10 Wrestlers With Better Signatures Than Finishers
5. The Rock
The finisher:
One from the archives, but The Rock's People's Elbow is never a finisher. It's a flex, one of the best in-ring flexes ever, but it's closer to Chris Jericho's one-foot pose pin than it is a match-ender. It's a ridiculous move informed by its ridiculousness. It works because only the Rock has the charisma to make it work. He peels off his elbow pad, signals that's he going to do a totally unnecessary rope run, does a totally unnecessary rope run, halts any momentum he might have generated via said rope run, stops in his tracks, and delivers a painful-looking if thoroughly mundane elbow drop, as, all the while, the wrestler taking it has ample time to recover from the move that set it up. It's funny, it works whether he's playing heel or face, it retains just enough of the would-actually-f*cking-hurt factor to earn a near-fall. But it isn't a finisher.
The better signature:
The Rock Bottom is a finisher, it's framed as a finisher, the arm hook works to drive anticipation, and it's a massive dude slamming somebody to the mat with a pleasing spanned aesthetic that, much like the star himself, dominates every pixel of the screen.