By Shane Dale
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, November 6, 2003
Bloody foreheads. Hair pulling. Cheating with foreign objects.
With all that's changed in professional wrestling the past 30 years, some things simply do not. Such is the case with the steel cage match.
World Wrestling Entertainment's "BloodBath: Wrestling's Most Incredible Steel Cage Matches" features clips from 20 of the most brutal matches (11 shown in their entirety) that involve the ominous, 12-foot steel structure that surrounds wrestlers in the ring like the caged animals they are.
The classic 1979 matchup of then-WWF Champion Bob Backlund and first-ever WWF Intercontinental Champion Pat Patterson was phenomenal for those in attendance. Each time one man attempted to win the match by climbing out of the cage or crawling out the door, the other man would pull him back in, leaving the audience breathless each time.
This isn't to say that today's "Attitude" era of wrestling hasn't featured some fantastic cage matches as well. The 1999 bout between Stone Cold Steve Austin and his boss and arch-nemesis, Vince McMahon, was a classic. McMahon proved he was willing to put his body on the line for the company he owned by falling 12 feet from the top of the cage and onto the Spanish announce table - even before the match began.
As in the late '70s and early '80s, wrestlers still perform a rather gruesome technique called "blading"; that is, they insert a razor blade in their tights, pull it out in a manner that no one should be able to detect, and make a small incision on their forehead with the blade to induce bleeding. They then sneak the blade back inside the small pouch in their tights.
Wrestlers bladed in 1979 and they blade today. Wrestlers still pull their opponents' hair from the top of the cage to keep them from climbing over. And wrestlers still use illegal objects, such as brass knuckles or even the infamous steel chair thrown to them from over the cage by a run-in buddy.
In short, "BloodBath" is a solid historical review of one of the most legendary and genuinely brutal matches in professional wrestling.
Rating: 4 out of 5