page_title: Professional wrestling match types
section_title: Steel cage match
hierarchical_section_title: Professional wrestling match types / Enclosure-based variations / Steel cage match
caption_attribution_description: A dark cage match at the Impact! TV Tapings in Wembley, England on January 26, 2013.
context_page_description: Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called "concept" or "gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some of them occur relatively frequently while others are developed so as to advance an angle and such match types are used rarely. Because of professional wrestling's long history over decades, many things have been recycled. These match types can be organized into several loose groups.
context_section_description: Steel cages are one of the oldest form of enclosures used in professional wrestling. The earliest known "steel cage matches" of any kind took place on January 9, 1936 in Caruthersville, Missouri, in a card that included two such "chicken wire fence" matches between Lon Chaney and Otto Ludwig, and Joe Dillman vs. Charles Sinkey. These matches took place in a ring surrounded by chicken wire, in order to keep the athletes inside, and prevent any potential interference. They have evolved a great deal over time, changing from chicken wire to steel bars to chain-link fencing (the latter is now the standard, due to it being cheaper to manufacture, lighter to transport, and more flexible and thus safer for the wrestlers).
  A steel cage match is a match fought within a cage formed by placing sheets of mesh metal around, in, or against the edges of the wrestling ring. The most common way of winning is by simply escaping the cage, either over the top of the cage wall and having both feet touch the arena floor, or by escaping through the cage door with both feet touching the arena floor. The other occasional ways to win a steel cage match are by pinfall, by submission, though these are less common stipulations in the modern era, an even less likely stipulation is that weapons can be thrown into the ring by the wrestlers' managers.
  It is possible to have one wrestler attempting to escape over the top of the cage wall while another tries to escape through the cage door. In Mexico, steel cage matches are won by just climbing to the top of the cage wall. In Impact Wrestling's past, the matches were often called "six sides of steel" as the cage surrounded their six-sided ring.
caption: A steel cage match at a 2013 Impact Wrestling event
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