5 most protected WWE finishers in 2017
Somewhere in WWE's timeline, it seemed as though finishers had lost their value. A lot of great finishing moves such as the RKO, the Attitude Adjustment (once known as the FU), Tombstone would get kicked out of time and again. While they are undoubtedly great spots and have added to the drama of certain matches (The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels WrestleMania 25 & 26 matches exemplify this), they tend to de-value finishing moves on the long run.
Look at Razor Ramon's "Razor's Edge" finish. Ramon stated that he simply wouldn't use the finisher if he wasn't winning a match. Simple but effective, isn't it?
However, we will credit WWE in the aspect of protecting finishers of late. In the past year or so, WWE has put a lot more emphasis on protecting finishers. Take Roman Reigns for example. His spear has been a one-hit finisher since WrestleMania 33 and the fact of the matter is, it's very unlikely we're going to see it kicked out of until WrestleMania 34, until he inevitably triumphs over The Beast Incarnate.
Surprisingly though, the Spear does not make this list. These five finishers, however, do.
#5 F-5
Let's just start off by saying that since his second return in 2012, Brock Lesnar's F-5 has been kicked out of by five Superstars: Triple H, The Undertaker, John Cena, Roman Reigns and most recently, Randy Orton.
However, Orton kicking out of the F-5 was during SummerSlam 2016 and since then, things had changed. He went on to feud with Goldberg between October 2016 to early April 2017.
As we know, the story of the rivalry was about Goldberg still having Brock's number, which was leading up to a big Brock win at WrestleMania. Unsurprisingly it happened, and from WrestleMania 33, when Brock got his first pinfall of the year, it was via a single F-5.
Since then, he's faced Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman, had a fatal-4-way involving the former two and Roman Reigns, and even had an instant classic with AJ Styles. Brock would pin all four of these elite competitors hitting a single F-5.
It's evident that the F-5, just like the spear, is being built up as the finishing move of WWE and we definitely won't be seeing anyone kick out of the F-5 until Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 34.