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For a wrestler to be convincing as an athlete and as a competitor, he must have a good finishing move. The finisher is critical because it signals the end of a match and victory for the person using it.
Just like in fighting video games, a wrestler’s finisher needs to not only be easily associated with that wrestler, but it must also look good enough and be presented in such a way that even the most skeptical of viewers can believe that such a move can end a match decisively.
For some strange reason, this basic wrestling lesson seems lost on many people in WWE. Instead of giving their wrestlers a unique finisher that helps them distinguish one from another, a lot of wrestlers use simple moves that don’t really look powerful or elicit a reaction from the audience.
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For example, since returning, Bobby Lashley won many matches with a Vertical Suplex, a basic move that almost any power-based wrestler uses on a regular basis. But back when he was a rookie, he used Ron ‘Faarooq’ Simmon’s Dominator, which was an awesome and devastating finisher that made him look like a powerhouse. Why the sudden downgrade in finisher?
Without a good finisher, a wrestler cannot hope to stand out in a crowd or get the audience behind them. Only a select few WWE superstars have had success in getting fans to recognize them and their finishers. Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, and a select few other top superstars have easily-recognizable finishers.
But what about those many wrestlers lost in the midcard? It takes longer for you to remember what their finishers are, right? Try and think of the finishing moves of the following wrestlers: Elias, Chad Gable, Heath Slater, Noam Dar, Alicia Fox, Ruby Riott, Karl Anderson, Shelton Benjamin, Xavier Woods, or Peyton Royce?
If it took you longer than five seconds to remember their finishers, then clearly they aren’t memorable enough compared to those of other wrestlers.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have those great finishers, the ones you’ll always remember as belonging to your favorite stars. These are not only the most easily-recognizable finishers in wrestling today, but also the most successful in terms of bringing wins to their users, and also some of the most fun to watch.
These are the ten best wrestling finishers in the world right now.
10. Ember Moon - Eclipse
Some wrestling moves do not require any story behind them or any special psychology to make sense in execution. There are some moves that are simply so dazzling and aesthetically-pleasing that you cannot help but cheer when you see them. Ember Moon’s Eclipse is one such a move.
Whenever Ember Moon climbs the top rope and then performs her leaping Stunner, crowds everywhere erupt in response. Although it’s not very practical in terms of wrestling psychology – it requires a lot of setup and perfect timing.
This move is perfect for those fans that simply love seeing wrestlers perform crazy feats of athleticism and gravity-defying acrobatics, wrestling psychology be damned. Let’s just hope Ember Moon doesn’t get hurt doing the move, as there is an incredible risk in hitting this move on a regular basis, particularly for Ember Moon herself.
9. Kota Ibushi - The Golden Star Powerbomb
Kota Ibushi has spent the majority of his career as a junior heavyweight, using his incredible athleticism and aerial skills to win his matches. He has only recently become an official heavyweight and has begun using more striking attacks and power moves in his most recent matches.
But despite this ‘graduation’ from junior to full heavyweight, Ibushi has used one move as his main finisher for many years: The Golden Star Powerbomb, a sitout version of the Undertaker’s Last Ride Powerbomb.
The Last Ride has long been a favorite finisher for many fans, and for good reason. The move is exceptionally hard to pull off, as it requires incredible strength to pull off. But when it was executed, it looked absolutely vicious, as the user drove their opponent down to the mat with unbelievable force.
Although it has been mainly associated with the Undertaker himself, Ibushi has made this move his own in his matches in Japan and around the world. By showing his immense strength by using this Golden Star Powerbomb, Ibushi has been able to become a full-fledged heavyweight, which allowed him to break the ceiling that was above him while he was a junior heavyweight.
8. Hiromu Takahashi - Time Bomb
In the late 1990s, Japanese wrestling legend Mitsuharu Misawa created a move called the Emerald Flowsion, which is technically called a Sitout Side Powerslam. Since then, numerous wrestlers around the world have either used this move or a variation of it. Although many versions now exist, none hold a candle to Hiromu Takahashi’s.
The Time Bomb is a Sitout Side Powerslam from a Fireman’s Carry, which is very hard to perfect. It requires perfect control at all times so that one's opponent’s head and shoulders can be in the perfect position to be dropped without causing a neck injury.
Although it looks complicated and a bit impractical, it is also vicious-looking when executed and makes Hiromu look like a truly remorseless competitor. After all, only a crazed person would hit their opponent with such a high-risk move, especially after having driven them head-first into the turnbuckle right beforehand.
7. Braun Strowman - Running Powerslam
Although it might not look like much when compared to other finishers, Braun Strowman has benefitted from having one of the most protected finishers in WWE. His Running Powerslam is one of the few moves he can do that is both safe for the wrestler taking the move and also painful-looking to the audience.
Because of this, Strowman’s Running Powerslam has been presented as one of the most powerful moves in all of WWE. Few wrestlers kick out of it once it’s executed, and audiences everywhere react very loudly when he uses it.
If we were to look at which finishers are among the most successful in terms of winning matches and (in storyline) being effective at keeping opponents down for the count, Strowman’s Running Powerslam is among the best in the business right now.
