10 Best Finishers In Wrestling Today

10. Finn Bálor: Coup De Grâce

Finn Bálor's Coup De Grâce is a near-perfect modern wrestling finisher.

The aim is to orchestrate a loud reaction from the audience while, at the same time, asking them to believe that what is to follow is enough to end even the most vaunted and gigantic of opponents. Though ritually betrayed to a near-harrowing extent, the most important aim is (or was) to create the illusion of gruesome danger without actually endangering them.

The Coup De Grâce is a checklist of brilliance.

Bálor aims much of his offence (the sling blade, the double foot stomp) at the gut of his opponents, leaving them prone long enough to ascend the turnbuckle. They're already winded. When he connects, any remaining air is stamped out of them. It's a finisher you cannot kick out of, and thus one of the best.

It's how he connects that puts it over; Bálor appears to plunge his feet into the gut of his opponents with such force that it's a wonder they don't suffer damage to their internal organs. There's a working science to it that nonetheless doesn't hold up to photographic scrutiny. He slides across at precisely the right moment, lessening the impact, but even that looks like an agonising scrape of flesh.