Greatest Practitioner: Chris Benoit. Also Used By: Daniel Bryan, Bobby Roode. The Crippler Crossface as the move is never, ever called on WWE TV anymore, is a type of neck crank that is comparable to similar moves found throughout traditional martial arts, MMA and shoot wrestling. Chris Benoit is the wrestler that most modern fans associate with the crossface. His Crippler variety of crossface was hugely over at the height of The Canadian Cripplers career and probably still would be if he hadnt died under such awful and tragic circumstances. Still, the move has continued to enjoy a high profile since Benoits death and famous wrestlers use variations on it to this day. Daniel Bryan has a brilliant take on this hold in his moveset. The Yes Lock used by Bryan is actually an omoplata crossface or coil lock a hold commonly found in the arsenal of any accomplished judo or ju jitsu practitioner. The same also goes for Bobby Roode, who employs a more traditional variety of pro wrestling crossface in his matches. A different type of crossface, the Crossface Chickenwing, was also used to great effect by former WWF World Champion Bob Backlund throughout his career.
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
