10 Wrestlers Who Could No Longer Perform Their Finisher

Australian Cinephile

Apollo Crews, The Undertaker, and other wrestlers with enforced finisher switches.

Transcript

00:00Sometimes, life sucks.

00:02I mean, if you're a wrestler and have a badass finisher, and one day you can't do it anymore,

00:06you're not going to be a happy bear.

00:08You're going to be a sad panda and have to pivot to something else,

00:12then you've got to get that over.

00:13It's tough.

00:14This happens all the time in wrestling, though, so in case you missed it,

00:17I'm Simon from WhatCulture, please do subscribe.

00:20And this is 10 wrestlers who could no longer perform their finish.

00:23Number 10, The Undertaker.

00:24Before Mark Calloway was The Undertaker, he was learning his trade

00:27and had a very cool trick up his arsenal.

00:30Dubbed the Heat Seeking Missile, when he had tippy-toed to the middle of the ring,

00:34he would leap off the rope and wham his opponents with an elbow drop.

00:37Now, this was impressive given his size, but in terms of making you go,

00:41holy crap, it didn't cut it.

00:42Even then, he still pondered about using it when he made the jump to the WWE in 1990

00:46before he realized that was never going to work given he's meant to be an undead zombie.

00:51This is when the tombstone was suggested, which was, let's face it,

00:55one of the greatest finishes ever.

00:57I mean, seriously, try and think of a better one.

01:00You can't.

01:00Number 9, Seth Rollins.

01:02Seth Rollins has had nothing but good finishes.

01:05In FCW, he used the Phoenix Splash,

01:07then moved to the main roster where he incorporated the curb stomp,

01:10then the pedigree, then that running knee thing.

01:12His execution was always so good because he made them look like death.

01:16That, however, soon became a problem for one Vince McMahon

01:18when the origins of the stomp came to light.

01:21Tying into a vicious scene in the movie American History X,

01:24Vince realized that kids may start doing this in their own backyards,

01:27and therefore it had to go.

01:29I do kind of get this, as anybody discussing it in mainstream media

01:32made it sound like the worst thing on the planet,

01:34but the fallout was quite the outcry from the fans.

01:37Therefore, we eventually came to a compromise.

01:40Rollins could do the move again, but the curb part had to go.

01:44So if you ever wondered why from nowhere it was just called the stomp,

01:47now you know.

01:48Number 8, Scott Steiner.

01:49Because he's nuts, everybody has forgotten how good early Scott Steiner was in the ring.

01:54I mean, he was a tank from day one, but he could still fly around the place,

01:57and honestly was a marvel.

01:59Don't worry about his peaks, watch his array of suplexes instead.

02:02This was the same when he teamed with Brother Rick too,

02:04as they went on to become one of the best tag teams ever,

02:07and with all that under his belt, Scotty took it further with one move,

02:11the Frankensteiner.

02:12He would use this regardless of the theme of the promotion and get wows every time,

02:16all the while ensuring he earned his nickname of the genetic freak,

02:19because that's exactly what he was.

02:21The problem was he did this for two decades straight,

02:23to the point his back essentially gave out on him,

02:26because of course it did.

02:27Throw in that at the turn of the century,

02:28he also started to suffer from drop foot and something had to give,

02:31or in this case, stopping using the Frankensteiner as his finish.

02:35It's why the Steiner recliner moved to the front of the queue,

02:37and wouldn't you know it,

02:39this still looked badass,

02:40because Scott was just a monster when applying it.

02:43You gotta love the guy.

02:44Number 7, Damien Priest.

02:45Well, among all the rumours that Cody Rhodes was indeed headed back to WWE,

02:50all of a sudden Damien Priest was no longer hitting his reckoning finisher.

02:54He switched to the Razor's Edge to apparently match his new attitude,

02:57but come on now,

02:58the crossroads was the exact same manoeuvre,

03:00so something had to give.

03:02Kind of oddly, this actually worked out,

03:04because around the same time,

03:05very sadly, Scott Hall passed away,

03:07who had helped Priest a lot,

03:08so him getting to do the same finish was a nice nod to not only a legend,

03:12but somebody who Damo was happy to shout out.

03:14Cody is winning matches with his version,

03:16so that is that.

03:17We're done.

03:18We can all move on.

03:19Truth, then, is not to pick a move that a bigger star may be using,

03:23because you can't win that battle.

03:25Number 6, Darren Young.

03:26And if you want proof of that,

03:28right here.

03:28This one is a little bit worse,

03:30as Mr. Young had only just picked this as his new finish,

03:32and tied it into a long-running story.

03:35Then he got told,

03:35sorry, Darren,

03:37that's a big nope.

03:38Because after aligning himself with Bot Backlund,

03:40so he could make himself great again,

03:41he was bestowed the cross-faced chicken wing,

03:44that had served his mentor so well.

03:46I mean,

03:46Bob had used that to become the WWF champion,

03:49so this seemed like a positive step,

03:51for somebody wanting to climb the ladder.

03:53When October 2017 rolled around,

03:55though,

03:55and Oscar made the jump to the main roster,

03:57the powers that be informed Young,

03:59this was done,

04:00because it was one of the former NXT Women's Champions major holds.

04:03Now, I do get this in the sense the Empress of Tomorrow was gathering more steam,

04:07but it still sucks for Young.

04:09He had put so much effort into this,

04:10only for it to all be thrown out the window before it could get going.

