Before They Were Finishers

Professional wrestlers are not only known by their bombastic personalities.  They’re also known by their signature moves.  However, some of these signature moves have an origin.   Many of your favorite wrestlers learned their signature moves from someone else

DDT

Jake Roberts is credited as the inventor/innovator of the DDT. It has to be true, it says so on Wikipedia.  The Snake even tells the story on his DVD of how he invented the move by falling backwards clumsily while holidng a front facelock.  However, footage exists in the mid 1970s of Black Gordman, using the move.   His version was called The Diamond Twist.

Pedigree

Footage exists of Andre the Giant and Skinner (aka Steve Keirn) doing crude versions of the Pedigree.

Fun fact: Although the name Pedigree is pretty much the name for a double underhook facebuster, the original Pedigree was an Ace Crusher.

450 Splash  

No one knows who the true innovator of the 450 splash is, but footage exists from 30 years ago that show a young Scott Steiner doing the move.  His version was called the One and a Half Superfly, which means he had to have been doing it for quite some time.

Cloverleaf

Although this move is commonly associated with Dean Malenko, Dory Funk Jr was making people tap like white belts to this move in the 70s.  Despite being credited as the creator of the move, footage of Dory doing it is sparse.

Frog Splash

Tons of people use the Frog Splash. Most of them, like us, were Eddie Guerrero fans growing up.  However, the move is a tribute to the late Art Barr, Eddie’s tag team partner in the early 90s. Art and Eddie originally called it the Jackknife Splash, but it became the Frog Splash after 2 Cold Scorpio commented that Art looked like a frog.

The Mist

Great Kabuki used to spit Mist (with varying damage attributes) in the eyes of his foes in the 70s and 80s.   His kayfabe son, The Great Muta aka Keiji Mutoh, adopted the technique from his fake dad.

Giant Swing

The Giant Swing was always one of those weird moves in video games that we’d ask, “who’s using this?!”  Cesaro first started using the move during his days as Claudio Castagnoli as a show of strength. You can find a video of him swinging Grizzly Redwood nearly 100 times.  According to X-Pac, Sandor Szabo was using the Giant Swing way back in the 1950s.

Sharpshooter/Scorpion Deathlock

Sting and Bret Hart are synonymous with the dreaded Cross-Legged Grapevine Boston Crab in North America.  The move was innovated by Japanese wrestling legend Riki Choshu. Choshu called it the Scorpion Hold.  Fun fact: In some Fire Pro Wrestling games, all three men are in the game and the power levels of the move fall in this order:  Choshu, Hart, Sting.

Ouch to The Stinger.

Moonsault

Innovated by the unbelievably underrated Mando Guerrero.  Most people associate the move with Great Muta despite Guerrero and Lanny Poffo using the move in North America before.

Shooting Star Press

Some nerds like Damon thought Hayabusa invented the move (he invented the Phoenix Splash and Falcon Arrow), but the move was created by Jushin Thunder Liger.   He stopped using the move after he changed his in-ring style due to a brain tumor.  Other famous SSP users include Billy Kidman, Paul London, Matt Sydal, Ricochet, Lince Dorado, and Naomichi Marufuji.

Styles Clash

Before AJ Styles was cashing checks and breaking necks with the Styles Clash, Diamond Dallas Page used to finish people with a similar version (sans leg hooks) called Diamond Clash in the early 90s.

In Transition

Of course, some wrestlers perfected some of their signature moves early in their career.  Some of them actually used to use their most famous moves to little or no fanfare.

Shawn Michaels (Superkick)

Michaels used the move as a transition move for nearly a decade before Scott Hall told him to use it as his finisher.  It was often called a Savate Kick or a Reverse Crescent Kick.  RANDOM DOWNRIVER TOP TEAM RUN-IN.  A technique like the superkick exists in Savate, which is a style of French Kickboxing called the chasse, or piston.  A reverse crescent kick is a Tae Kwan Do technique and not even in the same ball park as a superkick. It’s more like a spinning axe kick.

Kenny Omega (One Winged Angel)

During a match in Japanese promotion DDT, Kenny Omega used the One-Winged Angel on Kota Ibushi.  Much to the surprise of myself and Kaz, Ibushi kicked right out of it. No one in NJPW has been able to kick out of the move.