10 greatest super-finishers in wrestling history
Imagine yourself as a professional wrestler. You’re a competitor that seeks to win as many matches as possible, and you have one move that you trust to end your matches for you. That move is your finisher, and you can rely on it to help you win no matter what.
However, over time, your finisher starts to lose its effectiveness. Other wrestlers start finding out ways to reverse or escape your finisher, while others kick out of it when you actually land it. At this point, you have two options when wrestling in a match.
You can either, a) go down the John Cena route and keep hitting your move over and over again, despite there being diminishing returns in using the same move over and over again; or you can b) come up with a new and more powerful or dangerous move that you save for only the strongest of opponents and most difficult of situations.
If you chose option B, you’ve come to understand the concept behind super-finishers. These are the rarest of finishers that wrestlers only use when they’re desperate to win, or because these moves are far more dangerous than the wrestler’s regular moves.
You aren’t likely to see any of these moves in a WWE ring, mostly because they’re so dangerous. While there’s always an allure to seeing a wrestler perform something super-dangerous that could have serious consequences for the poor soul stuck taking such a move, there’s also an inherent thrill in seeing a story take a different turn with the introduction and use of a super-finisher.
Here are the ten greatest super finishers in wrestling history.
#10 Kevin Owens’ Apron Powerbomb
Kevin Steen/Owens has long been known as one of the most vicious and remorseless wrestlers whenever he has gone. He has been willing to go to great lengths to hurt his opponents (for storyline purposes), and one of the moves he has done many times to show his ruthlessness is the Apron Powerbomb.
Though not something he tends to use in matches (he usually saves it for beatdowns and non-match segments), it is still a vicious-looking move that always gets a reaction from crowds. That’s because the apron is much harder than the ring between the ropes, so any impact on the apron is likely to hurt much more.
Add to this the force behind Owens’ powerbomb and you have a devastating super-finisher that would definitely put someone on the shelf or keep them for a 3-count during an actual wrestling match.