“They all jumped off the bridge, so I’m going to do it too” may be a guiding mantra of pro wrestling, but just because everyone does something, doesn’t necessarily make it any good at all. There are a lot of wrestling moves that pretty much immediately kill a match’s credibility for me, and I’m not even talking about blatantly ridiculous stuff like the Canadian Destroyer, Unprettier or Santino’s snake arm. No, there’s a ton of common, could see it in any match moves that consistently look terrible or don’t make the slightest bit of sense if you think about them at all.
Here are 10 common moves that really need to stop being so damn common…
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10) Swinging Neckbreakers
Neckbreakers in general almost made this list since almost nobody bothers to do them properly. You’re supposed to bring your opponent’s neck down over your shoulder thus, you know, doing some sort of damage to his neck. Most of the time though, both guys just flop down onto their backs with the neckbreaker literally taking the exact same bump as the neckbreakee. Still, in theory, a regular neckbreaker is a fine, if kind of weak move.
Swinging neckbreakers also make sense in theory. Getting around behind somebody to perform a traditional neckbreaker is kind of awkward, so you grab ’em from the front, and twist them into place for the neckbreaker. Okay, fine. Unfortunately in practice most swinging neckbreakers (including the move’s myriad Overdrive-style offspring) end up looking like two guys sort of awkwardly do-si-doing around each other before deciding to have a nice simultaneous lay down. Outside of moves that involve novelty dancing, there’s no common wrestling move that appears less damaging.
9) Hurricanranas
I can count the number of good hurricanranas I’ve seen on one hand. In ever other case, the guy just sort of spins around while his calves are on another guy’s shoulders, then that guy does a wacky front-flip, usually totally contrary to the momentum of the guy doing the hurricanrana.
Every time a new hot high flier hits the scene, I get a jolt of excitement. “Maybe this guy will do a hurricanrana that doesn’t look stupid”, I think, and every time I’m disappointed. Also, John Cena does hurricanranas now, so it’s value as a cool agile thing to do is officially stone dead.
Stop holding yourself stiff as a board and helpfully providing your balls for a handle, and you can probably get out of this.
8) Gorilla Press
This would be the easiest move in the world to escape from. Most guys look like they’re juuust on the edge of dropping their opponent the entire time anyways — the slightest struggle and you’d be able to slip free. Also, I know this isn’t the most enlightened statement, but this move features way too much protracted guys grabbing other guys by the chode action for my tastes.
There’s nothing offensive about Naomi’s butt.
7) Ass-Based Offense
Speaking of chodes, or at least the general chode area, any move that involves hurling your posterior at someone is unacceptable. Unless you’re Hank Hill there’s a pretty good chance your ass is the softest, least dangerous part of your body. Naomi’s ass flying in your direction isn’t an attack, it’s a best-case scenario. Mojo Rawley less so, but still, there’s a reason “ass backward” is a synonym for doing shit wrong.
So graceful.
6) Codebreakers/Backstabbers
“Pulling a guy down onto your knees” was the hot new “it” move of 2007, and I’ll admit, I was pretty into it for a while, but it’s officially time for the fad to end. The Codebreaker, in particular, always looks terrible, and the backstabber looks like it would hurt the cartilage in your knees more than your opponent’s back.
The girl perpendicular to the mat is the one doing the move. I think.
5) Neck Snaps
Neck snaps, where one guy jumps over a sitting or kneeling opponent while grabbing their neck, look kind of cool, what with all the jumping and flipping, but what is the attacker actually doing to their opponent? With the classic neck snap, the attacker is basically pulling the seated victim’s torso forward a few degrees — that’s it. I guess there’s supposed to be some whiplash action going on, but necks only hurt if you snap them back. Then of course there’s Charlotte’s new neck snap variation, which, as Brandon has pointed out, basically involves slamming her opponent’s face into the mat from a deadly 10-inches up. If your opponent’s sitting or kneeling already, there is zero reason to do an elaborate flipping neck snap when you can just kick them in the back of the head.
4) Leg Sweeps
Leg sweeps sort of suffer from the neckbreaker issue, in that they’re an okay move in theory, but nobody bothers to do them right. 99 times out of 100 one guy just stands roughly beside his opponent, sort of tangles his leg up with theirs then both guys topple over. Most times context the only way to decipher who’s the attacker and who’s supposed to be taking damage.
It’s been so long since Fandango won with anything but a roll-up that I forgot a Downward Spiral is one of his finishers.
3) STOs
Continuing with the “Who, precisely, is this move supposed to be hurting?” theme, we have the STO. The Downward Spiral reverse STO is bad enough, but the standard STO may, in fact, be the dumbest common move in wrestling, as it basically involves the attacker taking a front bump in order to slam his opponent on his back. That’s like taking a punch in the mouth hoping your teeth might scrape the other guy’s knuckles.
Nope, nothing wrong with this move.
2) Standing Flipping Splashes
Standing moonsaults and the like are a nice show of agility, but if you have a prone opponent in front of you a standing shooting star press is the absolute worst option available to you in terms of effort for damage. Stopping to do a mid-air flippity-flop that lands with all the force of a used Kleenex hitting the wastebasket instead of, say, kicking the guy in the face just makes you look like you’re not seriously trying to win the fight.
The Brothers of Butt-Smelling Destruction.
1) Piledrivers
It pains me to include this one, because really, what’s more devastating than a piledriver? Unfortunately that devastating power is the problem. The move is legit dangerous, so most of the time the victim’s head doesn’t come within a foot of the mat, which I’m not complaining about at all — protect your heads folks — but it doesn’t look great.
Also, piledrivers are absolute suspension of disbelief shatterers. In the real world dropping somebody’s full body weight down on the top of their head kills them. Full f*cking stop. Realistically every piledriver should be treated like an attempted murder. Some old school territories did treat them that way, and if the move is going to stick around, that should be the approach again, because there’s no quicker way to take me out of match than guys trading piledrivers and popping right back up.
So, those are the 10 moves I’d be perfectly happy to never see in a match again. What about you folks? Any common maneuvers you particularly dislike? Want to plead the case for any of the stuff on this list? Hit the comments and let’s talk MOVES .
