Ahhh, the scaffold match.
Here's the idea: There's a big scaffold suspended 20-50 feet above
the ring. Variation #1 says the goal is to knock your opponents off
the scaffold. Variation #2 is "capture the flag" rules--you gotta
go get a flag from your opponent's corner and bring it back to your own.
POP QUIZ: You are on a suspended platform fifty feet up
in the air with no support net beneath you. Are you going to
A) Take lots of risks and put on a spectacular, death-defying match?
B) Crawl around on the scaffold very slowly, trying desperately not
to fall off and kill yourself?
And that's the main problem inherent in these matches: Everyone runs
around (well, crawls around) pissing their pants and trying not to die
by falling off at the wrong time.
Jim Cornette was seriously injured by participating in one of these
farces, fucking his knee up in about 27 different ways when Big Bubba Rogers
(Ray Traylor, AKA The Big Boss Man) failed to catch him correctly when
Cornette jumped off the scaffold.
I defy you to find me a good scaffold match. No,
really.
Oh, it should be noted that World Championship Wrestling is, to date,
the only wrestling promotion that was STUPID enough to START a Pay-Per-View
with a scaffold match--Great American Bash '91, which, fittingly enough,
still stands as the worst PPV in professional wrestling history.