Climaxes are bittersweet. Generally they're the most exciting or intense part of something; a movie, a hot date, a wrestling card, and for the purposes of this article, a wrestling match. If the last few minutes of a match deliver, they can turn a mediocre match into a good one, a good one into a great one, and make a great one timeless. The key to owning these last few minutes is being creative and inventive. Wrestling fans are hungry for creative moves, finishers, story-line developments, and anything that shakes up 'the status quo'. But the problem is that anything following the heights of a climatic and inventive match finish will often fall flat by comparison. The rabid positive energy generated by Daniel Bryan winning the title at Wrestlemania 30 felt muted and less electric by the time he took on Kane at Extreme Rules, and by the time he wheeled the Big Red Machine out to the ring on a fork lift, the arena seemed dead quiet for their chosen champion. Thus presented to you is this list of 10 of the most inventive big-match finishes ever. The endings that made you stand up and cheer, lean back in your chair in despair, and perhaps even throw your arms up in the air and vow to never watch wrestling again....after you see what happens the following night on Raw. Before getting started lets get the honorable mentions out the way, which include all the insanity from the TLC matches, and anything involving the the Hardcore Title's 24/7 era, which included matches in ball pits and the first ever title change where the champion was asleep at the time of his loss. Some of these moments are forgone conclusions, some you may not remember, and some you may disagree with. But the constant is clear - these are big matches with endings that were creative and stuck with the viewer through the years and thousands of hours of WWE Programming.
