WWE: 10 Most Inventive Big Match Match Finishes Ever
2. Vince McMahon vs. Shane McMahon - The Shane Terminator
Event: Wrestlemania 17 The Finish: In retribution for every douchebag thing Vince had done since screwing Bret Hart at Wrestlemania, he finds himself in a match with his son (and new owner of WCW), Shane. The match was a brawl, with busted tables, crazy dives, interference, and Trish Stratus, Stephanie, Mick Foley, and Linda McMahon, all finding themselves involved in the most cathartic match in WWE History. The wildly creative climax to the match begins when Trish turns face and kicks Steph's ass, Foley kicks Vince's ass for a minute, then Vince looks like he's about to kick Linda's ass, but Foley stops him and begins to wheel Linda away only to get a chair to the back and the head for his trouble. Eventually Vince gets Linda into the ring and starts to wallop Shane with trash cans as Linda looks on. As Vince winds up for the final blow, Shane notices Momma's not happy, and coly points in her direction. Vince turns, and Linda to kicks him in the grapefruits to stop the brutal beating Vince is giving their son. At this point the crowd is rabid. They've won. The mighty and evil Vince McMahon has now been bested. Not by Stone Cold Steve Austin, but instead by a collection of 'little guys' people Vince would continuously walk all over, take for granted, and generally torture simply because he was 'the boss. So how do you end a match like this? Shane couldn't simply pin the man. No. He needed to take a page out of The Whole Damn Show's playbook, and landed a modified Van Terminator that used a trash can instead of a steal chair, and the crowd went bananas. A wonderfully inventive finish to a superbly built finale. The whole match is a storytelling masterpiece actually. So deliberately trashy it ends up being artful. The way the events intertwine and escalate, from Trish turning on Vince, to Foley sacrificing himself for Linda, and how that sacrifice allowed Linda to eventually save the day for everyone, is worthy of Shakespeare. It had such an incredible energy behind it thanks to the hot crowd, and culminated in a non-professionally-trained Shane McMahon doing a move synonymous with someone that did things no one else could in a match everyone should see immediately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf7XlxHwej8 TheImpact: Say what you will about Wrestlemania 17's Main Event (and we will), but it was actually this match between Vince and Shane that ended the Attitude Era. Foley, Linda, Shane, and Trish all beat the living tar out of McMahon as all his chickens come home to roost. Vince is left a quivering mass of jelly by his family and employees, not a megastar like Stone Cold. From this point on, while the WWE would surely resurrect and re-tread the Evil McMahon character, it would be an imitation of the character see saw 'die off' in this match.Vince would never carry the mystique he did in the period between the Montreal Screwjob and the ending of this match - resulting in one of the rare instances where an era or storyline or theme of a particular promotion has a clear conclusion. The man that returned to help Steve Austin during the main event was a different character. He needed Stone Cold, he needed Triple H, he needed muscle as it became clear being a billionaire with a booming voice wasn't enough to let him continue his tyrannical ways.
