10 Wrestlers Who Changed Their Finisher When They Got Old
5. Dynamite Kid
There's a troubling legacy attached to the aesthetically pleasing but historically damaging diving headbutt.
Dynamite Kid's grace through the sky betrayed what a rough and rotten f*cker he was the rest of the time, but his body paid the price for this spot even more than the others from his intense repertoire. Blinded by the glow of glory, Chris Benoit was another famous adopter of the move, escalating the danger to the point where he was delivering it from ladders and steel cages with literal reckless abandon. His sad story needs little further explanation. Daniel Bryan's traumas have thankfully only been related to injury, but the move still brings with it a wince informed by the recent and distant past alike.
In what was ultimately his pro wrestling swan song, a withdrawn Kid joined Kuniaki Kobayashi, Dos Caras, Tiger Mask, Mil Mascaras and Great Sasuke for an October 1996 trios dream match, but he was a passenger at best. Performing with the self-loathing decay of a heartbroken man listlessly grimacing towards the cheapest house spirits in his local pub, the headbutt was gone, along with most of the muscle that once adorned his small frame. Angry at himself, the world or a spiteful combination of the two, he fired off a snap suplex, crumbled on a tombstone attempt, and didn't once scale the ropes.
Those days - all of them, for better and much, much worse - were over.