Are Finishing Moves In WWE Finished?

This past week in the world of WWE, something amazing happened. It has nothing to do with Roman Reigns’ potential heel turn, the Number One Contender’s match scheduled between Reigns and Samoa Joe next week, or even AJ Styles Madison Square Garden US Title win. Instead, it has to do with two matches: Brock Lesnar vs Samoa Joe and the team of John Cena and AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens and Rusev. You might be wondering what ties these two seemingly polar opposite main events. It’s quite simple actually. Both matches ended with one finishing move. On the surface, this seems like the kind of thing that’s completely obvious. Of course, every match would end with one big move, it’s a basic building block of professional wrestling matches that has been accepted for decades. In reality however, a match ended with just one finishing move has become increasingly rare. More and more matches have a climax containing several of their competitors biggest moves before the match actually reaches its conclusion. It’s part of a slow evolution WWE, and professional wrestling as a whole, has experienced in the past several years. In my opinion, it’s an evolution that has hurt the product and led to matches which have failed to deliver on the same level of thrills there predecessors have been built on.

In my opinion, it all started in the independent wrestling scene. Personally, I hadn’t noticed any matches were just one, or maybe in some rare cases two, finishing moves haven’t actually concluded a match until I went to Ring Of Honor. There, I saw matches that lasted well beyond the first two finishing maneuvers with each competitor practically having to spam their signature moves over and over again in order to actually put the match away. That style, along with a good many of the independent wrestlers who were practitioners of that level of match pacing, then began to seep into the mainstream of the WWE roster after several years. Now, it’s becoming harder and harder to find a Pay-Per-View that ended like Great Balls Of Fire where one wrestler, in this case Brock Lesnar, only had to use one of their so-called finishing maneuvers to end the match. It was a rare and refreshing change of pace to see a main event that didn’t devolve into the final five to ten minutes being two wrestlers alternating signature maneuvers back and forth into an acceptable combination of moves had been reached to end the match. Now at this point, I wouldn’t blame you if you argued this was just a case of personal preference nothing more, nothing less. To an extent, you would be right. On the other hand, I would argue that, whether or not you know it or not, you would much rather go back to the times of one major move ending a match.

Let’s take a look back through history for a second to see the evolution of finishing maneuvers. In the beginning, Hulk Hogan created the Atomic Leg Drop. Now this wasn’t the first major finishing move. No, many wrestlers before him had their own signature holds and slams that defined their matches. It was Hogan’s however, that became part of the mainstream consciousness at the time. Hogan’s Leg Drop, whether you personally enjoyed seeing the move or not, became a hallmark of 80’s wrestling. If you saw the leg drop, you knew the match was ending. Fast-forward to the early 2000’s (a big leap in time I know) and Hogan has returned to the WWE and is ready to take on The Rock at Wrestlemania 18 in a clash of two of the biggest wrestling stars in history. Even at that point, the Hogan Leg Drop was by far one of the most potent weapons ever in a single wrestler’s arsenal. Very, very few people had ever withstood an Atomic Leg Drop to continue a match. In fact, by my estimations, only Lex Luger, The Giant, Sid Vicious, and Yokozuna had ever kicked out of the move. These were some of the largest wrestlers to compete at their time. Their would be no way anyone of normal size and proportions could possibly kick out of the leg drop in the eyes of many fans. At Wrestlemania 18 however, The Rock did. The shock that a wrestler was not put away by one of the most prolific finishing moves in wrestling history led to what WWE likes to call a “Wrestlemania Moment”.

It’s scenes like that which truly lead me to believe that this current styling of matches in professional wrestling has been to the overall detriment of the fans. Finishing moves are quite literally, by definition, suppose to finish a match. When they do not, it creates a visible moment of shock and awe in an unsuspecting audience. It leaves people on the edges of their seats wondering what will happen next. It’s truly a device, that when used properly, can make a match something special. Now I’m not saying every finishing move should be treated like Hogan’s Leg Drop. It’s ok that matches sometimes need more than one finisher to end even if that finisher is delivered by a top star. I just believe that when someone does kick out of a star competitors finishing move, it needs to be on a big stage or against another star competitor. I have no desire to go back to the days of the John Cena US Open Challenge every week had Cena’s opponent kick out of an Attitude Adjustment. It weakens the move and alters the expectations in future matches where it would seem like most anyone should be able to kick out of what is currently WWE’s most famous move. I didn’t grow up on matches where my favorite wrestler frequently had his best shot shrugged off and I believe it would be for the best if we went back to those days once and for all.