Wrestler in All of Us



Ever noticed that professional wrestling moves pop-up in the strangest places?

Usually prevalent in videogames, especially beat-em-ups. In your average beat-em-up, throws are compulsory, yet most real martial arts have throws that are quite... well, boring. And some martial arts don't have throws at all. So where can the designers find throws that are more interesting? Good ole wrasslin'. A nice solid suplex or perfectly executed arm bar can help convey untold amounts of badassness to a character as the viewer watches them delivering maximum ouch factor. Also might be explained by the Japanese love of pro-wrestling.

In general, if a character in a Fighting Game specializes in grapples, most of them will be of this variety.

Of course, in Real Life, such crazy throws usually require the opponent to at least allow it to happen, and most of them require the person being thrown, suplexed etc. to actually assist in the attempt (not all, but most). This means that these moves would be very easily countered by a resisting target, and would thus be pointless to use in a real combat situation. However, one of the most commonly seen moves, the German Suplex, can be delivered to a struggling/actively resisting opponent (as its simplest form is just grappling and falling backwards), but it is never as clean as TV would have you believe, although some professional wrestlers have demonstrated the strength to perform a "deadlift" (unassisted) German suplex.

May be part of a Meteor Move. See also Suplex Finisher and Spinning Piledriver.

Anime and Manga
""How come you stopped me with a lariat?""
 * Sayaka/Number Six does an Argentine Backbreaker in a dream sequence in Pani Poni Dash!.
 * Onizuka from Great Teacher Onizuka actually got his first real teaching job after slamming the vice principal against the floor with a German Suplex. This act of defiance impressed his future boss and showed his love for professional wrestling.
 * Growing up in a family that are all huge professional wrestling fans Ikki from Air Gear is no stranger to using wrestling moves in most of his fights. Additionally, as a Shout-Out to Professional Wrestling, Sora Takeuchi's dogs are named Stone, Cold, and Stunner, after pro wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's signature move.
 * Takamura uses it as a form of abuse on Ippo in Hajime no Ippo It's rather fitting to his brutish nature.
 * The women of the Yoshinaga family in Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas do German Suplexes quite often.
 * In Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Kaname gets irritated enough to bust out an "Ocean Cyclone Suplex" on Sousuke. For those who aren't wrestling fans, Kyoko helpfully elaborates on the move's name and purported impressiveness.
 * Gray performs a German suplex on Gauron's Arm Slave in The Wind Blows at Home part 3.
 * Misae from Clannad busts out wrestling moves to punish someone, such as Sunohara and a very close friend of hers.
 * Combining this trope with Motion Capture Mecha, Judau Ashta is known for using his ZZ Gundam to grab opponents and toss them around. This is actually acknowledged in the video game Gundam vs. Gundam, where the ZZ eschews the use of its hyper beam saber entirely in favor of bare-knuckle fighting and grapples - including the Screw Piledriver.
 * And if a mecha doing it isn't enough, how about a space colony? In Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo, Nerval Colony Drops - or, more correctly, Colony Suplexes Leopard.
 * One argument between Trigun's Vash the Stampede and Nicholas D. Wolfwood was brought to an end by the judicious application of a Boston Crab.
 * Nagasumi of Seto no Hanayome suplex'd a shark.
 * Haruhi Suzumiya is a gifted athlete and can apparently perform a perfect missile dropkick. Just ask the Computer Club President.
 * Lena from Mai-Otome 0~S.ifr~ pulls of a suplex against M-9 in the last episode, and like the Superman example below, she does it from orbit.
