10 Wrestlers Who Won Despite Taking The Finish
Steve Austin, Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns and others hit their finish, but take the L.
Just to make it explicitly clear - this list isn't just about wrestlers taking finishers and going on to win the match. And if it were, it'd be longer than 10 and long enough to probably crash the website.
With notable and awesome exceptions, that classic match trait has sadly become an opening match trope. Though well protected in All Elite Wrestling at present and reasonably secure on WWE television and pay-per-view, the dramatic finisher kickout has become so prevalent in recent years that it should come with its own trademark.
WWE stars in particular are (over)trained to stare deep into their souls via gormless glances at the hard camera, all under the bastardised instruction of "telling stories", whilst AEW's preservation of the big finish has been tainted by the normalisation of some of the most dangerous-looking spots in all of wrestling.
No, that game has gone, but this is an altogether different proposition. Driven by everything from divine creative inspiration to deep desperation, the following matches utilised the big finish in its proper place, but with the opposite result.
It's pure magic when deployed correctly. It's a (sometimes literal) escape hatch when things go wrong...
10. Triple H (WWE No Mercy 2008)
Triple H's 2008 WWE Championship reign had some unexpected highlights, not least because of the surprising decision to briefly draft him to SmackDown to de-clog the main event bottleneck on Monday Night Raw.
There, he mixed it up with guys he'd previously been leagues above, and - briefly - seemed oddly motivated to prove himself all over again as somebody that could still show everybody how good he was rather than simply tell anybody forced to listen.
But he wasn't keen on putting over Jeff Hardy. And he didn't here.
Had he seen the obvious main event star potential just waiting to burst out of the 'Charismatic Enigma' and channelled all his former instincts to put a thumb on it? The prior December, he'd shrugged following a pay-per-view defeat that had Championship ramifications. Here, he took the Swanton Bomb before locking in a crucifix cradle for the win, and he'd drop the belt to Edge the following month in order for the 'Rated-R Superstar' to be on the wrong end of Hardy's overdue coronation.