10 Forgotten Finishers Wrestlers Suddenly Abandoned
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00:00We all know that it's really important for a wrestler to establish a finisher,
00:04otherwise who's going to kick out of it at Wrestlemania?
00:06For some reason though, every now and then a sports entertainee will go,
00:09I need to change man. So hello my friends, my name is Simon Miller.
00:14Let's run down 10 of these right now.
00:16Number 10, Chris Jericho in the breakdown.
00:18Chris Jericho has reinvented himself so many times, often these new characters do come up
00:23with finishes. Sometimes fans like them, sometimes fans go, we don't want it.
00:29So when he first came to the WWF, he continued to use the Boston Crab,
00:32even though he's not even from Boston. When he returned in 2001 and 2002,
00:37he was trying the breakdown. If you need to know what it looks like,
00:40think about Jeff Jarrett's The Stroke or the Miz's Skull Crushing finale,
00:43he was doing that face buster. You can see Chris use this at Vengeance 2002 against John Cena,
00:48or when he beat The Rock in 2001 for the WCW World Championship.
00:53So let's not pretend we weren't trying here, we were going all in.
00:56Now, he never really totally vanished because he did keep it a part of his arsenal for a while,
00:59but of course, eventually he switched to the Codebreaker.
01:02That one has to get a massive round of applause. It's pretty much all time.
01:06Number 9, Kane and the Falling Powerbomb.
01:08I don't really understand why we ever thought about changing Kane's finisher.
01:12Like, the reason he did the chokeslam in the Tombstone is because he was The Undertaker's
01:16fake brother. So just keep on doing it.
01:19Now, of course, there is a reason behind this, and that's because Vince McMahon woke up one day and said,
01:23we cannot do power drivers anymore because people are landing right on their heads.
01:28And while The Undertaker was allowed to keep doing his, they must have sat the big red machine down
01:31and gone, you, you have to change it.
01:34So he did use a big old bomb of power for a while, and you can see him doing it to Christian here.
01:38But of course, he came down with them for ultimate effect.
01:42And look, it was okay. It was all right.
01:44But the problem is, when you do have the Tombstone as the maneuver,
01:47how are you going to win matches?
01:49Well, you've already perfected it.
01:50So eventually, everyone decides, you know what? Let's just return.
01:53And I guess it was an attempt to try and make Kane feel more unique.
01:56But he was a huge man in a red mask.
01:59I think we'd already done the job.
02:01Number eight, The Rock's Shoulder Breaker.
02:03Now, this was so early in The Rock's career, he was still Rocky Maivia.
02:06When he did walk into Madison Square Garden, shaking his fists in 1996,
02:10somebody had said, you can use The Shoulder Breaker as your finisher.
02:15And guess how many fans bought that?
02:17I tell you, it was one.
02:18His mum probably liked it, because that's just what mums do.
02:20Now, eventually, somebody must have clued up The Rock,
02:23because he switched it to a German suplex.
02:26Now, listen, back in the mid-90s,
02:27the German suplex wasn't as spammed as it is today.
02:30But people still looked at it and went,
02:32well, the guy's just fallen on his back.
02:34Try again.
02:35This is why his hill turn was so important,
02:36because in 1997, not only did he start using the uranage
02:40that he called The Rock button,
02:41but he got so over as a character, of course,
02:44he then adopted The People's Elbow.
02:46And we haven't looked back since.
02:48Good.
02:49Number seven, Jon Moxley in the original Dirty Deans.
02:51So, let's just call him Dean Ambrose, I suppose,
02:54because that's what he was here.
02:55It's just easier.
02:56I think this could be the same as The Rock,
02:57in the sense somebody must have gone up to Dean and said,
02:59listen, man, really great that you are doing that double-armed DDT,
03:03but your current version kind of sucks.
03:05Now, this was 2012, and Ambrose would lock it in the same way,
03:08but he would basically do it in reverse,
03:10so I guess you could describe it as reverse DDT.
03:12Now, the issue here is when he did land it,
03:15oh my gosh, did it look brilliant,
03:17but 80% of the time, he did not do this,
03:20and it just looked a little bit squishy.
03:22Moxley realized this as well after he tried to do it on Randy Orton.
03:25People don't understand this.
03:26I've met Randy Orton.
03:28He is a huge, huge man.
03:29You can't hit him with a weird reverse DDT, buster.
03:32Doesn't work.
03:33Given that Dean was also living in the land of the Giants,
03:35he did just go back to the more basic one,
03:37and it was the right move to make once again.