 * Ken Akamatsu began the shinmeiryuu style in his Verse with Love Hina as a super-powered swordsmanship school. With Mahou Sensei Negima, he decided to introduce the Nagewaza branch, a short series in shinmeiryuu grappling techniques. Suddenly a sword style that mostly relies on graceful dashes and acrobatics has Setsuna do a frankensteiner for kicks and coolness.
 * Misaki Yamamoto from Hatsukoi Limited is a wrestling fan, and when Mamoru moves close to her while she's sleeping, he finds out this fact in a surprising and mildly erotic way.
 * In Love Attack, Chiemi's dad was a professional wrestler (and was the top Heel in the country on top of that), so it's not surprising that when he or his daughter get into fights, wrestling moves get broken out. And given his Heel status, dirty moves get thrown in as well.
 * In Girls Bravo, Kirie often does lots of wrestling moves to both Yukinari and Fukuyama whenever she thinks they are doing something perverted (which is a lot). Fukuyama actually has her compete in his all girls wrestling tournament because of it.
 * In the final episode, Fukuyama actually uses his beatings to teach a hastily put together Amazon Brigade of alien girls wrestling moves so they can fight their teachers' army of mind controlled girls on the moon.
 * The preferred attacks of Magical Girl Punie Tanaka of Dai Mahou Touge are usually armlocks, leglocks, and various excruciatingy joint-snapping Submission grappling techniques.
 * In Naruto Killer Bee and the Raikage (particularly the later) both have attacks that look a lot like pro-wrestler moves, and include attacks which are pronounced "Lariat" and "Liger Bomb". He also uses the Von Erich's Iron Claw as punishment against his brother for making him worry.
 * Not to mention Rock Lee's Initial Lotus (a fancily-named izuna drop), which can be summed up as "Spinning Piledriver from Hell".
 * As well Sasuke's Piledriver, named Peregrine Falcon Drop
 * In the one-off Pokémon Mystery Dungeon anime special Explorers of Sky: Beyond Time & Darkness, Grovyle suplexes Dusknoir, not once, but twice. The second time he does it, . Awesome
 * In Tramps Like Us Sumire attacks various baddies with headlocks, piledrivers and suplexes. This is especially amusing as she is otherwise a normal office worker.
 * The cast of Gintama seem to have developed a tendency to suplex each other when they're pissed off.
 * Futaba regularly uses wrestling moves since he's a member of his school's pro wrestling club. His teammates regularly ambush him with moves.
 * Rurouni Kenshin has two characters who use the "Jushiki Muteki-Ryuu" style. One of its cherished techniques, the "Goufubaku", translates to "Mighty Axe Explosion"....and looks remarkably like Hulk Hogan's Axe Bomber lariat.
 * One Piece: Luffy pulls off the mother of all German Suplexes when
 * Mr. Five gave a pretty massive lariat to Luffy.
 * Miaka, from Fushigi Yuugi, not only uses the Tiger Driver '97 move on some random ruffians, she CALLS THE ATTACK.
 * Mutsuki Uehara of Manabi Straight! punishes the student council's adviser with a crippling hold for
 * Minami Shimada in the anime of Baka Test uses several painful-looking wrestling moves on Akihisa whenever he pisses her off (intentionally or not), which happens at least once per episode.
 * Sometime her Stalker with a Crush joins her
 * Yuria 100 Shiki: Shunsuke relies on his amateur wrestling skills to protect himself from Yuria's constant attempts to have sex with him.
 * Many School Rumble characters.
 * Tenma is a fan.
 * Karen and Lala are amateur wrestlers.
 * Eri has used the Shining Wizard and the Sharpshooter on Harima.
 * Mikoto is familiar with a few submission moves.
 * In Iczelion, Nagisa wants to be a pro wrestler, and uses wrestling moves in her fights. They're not terribly effective on invading aliens . Director Toshihiro Hirano is apparently a fan - previously, he had cast joshi wrestler Cutey Suzuki as the voice of Iczer-3.
 * Keigo from Bleach is usually in other the receiving end of one of these he once lampshaded it.


