7 More Pro Wrestling Tropes We Have to Live with

The world of professional wrestling can be versatile in that there are often moments of originality, as well as moments so cliche you could accurately predict them with a Ouija board.

I published the first six pro wrestling tropes on Oct. 23 and the slideshow was met with such great feedback that I decided to do another one.

The items on this list are common occurrences in the world of wrestling. In fact, they occur so often that they are now viewed as cliche.

The first slideshow looked at such things as Superstars being more vulnerable backstage than in the ring, tag team matches being made on the spot and men leaving in the middle of a match to hit on their opponents' valets.

This list will add more tropes that we as fans see very often, sometimes every week.

A Ref's Shirt Is Like Kryptonite

Not only are regular refs prone to being knocked out at the slightest touch, but this also applies to special guest refs, as well.

It does not matter who it is, if they have a striped shirt on, then their jaw suddenly turns to glass and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Even though refs are often much smaller than the wrestlers in the ring, they still should not go down so easily, but they do and we laugh every time.

One of the best refs at over-selling has to be Charles Robinson, dubbed Little Naitch by many, due to his resemblance to Ric Flair.

Celebrities Always Win

You would think that when someone like Mickey Rourke gets in the ring with a trained athlete, that he would go down rather easily.

In WWE, the guest celebs are always the winners in any scenario, because they probably wouldn't show up if they knew they would be buried.

The one major exception to this rule is Pete Rose. That guy is like a magnet for punishment from Kane.

Hugh Jackman, Mickey Rourke, Cyndi Lauper and Maria Menounos are just a few examples of celebs who have bested wrestlers recently, although Menounos took her task seriously and deserves credit for her effort.

Lumberjack Matches Breaking out into Brawls

When was the last time a lumberjack match ended with a standard win or loss?

No, really.

I ask because every lumberjack match I can remember in recent history has ended with everyone outside the ring breaking out into an all-out brawl.

This has happened twice in the last few weeks with the two lumberjack matches involving Sheamus.

Whenever you are booked in a lumberjack match, you can rest assured that there will not be a clean finish to that match.

Even though they seem pointless, lumberjack matches are a great excuse to get everyone on the roster in front of the crowd.

By the way, did you see Mason Ryan during the last lumberjack match? It took me 10 minutes to figure out who he was because he has been gone so long that his hair is pretty long now.

The Spanish Announce Table Is Cursed!

If I didn't know better, I would say that the creepy dude from Thinner put a hex on the Spanish announce table about five decades ago.

Even though we usually only see the Spanish announce table at PPVs nowadays, we can still count on it being destroyed way before the American announce table is touched.

I often feel bad for those announcers because they have to call half of the show with no table almost every time they call matches for WWE.

I wonder if there is an American announce table in Mexican promotions, and if so, does it often get broken?

Hey, AAA, I think I just found a funny storyline you can use!

Playing to or Against the Home Team

If we trusted everything John Cena ever said, we would have to believe that he is a fan of literally every professional sports franchise in existence.

Being a heel or a face means you have to get cheers and boos and the easiest way to do that is attack something the hometown crowd takes pride in.

Usually, this means a major team from the MLB, NBA or NFL being mocked by a heel and cheered by a babyface.

CM Punk utilized this technique on Raw this past week and the Rock has done it many, many times over the years.

John Cena is one of the worst offenders in this regard. I wonder how his precious Boston Red Sox feel about him skipping out to cheer for other teams?

Come Visit WWE Hardware, Located Conveniently Under the Ring

I can accept that certain things will get stored under the ring after it is built, but sometimes it seems like Ace Hardware's overstock is stored there.

Tables, steel chairs, ladders and even fire extinguishers are all things that can be justifiably left under the ring by the crew.

Justify a kendo stick to me.

Justify a cookie sheet.

Can you explain how a baseball bat was left under there?

WWE loves weapons under the ring so much that they have included that aspect in video games for years.

If I didn't know better, I would say that somebody wants these weapons to be used, but this is a civilized world and we would never want to see wrestlers hit each other with dangerous objects.

We are too high-class for that.

On an unrelated note, I have been waiting about nine months for someone to invent a font specifically for sarcasm.

David vs. Goliath

Pro wrestling has always been a home for athletes who were much bigger than your average person, and because of this, it has also been a home for those who are smaller.

Putting a giant against someone who is average size, or smaller, has always been a staple in wrestling because those stories create their own drama.

Big guys vs. little guys have the built-in story of David vs. Goliath, and WWE in particular has used this type of story hundreds of times.

This might be a cliche, but it is one that was inevitable due to the nature of the sport and it is probably one of the more welcome tropes in all of wrestling.

Seeing someone like Rey Mysterio defeat Big Show is usually entertaining because it seems so unlikely in a real-life situation, but because of that, we can almost always count on the little guy to come out ahead.

More to Come?

I want to take a moment and thank everyone who took the time to comment on the first "Tropes" slideshow I published and left more cliches for me to cover.

The great thing about wrestling is that its fans recognize how ridiculous it is, but embrace that ridiculousness wholeheartedly.

As people who watch grown men wrestling each other in spandex, we see the underlying insanity and we embrace it with a love and appreciation usually reserved for the fandom gained by franchises like Twilight and The Avengers.

These tropes are a part of that insanity, and while we might gripe every so often, we also see how losing them would completely change the business in a negative way.

If you have any more favorite cliches from pro wrestling, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Who knows, there might be a Part 3 in the works...