03:40And also, I'm pretty sure he borrowed this from Cactus Jack to begin with.
03:44Love it.
03:44Number six, Randy Orton and the Ozone.
03:46And now to one we have talked about a lot.
03:48Because, of course, Randy Orton in many ways would make his career courtesy of the RKO.
03:52Before this, he was using the Ozone,
03:54which was a finisher.
03:55So many wrestlers tried,
03:58but by and large, none of them could get it to click.
04:00You may know it as the Overdrive as well,
04:01and there's no way I can explain it,
04:03so, you know, get some images on the screen.
04:05But you basically, like, put your leg over someone's neck,
04:08and then you grab their leg, and you kind of do a spinny thing.
04:10It's a lot like the Crossroads, right?
04:12Now, Cody always makes the Crossroads look good,
04:14but there are other people that try,
04:15and it just doesn't work in the way you would want.
04:17So when it came to the Ozone,
04:19honestly, the success rate must have been 1 out of 10.
04:21It was just needlessly complicated,
04:23and it took so much cooperation.
04:25And if you were trying to do it on someone that had two left feet,
04:28you both looked like goobers.
04:29I don't know who went up to Randy and said,
04:31just do a cut, man.
04:33But you can call it one of the best decisions in the history of pro wrestling.
04:36Number five, Seth Rollins' Ripcord Knee.
04:38So one day, Vince McMahon woke up,
04:40and he said,
04:40I don't like the curb stomp,
04:42because he could imagine kids doing it to each other by the roadside.
04:46And if that's true, just shut the whole thing down.
04:48So one day, he had these visions.
04:49He told Seth Rollins he wasn't allowed to do it anymore.
04:51And poor Seth, he tried everything.
04:53I mean, he came out the other side of that feud with Triple H,
04:56and he wanted to get the pedigree as his own.
04:58And we just went,
04:59nah, brah, that belongs to the game.
05:01This led us to the Ripcord Knee,
05:02which was essentially a rainmaker,
05:04but you used your leg.
05:05Like, listen, this would have been a decent extra thing
05:08to throw into your moveset,
05:09but as a finisher,
05:11by and large, we would not have it.
05:12So he really was fighting an uphill battle,
05:14because poor Seth was trying his ass off,
05:17when Vince, as he was wanting to do,
05:19just changed his mind,
05:20with the one small caveat being,
05:22we now just have to call it the stomp,
05:24and not the curb stomp.
05:25But thank goodness it did come back,
05:27because honestly,
05:27it's a bit like Randy Orton and the RKO.
05:29No, no move would ever suit Seth Rollins more.
05:31Number four,
05:32Shawn Michaels' teardrop suplex.
05:34The super kick is so attached to Shawn Michaels,
05:36there are fans in 2024,
05:38who have meltdowns when they see other guys using a kick that is super so much.
05:42Like, well,
05:43Shawn only needed to do it once,
05:44why do you have to do it 47 times?
05:47Who cares?
05:47Now, it all comes down to wrestling evolving,
05:49but I do agree with you.
05:50Michaels' sweet chin music was one of the best wrestling finishers ever,
05:54because you could hit it out of nowhere.
05:55Shawn didn't start with this either, though,
05:57because in the early 90s,
05:58when he wanted to win a match,
06:00he would go,
06:00ha ha,
06:01I'm going to hit you with the teardrop suplex.
06:03And no,
06:04that doesn't mean he would do a suplex while crying,
06:06although I guess that would work,
06:08but it wasn't until the mid-90s,
06:09until he did adopt the super kick,
06:11and I think he,
06:12in that moment,
06:12also realized,
06:13this is way easier.
06:15Actually, too,
06:16when we do go back to the teardrop suplex,
06:18he didn't beat anyone with the damn thing.
06:20Go and watch his early matches with Bret Hart.
06:23The hitman's kicking out all the time.
06:24It also had such a long set-up time,
06:27which, of course,
06:27was not the case with the sweet chin music.
06:30So, yeah,
06:30I think if you are an up-and-coming wrestler,
06:33you need to come up with something like this.
06:35I mean, even now,
06:35he's now, what,
06:3655, 56, 57?
06:37He's not that old.
06:38However old he is,
06:39I bet he could still pull it out if he needed to.
06:41Number three,
06:42The Undertaker's first chokeslam.
06:43Now, this is a tough one to find,
06:45but I assure you it does exist,
06:46and it was when we were still finessing
06:48The Undertaker character.
06:49I mean, he was walking to the ring,
06:51and sometimes we were calling him
06:52Kane, The Undertaker.
06:54So you can see how that ties in.
