10 Best AEW Finishers

Much of the discourse surrounding AEW suggests that certain moves are spammed to excess, and it's not at all unreasonable.

The multiple dives and Canadian Destroyers continue to generate monster pops, which is the purpose of it all, but it's not for nothing that Cody's more understated approach has drawn the most sustained emotional reactions on pay-per-view. Chris Jericho meanwhile is the biggest Dynamite draw on a segment-by-segment basis. Orange Cassidy gets more over doing nothing than much of the guys who do a great deal.

There's an argument to be made that scaling the content back - at least to a degree that would make the doyen work of the Young Bucks soar - may act to clarify who really is special to the casual, lapsed audience.

This argument cannot be applied to the finisher, the power of which AEW has restored through its clean wins-only policy.

The finisher means something in AEW because it invariably serves its purpose. It is a finisher, and only rarely - when a loss needs to resonate as spirited to get the loser over, when the epic drama of a big-time main event demands it - is it escaped from...

Hangman Page's entire aesthetic is inspired by Stan Hansen, from the burly frame to the bull rope, and so of course he has adopted a face-caver of a lariat to put his opponents away.

But it isn't a mere tribute, it's an update, and so it never resonates as a hopelessly optimistic callback. One might even call it an upgrade, which some may read as sacrilege, but just look at it. Hangman Page is a brick sh*thouse with an uncanny ability to blend that power with a propulsive energy. He boasts the best suicide dive bar none in an era in which it's more pervasive than a worked punch, and that explosive power informs his finisher.

The way he lays out the closing stretches of his matches is as impressive on a psychological level, too, so it never comes off like a superfluous flex.

He flips over the ropes to outwit his opponents as much to pop the crowd, and when they are drawn to him, they are repelled instantly, gruesomely, away from by way of a splattering bicep right in the f*cking mush.