10 Wrestling Match Finishes That Just Don't Work

10. The Rattlesnake & The Cobra Clutch

In mid-1996, newly-minted top villain €˜Stone Cold€™ Steve Austin and Bret €˜the Hitman€™ Hart would begin what would become a fairly epic rivalry with this match at Survivor Series on November 17th 1996, to determine the number one contender to the Heartbreak Kid€™s WWF Championship. In a half hour barnburner, Hart and Austin sowed the seeds for some of their confrontations to come, the biggest of which, at WrestleMania 13, would execute a masterful double turn and make Austin€™s career. Although Austin would never actually beat Hart during this run together, there€™s no doubt in my mind that Hart would have willingly stared at the lights for €˜Stone Cold€™ at some point: but history was against them, and seven months after WrestleMania 13 the Montreal Screwjob took that possibility off the table for good. Here, Austin looks every bit the ex-WWF Champion€™s equal, and on paper at least, the finish easily sets up a rematch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfYwgK45oq8 It€™s a spot that Hart had run before, most memorably against €˜Rowdy€™ Roddy Piper at the finish of their match for the Intercontinental Championship at Wrestlemania 8. The Hitman€™s opponent has him from behind (fnarrr) in a standing submission - in Piper€™s case, a sleeper, in Austin€™s case, the Million Dollar Dream, aka the cobra clutch - and Hart runs at the corner, walking up the ringpost to flip over backwards to take both men down. In both matches, both Piper and Austin, gritty competitors that they are, refused to release the hold and found themselves in a pinning predicament as a result. The Piper finish works perfectly€ the Austin finish, not so much. Possibly because the Million Dollar Dream traps the left arm, leading to a loss of balance, when Hart flips over he goes at an angle, and Austin, supposed to be flat on his back, is twisted up and at an angle. The camera angle is fairly close up and off to the side, revealing that Austin€™s shoulder is way, way up when the winning pin is being counted, and that the referee was in position to see it. Such a shame. It€™s a great finish in theory, typically Bret Hart: a last ditch desperation move leads to a clean pin for the winner, leaving the loser to look great as he goes down cinching in a potentially lethal submission.