Yes, all top-rope maneuvers are dangerous, but there's a special level of peril associated with the Shooting Star Press. The move - invented by legendary junior heavyweight Jushin Liger - sees the performer leap forward while flipping backward, then landing on his opponent. There's no shortage of room for error, and while some stars (like Evan Bourne and Paul London) managed to make it look easy, there were still plenty of botches - Billy Kidman repeatedly screwed up the move, hurting both himself and others (and on one occasion gave Chavo Guerrero a severe concussion). Still, no Shooting Star Press botch is more famous than Brock Lesnar's. Lesnar routinely used the move in OVW, but in his first WrestleMania main event he was encouraged to bring it out of mothballs. He hadn't used it since being called up to the main roster. Lesnar was apprehensive, but he did his best, and nearly broke his neck. He, too, was concussed, but the injury clearly could have been much, much worse.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