04:14He didn't stand a chance,

04:15which was doubly true when he was released later that year.

04:19Really does seem unfair.

04:20Number 5,

04:21John Moxley.

04:22John Moxley has one hell of a DDT finish.

04:25It always looks like it kills the guy,

04:26but this wasn't his plan when he first showed up in the Shield.

04:29Because before he did indeed move to the Dirty Deeds,

04:32the then-Dane Ambrose used a headlock driver

04:34that was actually kind of devastating when done right,

04:37so much so,

04:38it was a surprise that WWE signed off on it.

04:40As the name suggests,

04:41Ambrose would grab his opponent's head as if to give them a bulldog

04:44before falling forward

04:45and spiking their head into the canvas.

04:48As Mox would tell Fightful, though,

04:49this move was great against the right guy,

04:52but in the world of WWE,

04:53where everybody is massive,

04:54it just looked bad.

04:56Apparently,

04:56one on Randy Orton was particularly awkward,

04:58and we all know that hurting the Viper is a very bad idea,

05:01so we changed it up.

05:02John has always said it was Joey Mercury

05:04who suggested the double-armed DDT,

05:06and man,

05:06did he take that advice and run with it.

05:08Not only is it better than ever,

05:10but he's got multiple versions,

05:12as and when a match needs it.

05:14Number four,

05:14Chris Jericho.

05:15There was no way Chris Jericho

05:17was only ever going to have one finishing move

05:19throughout his career.

05:20He's reinvented himself so many times,

05:22how he ended matches was going to shift with that,

05:25just defines the character.

05:26When he returned after some time away from the WWE,

05:29he did this,

05:30deciding to go with the Codebreaker,

05:31as opposed to the Lion Salt,

05:33which by that point,

05:34had basically all but replaced the walls of Jericho.

05:36While this was also smart,

05:37due to it being relatively easier on the body,

05:40there was actually a darker reason for this,

05:42and it's not fun at all.

05:43During a match for FMW,

05:45legendary wrestler Hayabusa,

05:46had gone for Chris' famed Springboard Moonsault,

05:49missed,

05:49and landed so badly on his neck,

05:51he paralyzed himself.

05:52This led to Jericho and WWE deciding

05:55maybe it was best to retire the move

05:56and come up with something far easier for all,

05:59hence the above.

06:00Wrestling is dangerous, my friends.

06:02Please stay safe out there.

06:03Number three,

06:04Apollo Crews.

06:05Does anybody even know what Apollo Crews' finish is?

06:07I mean, that's not his fault,

06:09but WWE uses him so infrequently,

06:11it's easy to forget

06:12or question whether you knew to begin with.

06:14But when he did arrive in NXT,

06:16Crews would finish opponents by hitting a press slam,

06:18followed by a backflip into a splash.

06:20It was badass,

06:21because it was flashy and Crews was ripped,

06:23but when Triple H saw this,

06:24he felt we needed to shift some things around

06:27or focus more on the power side of his arsenal.

06:30That's why Apollo changed this

06:31to the spin-out powerbomb

06:32as the game thought it was more benefiting of his look

06:34and the fact that he was a heel at the time.

06:37It wasn't the worst idea

06:38as that move is also great,

06:39but it is weird that Crews was told

06:41to tone down his agility.

06:43The man could spin and fly

06:45like nobody's business.

06:46Number two,

06:47Tyler Rex.

06:47Now Gabby Tuft and more power to her,

06:50the then Tyler Rex was not a big fan of John Cena.

06:53Yes, you heard that correctly.

06:55When she was competing in a WWE ring though,

06:57Tuft would often use the burning hammer as a finish

06:59after a suggestion by Arne Anderson.

07:02For those that don't know,

07:03this was essentially an inverted attitude adjustment

07:05and Rex was on it for a solid year.

07:07When she botched it one night, however,

07:09against Primo on a house show,

07:11Tuft was pulled aside by Cena

07:12and criticized for using the move

07:14and even told off for deliberately

07:16ulting what John did.

07:18I mean, who wants to tell him?

07:19As Gabby said in 2014

07:21when talking to Wrestling Inc.,

07:23Cena said she had to find an alternative

07:25or be fired.

07:26You'll be surprised to hear Tuft change this,

07:28although I'm not sure it helped her too much

07:30in the long run

07:30because soon after,

07:32she was released.

07:33Number one, Triple H.

07:34Are you ready for this?

07:36In a different universe,

07:37the master of the diamond cutter

07:39is none other than Triple H.

07:41For you see,

07:42when he arrived in the WWF

07:43as Hunter Hearst Helmsley,

07:45he wasn't smashing people with the pedigree

07:47and was indeed using this version of the cutter.

07:50He called it the Pedigree Pandemonium,

07:52or so it is said,

07:53which is the worst name for anything ever.

07:55And as the game explained in 2019,

07:57he stopped it because DDP asked him to.

08:00Page had started to use it just before this

08:02and didn't want it to be overexposed.

08:04And as they were buddies,

08:05he called in a favor.

08:06Triple H had no issues with this at all

08:08and instead started dropping people on their face

08:10in a completely different way,

08:11and there was that one guy

08:13who got slammed right onto his head

08:16that still looks horrible.

08:18Know of any of the wrestlers

08:18that had to change their finishing move?

08:20Please do let us know in the comments below

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08:34My name is Simon from WhatCulture.

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