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 signed for 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
00:47before 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.
01:01Number 9, Seth Rollins.
01:02Seth Rollins has had nothing but good finishes.
01:05In FCW, he used the Phoenix Splash, then moved to the main roster where he incorporated the curb stomp,
01:10then the pedigree, then that running knee thing.
01:13His execution was always so good because he made them look like death.
01:16That, however, soon became a problem for one Vince McMahon when the origins of the stomp came to light.
01:21Tying into a vicious scene in the movie American History X, Vince realized that kids may start doing this in their own backyards,
01:28and therefore it had to go.
01:29I do kind of get this, as anybody discussing it in mainstream media made 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.
01:43So, if you ever wondered why from nowhere it was just called the stomp, now 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 and 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, as they went on to become one of the best tag teams ever.
02:07And with all that under his belt, Scottie took it further with one move, the Frankensteiner.
02:11He 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, because that's exactly what he was.
02:21The problem was he did this for two decades straight to 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, he 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 and wouldn't you know it,
02:38this still looked badass because Scott was just a monster when applying it.
02:43You gotta love the guy.
02:44Number seven, Damian Priest.
02:46Well, among all the rumors that Cody Rhodes was indeed headed back to WWE,
02:50all of a sudden Damian Priest was no longer hitting his reckoning finisher.
02:54He switched to the razor's edge to apparently match his new attitude, but come on now,
02:58the crossroads was the exact same maneuver, so something had to give.
03:02Kind of oddly, this actually worked out, because around the same time, very sadly,
03:06Scott Hall passed away, who had helped Priest a lot, so him getting to do the same finish was a
03:10nice nod to not only a legend, but somebody who Damo was happy to shout out.
03:14Cody is winning matches with his version, so 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 six, Darren Young.
03:26And if you want proof of that, right here.
03:29This one is a little bit worse, as 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, sorry, Darren, that's a big nope.
03:38Because after aligning himself with Bot Backlund so he could make himself great again,
03:42he was bestowed the cross-faced chicken wing that had served his mentor so well.
03:46I mean, Bob had used that to become the WWF champion,
03:49so this seemed like a positive step for somebody wanting to climb the ladder.
03:53When October 2017 rolled around, though, and Oscar made the jump to the main roster,
03:57the powers that be informed Young this was done,
04:00because it was one of the former NXT Women's Champion's 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,
04:11only 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 five, Jon Moxley.
04:22Jon Moxley has one hell of a DDT finish.
04:25Always looks like it kills the guy,
04:27but 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 it was a surprise that WWE signed off on it.
04:40As the name suggests,
04:42Ambrose would grab his opponent's head as if to give them a bulldog
04:44before falling forward and spiking their head into the canvas.
04:48As Mox would tell Fightful, though,
04:50this move was great against the right guy,
04:51but in the world of WWE where everybody is massive,
04:54it just looked bad.
04:55Apparently, one on Randy Orton was particularly awkward,
04:59and we all know that hurting the Viper is a very bad idea,
05:01so we changed it up.
05:02Jon has always said it was Joey Mercury who suggested the double-arm DDT,
05:06and man, did he take that advice and run with it.
05:09Not only is it better than ever,
05:10but he's got multiple versions as of when a match needs it.
05:14Number four, Chris Jericho.
05:15There was no way Chris Jericho was only ever going to have one finishing move
05:19throughout his career.
05:20He has 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 as opposed to the Lion Salt,
05:33which by that point had basically all but replaced the Wars of Jericho.
05:36While this was also smart due 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 had gone for Chris' famed springboard moonsault,
05:49missed,
05:49and landed so badly on his neck he paralyzed himself.
05:53This led to Jericho and WWE deciding maybe it was best to retire the move
05:57and 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, Apollo 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 or 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 because it was flashy and Crews was ripped,
06:23but when Triple H saw this,
06:25he 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 to 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 as that move is also great,
06:39but it is weird that Crews was told to tone down his agility.
06:43The man could spin and fly like nobody's business.
06:46Number two, Tyler Rex.
06:48Now Gabby Tuff, 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,
06:57Tuff would often use the burning hammer as a finish
07:00after 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,
07:11Tuff was pulled aside by Cena
07:13and criticized for using the move
07:14and even told off for deliberately ulting what John did.
07:18I mean, who wants to tell him?
07:20As Gabby said in 2014 when talking to Wrestling Inc.,
07:23Cena said she had to find an alternative or be fired.
07:26You'll be surprised to hear Tuff change this,
07:29although I'm not sure it helped her too much in the long run
07:31because soon after, she 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 is none other than Triple H.
07:41For you see, when he arrived in the WWF
07:44as 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
08:19that had to change their finishing move?
08:20Please do let us know in the comments below
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