World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced at a press conference in Stamford this morning that, in an effort to “spice things up,” the company is discontinuing ladder matches in favour of substantially more difficult and amusing greased-pole bouts.

“The era of the ladder match is, quite frankly, passé,” said WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. “Quite frankly, the new greased-pole format will, quite frankly, give fans the action, thrills, and slapstick stupidity that they crave, quite frankly.”

The rules of a greased-pole match will be similar to those of a ladder match: competitors must ascend an awkward and dangerous structure, aggravatingly slowly, to retrieve a championship belt dangling above the ring.

But the slippery greased pole — lubricated with baby oil, Bret Hart’s unused hair slime from the 1990s, and the drippings from Dean Ambrose’s wrung-out tank-tops — will make retrieving the belts much more difficult and preposterous.

McMahon also announced several other new match types that WWE will unveil over the coming months:

• Hell in a Bouncy Castle
• First Man Standing
• Bra and Panties Barbed Wire Deathmatch
• Falls Count Nowhere
• Tables, Greased Poles and Chairs

According to backstage rumors, the inaugural greased-pole match will pit Charlotte against her father Ric Flair (who claims to have had his pole greased thousands of times).