 * In Soul Eater Black Star does a few random submission holds to Hero.
 * In Dragonball Z, instead of martial arts, Broly uses moves like lariats and slams.
 * Angel Beats! has part of an episode dedicated to helping Yui learn how to do a German Suplex. Being about 90lbs soaking wet, she has some trouble lifting Otonashi and smashes him into the ground (in the wrong way) a number of times.
 * The Gundam AGE-1 Titus literally is a Humongous Mecha Wrestler with beam spikes from its shoulder and knee to ram or kick with it as well as a beam lariat.
 * Kureha from Mayo Chiki does this often to her brother Jiro.
 * Lucy from Fairy Tail does this from time to time. Her Edolas counterpart takes it Up to Eleven.
 * Given girls in Daily Lives of High School Boys are mostly jerkasses, examples of this trope are hardly surprising.
 * Ikushima is an active wrestler, Not that readers/viewers can see her in action, though.
 * Yoshitake's older sister performed a particularly brutal Release German Suplex on Tadakuni in High School Boys and Holy Night.
 * Mio and the Principal from Nichijou, both times Played for Laughs. The latter even German Suplexed a fucking deer !

Collectible Card Game

 * Goblin Piledriver

Film
"Onlooker: The chair, give him the chair!!"
 * In Blade II Blade executes a perfect vertical suplex on one of the enemy mooks, driving him through the glass floor. Meanwhile, Nomak pulls off a massive flying elbow on Blade in their final throwdown.
 * Donnie Yen (incidentally, the stunt coordinator on Blade II—think someone's a fan?) flawlessly demonstrates how a German suplex is done in the movie Flashpoint during a fight in a Chinese marketplace.
 * Any movie featuring a wrestler will often feature that wrestler's signature move somewhere in the film.
 * Many films starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson have him use the Rock Bottom, his old finisher from his wrestling days, at some point. The most noticeable example is during the fight against the football players at the beginning of The Rundown.
 * However, this was averted in Rock's later films, including Gridiron Gang.
 * In The Marine, John Cena chokeslams one of the villains to his death. Unlike with Dwayne Johnson and the Rock Bottom, there's less Narm here because Cena doesn't actually use this move in wrestling, and the camera angle conceals the fact that he's much shorter than wrestlers, like The Undertaker, who do.
 * John Cena busting out a chokeslam is less Narm-y than The Rock hitting a lifting side powerslam?
 * Roddy Piper used many wrestling moves in his films, the most iconic being the famous fight in They Live!.
 * In actual films about wrestling, this might count as a subversion, lampshade, or Shout-Out to the fans.
 * Steve Austin pulled off the Mother of All Spears against Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables.
 * Superman pulls off a suplex in the Superman: Doomsday movie against the titular villain and drives him into the ground. From orbit.
 * With a short timeout on the way down to punch each other some more. Really, that fight is easily the best part of the movie. Just turn it off after that's over.
 * Doomsday himself used a piledriver on Superman earlier in the fight.
 * Even Jet Li got in one during Kiss of the Dragon when he performed a "wrong" i.e. lethal Don't Try This At Home piledriver to a Mook, purposely breaking his neck and killing him.
 * In the second The Lord of the Rings film, an orc knocks a colleague off of a tower with a Zangief-style dropkick.
 * The Duloc brawl in Shrek. He leaps into a small horse paddock and pulls off a series of wrestling moves on the attacking Palace Guards, getting progressively more ridiculous.


 * In Cursed 2005, the main protagonist (geek-recently-turned-werewolf) uses several Narmtastic pro wrestling moves while trying out for the school wrestling team, including a backwards suplex in which his opponent is obviously helping him.
 * Bruce Willis breaks out a belly-to-back suplex on Karl Urban during their brutal punch-up in RED (film).
 * Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in The a Team. In the climactic sequence, B.A. Baracus executes a scoop slam on  Bad Attitude indeed.
 * The main character of Battle Girl, AKA Living Dead in Tokyo Bay is played by joshi wrestler Cutey Suzuki, who fights an enemy Super Soldier unit made up of fellow joshi wrestlers Devil Masami, Eagle Sawai, Miss A and Shinobu Kandori. Needless to say, wrestling moves are included.
 * In The Waterboy the coach is trying to get Adam Sandler's character to play football and asks him to do what his favorite wrestler Captain Insano does to the bad guys. He responds with an eye rake. Later in the film, he powerbombs an opponent.
 * Gail Kim in one of her films Righteous Kill is seen performing a headscissors takedown on a person. That move in question normally requires the opponent to lift the wrestler up and hold them as they do the turning.
 * In The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick kills a mook by suplexing him onto a stalagmite.
 * In Resident Evil: Afterlife, Chris Redfield uses a spear on Albert Wesker.
 * Parodied in Scary Movie 3, where Cindy and her boss get into a fight in the background because he won't let her tell the public about the murdering video tape.
 * Not many of the American moves in evidence, but the gang fight scene in A Clockwork Orange is very much in the manner of a pro wrestling match.

Literature

 * Mike Fink in the fifth Bloody Jack novel, Mississippi Jack.

Live Action TV

 * The Rival in Kamen Rider Den-O, Yuuto Sakurai, has plenty of wrestling moves in his repertoire when fighting as Kamen Rider Zeronos. This is Handwaved by the fact that he's a mark for wrestling.
 * He also uses them to beat up on his goofy Battle Butler as per their Boke and Tsukkomi Routine.
 * Monica Dawson from Heroes does a pretty wicked Tiger Feint kick (the 619, for Mysterio fans out there) to foil what would've been a robbery.
 * Her power is adoptive muscle memory, allowing her to replicate any physical motion she witnesses without having to practice it. She had watched WWE Smackdown only minutes before the robbery on a nearby TV.
 * Hilariously subverted on Chuck. One episode had Stone Cold Steve Austin guest-starring as an enemy spy, who is mentioned to be a specialist in "close quarters combat". Later in the episode, it turns out that he's an expert.
 * The aforementioned Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson demonstrated a Rock Bottom on Seven-Of-Nine when he guest-starred in the Star Trek: Voyager episode entitled "Tsunkatse".
 * Captain Kirk's distinctive fighting style includes a fair number of pro-wrestling moves.
 * The Vulcan nerve-pinch is basically a claw hold.
 * Two Phantom Zone escapees in Smallville, Aldar and Titan specialize in these. Then again, they are played by Batista and Kane respectively.
 * Big Wolf on Campus: EVERYBODY fought with pro wrestling moves. Heck, when fighting in groups, the good guys and bad guys would tag themselves in.
 * The main character of Angel likes professional wrestling moves. They usually have the crippling affect they would have when one isn't concerned about the other guy's safety. Even when all but his earliest memories are erased he still uses wrestling moves, even admitting he doesn't know anything about real fighting at this point! Professional Wrestling is older than many think but since he grew up in the 1700s, it must be much Older Than They Think in his universe.
 * Maybe the above carried over to Buffy as an early Season 5 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows her performing a hurricanranna onto a vampire.
 * During an Imagine Spot in episode 10 of Gekisou Sentai Carranger, Natsumi (Yellow Racer) has Naoki (Blue Racer) in an Elevated Boston Crab, aka Walls of Jericho.
 * It's also quite common for Sentai warriors to whip out a wrestling move in battles against Mooks, even if they're not wrestlers (excepting Domon/Time Yellow, who used to be a wrestler thus some 'bear hugs' are excusable). Kijima Futoshi/Goggle Yellow once used an Atomic Drop, while Don Dogoier used a Figure Four Leg Lock.

