10 Secret Genius Details Behind Wrestling Finishers
You can't escape Kenny Omega's fireman's carry...but you can escape the One-Winged Angel.
Remember the dreaded "finisher kick-outs are killing wrestling" discourse?
Christ, that was so dumb and superficial. A brief flicker of unreal surging drama didn't kill anybody's career, wretched booking does:
Then.
Now.
Forever.
Not 'Together', since WWE can't book tag teams or stables, but the old bit used to work.
Provided a wrestler does not take the absolute piss, their finisher, even if not protected to One-Winged Angel levels, will still draw a major reaction. Provided they're actually good at their craft, and not Nia Jax.
The Meltzer Driver rules, whether you receive Nick Jackson's flipping spike as a something that might generate extra velocity or something that's probably pointless but obnoxious enough to remain in character. Jon Moxley's Paradigm Shift is such an ace visual illustration of the danger he can unleash in AEW, NJPW and GCW that was stymied in WWE. KENTA and CM Punk's GTS, when executed to perfection, looks like a real nose-breaker. Randy Orton's RKO is so good and so over that it has rescued him from a career of gentleman's threes and allowed him to reach the consistent heights of ***1/2.
Phenomenal as these finishers are, there's a genius tier above them...
10. Kenny Omega's One Winged Angel
Kenny Omega's One-Winged Angel is a multifariously ingenious finish.
You may not like him on a genuine level. You may be afraid to like him stemming from a bizarre loyalty to three initials that no longer embody that which they once did.
But the beautiful depth behind his finish is undeniably great.
It's a tribute to his beloved video game lore - the one-handed set-up mirrors the one wing of Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth - but the brilliance extends well beyond the cute references, its near-unprecedented level of fictional power, and even the gorgeous arc and brutal execution. Before it is even delivered, it acts as a literal platform on which his rivals can express their characters within the pulsating, space-between-moves drama.
The set-up is convoluted. He has to build towards it by working over the backs and necks of his opponents and exhausting them with his unparalleled stamina - not that his bad faith detractors would recognise this traditional structural approach.
With those rivals approaching a certain loss, the difficulty in executing the move allows them a tiny, dramatic window before the game over screen darkens. Jon Moxley threw a fist hailstorm to escape. PAC used a demented poison 'rana. Kazuchika Okada and recently Dante Martin used their physics-defying athleticism.
It's a counter-generator of a move - yet another wave of drama in the unreal surge of an Omega classic.