10 Most Heavily Protected Wrestling Finishers Ever
2. Burning Hammer (Kenta Kobashi)
The asterisk here should be *when Kenta Kobashi hit it, because kicking out of the Burning Hammer is far more common than it should be on wrestling's smaller stages. Adopted by many a King's Road-worshipping athlete, its old reputation as one of the most devastating moves in the sport has been pillaged for pops, sacrificed, as it has been, for the sake of a "shocking" kickout.
This is pretty egregious.
Kobashi, the fieriest of All Japan's Four Pillars, didn't invent this inverted Dead Valley Driver, but did make it famous. Debuting it as a means of downing career rival Mistuharu Misawa, Kobashi only hit it a further six times throughout his career, with current NJPW star KENTA suffering the final blow.
Nobody kicked out of Kobashi's Burning Hammer. It was only ever deployed as the ultimate bout-ender, and a weapon of mass destruction Kobashi only pulled out when dragged to the deepest of waters, where only a potentially crippling blow would suffice. No wrestler has ever treated it with the same level of veneration, despite its indomitable reputation.