WWE: 10 Normal Moves That Used To Be Deadly Finishers

6. The Toehold

If you can believe it, there was a time when a toehold was considered to be a deadly finisher. One would have to go way, way, way back in the day, but wrestlers like Frank Gotch would use moves like the toehold as a finishing move, and at the time the fans would have gone crazy for it. Heck, just about anything a wrestler did in those days that wasn't a punch or a body slam would have been considered innovative. All Gotch would have to do is get his opponent down and hyperextend the ankle by twisting the foot as hard as he could. By professional wrestling standards, this move would be laughed at and wouldn't be considered a finisher by anyone's standard. Yet Gotch was able to make this simple hold look and feel so painful that the fans knew that anyone caught in his toehold would be giving up momentarily. Nowadays, the toehold isn't even considered a move. You'll see the occasional drop toehold where one wrestler brings the other wrestler down on the mat by pulling him down with his legs, but that's about all you're going to get.

5. The Full Nelson

These poor submission holds just aren't given the same amount of respect as they used to receive. Alas, the full nelson is yet another example of a submission hold that at one point was quick to end a match, but is now considered a rest hold where the opponent will eventually manage to escape its grasp. It's pretty simply to apply a full nelson; anyone with an annoying younger brother has learned to master the hold. All you have to do is wrap your arms around your opponent's arms, interlace your fingers, and press them down against the back of the opponent's neck; simple, yet effective. In fact it's so effective that it's considered an illegal hold in amateur wrestling. If played out dramatically, the move was a great way to get fans to clap their hands and stomp their feet so that they can motivate their hero to escape the dreaded hold. Sometimes they did, but other times there was no escaping the pain that the full nelson brought. Chris Masters is an example of a "modern day" wrestler who used the full nelson as a finishing hold, but even the "Masterlock" soon became a joke as just about everybody who wasn't a 98 pound weakling could eventually break out of it.