Wrestling Match Types Explained: Ladders, Cages, Rumbles and More

Most wrestling matches are simple: two people, one fall, first to win by pinfall or submission wins. But promotions love a stipulation, a special rule that changes how a match is won or what's at stake. Knowing the common ones makes a match card easy to read. Match names vary between promotions, but the ideas below are widely used.

The standard formats

• Singles match: one wrestler against another, decided by pinfall, submission, count-out or disqualification.
• Tag team match: teams of two (or three, in a trios or six-man tag). Only one member of each team is the legal wrestler, and a tag to a partner swaps them in.
• Triple threat and fatal four-way: three or four wrestlers in the ring at once. Usually one fall decides it and any wrestler can pin any other, so the champion can lose without being pinned.
• Battle royal: a crowd of wrestlers all at once, with eliminations until one is left, usually by going over the top rope.

Matches built around weapons and structures

• Ladder match: a prize (a belt or contract) hangs above the ring, and you win by climbing a ladder to retrieve it.
• Tables, Ladders and Chairs (TLC): a match where those objects are all legal, in one of WWE's signature gimmick matches.
• Cage match: a steel cage surrounds the ring. Depending on the rules, you win by escaping or by pinfall or submission.
• Hell in a Cell: a taller, roofed steel structure that surrounds the ring and the area outside it.
• Street fight, hardcore and falls-count-anywhere: the normal rules are relaxed. Weapons are legal, and in the last case the match can spill all over the arena with pins counting anywhere.

The famous special matches

• Royal Rumble: thirty entrants, with a new wrestler entering at timed intervals. You're eliminated by being thrown over the top rope with both feet touching the floor. The winner traditionally earns a championship match at WrestleMania.
• Elimination Chamber: a steel structure around the ring with pods. Entrants are released at intervals and each is eliminated by pinfall or submission.
• Money in the Bank: a ladder match for a briefcase holding a contract for a championship match, which the winner can cash in at a time of their choosing.
• Iron Man: the winner is whoever scores the most falls within a time limit, commonly thirty or sixty minutes.
• Last Man Standing: a fall ends when someone can't get to their feet before the referee's ten-count.

Submission and endurance

• Submission match: the only way to win is to make your opponent submit.
• I Quit match: you must make your opponent say the words, usually after a beating.
• Time-limit draw: a match can end level when the clock runs out. In some Japanese promotions, sixty-minute draws are part of the tradition.

Lucha libre stipulations

Lucha libre has its own conventions. Matches are often decided by two falls out of three. Trios matches, with teams of three, are a signature format. And in a lucha de apuestas (a "match of wagers"), the loser puts up something personal, most famously their mask or their hair. See lucha libre and puroresu explained for more.

Reading a card

When you look at an event's match card on Wrestl, the stipulation is usually in the match name. Knowing what each one means helps you judge what's at stake before you've seen a minute of it. And when you've watched, you can rate the show and see how other fans scored the night.