As the art of professional wrestling has (and continues to) evolve, and as professional wrestlers around the world seek new ways to diversify their repertoires, the lines between professional wrestling and the martial arts have blurred in many areas. In North American professional wrestling, the art has evolved to incorporate MMA techniques into the fold. We can probably thank the Kata-Ha-Jime for making this possible.
Read MoreProfessional wrestling: it’s beautiful, ugly, artistic, acrobatic, athletic, riveting, intriguing…and goofy as hell. The People’s Elbow is a prime example of this.
Read MoreYou know how in fighting game franchises like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, the King of Fighters, and things of that ilk, where the fighters each have a primary finishing maneuver? And how when they really want to definitively finish the fight they resort to their ultimate finishing maneuver, the one move that no one gets up from that pretty much always equals ‘game over’?
The real-life pro wrestling equivalent of that is the Victoria Driver.
Read MoreSometimes a wrestling maneuver created by a great professional wrestler who isn’t exactly a mainstream household name becomes synonymous with the in-ring work and image of a wrestler who is a mainstream household name. In these cases, the latter is pretty much the person who gets credit for a said wrestling move with mainstream wrestling fans. A great example of one such pro-wrestling maneuver is the submission move that the vast majority of North American wrestling fans attribute to former professional wrestling superstar CM Punk, the Anaconda Vice.
Read MoreThere are a whole lot of suplex variations out there. Some are hard-hitting; some are graceful yet impactful; some are the personification of power or leverage. There’s a suplex variation out there for everybody! Today, however, I want to place the onus on one of my all-time favorite suplex variations, the Tiger Suplex.
Read MoreThe mark of a great wrestling move is, in my opinion, the level of versatility it gives its user. Any wrestling maneuver that gives you the ability to utilize it as a counter-attack, a sudden strike, and a final blow anywhere in or out of the squared circle while offering multitudes of space for innovation is truly a legendary maneuver. And legendary is probably the greatest way to describe the Ace Crusher, arguably the most versatile maneuver in professional wrestling history.
Read MoreThere are professional wrestling maneuvers that are ultimately so dangerous, so easy to botch, so reliant on the person executing the maneuver to be strong enough to properly distribute your weight, that they become unicorns in a sense. And by “unicorns” I mean “moves that look cool and devastating but are so damn dangerous that the vast majority of wrestlers decide they aren’t worth adding to their repertoire”. One such move is the legendary Screwdriver, a piledriver variation that is so dangerous that only a handful of wrestlers have ever dared use it as their primary finishing maneuver.
Read MoreOne wrestling move that stands out in my mind due to its physical impact on the recipient and the obvious risk that said recipient is facing if even the most minor aspect of executing the move goes wrong is the Kudome Valentine, a move more commonly known to U.S. American wrestling fans of the late 90’s/early 2000s as the Vertebreaker.
Read MoreFor decades pro wrestling purists, smart marks, and jabronies have engaged in one of pro wrestling’s longest-running debates: is there a difference between a clothesline and a lariat?
Read MoreThe Shining Wizard is the invention and pet maneuver of Keiji Mutoh, known to many older North American pro wrestling fans as The Great Muta.
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