Crap first finishers

[air_raid]

Have a look at these favourites of 1992 and the shit they were finishing with before settling on their more famous L2 moves. Would either of these guys been WWF Champion in Ian or my Hasbro feds if they’d stuck with these? Doubtful.

Here’s the build for Crush, followed by him beating Kato with a rubbish almost-spine buster;

Fucking hell. Looks like he knew what a basic idea of the move was but didn’t want to commit for landing too heavy and hurting himself. Like a sad 1998 Lex Luger piledriver.

And here’s Tatanka debuting against the other half of Bad Company/Orients v2.0 ;

“Tomahawk chop” is it, Vince? Bloody awful. To have that on the same telly as El Matador doing the “flying Jalapeño” would have killed Tatanka dead.

And the flip side, better ones that were jettisoned -

Here’s the story of IRS coming in and debuting with the Write-Off. He’d stop using it when they gave it to Tatanka.

Finally, Warlord used to murder guys with his running powerslam ;

Of course, he had to give it up when Davey Boy was coming back. So they gave him that 70s favourite, the Full Nelson.

Honourable mention - The Hurt Lock. Why anyone would give up the Dominator is beyond me, it looks brutal.

 

Any if you got any favourites either way?

[Version1.0]

Shawn Michaels tried a back-suplex and a second-rope elbow drop as finishers. Both light years behind the superkick.

[Accident Prone]

For a while in the mid to late 00's, it felt like every new/re-packaged WWE wrestler had to choose from three finishing moves; swinging neckbreaker, flatliner or the Overdrive, and it immediately made them feel generic, inessential and not worth the fuss. Some would add a little leap, twist or flourish (see John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin) but it was still the official stamp of disinterest.

To flip the topic on it's arse a little, Tyler Reks thinking that he could just barge onto WWE Superstars and breakout a Burning Hammer variation as his finish was fucking hilarious. John "Number One Kobashi Fan" Cena telling him to cut it out under the guise of it being too similar to the FU (also an obvious no-no) was bound to happen. I don't usually side with Cena when it comes to his backstage rug-pulling, but this was well deserved.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Accident Prone

[air_raid]

5 minutes ago, Version1.0 said:

Shawn Michaels tried a back-suplex and a second-rope elbow drop as finishers. Both light years behind the superkick.

Did he? I only ever saw him wipe out jobbers with one from the top. He used the piledriver for ages too until The Bad Guy smartened him up.

I think his suplex was great when the opponent was light enough to do it properly. When he did it to Bret at Survivor Series 92 I thought the game was up. One of my pet peeves is people retconning it to have the name “Teardrop Suplex” when it was never called that at the time, not once.

[Tommy!]

18 minutes ago, air_raid said:

One of my pet peeves is people retconning it to have the name “Teardrop Suplex” when it was never called that at the time, not once.

Isn't that just because it was called that on Raw for SNES because "grab their junk suplex" was too many characters.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Randy Orton's Overdrive. It's such a shit move and I have never worked out how it is supposed to hurt the person as you are driving your own knee into the mat

[air_raid]

8 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

Isn't that just because it was called that on Raw for SNES because "grab their junk suplex" was too many characters.

Just checked and they had it as “Slingshot Suplex.”

[2Xtreme_lives]

Can't remember if it was his first finisher, but cody using the DDT in 2007 after the bob holly run 

 

[WyattSheepMask]

The first version of Dirty Deeds, the Driving Headlock-Bulldog-DDT thing when Mox was Dean Ambrose and he first won the US Title. Don’t think he used it for very long because it was utter crap

Edited April 5, 2022 by WyattSheepMask

[TheBurningRed]

Wade Barrett’s Wasteland. It looked shite. He never had a good finisher really. 

[Carbomb]

2 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Randy Orton's Overdrive. It's such a shit move and I have never worked out how it is supposed to hurt the person as you are driving your own knee into the mat

MVP used it too, in the early days, and I think Elix Skipper might have as well. It's the "placeholder" finisher while the character's still trying to figure out a good one.

It's supposed to be essentially a swinging neckbreaker using the leg instead of the arm/shoulder, where the neck takes the impact from the jarring against the limb in question from dropping to the ground, but yeh - it's rather shite, as everyone knows the back of the leg is softer than the shoulder.

I rather like the idea of a delusional jobber/lower midcarder continuing to use it as a finish and not realising it doesn't put people away. Especially if they have a match where they win against a main eventer/upper midcarder, and not realise that it was the interfering heel's chairshot that did it, and not their crap Overdrive.

 

Khali's big chop was a load of shite. His double-choke powerbomb and head crush were much better.

The Miz' Reality Check wasn't necessarily shit for how painful it looked, but it just didn't work, really - I think people in general just aren't used to a combo being a finish.  (I know the Stunner has the gut kick in it, but theoretically that's still just the setup, as Austin's hit them before without the kick.)

Edited April 5, 2022 by Carbomb

[air_raid]

22 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

MVP used it too, in the early days, and I think Elix Skipper might have as well.

Correct. It was named the Overdrive when he was called Skip Over (ugh) and when he was renamed, it was renamed the Play Of The Day. But the popular name stayed Overdrive, because video games.

[Carbomb]

1 minute ago, air_raid said:

Correct. It was named the Overdrive when he was called Skip Over (ugh) and when he was renamed, it was renamed the Play Of The Day. But the popular name stayed Overdrive, because video games.

Think there was also a bit of a shit proto-gimmick for Orton back in the day, when he was leaning into the "O" initial - I remember he even had a gesture/taunt where he made an "O" shape with his arms over his head.

[air_raid]

3 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Think there was also a bit of a shit proto-gimmick for Orton back in the day, when he was leaning into the "O" initial - I remember he even had a gesture/taunt where he made an "O" shape with his arms over his head.

He should have just let it evolve into….

[bAzTNM#1]

3 hours ago, Tommy! said:

Isn't that just because it was called that on Raw for SNES because "grab their junk suplex" was too many characters.

He (HBK) could never hold the guy right when he done it. It always looked like a shit "Olympic Slam". Bit of a crap finisher for a 200lb guy to do, IMO.

Edited April 5, 2022 by bAzTNM#1