100 Best Wrestling Moves EVER
40. Steve Austin | Stun Gun
Steve Austin, inspired by Eddie Gilbert, used the Stun Gun in the days before he transformed the business as ‘Stone Cold’.
It was an awesome move; he’d lift a charging opponent up by the waist and, while still attached to them, drop them throat-first across the top rope. It was a great illustration of his persona as a precocious genius - the ring is itself a weapon, and Austin was intelligent enough to exploit it as such. The throat is such a vulnerable body part. It’s easy to become desensitised to the visual of a wrestler falling on their back. The Stun Gun therefore stood out. It was sold like a hanging by Arn Anderson in particular.
It was probably better as a signature counter than a finish, since the best versions required his opponent to make an error.
Austin abandoned it, mostly, because a move that looked so brutal was in fact brutal, if not executed correctly. It was too precise to get right 100% of the time, especially, as Austin pointed out on his old podcast, during the final phase of a long match when he was blown up or close to it.