06:56Come late 1991,
06:57the chokeslam we all knew and loved
06:58would come to fruition,
06:59but before that,
07:00the dead man would whip his opponents
07:02into the ropes,
07:03and when they would come back,
07:04I suppose like a black hole slam,
07:06he would pick them up
07:07in the chokeslam position
07:08when he too would fall to the max.
07:11Well, I don't want to be that guy,
07:13but maybe it actually looked
07:14even more devastating.
07:15Taker would also spin with it
07:16sometimes too,
07:17so I guess it was a little bit
07:18like Baron Corbin's deep six,
07:20and do you know why this was changed?
07:22Maybe rightfully so.
07:23Somebody in the back was like,
07:25isn't this guy meant to be a zombie?
07:27I think he's moving too much.
07:28So we scrapped that,
07:29and instead we made sure
07:30that we established the tombstone
07:31as a super duper finisher.
07:33Once again,
07:34if you were talking about
07:35the Mount Rushmore
07:36of finishing moves,
07:38well, the stone of the tomb
07:39probably has got to be up there.
07:40Number two,
07:40Triple H's cutter.
07:41So this is the best story.
07:43Because when Triple H
07:43first turned up in the WWF,
07:45he had seen DDP in WCW
07:47using a cutter.
07:49It was like,
07:49well, I'm in a totally
07:50different promotion now.
07:52I'm going to steal it.
07:52The legend has always been
07:54that Diamond Dallas
07:55paid staring up Triple H
07:56and said,
07:56listen, man,
07:57I know what you're doing.
07:58I'm really trying to get that
07:59over as my move.
08:00Can you just not?
08:02And actually,
08:02fair play to Hunter.
08:03He said,
08:04you know what, man?
08:05You've helped me so much
08:06in my career.
08:07You've got it.
08:08And he stopped.
08:08It was Michael Hayes
08:09who eventually gave
08:10the Pedigree to Triple H,
08:11but he called it
08:12the Pandemonium Pedigree
08:14or the Pedigree Pandemonium,
08:16which is a terrible name.
08:17But once again,
08:18this was a terrific shift.
08:20It was like some kind of
08:21weird double underhook
08:22pile driver face buster thing.
08:24And when you see it
08:25as we've already established,
08:26who do you think about?
08:28The man with three H's.
08:29I mean, he really did
08:29carve his own niche out with this
08:31to the point
08:31I don't think we'll ever forget.
08:33It's right up there
08:34with the rock bottom
08:35or the stunner.
08:36It's a fair play to that guy.
08:37Number one,
08:38John Cena's lightning fist.
08:39So when John Cena
08:40returned to the WWE
08:41in the late 2000s
08:42or the late 2010s,
08:44he decided I needed
08:45a new move.
08:47So I'll just show the AA
08:48for a little bit
08:49and instead,
08:50I'll do the lightning fist.
08:51So I'm pretty sure
08:52John was doing this
08:53with his tongue firmly in cheek
08:55because it was just
08:56punching somebody
08:57in the face
08:58and the setup was him
08:59like wiggling and jiggling
09:00like he was about to kill you.
09:01And then he didn't.
09:02I'm trying to be mean here,
09:04but it didn't actually
09:05have much impact at all.
09:07Now some people have said
09:08that John did this
09:08because WWE was trying
09:10to appeal to the Asian market.
09:12And that sounds both stupid
09:13and absolutely offensive.
09:15So I'm going to draw a line
09:16through it right now.
09:17This didn't last very long though
09:18and I would say
09:19within six months,
09:20John Cena had gone back
09:21to his DVD slam.
09:23And that's never doing this again.
09:24All we want from John Cena
09:26in 2024 is nostalgia.
09:28He's about to come back
09:29for his return run
09:30and imagine he did
09:31and now he was like,
09:32meh,
09:33a clothesline is my finisher.
09:35We'd all be like,
09:35no, it isn't John.
09:36Try again.
09:37Also a little bit scared
09:38about all that.
09:39Don't think I can handle
09:40Cena retiring
09:41mostly because it makes me
09:43look internal.
09:44Good grief am I getting old.
09:46Now, of course,
09:46make sure you drop us
09:47a comment below
09:47and let us know
09:48about any other finishes
09:49that maybe you liked
09:50or you didn't like
09:50when they did get changed.
09:51Like the video,
09:52share the video
09:52and subscribe.
09:53If you click this video
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09:56with more wrestling trivia.
09:57Otherwise,
09:58thank you very much
09:58for joining me,
09:59my friends.
10:00See you on the next one.