Roxxi Laveaux has her head shaved at the Sacrifice PPV. Photo courtesy TNAwrestling.com

With TNA's sixth birthday having just passed into the record books, we here at SLAM! Wrestling feel that it is our duty, like the friendly uncle of the family, to pass on some sage advice to the youngster.

That advice is simply this -- enough with the gimmick matches!

Now we're not taking to anyone in particular in the TNA writing room. No, we'd neVeR, eVeR go out of our way to point out a VeRy specific person in on staff who's concepts seem to come ViRtually out of nowhere.

In any case, Total Nonstop Action, we proudly present you with this birthday gift - our choices for gimmick matches, we never want to see again.

Jason Clevett
With Slammiversary now complete, I am once again reminded of how much I hate the King of the Mountain match. There has not been a good one yet out of the five. Sure, nearly every match lead to a title change, but the set up is so convoluted and confusing that even after all these years, I still scratch my head in trying to watch it. You have to pin one of your opponents, who then spends time in a penalty box cage, and once you have scored a pinfall, you can take the belt and climb a ladder and hang it up. Huh?!?! Every year I hope they will just drop the concept, and every year come Slammiversary there it is again. Anyone who is curious about TNA and may order Slammiversary as their first show would walk away going "huh?" and that is not what you want your audience to do. In a promotion that does so many ass-backwards gimmick matches, this is the top one. The only thing that makes me happy is this only happens once a year.

Bob Kapur
The ‘Feast or Fired’ briefcase match. To me, a wrestling match where there is incentive to not try for the win is completely illogical. The reason WWE’s Money in the Bank match works is that there is only potential reward for winning, thus the briefcase is something to be fought for. In FoF, the potential negative consequences make the entire premise faulty. And don’t even get me started on the drawn-out process that took place even weeks later to resolve who owned which briefcase.

Jon Waldman

WHAT YOU THINK
Do you think TNA has too many gimmick matches? Absolutely - 81% It's about right - 14% I want more! - 5%

When I think of TNA's horrible gimmick matches, I like to occasionally give them credit for trying something new. The reverse battle royal? Bad, but at least it's different. Elevation X? Dangerous, but it has been done in the past, so you can't fault them for continuing a "tradition". No friends, what I hate the most are the convoluted matches that incorporate a number of gimmicks all in one. While I was leaning for a long time towards the reverse battle royal cage match, nothing truly compared to the horridness of the Battling for the Royal Ladder with Hair on a Pole match. As if the battle royal to determine the ladder match participants, one of whom would get their head shaved crapfest wasn't enough, they added an extra bit of confusion by giving Gail Kim a free pass and keeping her lovely locks from a pole match win. Lesson to be learned TNA - pizza, hot dogs, sushi and Kraft Dinner are all good meals, but no one wants them all at once.

Greg Oliver
It still boggles my mind to this day that someone thought that a whole pay-per-view of cage matches was a good idea. Talk about overuse of what should be a rare occurrence.

RELATED LINKS
Slammiversary: No gimmicks needed for thumbs up PPV