10 Worst WWE Finishers

When watching WWE we ideally want to have our disbelief suspended for every second of action between the bells. However, sometimes that simply isn’t possible – or is just plain ruined – due to what a WWE star ends the match with. 

A bad finisher can be nonsensical, look like it wouldn’t hurt a fly or stretch believability and credibility beyond breaking point.Sometimes it can be all of the above, as some of these finishing move offenders demonstrate.

Since there was so much rubbish to choose form, we’d be remiss if we didn’t give a dishonourable mention to Naomi’s Rear View, The Goon’s crosscheck, The Great Khali’s giant chop to the head, Battle Kat’s thing that he did, Vladimir Kozlov’s battering ram, Ricky Ortiz’s big splash and The Mountie’s two-handed chokeslam. 

These are the 10 Worst WWE Finishers. 

10. WMD

Because of his massive size, pretty much everything The Big Show did looked impressive. 

The World’s Largest Athlete typically used a Chokeslam to finish off his opponents – save for a relatively brief period where he used the Final Cut – but in the early 2010s he drastically switched things up. 

Show started using the WMD – AKA the Weapon of Mass Destruction – which was a simple, good old-fashioned punch to the jaw. 

Now, we’re not going to try and pretend like getting smacked in the face by a man the size of Paul Wight wouldn’t hurt. But, like, seriously? A punch to the face? That’s what we’re ending the match with now, is it? 

Not only are closed fists supposedly illegal, but why on earth did Show spend 5, 10 or even 15 minutes farting around with the pretence of having a wrestling match if he possessed such incredible knockout power?

The WMD was a good idea in theory and looked decent if the person receiving it sold it well, but this was a swing and a miss.  

9. The Dress Code

Back in 2004, WWE implemented a dress code for talent, which insisted that they wear business casual clothes when travelling to and from events and making public appearances on behalf of the company. 

In 2006, dress-wearing wannabe wise guy Big Vito introduced the WWE Universe to his very own ‘dress code’. 

Wearing the ladies’ garment was fine – each to their own and all that – but the way he used it to perform his rotten submission finisher left a lot to be desired.

For it, Vito would take his seated opponent, put their head under his dress (so they came face-to-face with his thong-clad crotch) and then put on a Kimura-type hold while jumping up and down excitedly. 

8. Bayley to Belly Suplex

Ultra-bubbly beloved babyface Bayley liked to hug people. A lot. They called her ‘The Hugger’ and everything. It makes sense that her finisher of choice would involve the act of hugging her opponent. 

The Bayley to Bayley was a belly-to-belly suplex. That’s it. It’s a standard move that sees her lift an opponent up, turn slightly and then drop them to the mat from a reasonable distance. 

It’s the same move that Big E and Rhyno were using during their comebacks at the time Bayley was using it on the main roster, only she was doing it to win championship matches. 

There’s nothing wrong with a ‘safe’ finisher and Bayley could do the move on anyone, but it hardly ever looked good and was one of the weakest finishers on television at the time. 

Which is a shame, because Bayley was such a fiery babyface and garnered such vocal support during matches that you almost expected her to use something with a lot more bite. 

Somewhat of an aficionado of rubbish finishers, Bayley's Rose Plant is awful too.

7. The Lightning Fist

A lot had been made of John Cena having ‘five moves of doom’, two of which were his Attitude Adjustment and STF finishers. 

As finishers, the AA and STF were certainly over with the crowd and got the job done, but were hardly up there with some of the finishers that other all-time greats used to rack up wins.

In 2018, the now part-time Big Match John decided to add a sixth move of doom. And this one would be the doomiest of all. Cena debuted the Lightning Fist in a tag match at that year’s Super ShowDown, after running through his usual comeback routine of shoulder blocks, spinning sitout slam, five-knuckle shuffle and AA.

The Lightning Fist – or Shandian Quantou, if you prefer – came from training with Jackie Chan’s stunt team while Cena was preparing for a movie in China, so it should have been cool, but it looked like the 16-time world champion was just taking the mick with something ludicrous to pop the boys. 

6. Samoan Spike

While the WMD and Lightning Fist are naff, at least you could argue that the force of a large man hitting you in the face with his knuckles would probably hurt. 

But what excuse does the Samoan Spike have? The Samoan Spike was a throwback finisher for a throwback wrestler, adopted by Umaga upon Jamal Fatu’s return to WWE in 2006. 

Fatu had previously used a Superfly Splash, which was a breathtaking move to watch. That splash, along with the running hip attack into the turnbuckles and the pop-up Samoan Drop continued to make up Umaga’s power-based repertoire, which only made him jamming his taped-up thumb into an opponent’s neck come across like even more of an anti-climax. 

Umaga’s relative Solo Sikoa may now use it in tribute, which is touching but doesn’t make the move any better. 

5. Trip to the Batcave

There were very few redeeming qualities to Bastion Booger. The name, his behaviour in skits and segments, that ring attire – it was all designed to repulse and WWE did a good job of that. 

Such a grotesque character, naturally, had a disgusting way of ending matches. Booger would stand above his downed opponent’s face, shake around with some weird little dance and then simply drop down with the ol’ knob-to-the-face. 

We know Booger was a lower-card novelty act that was essentially designed to humiliate Shaw, but his finisher was the tea bag, folks. At least when other superheavyweights like Earthquake and Yokozuna used their girth to sit on their opponents, there was a bit more oomph behind it. 

The Trip to the Batcave was, like much of this era of WWE, cartoonish nonsense that we’d all do well to erase from our collective memory.

4. The Playmaker

A few WWE stars used the move commonly known as The Overdrive, but it’s most closely associated with MVP, who labelled it The Playmaker. 

The gist of the move is that the giver takes his doubled over opponent, places the back of their right knees over the back of the head, grabs the right arm and then twists their knee and pulls the arm at the same time, sending the recipient spinning into a back bump.

It was every bit as convoluted as it sounds and was another finisher where, if it came off well, fine, but a lot of times it didn’t and timing issues could often make it hard for it to come together in synchronicity. If MVP tried to do it someone bigger, like Kane, it would turn out to be really sloppy. 

It seems the man himself became aware of how inconsistent it was at some point and switched to a much easier jumping flatliner he dubbed The Play of the Day. 

3. The Atomic Leg Drop

During the height of Hulkamania, Hulk Hogan could’ve finished his matches with a noogie and the millions of Hulkamaniacs would have lapped it up. Everything about The Hulkster was over and he had his crowd-friendly routine down to an exact science. 

This included his final comeback, where he would ‘Hulk up’, hit his feckless foe with a few big haymakers, send them off the ropes, hit a big boot and then secure the inevitable victory with the Atomic Leg Drop. 

Which was all well and good in the 1980s, BROTHER, but as we moved into the early 90s…and then the mid-90s…and then the late 90s…the humble leg drop began to seem just a bit passe. 

It was something people did during the start or middle of a match, not something that would register a convincing near-fall or put an opponent down for the count. 

Maybe Hogan had the heaviest leg in the history of pro wrestling, we don’t know, but the man himself has even expressed regret at his finisher choice, wishing he would’ve chosen something like a sleeper – to both emphasise those famous pythons and save himself a few back and hip surgeries. 

2. The Cobra

Professional wrestling doesn’t have to be super serious all the time and there is plenty of room for comedy in WWE. It’s usually excruciatingly bad, unfunny ‘comedy’, but still. There’s room for it. 

Santino Marella made a career out of acting the clown and was typically entertaining in his matches, segments and interviews. It was really no surprise to see The Milan Miracle come up with an eye-rolling finisher that turned into a PG-rated merchandise machine. 

The Cobra saw Santino turn his arm into a pretend snake, which would then strike and ‘bite’ his opponent on the neck. Before long, he added a colourful sleeve that he would pull out and put on prior, ala Mick Foley and Mr. Socko. 

Amazingly, this piece of pantomime was heavily protected and only two people, Daniel Bryan and Sheamus, ever kicked out of The Cobra. 

The move was over, which is really what counts at the end of the day, but it’s beyond farcical that something like that would render anyone into an unconscious state.

1. The Worm

Speaking of silliness that was incredibly over, there was a lot of it during the Attitude Era. 

You had a 450lb Samoan sumo wrestler rubbing his backside in people’s faces, the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment winning matches with the most overblown elbow drop of all-time, and you had the worm. 

Too Cool’s Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay were one of the most popular acts of the day, thanks in large part to their association with Rikishi and post-match dance routine. 

Another thing that fans just couldn’t wait to see was The Worm, which saw Scotty hitting a bulldog before worming his way across the ring and dropping a chop to the throat. It started out as a mid-match house show spot before making its way to television and soon becoming the cultural phenomenon we know it as today.

For audience participation, it may well be one of the greatest moves in WWE history. As an actual offensive manoeuvre that is supposed to be capable of ending a fight, it ranks as the worst.