10 WWE Finishers Leftover From Old Gimmicks
How The Fiend and others kept finishers alive after the death of a gimmick.
SmackDown's pretty good at the moment. Ish.
Against long-held main roster standards anyway. In fact, against those standards it's really good. A lousy year for the company's on-screen output has been made marginally better by the blue brand, and most of this is thanks to Roman Reigns. But even then, when it comes to salvaging WWE's second half of 2020, he can't do this all on his own, no. He's no Superman, despite what Michael Cole and Corey Graves yell at the tops of their voices whenever he throws his right hand into the face of some poor scrub.
Neither invented nor named by 'The Big Dog', The Superman Punch nonetheless felt fitting when Reigns was the chosen face of the organisation after John Cena began pulling back on his WWE priorities. As a babyface, the former Shield man had unwillingly taken on his own version of the derisory "SuperCena" tag anyway, and that flying first - w*nky glove move and all - was perhaps the biggest representation of that.
As the 'Tribal Chief', Reigns has been reborn, embodying very little of the hero bearing the name of his deadly strike. A hangover from the move's MMA roots, it's unusual that WWE haven't already slapped a trademark on something catchier anyway.
Sure to be given something alliterative or clownish eventually, it's at least going to land when Reigns needs it most. Not making the change made some of these signatures a little out-of-date...
10. Triple H - Pedigree
Hunter Hearst Helmsley was a Vince McMahon creation designed to poke fun at the Connecticut elite he somehow dared to think he wasn't a part of.
With large hooter upturned on entrance and a perfectly tailored equestrian aesthetic that made wrestling look like something of an inconvenience, the three H's in his name were about more than just McMahon's fascination with alliteration. He was a "blueblood", an entitled snob from rich stock with a moniker that fit the cartoon caricature.
He had in-built legacy. Prestige. Pedigree.
He was not 'The Game'.
It speaks to how effectively Hunter and the company got the move over as a proper match-winner that it stuck around after just about every aspect of the character evolved. By late-1997, he was Triple H as part of D-Generation X in a first substantial step to completely eradicating echoes of the old persona. By 1998, the flashy entrance jackets and dramatic music were phased down and out, and the midcard tights - pretty much the last vestiges of the old act - were despatched of the following year.