Name of Power

In the older days of wrestling, finishing moves were pretty much anything not a headlock. Shawn Michaels used a superkick called Sweet Chin Music for a finishing move. Other wrestlers today use a superkick as a transitional, or a set-up, move. None of them will EVER get a pinfall with it... but Shawn can, because he's given it a Name of Power.

Note that it isn't limited only to old moves: A move can be dubbed a finisher if it's a "variation of" something else and given a unique name.


 * The DDT is a very basic move that happens just about every match today. Jake "The Snake" Roberts used to use it as a finisher and it was sold as extremely powerful (it was downright chilling to see The Undertaker No Sell Jake's DDT twice in one match), but everyone and their grandmothers uses it these days. Randy Orton has his own version where he hooks the legs of his opponent over the middle rope, elevating the opponent completely horizontally before delivering the DDT. This is sometimes referred to as the IEDDT, after the storyline where Randy (kayfabely) revealed he had IED.
 * More DDT's: Raven with the Evenflow DDT, Tommy Dreamer with the Dreamer DDT, and more recently, Drew McIntryre (on WWE Smack Down) with an as-yet-unnamed double underhook DDT. They're pushing him as a big star, so wait for a name to show up for it.
 * It appears to be called The Future Shock.
 * JBL with the Clothesline from Hell was not an example of this trope because it was a lariat, a much more violent evolution of the clothesline popularized by Stan Hansen...until he started using a diving clothesline instead.
 * The People's Elbow is basically an elbow drop with a whole lot of setup, and was sometimes used as a finisher (he had other finishers).
 * How can The Big Show win matches as soon as he lands one punch? Because it's not a punch, it's a "big right hand"!
 * Well, these days it's the "Weapon of Mass Destruction", but still, yeah.
 * To be fair, that IS a pretty darn big hand (attached to the darn big arm of a really big guy).
 * To be more fair, a straight punch can be one of the most devastating strikes there is. Its just not as showy as most finishers.
 * Ron Garvin made it work for many years in the Crockett NWA.
 * And proved to be an example, because he was the "Hands of Stone".
 * Parodied by Sting and The Rock, who stick the same adjective on any move, making it that much more powerful. The Stinger Splash, the People's Elbow, etc.
 * The Atomic Legdrop. "Immortal" or not, Hulk Hogan's finisher is a move that nobody else in history has gotten a "legitimate" pin with.
 * One small exception. King Of The Ring 1993. Yokozuna beat the Hulkster for the WWF Championship with that very same move. Hulk wasn't seen in the company for years after that.
 * Lets face it, anything that involves YOKOZUNA dropping his weight on top of somebody will be powerful.
 * Dragon Gate veteran Genki Horiguchi can win matches with a backslide, of all moves. His "Backslide from Hell" (or Heaven, if he's a face) is almost an afterthought when used by anyone else.
 * Relatedly, when Bryan Danielson was the Ring of Honor World Champion, he actually got the Small Package over as a legitimate finishing maneuver. For a while, his inside cradle was considered unbreakable, and therefore a guaranteed victory. This didn't last, of course—in big-time matches, after about 30 minutes, one of the easiest ways to put Danielson's opponent over as a truly worthy competitor was to simply have him kick out of this small package.
 * If Jeff Hardy uses a stunner, it's flashy and powerful, but nowhere near a match winner. When Stone Cold Steve Austin does it... Then it's a STONE COLD STUNNER!
 * Scotty 2 Hotty had quite possibly one of the most extreme examples of this. His finisher was called The Worm. He would simply face-buster or bulldog the opponent, and then...dance for a good ten seconds, including the long worm move, stand up, and drop a chop to their chest/neck area. Nobody knows why he didn't just use that bulldog as a finisher since it could apparently keep his opponent down for as long as he wanted it to.
 * In TNA or Impact Wrestling or whatever the hell they're calling themselves these days, James Storm uses a super kick as a finisher. It is, of course, named the Last Call, as part of his "beer drinking cowboy" gimmick (lifestyle?)
 * Randy Orton seems have to have added Kurt Angle's Olympic/Angle Slam into his moveset. He's yet to score a pinfall with it, though.
 * That's to say nothing of the Punt, which is a running Kick Them While They Are Down to the side of the head. Not only do most people not get up after a Punt, it's usually a signal that they won't be back on TV for a while.
 * Unless, of course, your name is Sheamus. Then you can have Orton punt you in the head and come back basically at full strength within a few days.
 * Mark Henry uses a standing power slam with more elevation than normal he calls the "Worlds Strongest Slam" in reference to his Pan Am weight lifting victories and squatting record.
 * Zach Rider's finisher is a leg lariat he calls the rough rider, though he does jump higher than needed, similar to when Dough Basham would use it, but Dough's wasn't as guaranteed to end matches because it wasn't named.
 * Chris Masters could get away with finishing people with the full nelson by having it booked as unbreakable and dubbed the master lock.