10 Awesome Finishers WWE Stars Should Steal
Mapping the route to success.
Paul Burchill is far from the only wrestling pirate; the scene is awash with plundering scavengers.
When Pete Rosenberg made a(n even bigger) t*t of himself by not knowing who War Machine were and spitting his dummy out over it, he attempted to deflect the heat onto Kevin Owens upon discovering that the K in Kami didn't watch New Japan Pro Wrestling, either. That may or may not be true - but his peers clearly do.
Seth Rollins' TV diet consists exclusively of Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives and New Japan World, for his post-Shield arsenal is an amalgam of Hiroshi Tanahashi's Sling Blade and Kenny Omega's V-Trigger. The former is executed well enough, while the latter isn't even an echo of the Cleaner's audible sickener - but few cry plagiarism. Everything is borrowed. Steve Austin in part became a megastar through modifying the finishing move of, all people, John Laurinaitis. The majority of wrestlers aren't daft enough to thieve anything too iconic, lest they invite an unflattering comparison. If anybody dared steal Kazuchika Okada's Rainmaker, they'd look like Tyler Reks doing the Burning Hammer.
There is, however, much finishing move treasure left to discover, across oceans and time...
10. Last Falconry (Shingo Takagi)
For use by: Kevin Owens
There are more finisher kick-outs than rest holds in the modern WWE match, so many of which bleed into the next through the process of homogenisation. Simply "hooking the leg" does not cover it - literally - despite how often and how hysterically Michael Cole sells it as some bulletproof tactic. It would be nice for a finisher to actually become or at least resemble a finisher nowadays, and Shingo Takagi's Last Falconry is the perfect antidote to the problem: a stunning power move in itself, the segue into a devilish pinning predicament by way of a larynx-crushing leg drop is seamless. If any move is capable of truly delivering that elusive pop, it is a move from which escape appears impossible. Kevin Owens is just one of several culprits to wrestle within the same match structure - and the move isn't too dissimilar to his own superplex counter of choice.
This also realistically complies with WWE's safety standards, which was a consideration throughout the list - otherwise, Braun Strowman would be smashing up with motherf*ckers with the Tiger Driver '91 for days.