Tabletop Games

 * In just about every edition of Champions, the generic superhero martial arts skill includes a Throw maneuver.
 * Averted in GURPS, Professional Wrestling uses the Wrestling Art skill, which is not very effective for combat.
 * Deadlands contains a ton of "fightin' maneuvers" in its extended rulebooks. Several of them are based off of pro wrestling, including a piledriver and the freaking Stone Cold Stunner.
 * A Brawler-build fighter in the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons can and often will be played like this.

Video Games
"Not M. Bison but Zangief: OF COURSE!!!!"
 * Tekken has King and Armor King, who are wrestlers. But that doesn't explain Heihachi Mishima (a karate master) busting out powerbombs, or kickboxer Bryan Fury's tornado DDT, or even (Kenpo and Xing Yi practitioners) Michelle and Julia Chang's range of suplexes... the reason? Wrestling moves are cool!
 * In Tekken: Blood Vengeance, Heihachi takes it up a notch by adding a German Suplex to his movelist, as Jin Kazama can bear witness.
 * Jun Kazama's a mixed martial artist, we can accept that. Her moves stem from akido, judo, and karate, we can accept that. So why, as someone with perhaps the least interest in pro wrestling, is she busting out pro wrestling moves?
 * Resident Evil 4: Leon's ability to shoot an enemy in the knee, then run up to them and perform a Northern Lights Suplex on them is great. In fact many players used little else while fighting enemies that could be dispatched in this way. (Suplexing enemies also tends to stop plagas from spawning).
 * Through a glitch on the Gamecube version, even Ashley can suplex enemies.
 * In RE5, Sheva and are either wrestling fans or they were trained by Cammy. Both use the hurricarana leg scissors, though only Sheva does it properly.  performs it ala Shawn Michaels.
 * RE5's new "Mercenaries: Reunion" mode adds the ability to play as Josh Stone, who plays a little like Leon from the RE4 Mercenaries minigame...except for, you know, his ability to chokeslam Majini and bust out head-exploding elbow drops.
 * Street Fighter: Played straight with Zangief and Darun Mister, both of whom are celebrated wrestlers in canon, and both 360' grapples do a massive chunk of damage to your life points.
 * R. Mika from the Alpha games has moves typical of a Japanese female pro wrestler and an extremely fanciful costume not different from the likes of Mima Shimoda and Manami Toyota.
 * Cammy also used an aforementioned Hurricanrana, and a German Suplex as her throws in most of her appearances in Street Fighter.
 * Her Street Fighter IV Ultra Cammy Quick Combination basically ends a series of grabs with a crotch face smother. If you're facing her, I can't think of a better way to lose a match.
 * ...and then she twists your head and you hear your neck snap.
 * And of course, Mike Haggar from Final Fight and later Saturday Night Slam Masters, where he's an actual wrestler.
 * Street Fighter III brings us Alex and Hugo, the latter being (alongside his base character, the Andore family from Final Fight) based off of wrestling legend Andre the Giant. EVERY MOVE. And yes, Andre used to throw Drop Kicks in his more agile days.
 * Abigail from Final Fight as well.
 * Guile and Charlie do that devastating mid-air Backbreaker throw, and their grab move is a German Suplex
 * Vega/Balrog does the Izuna Drop and the Super Rolling Izuna Drop.
 * Street Fighter IV brings us El Fuerte, a Mexican luchador. Clearly from the tecnico side of the fence, he fights with fancy throws and agile movements not unlike Rey Mysterio, Jr..
 * There are various iterations of Chun-Li with a side slam (i.e. rock bottom) as her grab move.
 * World Heroes: Muscle Power. Lots of super powerful grapples, plus clotheslines and drop kicks to get in to grabbing range
 * He IS a Hulk Hogan rip-off, after all.
 * Mortal Kombat has Jax's signature Backbreaker, and Sonya's leg slam.
 * Oh, and Kitana and Mileena pulling off German suplexes in the second game. Jade later does this, but with her staff in Ultimate and Trilogy.
 * The Catsaber of the Disgaea series has its "Bell Volcano" special, which is a combo of wrestling moves that includes a suplex, piledriver, and backbreaker.
 * Final Fantasy VIII: Sometimes, in the overworld, you'll meet a Wendigo, who'll quite happily powerbomb your characters, given the chance. He also uses back drops and clotheslines.
 * Final Fantasy VI takes the gold for most absurd example, however. Sabin Rene Figaro uses a peculiar mixture of karate and pro-wrestling moves, which allows him to (among other things) SUPLEX AN ENTIRE TRAIN WHILE IT'S ROLLING AT FULL STEAM.
 * Final Fantasy VII's Tifa's Limit Breaks include giving the enemy a Brainbuster
 * Her Limit Break attacks even lets her do a piledriver attack on a giant evil wall. It's every bit as awesome as it sounds.
 * Chrono Cross had a boss whose moves were all given professional wrestling names. With no attention to what the moves actually were. His move "powerbomb", for example, is more of a frog splash that hits the entire party.
 * It also has Greco, an ex-pro wrestling priest based off of the real life Fray Tormenta.
 * In Batman: Arkham City Batman will occasionally DDT his opponents when performing a noisy Takedown, and one of his double counters is a northern lights suplex. Other characters use wresting moves quite liberally as well, such as frankensteiners and off-the-railing elbow drops.
 * The second Shadow Hearts game featured a pro-wrestling superhero vampire! He even receives training from legendary real-life wrestler the Great Gama, although the real Gama didn't indulge in so much Ho Yay.
 * In NFL Blitz, oftentimes after the whistle you can see players doing Hulk Hogan-style leg drops and German suplexes on other players.
 * In Blitz: The League (after Midway lost the NFL license), there will rarely be a play where someone isn't being back body dropped, German suplexed, belly to back suplexed, hip tossed, or just plain suplexed.
 * Gene from God Hand busts out a suplex or two here and there (which can be escaped in rapid succession by both Gene and the enemy, leading them quickly swapping places repeatedly until one of them gets suplexed), though considering the ridiculous breadth of fighting styles (drunken boxing!) and special moves (celestial baseball bat!) available to him, it's not that out of place.
 * Axel, Blaze, and Adam from Streets of Rage list their fighting styles as kickboxing, martial arts, and judo yet their rear throws consist of German suplexes and overhead belly-to-belly suplexes. Max from Streets of Rage II is an actual wrestler, so his use of the German suplex makes a modicum of sense. And since he's twice as big as most of the bog-standard enemies, any question of them resisting is rendered moot...
 * By III, Axel has more or less completely transformed into a full grappler
 * Kirby games with Bugzzy in them. If Bugzzy is absorbed then all of Kirby's moves become wrestling slams. These are the basis for Kirby's throws in the Super Smash Brothers games, though one is replaced by Ninja Kirby's Izuna Drop.
 * Soul Calibur features Astaroth, who hits a mean giant-axe-assisted powerbomb, and Nightmare, who can hit a dropkick, despite wearing a full suit of armour.
 * One of Nightmare's side-throws is an Inverted DDT, albeit one accomplished by a huge leap into the air.
 * Taki's back throw is a modified Inverted Death Valley Driver, with her lifting the victim up slightly above her shoulders before dropping him down on his head.
 * Some of the unarmed finishers in Skyrim include a chokeslam and a supplex.
 * It pretty much goes without saying that Travis Touchdown would not only use a Beam Katanas Are Just Better but also wrestling maneuvers in No More Heroes. And by finding wrestling masks lying around, he learns new ones. Travis is noted to be a former pro wrestling fan, and the masks have letters that help him remember various moves from his days of wrestling in Calgary (apparently). He also buys videotapes of famous matches (obsessively watching cool things on tape is pretty much how Travis learned to do everything cool to begin with) that he learns new moves from (incidentally, said letters are signed MS...)
 * Half of solo developer M Dickie's games are professional wrestling sims, and half are novel genre excursions - a time traveling military game, for example, or a convict simulator, or an ancient Judaean meditation rpg. But to save time and money, Dickie builds them all on top of the same wrestling simulator engine. The result is prisoners performing wrassling throws on one another, or your avatar accidentally smashing Jesus over the head with a plank of wood when you're just trying to give him a hug.
 * Several characters, such as Sarah, Jacky, and Jeffry, of Virtua Fighter play this trope completely straight.
 * Inverted with Wolf Hawkfield and El Blaze: in addition to wrestling and lucha libre throws, respectively, they have a fair amount of martial arts and boxing in their movelists.
 * In Lego Indiana Jones, the title character can hit back body drops, dropkicks, and sweep the leg during attack combos, and even can lock the "enemies" in a full nelson before throwing them aside.
 * In Lego Batman, Bane and Killer Croc both have military presses as their grapple positions, and Croc can drop his into a sitout Tombstone Piledriver.
 * Frank West from Dead Rising uses wrestling moves on zombies. Surprisingly effective when cornered and you've got nothing else to use as a weapon.
 * He's covered wrestling matches, y'know.
 * Ryu Hayabusa from the Xbox remake series of Ninja Gaiden can pull off a Guillotine Throw, which is basically an air-to-ground "judo" throw. He also has the Izuna Drop spinning piledriver, which when used at the end of an air combo is a certain kill against launchable enemies even on the highest of the Harder Than Hard difficulties. These moves have reappeared in his Dead or Alive appearances.
 * The piledriver also appeared as a counterattack in Okami.
 * Nero from Devil May Cry 4 pays Homage to Zangief with his Devil Triggered Buster against the Alto Angelos.
 * Without a doubt, the most unbelievable instance of this is in the old Game Boy game Mole Mania. You play as a mole, who, among other things, can perform suplexes, not on his enemies, but on steel balls, cabbages, and barrels. Crazy? Yes. Crazy Awesome? HELL YES!
 * In the arcade lightgun shooter Ghost Squad (also available for the Wii), at one point after passing a hand-to-hand combat test you perform a suplex on a terrorist, after punching him in the crotch. You also high-five the President in this game.
 * All of Kira's specials in Arcana Heart employ various Wrestling moves like piledrivers and backbreakers. Maybe the kid watches Pro-Wrestling when she's not working on a project or trying to Take Over the World?


 * Konoha also joins the list of Ninja who use the Izuna Drop piledriver.
 * Mask de Smith in Killer7 was a luchadore before becoming an assassin, and still breaks out wrestling moves on occasion.
 * Jack from MadWorld can performs a jumping back breaker on mook opponents. Using it as a finisher will cause the mook to split vertically in half.
 * That's not just a "jumping back breaker", that's the Kinniku Buster.
 * Alex Mercer of Prototype can pull various wrestling moves including a jumping triple powerbomb off the top of a building, a chokeslam, and running up the side of a building to do a multi-story elbow drop. The Super-Soldier enemy unit also uses wrestling moves including the Alabama Slam and a backbreaker.
 * Its spiritual ancestor The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction allowed the Hulk to perform elbow drops (in the same way as Alex; that is, from the sides of buildings), chokeslams, piledrivers, and powerbombs.
 * The main character from Saints Row 2 can learn moves like the Death Valley Driver and Rock Bottom during the course of the Brotherhood missions.
 * Saints Row The Third looks to continue this tradition with a gang of Mexican wrestlers called the Luchadores. Not to mention one of your revealed homies is an ex-member of this gang. Also, The Boss' melee moves now fit into two categories: over-the-top wrestling moves and Groin Attacks.
 * Most of the characters in Urban Reign have signature pro wrestling moves amongst their grappling sets: suplexes, DDT's, facelock jawbreakers, and powerbombs abound. In addition, there are team-up grapples that are obvious tributes to a number of famous tag teams. The Japanese gangsters even get Masahiro Chono style Yakuza Kicks (in fact, two of the gangster Mooks are named Masa and Hiro).
 * Well, that's because Masahiro Chono does in fact have actual Yakuza connections.
 * The player character in Hybrid Heaven can learn a wide variety of attacks, including throws, slams, and clinches—by allowing enemies to perform them on him.
 * Even Metal Gear might have gotten in on it; the Close Quarters Combat style created and used by the Boss and Big Boss has been called 'fancy military wrestling'.
 * Taken to Crazy Awesome heights in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in the battle between  and RAY, leading to a Godzilla-esque battle.
 * Explained by Otacon how back during 's development, he and a bunch of the other scientists decided on a whim to add wrestling software into 's programming. As you could guess, the military didn't approve of this and it was never fully developed, but Otacon installed the software anyways
 * The Charger from Left 4 Dead 2 will hit you with a sort of short chokeslam if it catches you. Then it will do it again...and again...and again...
 * The Hunter's pounce isn't all that far from a spear tackle. Though professional wrestlers don't often try to tear their opponents flesh off once they have them pinned.
 * Ezio of Assassin's Creed II apparently invented the chokeslam.
 * In Brotherhood, The Executioner kills targets from behind by pulling off a standing version of an Inverted Death Valley Driver/Burning Hammer, while the Blacksmith uses a backbreaker to kill targets facing him.
 * Iron Tager from BlazBlue demonstrates moves of this sort. For example, one of his grabs is undeniably a German Suplex.
 * Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden has the party Combat Medic Cyberdwarf doing suplexes and body slams for his basic attacks.
 * Bayonetta is shown being able to suplex A TWIN HEADED DRAGON and TEAR ITS HEADS OFF EASILY. We're not kidding. She can. And it's awesome. And even out-rivals Sabin from Final Fantasy VI in absurdity in this regard. And the kicker? She does this when she hasn't even gotten HER FULL POWERS BACK AT ALL!
 * She also german suplexes what, 14 angels all at once in the opening movie? Yes, it's as ridiculously over the top as it sounds. It's also par for the course for her.
 * In Metal Wolf Chaos, President Michael Wilson finishes off a tank set to destroy the Statue of Liberty by grabbing it from the front and performing a Giant Swing.
 * In Spider-Man The Movie: The Video Game, one of the moves you can perform on a Mook is an inverted suplex, that because Peter can do whatever a spider can, Ol' Web-Head will apply the facelock while sitting on the guy's shoulders.
 * In Spider-Man 2: The Video Game, Spidey can powerbomb a Mook OFF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.
 * In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you can catch charging goats and Gorons by grabbing them and throwing them off to the side. There's also a sumo match minigame, but unfortunately you can only play it once.
 * The Rat King in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters has a powerbomb ("Rat Bomber") and a suplex ("Rodent Suplex") in his moveset.
 * The little oni Suika of the Touhou series has her "Massacre on Mt. Ooe" super move, where she grabs an opponent and delivers a devastating triple power bomb on her.
 * She also has an alternate special move, Kidnapping Oni, where she grabs an opponent and does a single power bomb on her - after pulling her in for the grab with a black hole.
 * Tokimeki Memorial has Yumi Saotome, a High School girl who's such a fan of Pro Wrestling, she has developed a personal wrestling move, the "Yumi Bomber", a lariat/grappling-type move. She honed the move on her Butt Monkey brother Yoshio and even on  in one of the Verse's storylines.
 * In Dynasty Warriors 7, Huang Gai's Musou attacks consist of wrestling grapples, including a back drop (misnamed as Piledriver), and a backbreaker (complete with cheering), Deng Ai has an arm bar as one of his Musou and Zhang Fei can pull off a Giant Swing. Anyone who wears a gauntlet (like Ding Feng or Meng Huo) also has a Frankensteiner in addition of a weaker version of the aforementioned Giant Swing.
 * In the Conan game for Play Station 3, the Cimmerian can learn grapple attacks such as the Piledriver and the 'Warrior Suplex'.
 * Tenchu can get very wrestler-ish in some of the Stealth Kill animations, with Ayame being specially guilty of using overly-complex maneuvers.
 * In a more straight example, Tatsumaru was given the Izuna Drop as his strongest special attack in Tenchu 3. Unfortunately, it was removed from his playable form in Co-Op. Not that he needed it, anyway.
 * Hoover/Baby Head from Captain Commando can make his Mini-Mecha perform piledrivers and drop kicks as part of his arsenal.
 * Similarly to the above, Miu's Mini-Mecha in Panzer Bandit can pile drive enemies into the ground, strong enough to generate a Shockwave Stomp.
 * Kirin in Cannon Dancer can apply a non-spinning Izuna Drop to most human-height enemies in his game, including some bosses.
 * Initially averted by Pokémon. Splash was completely useless while submission, take down and body slam was nothing like their professional wrestling counterparts...but then it was played straight in the mystery dungeon spinoffs where the splash was properly painful if not avoided.
 * Saints Row the Third goes all out on this trope. In addition to various characters, from the Boss to Oleg to Angel, busting out all kinds of wrestling moves multiple taunts the Boss can potentially have are taken from Hulk Hogan (who voices the afforementioned Angel), John Cena and Ric Flair and Killbane himself uses multiple wrestling terms such as "high spot", no surprise since he's an evil Masked Luchador... hell he leads an entire gang of them! Volition seems to have quite a number of wrestling fans on their staff.
 * Xenogears: Rico, being a former champ in his own right tends to use a lariat, suplex and powerbomb in his arsenal.
 * This shows up in(of all places), Samurai Warriors. Takeda Shingen busts out a giant swing(grabbing the opponent by the legs and spinning rapidly in place). He also has a devastating dropkick that can scatter several enemies. Hojo Ujiyasu has a diving elbow drop. There's probably a few more in there.
 * Hawk from Vendetta is an obvious Hulk Hogan clone, so obviously some of his techniques look like wrestling moves.

