Steel Chairs

[Impeccable]

Does anyone know where the idea of folding steel chairs as weapons came from? Is it a WWF/WWE thing, or were they being used long before then?

Was there another "weapon of choice" before steel chairs?

[The Mackem]

Hardcore wrestling is normally credited to the likes of Abdullah the Butcher and The Shiek who first started using foreign objects in their current form in the 50's I think. The chair was in amongst those first weapons used, I read something about this a while back, I'll try and find it.

[NeanderCarl]

If you're wondering why, specifically, they use a chair, those folding chairs were about the only weapon to hand back in the days before garbage wrestling, and toys under the ring etc. An arena set up was a ring, a timekeeper table, a couple of ringside folding chairs for officials, and then a whole bunch of folding chairs for spectators.

Long before the likes of Randy Savage and Terry Funk started popularising the use of the table as a weapon, it was only really chairs and the ringbell to hand.

[Lock Jaw]

Was there another "weapon of choice" before steel chairs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs