Violent People

Tables, Ladders, or Chairs? The Best Weapon in Pro Wrestling, Decided

A few weeks ago, the question was posed to the readers of Violent People: what is the ultimate weapon in professional wrestling? Is it the humble table, the lofty ladder, or the storied chair? You, the readership of this website, wrote in with your thoughts and cast your votes. Therefore, you have only yourselves to blame.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I’d like to thank everyone who voted. I’d also like to thank everyone who’s read Violent People this year, whether you came for Corwo’s weekly match recommendations, Chris’ guaranteed-monthly Lucha Roundup, Sam’s personal passion project the 25 Under 25, Dan’s excellence in executing an Infinite Jest parody, or any of the guest columnists who’ve added to the chorus of interesting and unique voices that Violent People exists to foster.

I’d also also like to thank all of the listeners to our various podcast strands, from VPR to Q&Tr to the fun experiments being conducted in the Violent People Labs.

I’d also also also like to thank anyone who’s shared our links on social media or their own blogs.

I’d also also also also like to thank anyone who voted in the VP2010s, and even if you didn’t vote, we’re gonna need help writing blurbs and finding match recs – your contributions are hereby requested!

I’d also also also also also like to thank anyone who’s joined the vibrant and loudmouthed community on the Violent People Discord, where as of this writing it has been exactly 0 days since the last “Will Ospreay: bad?” discussion.

Most of all, though, I’d like to thank the people who bought mugs. You’re the real heroes.

Now, then. Let’s get on with it and see what kind of a godforsaken mess that you, the voting public, have made of my beautiful wrestling weapons poll. We’ll lead off each section with some quotes from the voters, and send each of them off with a nice little playlist of classic matches to spend today watching with your loved ones. Happy holidays, you little monsters.

3. Ladders — 17.4%

“Versatile: you can hit people with it, you can jump of it, you can break them, you can fall through them, you can use them to trap people” –xiomax

“Because there’s a lot more good matches with just ladders” –kenneth

“because ladders are tall and the others are short, and i hate short people” –ghash

The plight of the ladder in wrestling is an interesting one to consider. More than the other options in this highly scientific poll, it rose to the highest heights of prestige among fandom. Think of Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon at WrestleMania X, or Edge spearing Jeff Hardy out of mid-air, or Joey Mercury getting his face fucked up worse than any other wrestler has ever gotten their face fucked up in the middle of a match. The much-vaunted “TLC” stipulation is built around its central letter. After all, a “tables & chairs” match is pretty much just a hardcore match. It’s the ladders, and their promise of someone impacting Home Depot furniture from a great height, that make those three letters special.

Climbing to such heights also meant that ladders had the furthest to fall. It’s not that ladder matches have become bad, so much as their cache within fandom has been massively devalued. Ladder matches are still wild spectacles in which wrestlers take stupid risks – look at this past year’s Aniversario show from The Crash, where Chris Carter plunges into oblivion. Even so, there’s a familiarity to them that’s gotten too comfortable, fed by things like regularly-scheduled Money in the Bank matches. Ladder matches have become a place for wrestlers to showcase their athleticism and daredevil fearlessness, trying to re-invent the wheel and come up with some new and innovative way to land on a ladder bridge. That’s why moments like Darby Allin annihilating himself in Sting’s retirement match stand out. They bring back what we originally loved about ladder matches: the danger and the thrill of seeing a car sail over a cliff and crash in a fireball, but with human bodies instead of metal axles.

Recommended ladder matches:

2. Tables — 21.7%

“table break big noise look cool ouchie big moment yay” –the rizzler

“The Dudley Boyz should be VP HoF’ers” –Violent People co-founder Dan Rice

“Communism” –Tunney

Ask any wrestling crowd in 2024 what they want coming out of the gate, and the answer is a sure thing: “We want tables!” Granted, as soon as they get the tables, they then want fire. Tables are an endangered species in pro wrestling. I remember seeing a post on ZandigFans years ago where the promoter of Beyond Wrestling complained that a lot of stores don’t even stock the wooden ones anymore, and ordering them online was prohibitively expensive, to the tune of something like $100 per. This is why doors have become the breakable plank of choice on the independent scene, though some of the grimier lucha libre promotions have done them one better and started using wobbly sheets of plywood. The effect of smashing through a door or a plywood board is nowhere near as exciting or as satisfying as a big table bump.

Tables are the luxury weapon in 2024. They’re a status symbol: that your promotion can actually afford to buy a table just for the purposes of smashing a human body through it. We need to cherish what time we have left with this noble institution of hardcore wrestling.

Recommended tables matches:

1. Chairs — 60.9%

“Tables lie, ladders lie, chairs don’t lie. You can set up a table for a spot 100 times, it’ll let you down 25 times. You can say the same for a ladder. But a chair will mess you up no matter what. Even if it breaks easily.” –nomorecreatives

“My initial thought was that tables were the best. It’s always fun to watch someone explode through a table, you can lay them flat across the top turnbuckle and do cool movez off them, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought one could get out of the use of a chair. I will always be a fan of someone Sabu-ing a chair at their opponent. Wrestlers delivering moves to each other on and off chairs is fun. You can even make a bootleg table by setting up six or eight chairs together (did they use to call that a steel coffin?) such as the Brandon Kirk psycho driver (fuck your life.) Wrestlers can jump off of chairs, which is fun. Last but not least, the giant chair pyramid often seen in DDT is neat (even if there really isn’t much you can do with it other than an Irish whip.) Ladders are fine, but not as versatile as the chair.” –mikie

I could pontificate for a while on what chairs have meant to wrestling and why they’re the most beloved (by far) of all wrestling weapons, but the voters were willing to say what everyone was already thinking:

“unprotected chairshots are sick” –Brother

“Unprotected chair shots rule” –M0ndo

“Unprotected head shots are cool” –The_padraig

“Concussions” –Tap

Sometimes it’s really that simple.

Recommended chairs matches:

Here’s to 2025. Buy a mug.

pto
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pat-t


VPR co-host, XPW endorser

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