10 Wrestling Moves That Look Like They Could Legitimately Kill You
Wrestling moves are supposed to look like they hurt. Some look like they could murder.
One of the key elements of wrestling skill is the ability to do something to an opponent that looks painful or dangerous, without actually running the risk of hurting them. Doing so requires not only ability and cooperation, but the willingness of the audience to accept a move as devastating in storyline, even if in reality it's done as safely as possible. A wrestling move should look painful, even injurious, but never actually cause harm to the wrestler taking it.
Most of them, anyway.
Then there are the moves that go further than even the regular pro wrestling level of realism. They permit not even the most jaded, cynical fan to say it's 'fake'. The lines between an athletic exhibition and actual attempted murder become uncomfortably blurred. Some moves just have to hurt, as there's no logical way they couldn't.
Some of them go even further, dropping the unfortunate taking it on his head, crushing him under an appalling weight, rendering him unconscious or in some cases apparently ending his life.
These are the moves, often effectively banned in mainstream wrestling, that look like they could kill.
10. Burning Hammer
It was Joshi star Kyoko Inoue who innovated the art of balancing an opponent on her shoulders and then slamming them headfirst into the mat, but it was Kenta Kobashi who named it the Burning Hammer and turned it into a mythical finisher as dangerous in kayfabe as it evidently was in reality.
The Burning Hammer drops the opponent on their head, from an Argentine rack that gives minimum control over how they falls. Taking the move puts an opponent's life in the hands of the deliverer, and sees them hovering at the junction of Fractured Skullville and Broken Neck Town. It's a brutal, horrendous move that even Kobashi only broke out seven times to maintain its mystical qualities.
Then, during the Cruiserweight Classic, Brian Kendrick of all people hit one on Kota Ibushi in one of the most surreal moments in the entire competition. That Kendrick was allowed to do it is amazing. That Ibushi wasn't brained is more amazing still.