Intercontinental Championship from Jeff Jarrett in a match that has never been replicated, and likely never will in this day and age. The pair faced off in not just any intergender match, but a Good Housekeeping match at No Mercy 1999. The rules of the bout were that any item that could be found in the home was a legal weapon, including chairs, frying pans, a toilet seat, trash cans, the entire kitchen sink, and even Jarrett's own guitar. "Double J" attempted to win the match with a shot to Chyna with the title belt, but it was ruled by then-referee Teddy Long that the title didn't count as a home item, and the match continued until Chyna used the guitar to get the victory.

It was a unique and historic moment, as "The Ninth Wonder of the World" became the first woman to hold the IC gold, and it was her first title victory in the then-WWF as well, even before she captured the Women's Championship. The match was Jarrett's final bout for Vince McMahon's WWF and he demanded a $150,000 payout from McMahon to do the match. Jarrett was on his way out the door to WCW, and he knew he had leverage over McMahon during the "Monday Night Wars," as the chairman wouldn't want the Intercontinental Championship to end up in the trash on an episode of "WCW Nitro" like the women's title had previously, thanks to the former Alundra Blayze.

There have been plenty of street fights of all kinds, from Philadelphia-themed matches to many "The Miracle on 34th" street fights around the holidays, but there's never been another Good Housekeeping match in wrestling history.

One of WWE's most infamous gimmick matches that ever occurred was a one-off known as the Kennel From Hell match that took place during the Attitude Era at Unforgiven 1999. The match was meant to a brutal bout to end the extremely personal feud between The Big Boss Man and Al Snow, but it ended up being one of the biggest jokes in the company's history. 

The men had been feuding over the Hardcore title, but Boss Man took things to another level when he stole Snow's dog and ultimately served the animal to him during a meal in a hotel room. After realizing what Boss Man had done, Snow challenged him to a Kennel From Hell Match, something that had never been seen in the then-WWF before, and has not been seen in the wrestling world since.

The match was ultimately a cage match, with that cage surrounded by a Hell in a Cell. A bunch of ferocious dogs were meant to be between the cages, but rather than a bunch of bloodthirsty canines, the match saw a bunch of regular dogs with the handlers who were more interested in doing what normal dogs do around the ring. The men were meant to escape both cages, as well as the dogs, but when they realized the pups weren't exactly all that nasty and ferocious, they just treated the match like a regular Hardcore Championship bout. There was blood, but it wasn't brought on by any dog surrounding the ring. It was later revealed that instead of trained dogs, WWE had just gotten a list of dogs and their owners from a local veterinarian.

One of the lesser remembered one-off, wild match types that wrestling fans only got to see once was the Duchess of Queensbury match that pit William Regal against Chris Jericho in 2001. The pair had been feuding for months, and at one point, Jericho even urinated in the Englishman's tea. At that point, the rivarly took a turn to play off Regal's heritage, and the Duchess of Queensbury match was set for Backlash that year.

The match was basically an abuse of power by Regal, who was commissioner of "WWE Raw" at the time. He attempted to play off the Marquis of Queensbury ruleset that inspired the rules of modern-day boxing way back in 1867 when they were endorsed by a Marquess of Queensberry. Regal, however, brought the "Duchess" to ringside to sit on a throne for his match against Jericho.

The rules of the match were never explained for fans watching, and the Duchess would yell out new rules when they benefitted Regal at random intervals during the match. At one point, Jericho looked to have the match won after a Lionsault, but the Duchess rung the bell and declared the first round of the match had ended. In another rule, the Duchess ruled the match couldn't end by submission when Jericho had Regal in the Walls of Jericho. At another point, Regal had to rescue the Duchess from Jericho's clutches after the bout was revealed to be a no-disqualification match, and in the end, the then-commissioner hit his opponent with a chair and covered him for the victory.

AEW is known for its brutal matches, oftentimes pushing into death match territority, if not beyond it, but one of its most unique bouts of its short history was actually more quirky than gorey. Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy were feuding during the pandemic era of 2020, and the feud culminated at an empty Daily's Place in what was known as a Mimosa Mayhem match at All Out that year.

It happened after Jericho became a meme for his "little bit of the bubbly" comments with a champagne bottle in hand. When Cassidy got involved, it led to the one-off match type, where the only way to win was pinfall, submission, or to just straight up throw your opponent into a vat of mimosas set up on both sides of the ring.

In the end, it was Cassidy to hit Jericho with two Orange Punches to send him into the bubbly beverage and end the feud. However, it was brought up again years later in 2024, with Jericho infuriated that Cassidy ruined his $7,000 leather jacket four years prior. Cassidy continued to up the silliness of the renewed feud at that point by dropping the payment for the jacket into Jericho's Bentley convertible... in the form of pennies delivered via backhoe.

In the months following Mimosa Mayhem, Jericho said that even though he lost, he was proud of the match, despite the concept being "weird." AEW President Tony Khan also revealed that he had a hand in coming up with the stipulation alongside the wrestling veteran. The Mimosa Mayhem match was a wild product of the pandemic era, and something fans are unlikely to ever see again. 

Well before cinematic matches ever really became a thing during the pandemic, though a year following the phenomena that was "Broken" Matt Hardy and Brother Nero's "Final Deletion" match at the Hardy Compound, WWE pit Bray Wyatt against Randy Orton in a "House of Horrors" match. The bout was WWE's first foray into cinematic matches, though it didn't make a ton of sense, as only half was cinematic and shown to fans in the crowd at Payback that year. It was explained in the lead-up that the match would start in the haunted house and somehow end in the ring.

The match came after the pair's not-so-well received WrestleMania 33 bout where bugs were projected onto the mat, Wyatt's attempts to scare his opponent. The efforts failed at 'Mania, however, and Orton captured the WWE Championship from Wyatt, leading to the new match type that has yet to be replicated, only learned from and perfected into full cinematic matches.

Leading in to the House of Horrors match, Orton was seen pulling up to the house in the dead of night, though it was still light outside in San Diego, California when the match began. Orton and Wyatt fought through the spooky house until "The Eater of Worlds" pushed a refrigerator onto Orton and stole his vehicle to get back to the arena. A full match took place in between then and Wyatt and Orton's "arrival" to the arena. Orton was attacked by Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers, and Wyatt hit a Sister Abigail to win the non-title match.

The match was, once again, not received well by fans, and as of this writing, sits at just a 3.19 rating with just 35 votes on Cagematch. The bout was seemingly not even rated by Dave Meltzer in the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter."