8 Finishers That Need Be Retired From In-Ring Action

You know and you love them. You’ve certainly attempted to slap one on more of your friends or deck them with a big finishing move. You have used the top of a couch or two to deliver the big elbow drop just like The Macho Man. Perhaps you've even wrapped your buddy’s legs around beams in the basement like Bret Hart delivering a Figure Four around the ring post.

But we all grow up eventually and (for the most part) quit smashing our buddies with wrestling moves. So too, must the wrestling business grow up and stop doing certain finishing moves. Some are just lame, and some are completely overdone, but all of these moves used across WWE, AEW, and the rest of the world need to go.

8 Full Nelson

With a strong man like Bobby Lashley - using the Full Nelson, aka The Hurt Lock does make sense. He snatches you up by your upper arms and wrenches you back and around as hard as he can until you say, Uncle.

But while the Full Nelson is one of the moves that could even do damage in real life, it’s also a silly-looking move that might just be way too old school for modern-day audiences.

7 Riptide

Not since Beth Phoenix and Awesome Kong has a woman come through as dominant as Mami herself, Rhea Ripley. It’s even better that the WWE Universe is one hundred percent behind her (despite being a heel) and Creative is fully invested in The Eradicator business. But if there is one crack in Ripley’s armor it’s her finishing move - Riptide.

It’s The Doggystyle pump handle slam (without Road Dogg’s gyrations). Certainly, a strong beast like The Nightmare could come up with a more devastating move - maybe something like a One Winged Angel or even better, Bull Nakano’s Scorpion Cross Lock?

6 The Big Ending

Similar to Rhea Ripley’s Riptide, Big E’s Big Ending either needs to go or needs to be completely revamped. The Powerhouse Of Positivity once said the impetus of the move was he was looking for a variation of a Cutter and decided no one does a body cutter - hence The Big Ending was born. Unfortunately, it also looks like a vertical bear hug that drops onto Big E’s chest.

Since he can probably clean and jerk anyone he wants up for the move, perhaps he can deliver a nasty slingshot Stun Gun followed by a huge clothesline for the win. While it stinks that Big E is seemingly retired from in-ring competition, hopefully, no one decides to continue this move in his stead.

5 Panama Sunrise / Canadian Destroyer

In the world of wrestling, suspension of disbelief is an absolute. After all, we’re watching scripted rivalries engaged in staged mortal combat.

But it’s a bit past the hidden valley to watch smaller guys like Adam Cole deliver sunset flip/powerbombs to huge opponents like Keith Lee or Bronson Reed. From Bad Bunny to the move’s originator - Petey Williams, there’s just zero way to make this move look believable.

4 Superkick Party

In real life go kick your buddy square in the face. Chances are you’ll either knock them out cold or you’ve maimed your friend and caved in their skull. One kick and that’s all you need.

It’s all Chris Adams needed. It’s certainly all Shawn Michaels needed. Not a whole Superkick Party that looks as ridiculous as it does apocryphal. Several kicks that would barely scratch a wall let alone do the damage that a kick to the face should do.

3 Buckshot Lariat

Perhaps if The Hangman performed a slingshot over the ropes into a clothesline instead, The Buckshot Lariat would be an even more dynamic move than it is now.

But as the move stands right now, the flip into stumbling into a running clothesline looks like a guy tripping into another guy instead of the nasty clothesline that plenty of wrestling cowboys have utilized for decades.

2 The Spear

Our top two maneuvers are so overdone that they shouldn’t be done ever again. Thankfully at the moment, only a handful of stars are using The Spear, including The Tribal Chief himself!

Perhaps little to no one else in the business is delivering Spears at the moment in deference to The Head Of The Table. Or perhaps most of the younger guys coming up don’t want to keep bastardizing what should be a nasty tackle that takes an opponent’s breath away.

1 DDT

While it was created by accident, there isn’t a wrestler who doesn’t love a good DDT - whether you’re giving one or selling. Jake The Snake Roberts famously said that DDT stands for “The End,” but the move itself - which in real life would most likely at least deliver a concussion and at most leave a man’s face a puddle of blood - hasn’t meant the end of a match in a long time.

There was a time that Alexa Bliss was using it to defeat opponents and Moxley’s Death Rider is a close variant that can often end the match. But the move has become one of the silliest instances of a finisher needing to be updated or sent the way of the dinosaur.