We all know that the WWE is fake, right? We acknowledge that, yeah? But we don’t care, do we? Damn right we don’t. The WWE is clearly a whole load of fun that we shouldn’t take seriously, and if you don’t agree with that, let me give you a play by play of some of the most ridiculous finishing moves in the franchise history.
Scotty 2 Hotty – The Worm
The Worm is a spectacle, I’ll give you that. It used to be my favorite when I was a kid, because of the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
Let’s take this step by step.
Scotty knocks a person to the ground. He stands above their head and holds his hands out wide, and runs on the spot for a few seconds. The victim continues to lay on the ground.
He then jumps onto his left foot and jumps around maybe 5 steps until he is about half the ring away. Fortunately for Scotty 2 Hotty, they continue to lay on the ground this whole time too.
Then, he does the worm. He literally does the frickin’ worm, until he is close enough to their body to attack (something he could have done the second he knocked them down, but whatever). Somehow they are still laying down, by the way.
Then, after ALL of that showmanship and dancing around, some 30 seconds after he initially knocked the guy to the ground, he literally just falls over and karate chops the dude in the chest. If he just did the karate chop it would be over in less than two seconds, would have the same level of impact, and would probably do little to no damage to the opponent.
The Rock – The People’s Elbow
Along a similar line as the Worm is the People’s Elbow. Now, The Rock is a wrestling legend. Like, he was the best for a long time, won titles, was the global face of the organization. He is probably the most successful breakout from the WWE too, and is now genuinely taken seriously as a Hollywood actor. Bearing that in mind, let’s remind ourselves of the People’s Elbow.
The Rock has knocked some fool to the ground. Good start, The Rock, good job. Then he decides to (Mortal Kombat voice) finish him.
So what does he do? Well, the move is called the People’s Elbow, so presumably he elbows the fool. Well, kind of.
First off, he does some kind of weird dab sort of thing (I guess?) and pulls off his elbow pad and lobs it in the crowd. Sometimes, he takes the other one off and chucks that too, but that’s non-standard.
Then, he runs to the rope and bounces off of it. Okay, you’re thinking, he’s running at the guy, he’s gonna elbow him. He’s been building up speed to elbow him extra good.
This big fella is building up momentum. This elbow is gonna be fierce. He’s been building velocity for what feels like days running into those frickin’ ropes.
But then, he gets there, and he stops! He stops, he kicks his leg up into the air for some reason, and then he elbow the guy.
Rakishi – The Stink Face
After years of training to be a professional wrestler, CLEARLY Rakishi wanted to make a mark on the profession. Who wouldn’t show off their athletic ability?
So Rakishi was this big guy from California who dressed like a sumo wrestler, kind of. Now, if you were the commissioner or script writer or whatever, you are OBVIOUSLY gonna use this to your advantage, right? “Make the fat dude do something with his ass hahaha,” right?
Right. That’s what they did.
Rakishi gets the guy in the corner, and he runs at him and slams his body against him. That’s pretty good, pretty effective. The guy slides down to sit in the corner, slumped against the rope in a sitting position.
Rakishi wanders around the ring for a minute. Then he does this kind of Raise the Roof sort of movement and walks towards the presumably unconscious or at least dazed opponent, and sticks his ass in their face.
I guess the smell of Rakishi’s ass must be so bad that they are completely incapacitated and he pins them. That must be it. I mean, he’s overweight so he must stink, is the message I think?
Mankind – The Mandible Claw
Mick Foley was my favourite, and Mankind was my favorite edition of Mick. He was awesome. The weird mask-like leatherface, the baggy shirt, the tie, the smiley faces. He was awesome, he was weird. I loved him.
But my love for Mankind does not mean the Mandible Claw wasn’t downright strange.
The opponent would be staggering around all dazed – not enough to fall to the ground, mind you— and Mick would see his opportunity.
He would reach into his underpants, and he would pull out a sock WITH A FACE ON IT, called Mr Socko. He would put it on his hand, and he would stick his hand in the other guy’s mouth.
Let that sink in for a minute.
He’s got a sock with a face and a name. In his underpants. And he sticks it in a guy’s mouth and chokes him out.
Jesus.
Tajiri – The Green Mist
This one is fairly straight forward compared to the others. This is a classic Heel move, with Tajiri being a bit of a cheater. I’m fairly sure there are some racially insensitive undertones to the whole character, but let’s focus on the move itself.
The opponent thinks they have Tajiri beat. They think he has been dazed. They think he is probably gonna collapse and be defeated. But they are wrong.
All of a sudden, he spins around and he spits a bunch of green dye in their face in a big mist. They are blinded, he attacks them, he takes them out.
Tajiri was an incredibly athletic man, who would leap about like an acrobat, and was clearly very well trained at what he did. But his whole character was built on the foundation that he was a rascal who spat in people’s eyes.
The evolution of the finishing move is one to keep an eye on. In the 80s, Hulk Hogan did a leg drop. In the 90s, The Rock gave us the People’s Elbow, and in the 00s we were gifted The Worm. Maybe in 2020 my own finishing move will debut. I knock a guy unconscious, paint his portrait while he is propped up in the center of the ring, then I frame it, and then hit him with it.
Now, even though we know that wrestling is fake, nobody can tell me it isn’t entertaining.