8 Wrestling Finishing Moves You Could Do With One Hand

Early in his WWF run, Mick Foley’s Mankind was a dark and oddly tragic character, a deranged, yet vulnerable figure. He was also violent, and his finisher, the Mandible Claw, was a suitably painful and grotesque manoeuvre. Mankind would stick his fingers in an opponent’s mouth and apply a nerve hold on the soft tissue underneath the tongue causing them to either submit or pass out. Gruesome stuff.

The focus of the move changed entirely though when Mankind became the shirt-and-tie wearing babyface around summer of 1998. During a comedy skit on the 5 October episode of Raw, Mankind debuted Mr Socko whilst attempting to cheer up a hospitalised Mr McMahon. The fans loved Socko, and Mankind began wearing the sock on his hand whilst applying the Mandible Claw hold. The pop that Mr Socko got from crowds when Mankind would reveal it from the crotch of his wrestling tights was huge. Then when he stuffed that sock in his opponents mouths, with them selling it like the spray of a thousand skunks, the crowds would hit the roof.

Mr Socko got Foley over more than falling off the Hell in a Cell (twice!), and it will forever be remembered as one of the most iconic phenomena of the Attitude Era.