6. Hirooki Goto
Hirooki Goto makes this list not because of just one finisher. Instead, Goto is known for having a wide array of awesome and devastating finishers that he has used over the course of his career. As a powerful wrestler, Goto has used a wide array of finishing moves during his 15-year career. These have included:
The Shouten, a vertical Suplex into a side slam that Matt Morgan wishes he could do:
The Goto Revolution (GTR), a vicious lariat/backbreaker combo move:
The Go To Heaven, a stronger version of Kurt Angle’s Angle Slam:
The Goto Shiki, a modified cradle (yes, Goto makes a basic wrestling cradle look awesome) and the Kaiten, a Code Red from the top rope:
The Ura Shouten, a move Goto created that’s so powerful it’s a broken move in WWE 2K17:
Although Goto hasn’t managed to reach the top of the mountain NJPW (think of him as a NJPW version of Cesaro in WWE), he has been consistent in his position in the company’s upper mid-card for many years. Part of that stems from his penchant for putting on great matches, which itself is helped by his wide variety of awesome moves that any WWE superstar would love to start using.
5. A.J. Styles - The Styles Clash
For some people, the Styles Clash doesn’t look like a dangerous finisher or even an effective one at that. After all, at first glance it looks like nothing more than a relatively simple slam where the victim gets lifted and dropped from a very low attitude.
However, critics don’t know how dangerous the Styles Clash is. Taking the move incorrectly can easily result in a serious neck injury. Just ask former WWE wrestler Yoshi Tatsu, who suffered a broken neck from tucking his chin in instinctively instead of craning his neck to take it safely.
Even the Chinless Wonder James Ellsworth nearly hurt himself badly because he had tucked his chin. Had it not been for Styles making an adjustment at the last possible second, Ellsworth could’ve been badly injured.
Maybe it’s because of that inherent risk factor, or maybe it’s because the move is associated with Styles, who is on many fans’ short list for greatest wrestler active today. Whatever the case may be, the Styles Clash remains both a dangerous and aesthetically-pleasing wresting finisher.
4. Randy Orton - The RKO
This move is one of the few wrestling moves to have actually transcended the niche world of wrestling and become popular in mainstream culture. Since the late 2000s, WWE have booked Randy Orton to hit the RKO ‘out of nowhere’, and some of these moments have become immortalized in WWE history.
After all, who can forget when Orton literally RKO’ed Evan Bourne while Bourne was in mid-air executing a Shooting Star Press.
This simple yet awesome move has led to the internet meme of ‘RKO Outta Nowhere’, which features an image of Orton superimposed onto various videos of people falling, with the presumption that Orton himself is literally RKO’ing them after appearing seemingly out of nowhere.
Even now, as Orton transitions into a lesser role in WWE, you can be sure he’ll still be getting the crowd to go wild whenever he hits that now-world-famous RKO of his.
3. Tetsuya Naito - Destino
It takes an exceptional wrestler to make a basic reverse DDT look like the most powerful move in the world. Yet that is what Naito has done. By performing a somersault onto his opponent, he uses this forward momentum to put more power into the force delivered when he drops his opponents onto the canvas.
This is why, when you see Naito hit the Destino, his opponents don’t just land flat on the canvas. Instead, they land on their upper shoulders or neck, and in some cases, the force behind it is enough to spin them onto their stomachs.
This move is basically a New Japan version of the RKO, in that Naito can pull it off almost out of nowhere. That gives his matches a much greater degree of unpredictability and drama, which is one of the many reasons why he remains such a popular wrestler both in his native Japan and around the world.
2. Kazuchika Okada - The Rainmaker
There are some people that think that the Rainmaker is a boring finisher. After all, it’s nothing more than a wrist lock transitioned into a seemingly-regular short-range lariat. However, there is much more to the Rainmaker than that.
First, the Rainmaker is incredibly well-protected; few people kick out of it when it connects, and when they do, it’s after much more than three seconds. Okada has felled many great superstars with the Rainmaker and has taken what could’ve otherwise been dismissed as a boring move and turned it into one of the most successful finishers in wrestling today.
Second, Okada’s matches over the past six years have featured some of the most dramatic and suspenseful finishing sequences of all time. Many of these sequences have centered on Okada and his opponents constantly reversing out of each other’s moves, culminating with Okada hitting his trademark Rainmaker.
If you’re wondering why so many of Okada’s matches have been so highly praised, it’s because he manages to structure his matches in such a way that he keeps fans on the edge of their seats with every Rainmaker attempt.
Third, the Rainmaker has actually become a storytelling device for one of his biggest feuds. When Okada faced former archrival Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom IX, Okada lost because he wasn’t able to maintain wrist control enough to beat Tanahashi and win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
In every single big match between them since then, the ‘wrist control’ element needed to set up the Rainmaker has been a central theme in the in-ring story between these two men, which has led to even more unpredictable and dramatic wrestling matches between them.
To think that all of this could come out of a single clothesline speaks volumes to Okada’s ability to put together great stories and matches as a wrestler.
1. Kenny Omega - One-Winged Angel
The One-Winged Angel is the ultimate finisher in today’s wrestling world. Just like Kenta Kobashi’s Burning Hammer, Omega’s OWA has not been kicked out of ever since Omega started wrestling in a major promotion.
It is super-protected; once Omega connects with it, it is virtually guaranteed to lead to a three-count every single time. This is the move that has brought Omega immense success and gave him his biggest wins in NJPW: winning the G1 Climax, pinning Chris Jericho at WK12, and most importantly, giving him his two pinfall victories over ‘Rainmaker’ Kazuchika Okada.
To this date, only one person has ever kicked out of the One-Winged Angel: Kota Ibushi, and this was when both he and Omega were wrestling in DDT, which is a much smaller and more comedy-centric promotion in Japan. That was a long time ago, long before Omega’s main event push ever began.
No one in ROH, NJPW, or any other major promotion has ever kicked out of Omega’s killer finisher.
