10 Finishing Moves Too Awesome For WWE
The best finishing moves outside of WWE.
The finishing move. The holy grail of a moveset, the thing that all wrestlers are looking to hit throughout their match in the hope of ending their opponent once and for all. The evolution of the finishing move has, much like the evolution of technology, sky-rocketed in recent times. It is easy to forget that when Shawn Michaels broke out as a singles competitor, his finishing move was a belly-to-back suplex.
Wikipedia lists Bruno Sammartino's finishing moves as a bearhug and a hammerlock. Now we have dudes dropping each other on their heads from incredible heights only to get a two-count. Wrestling, and wrestling finishers, has changed. WWE has a fine collection within its ranks, from Neville's Red Arrow to Daniel Bryan's Knee Plus and everything else in between, but everyone knows that moves WWE performers are allowed to do is limited compared to that in the independent world.
So what of the finishing moves found outside of World Wrestling Entertainment? Where the performers are allowed a little freedom to try different things, innovate moves and generally be a little more jawdropping, what moves are used to finish off opponents?
Using protection, visual impressiveness and sheer violence as a guide (not to mention the standing of the individual using the move), here are 10 of the finest, starting with the best tag team in the world...
10. Young Bucks - Meltzer Driver
...The Young Bucks. They may not be the cup of tea of everyone but it is impossible to deny that Matt and Nick Jackson are one of the finest tag teams on the planet today. They have often garnered comparisons to the Hardy Boyz, but the Bucks are way more high-flying than Matt and Jeff ever were.
So what about their finishing moves? For years the Bucks used a combination called More Bang For Your Buck, which involved a quick succession of a rolling fireman's carry slam into a 450 splash immediately followed by a moonsault. It was visually impressive, constantly damaging to the victim and showed off both the aerial assault and instinctive teamwork of the Young Bucks.
In 2014 however, the brothers introduced a new finishing move. Named the Meltzer Driver (after wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer), which is as ridiculous as it is impressive as it is flashy. The move involves as Tombstone Piledriver, which is pretty devastating on its own, but it is embellished by the addition of a 450 springboard spike. Sure, it is a little ridiculous, but wrestling is inherently ridiculous.