ESPNTheMag.Com Presents: All-World Power Rankings
What's the best finishing move in pro wrestling history?

BEST WRESTLING FINISHER EVER? WE'RE GOING "STONE COLD STUNNER"
What is "All-World Power Rankings?"
Tonight on E:60, Jeremy Schaap is gonna talk to Vince McMahon about his empire, which just saw the 25th edition of WrestleMania go down. (Here's a preview.) Yesterday at work, the college basketball editor hands us an illustrated WWE history book. It burned a solid 56 minutes of productivity off our day, looking at pictures of such classic characters as "The Mountie" and "Bastion Booger" and reading their bios. We decided to have a lil' fun here: an attempt to rank the best wrestling finishing manuevers of all-time. Caveat one: yes, we understand wrestling is fake. Caveat two: there are several categories of finishers—cool ones that look like they hurt, entertaining ones, and absolutely extreme ones (think ECW in its prime). This list will be a mix of all.
| TOP 5 | |||
| RANK (YESTERDAY) | WHAT | WHY | |
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1 (44) | THE STONE COLD STUNNER | There's a simple reason we put this No. 1: we don't consider Steve Austin a tremendous wrestler, but we do think it's one of the best angles of the last two decades. Honestly, who hasn't wanted to give one of these to their boss at some point in their professional existence? |
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2 (800) | THE AWESOME BOMB | Unfamiliar with this? Just go ahead and watch this one. |
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3 (1621) | THE TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER | This is an interesting one. Sometimes you see this thing and it looks incredibly fake, but sometimes it looks absolutely painful. This is a pretty good example of a good one. Also, you need this on the list simply because The Undertaker is probably the most iconic character of the last 15 years in professional wrestling. You want to argue The Rock or someone? Go ahead. His movies are awful, as a side note. |
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4 (213) | THE SWEET CHIN MUSIC | Again, another move that can look cool or totally miss. We put it here for similar reasons as to the one above: (1) Michaels is iconic (you can argue two of the best matches in WrestleMania history have involved him—X vs. Razor Ramon and XXV vs. Undertaker) and (2) when he nailed Marty Jannetty through the window of The Barber Shop, every boy currently aged 25 to 29 was somehow affected. |
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5 (384) | THE SUPERFLY SPLASH | Oooh, this might be a little controversial. "Where's the Hogan legdrop?" you might yell. The Hogan legdrop is an awful finisher, in our view. The Superfly Splash, though—that's the real deal! It's a much better top rope move than Macho Man's elbow. You want to see an epic splash? Here you go—first time off the top of a cage, vs. Don Muraco. |
| HONORABLE MENTION | |||
| RANK (YESTERDAY) | WHAT | WHY | |
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118 (30,119) | ANYTHING THAT INVOLVES TABLES | Just watch. |
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927 (1991) | THE SHARPSHOOTER | Putting it here because it's iconic, although there's a lot of things we could have gone with in this spot. Here's "vid" of a good Sharpshooter. Now, if you're talking tag-team finishers (we're not), we were always partial to the Steinerizer (think that's what it was called). Your thoughts? |
| RISING AND FALLING | ||
| MOVEMENT | WHAT | |
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| THE PEDIGREE (Click the link. That's a good-looking pedigree.) |
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| THE BOTCHED SHOOTING STAR PRESS (Lesnar did go on to bigger and better things.) |
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