10 Unlikely Origins Of Wrestling Finishers

7. Scott Steiner: Business-Killing Flip Merchant

John Laurinaitis Randy Orton RKO
WWE

Scott Steiner is (quite rightfully) held aloft as the idealised alpha male.

An uncompromising super-athlete and hard bastard-cum-banter merchant, Steiner is the sort of man the old school wrestling fan mourns. He was a badass who could and almost did kill people with a mere suplex. He was a wild man on the mic who couldn't give a f*ck about making friends, because it is bad to do that - All Friends Wrestling, etc. - even though wrestling has been a brotherhood with more cliques than a high school movie for forever. He was a body guy. He swore. He...

...invented flippy sh*t in the US.

In addition to inventing the Frankensteiner - this is debated by some, but nae f*cker used the headscissors takedown to spike a skull quite like Big Poppa - he also invented the 450 splash.

What little footage exists of the move explains why he didn't popularise it - 2 Cold Scorpio did - because he couldn't quite stick the landing. That is not a burial. What he attempted to bring to pro wrestling was wildly innovative.

As was that which he did; years and years later, the vintage Scotty Frankensteiner remains as mind-blowing as anything that the supernatural Fénix does to intoxicating effect on AEW Dynamite.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!