Hardcore wrestling

Hardcore wrestling is a form of professional wrestling where disqualifications, count-outs, and all other rules do not apply. Taking place in usual or unusual environments, hardcore wrestling matches allow the use of numerous foreign objects as improvised weapons, including ladders, tables, chairs, thumbtacks, barbed wire, light tubes, shovels, glass, and baseball bats (sometimes wrapped in barbed wire). Although hardcore wrestling is a staple of most wrestling promotions, where they are often used at the climaxes of feuds, some promotions (such as Big Japan Pro Wrestling, International Wrestling Syndicate, IWA Mid-South, Game Changer Wrestling, Combat Zone Wrestling) specialize in hardcore wrestling, with many matches performed in this manner.

Hardcore wrestling was first acknowledged as a major wrestling style in Japan with promotions such as Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling and W*ING. It then became successful in America with Extreme Championship Wrestling. World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment capitalized on the success and introduced the WWF Hardcore Championship in the 1990s, then soon began to turn those matches into comedy skits. Hardcore contrasts with traditional mat-based wrestling, where solid technical skills are preferred over hardcore's stuntworks, sweat, gore, and shock value.