Stonebraker's Top 10 Favorite Pro wrestling finishers

One of the things that made professional wrestling such a fun thing to watch for me in the late 80's through the mid 90's was all of the awesome finishing maneuvers that the wrestlers had.   I recently sat down and thought about what finisher's were my very favorite and why.    I decided to stick with single wrestlers only on this list and leave out tag team moves.   My top 10....

10. Tito Santana's Flying Forearm

The picture really doesn't capture the essence of the move all that well, but it is the closest I could find.   The thing I loved about Santana's "Flying Forearm" or as Bobby "The Brain" Heenan would call it, "The Flying Jalapeno" was its sudden surprise.  A lot of times he'd hit it out of nowhere and it'd catch his opponent completely off guard.  Seeing that Santana lost nearly every televised match he wrestled between 1990 and 1993,  I didn't get to see this move as much as I would have liked to.   Even when he did hit it, he'd usually knock his opponent out of the ring so he couldn't pin him or the referee would be unconscious so he couldn't register the pin.    When Santana became, "El Matador" he did a different variation of the move and it didn't look near as crisp.   The Original way he did it was awesome.

9. Shawn Michael's Sweet Chin Music

I'm not the biggest Shawn Michaels fan in the world, and the more I learn about the guy, the less I seem to like him.   However,  that's on a personal level.   As a professional wrestler, there is no denying whether you like the guy or you don't, he was and still is one of the absolute best of all time.   Throughout his years in the Mid-South and the AWA, as well as his early years in the WWE  he was good, but he hadn't quite elevated himself to the level of "one of the best" until about late 94', early 95'.   Believe it or not, but I think one of main things that elevated him to the next level was a change in his finisher.  Once he broke away from Marty Jannetty, and went from being a Rocker to being the Heartbreak Kid, he used the teardrop suplex as his finisher.  He then used other variations of the suplex as his finisher as well, but none of them really seemed to get over with the crown.   Once he started using the "Superkick" which he would later rename, "Sweet Chin Music" he began to be taken more seriously by the fans.   Add in a change from heel to babyface, and suddenly his popularity and status skyrocketed.   Had he still been using the teardrop suplex at that time, I don't think he would have experienced the same success.

8. Psycho Sid's Powerbomb

The Powerbomb is a move that has been used and reused many times throughout the history of professional wrestling.  While it was invented and popularized in Japan, the person to make it famous here in the state's was Sid.  I loved this move because it was sort of like watching a train wreck right into a car.  It just seems to totally take everything out of the opponent.   Not so much that it knocks you out, but more like it completely wipes you out.  There have been many people from Kevin Nash to D'Lo Brown to Batista that have used the powerbomb as a finisher, but none were able to master it quite like Sid.  

7. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat's High Cross Body Block

  Perhaps not the most devastating move on the list, but still effective none the less.   When Steamboat climbed the ropes and signaled for this move the crowd usually rose to its feet.  He soared high through the air and hit his opponent perfectly chest to chest to come crashing down to the mat, hook the leg and get the three count.   I've always wanted to be able to fly like Superman, and I think the closest I ever saw anyone come to doing so was Ricky Steamboat as he'd do this move.  

6. Yokozuna's Bonzai Drop

You can use the "f" word all you want when describing professional wrestling, but I don't think there is anything fake about having a 500 plus pound man sit on your chest.   The way he sometimes would do the move, I'm surprised he never cracked anyone's sternum.  Even if he landed on you safely, you still had a 500 pound man sitting on your chest!   I used to cringe every time I would see him hit this move on someone.  I just imagined him coming down on me full force and how much that would suck.   I've had fat people get on top of me before, and it's not fun to say the least bit.   Now to imagine them coming down with force the way Yokozuna did with his Bonzai drop seems even worse. 

5.  Bret Hart's Sharpshooter

 I don't know if there has ever been a greater submission finisher than the sharpshooter.   Sting used it in WCW, and called it "The Scorpion Deathlock" but it didn't have near the recognition that Hart's Sharpshooter did.   Hart was the first WWE champion to win the belt via submission.  If that doesn't speak volumes about the effectiveness of the Sharpshooter, little else will.  It was a move that every pro wrestling fan during the time loved to see.   I can remember watching RAW, Superstars and PPV's and every time Hart went to lock on the move the crowd would get excited.   It was one of those moves that made pro wrestling exciting, it was one of those moves that made it fun.   If anything, it was one of those moves that helped to legitimize pro wrestling's believability.   Hart was a superior technician and he used a lot of amateur skills and techniques throughout his matches that could be used effectively in a real fight.    The Sharpshooter, if applied properly, is a move that hurts your lower back like a s.o.b.   Believe me, I know, I've been put in it before.

4. Randy Savage's Flying Elbow

There has never been and there will never been anyone to hit the top rope elbow drop as well as the "Macho Man" Randy Savage.  He patented and perfected that move and no one will ever come close to hitting it as eloquently or as gracefully as he did.   It was almost as if he was able to slow himself down and hit the move with exact precision.  I watched a lot of Randy Savage matches in my life, probably 100 or more, and I've never seen him not hit the move perfectly.   It's hard to be 100 for 100, but that's just how good Savage was at hitting this move.  It never looked sloppy, it never looked out of place, it always looked spot on.  

3. Jake "The Snake" Robert's DDT

If you saw Jake hit this move during the match, you knew it was light's out, "Good night" for his opponent.  If there has ever been a move that described the old saying, "Stick a Fork in him he's done"  it was Jake Robert's DDT.   This was one of the most devastating maneuvers that has ever been in professional wrestling.  Before professional wrestling became totally exposed, and it was still debated whether it was real or not,  even the highly educated skeptics with their fancy college degrees had a hard time questioning this move.   That is how real and impacting it looked every time Jake hit it.  It just looked like it killed the guy he was giving it too. 

2. Rick Rude's Rude Awakening

I love, love, love this move.  This is one of the greatest maneuvers in the history of professional wrestling and no one hit it better than Rick Rude. My neck and spine hurt just looking at this picture.  I'm a fan of precision and finesse, and what move exerted these characteristics better than the Rude Awakening?  

 

1. Arn Anderson's Spinebuster

This is my all time favorite finishing maneuver.   A lot of people have hit variations of the Spinebuster over the years but none have even come close to hitting it anywhere close to as awesome as Anderson did.   The height, the flow, the grace, the landing...it was all impeccable.    Whenever I would watch a WWE or WCW tape with one of Anderson's matches, I would have to rewind the part when he hit the spinebuster over and over again.  That's how much I loved watching this move. 


For those of us that love professional wrestling, we have different reasons for loving it.   The characters, the interviews, the vignettes, the storylines and even the matches themselves draw us to this weird and exciting world that is truly of itself.   You may not think that finisher's would be all that important, but they are, as they are a part of what makes a match fun and exciting.   When we know what a wrestler's finisher is, then we know that if he hits it, the match is over.   Finisher's usually got loud reactions out of the fans and were usually the highlight of many matches.   

Looking back, what are your favorites?