10 Surprising Origins Of Your Favourite Wrestling Moves
2. The People's Elbow: The Rock (For A Laugh)
OK, first of all the People's Elbow is not the most electrifying move in sports entertainment; that time Abdullah the Butcher was strapped in an electric chair is. Secondly, the People's Elbow is a joke, it just is. Granted, it might not be the most pleasant experience to have a large man drop his elbow directly onto your chest, but the pomp and circumstance attached to it make the move a farce.
Which was exactly The Rock's intent when he first performed it.
The PE was a byproduct of a game WWE(F) wrestlers used to play called “make The Undertaker laugh”, which very few of them won. During one house show Dwayne 'the Dwayne Johnson' Johnson thought he had a routine that would finally get the 'Deadman' to crack (or 'corpse', if you will).
Though the routine failed to make Undertaker laugh, because he's The Undertaker and he puts the pro in pro wrestler, it did give the other members of talent a good chuckle. The Rock worked this into several house show routines until he was dared by Mick Foley to do it on an episode of Raw – and it's been a tongue-in-cheek finisher for the Brahma Bull ever since.