The Lariat - Who Did It Best?

#4 Kazuchika Okada

Okada's Rainmaker is one of the most successful finishers in modern wrestling history

Upon his rechristening as ‘The Rainmaker’, Kazuchika Okada adopted a new finisher to go with it. The Rainmaker might not look as flashy or dangerous as those of his fellow Japanese wrestlers. After all, some might dismiss it as just a clothesline. But there’s more to it than that.

Holding his opponent’s other wrist allows Okada to maintain control, and it also shortened the distance between his opponent and himself. By pulling them back towards himself, Okada maximized the impact his lariat had, which is why you often saw his opponents either flip or land on the canvas at a high angle. These elements made Okada’s Rainmaker into a believable and dangerous finisher.

Now, some might think that the Rainmaker is easy to avoid or dodge, and you’re right. But those things make Okada’s matches better because it means a match would continue after he attempts the move.

If Okada always landed it on the first attempt, his matches would get boring because fans could see the end was coming. Instead, many of Okada’s various opponents have found different ways to dodge or reverse the Rainmaker into more clever sequences, which in turn amplified the drama of those matches.

Finally, there’s a storytelling element to Okada’s Rainmaker. In one of his many epic encounters with archrival Hiroshi Tanahashi, Okada failed to maintain wrist control while trying to land the Rainmaker, and that cost him the match. In later rematches, that element of wrist control was not only brought up but became a focal point of the match, which made for a more brilliant in-ring story.