10 Most Iconic Street Fighter Special/Super Moves
7. Double Lariat (Spinning Clothesline)
Used By: Zangief
First Appearance: Street Fighter II
Input: All 3 Punch Buttons or All 3 Kick Buttons
Not to be confused with the ‘Lariat’ move used by Alex in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike or the ‘Cyber Lariat’ move used be Gill in Street Fighter III and Street Fighter V, the Double Lariat is an attack used by Russian wrestler Zangief. Coincidently, the attack is not actually a Lariat at all, as it involves Zangief spinning with his arms outstretched to deal damage to his opponent. Due to this many fans of the Street Fighter franchise have dubbed the move the “Spinning Clothesline”, a wrestling move that more closely resembles the technique.
The original debut of the move was actually in the Capcom beat-‘em-up game Final Fight, released in 1989, where it was used by the character Mike Haggar. While Haggar has never appeared as a playable character in the Street Fighter Franchise, other Final Fight characters have made appearance.
While Zangief has had access to this move in all of his appearances, it grew to be truly iconic in the Street Fighter IV games. This was due to the CPU opponents often being unable to counter the move and being easily defeated, regardless of the difficulty setting. Obviously this didn’t work against real human opponents and also wasn’t exactly the most fun way to play the game, but it was still an easy option to complete some otherwise very challenging solo modes.