100 Best Wrestling Moves EVER
13. AJ Styles | Styles Clash
The Styles Clash absolutely rocks on a promise/delivery basis.
AJ’s arm-trap set-up elicits a sensation of exhilaration and dread. Even before the unfortunate incidents that occurred deeper into his career - when his opponents, through muscle memory, tucked their chin - the stomach plunged. The recipient’s head was dangled perilously close to the canvas.
The fans weren’t short-changed, though, because while AJ didn’t drop them on their head - deliberately - he did land them everywhere else. The face. The gut. The knees. The c*ck.
A disorienting drop, an impact felt across one entire side of the body: the Styles Clash was as inventive as it was painful-looking.
This take will scan as sacrilege - Will Ospreay himself would bristle at the suggestion - but Ospreay might have improved upon it. The fiendishly difficult, super-creative, and athletically skilled means by which he manoeuvres his opponents into the set-up is mind-blowing every time. Fans gasp in unison as if they’ve just watched a literal magic trick.
But it’s AJ’s innovation, he himself was more than handy with a unique set-up, and he could well be the single most influential wrestler of the 21st century.