Web Original
""BODY SLAM THE SAUSAGE!""
 * Darnell Butler tends to use this in Survival of the Fittest, especially since he is actually a member of the school wrestling team. During version three's Pregame tournament, he defeated one opponent with a series of German Suplexes and power bombs, essentially using one of King's chain throws.
 * And let's not forget The Riz and Bryan Calvert dropkicking people off a cliff and a hotel block, respectively. This was also done in v1, where terrorist Angelina Kaige killed with a dropkick to the face.
 * Occasionally used as food preparation techniques on Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time.


 * Darwin's Soldiers, Alfred, piledrives a guard during a raid on a Dragonstorm facility. The guard is killed in the process.

Western Animation

 * Megas XLR: Coop has a giant robot. He also happens to like pro-wrestling. Put two and two together, well, we have the makings of something completely awesome.
 * Wonder Woman used wrestling moves occasionally on Justice League Unlimited, possibly linked to wrestling's Greco-Roman roots. Her best was probably the time she German suplexed Mongul hard enough to leave a crater. Not just Wonder Woman, either. Solomon Grundy gives Superman a standard vertical suplex in "The Terror Beyond". In "The Cat and the Canary" Atomic Skull gives Wildcat a cage assisted back suplex, then upon recovering, Wildcat, a trained boxer and martial artist, responds with a pro-wrestling style clothesline. A few other pro-wrestling moves show up throughout the series as well by various characters.
 * And then she does it again in both Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and it was awesome.
 * In Green Lantern First Flight, Hal Jordan uses his ring to create a folding chair to smack his opponent with.
 * In South Park, Eric Cartman has demonstrated ability in sumo and grappling.
 * Rath from Ben 10 Alien Force, seen here with such classics as Polaris Pile Driver and Antarian Armbar.
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: While fighting Obi-Wan in "Kidnapped", Darts at one point hoists Obi-Wan high over his head and then slams him down onto the floor.
 * In Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers Dale puts his evil clone in a Boston crab.
 * Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness: "Has-been Hero" has both Po and  use pro wrestling moves, including a vertical suplex and the Stone Cold Stunner.

Real Life

 * Apparently this move (a suplex) is great against purse snatchers. Don't believe me? How about now?
 * How do you stop a receiver who won't go down? Philadelphia's Brian Dawkins' answer was the German Suplex. Most awesome tackle ever.
 * Rolando McClain performs a tackle on Rams receiver Danny Amendola that may have made the Rock proud. Granted, unlike Dawkins, McClain got flagged for it. It also got a bit of Lampshade Hanging from the color commentator.
 * The sport of Mixed Martial Arts allows a wide range of wrestling moves to be used in actual athletic competition, creating some spectacular matches. This six minute compilation provides a number of examples. In Japan, many pro wrestlers compete in both staged "show wrestling" and legitimate "shoot wrestling" in which they put their skills to work in actual MMA-style fights.
 * Of course, part of that is the fact that pro wrestling grew out of amateur wrestling, especially Greco-Roman wrestling. In amateur wrestling, the suplex is pronounced suplay—a nice bonus for anyone who remembers Gordon Solie.
 * Let's not forget the infamous effect of a doing piledriver on a little girl as her brother learned the hard way how much damage (read: death) the move can do. This quickly prompted the WWE (WWF at the time) to hammer in the old saying, Don't Try This At Home
 * Eventually, the highly dangerous nature of piledrivers would result in the WWE would outright ban any sort of piledriver barring less than a handful of exceptions and only in certain situations.
 * Notable aversion: the Tombstone Piledriver (of Undertaker fame) is one of the safest moves in wrestling when properly executed, as the only impact is to the piledrivee's knees, not the piledriven's head (please excuse the awkward nomenclature). Note the distinction of "PROPERLY EXECUTED", young Tropers. Professional wrestlers are just that: professionals. They train for years to do it safely, and look at the list of injuries for any one pro wrestler who's been wrestling for any length of time.
 * Although if you look at early-Undertaker and current-Undertaker versions of the Tombstone, you can see there is a noticeable difference in the amount of impact the piledriven wrestler receives. The early ones get a lot more pressure on their head and neck...
 * Mick Foley's number one rule in wrestling? Thou shalt not perform moves that can compress the vertebrae. He trusts Taker more than anyone else in the business, yet was legitimately scared every single time he was in the Tombstone. He lists a number of moves (piledrivers, suplexes, brainbusters, DD Ts) that are lethal and tells people not to do them.
 * Let's not forget that Abraham Lincoln invented the chokeslam.
 * Bullying Casey Haynes is a very bad idea.
 * In the Poké Walker, if 2 Pokémon have a friendly battle, the journal sometimes mentions that said battle was turned into a wrestling match.