10 Wrestlers Who Couldn't Do Their Own Moves
The best spear in wrestling is contended. The worst is not.
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00:00 The phrase "this ain't ballet, pal" gets thrown about a lot, but wrestling does have plenty in common with dance.
00:06 On a surface level, it's about crafting something that looks pleasing to the viewer's eye.
00:10 It should be said that not only are the men and women on this list better at fake fighting than you or I,
00:15 they could very easily beat me in a real fight and turn me into a puddle formerly known as "Sai from What Culture".
00:20 Still, every fan will have their own take on who were the best at making moves look great and who were the worst.
00:26 I'm the future Puddle of Sai from What Culture Wrestling and this is 10 Wrestlers Who Couldn't Do Their Own Moves.
00:32 10. The Rock's Sharpshooter
00:35 Though he didn't invent it, it's fair to say that the sharpshooter was made famous by Bret Hart.
00:39 The master of the move was asked in 2021 by Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp about his colleagues who also tried to apply it,
00:46 and he was quick to point out that The Rock had always had trouble putting it on.
00:50 Looking at Hart's take on the move, it's clear to see why it's beloved.
00:53 The Hitman makes the crossing over of his and his opponent's legs, as well as his subtle hand placement, look easy.
00:58 He pulls at his opponent to turn them over, demonstrating their weight, and pushes in deep to apply pressure.
01:04 This is what submission moves are all about, after all - pressure and control.
01:08 The Rock had very little of either when he began applying the sharpshooter onwards from 2000,
01:12 often crossing legs over the wrong way and looking as weak as pond water,
01:16 The Rock's sharpshooter had been chastised by both fans and wrestlers themselves.
01:20 Still, Rocky got it over because it was the Attitude Era, and at this point he could almost do no wrong.
01:25 9. CM Punk's Elbow Drop
01:28 Whilst there may or may not be legitimate heat between CM Punk and Kenta over Punka's usage of the go-to-sleep,
01:34 it's hardly the only move in the Second City Saints repertoire that he's adopted from another.
01:38 Occasionally, Punk will take it to the top rope, point to the sky, and drop an elbow like Macho did back in his prime.
01:44 Although perhaps not exactly like Macho did.
01:47 Not only was Savage capable of getting some impressive air, he was able to lean into the blow mid-flight.
01:52 Macho was a marksman with the elbow, always leading it to its mark and making it look devastating.
01:56 With Punk, he often falls in a bit of a heap.
01:59 Yes, the elbow is extended, but it's not the singular point of impact.
02:02 CM Punk himself made fun of this in a 2020 tweet, when the WWE on Fox Twitter account put him amongst Randy Savage,
02:08 Shawn Michaels and Kairi Sane as the best elbow drops in the biz, saying "This isn't a list I should be on."
02:15 So, at least he has good humor about it.
02:17 Number 8, The Miz's Figure Four Leg Lock
02:19 There are some stars that are just born to be heels.
02:22 Not that The Miz isn't funny or charming when he wants to be,
02:24 but there's just something so delightfully punchable about his on-screen persona.
02:28 Ergo, he needs all the help he can get during his rare babyface runs.
02:31 In 2012, WWE paired him with the legendary Ric Flair in a forgettable mentor and student story.
02:37 In this time, Flair bequeathed his most deadly move to the A-Lister.
02:40 And whilst Miz doesn't lock the Figure Four Leg Lock in quite as impressively as Flair did,
02:45 where it really falls down is an overall performance issue.
02:48 Miz doesn't use it to tell a story, he skips right to the end.
02:51 Be it of his own volition or the time he's given,
02:53 Miz never really bothers to work his opponent's leg during any given match.
02:57 He never has and he likely never will.
02:58 As such, this already vapid hand-me-down of a move is less impactful,
03:02 as the prior punishment that makes it so effective is missing.
03:05 More than this, Flair would spend minutes applying the locks,
03:08 steadily becoming more intense to amp up the atmosphere.
03:11 It's what made it so memorable.
03:12 When Miz applies the Figure Four,
03:13 he's heaving and grimacing that punchable face before he's even hit the mat.
03:17 Number 7 - Charlotte Flair's Moonsault
03:19 Being able to flip your entire body over mid-air is insanely impressive.
03:24 It's a skill that requires a bit of rewiring of your instincts
03:26 that tell you that your feet should stay on the ground
03:28 and by no means should your head ever be below them.
03:31 The Moonsault is perhaps even worse,
03:33 since the move is done backwards, facing away from your landing spot.
03:36 That being said, just because you're able to flip doesn't mean you've mastered a move.
03:40 As Charlotte Flair demonstrates on a frequent basis,
03:43 timing your rotation is imperative, as is making sure you stick the landing.
03:46 It probably doesn't help either that she's very tall
03:48 and even more so that she has a history of cheerleading,
03:51 so it's in her nature to land on her feet.
03:53 As it is, most of her Moonsault landings are rough at best,
03:56 as she flips too soon and lands on her ankles, rather than pressing her opponent flat.
04:00 On the other hand, Moonsaulting to the outside of the ring
04:03 means she at least has to land on her feet, which she does almost every time.
04:06 Shame then that her standing Moonsault always misses her opponents by so much
04:10 that she may as well have jumped off the turnbuckle and landed in a different area code.
04:14 Number 6 - Shane McMahon's Punches
04:16 Shane McMahon is about the furthest you can get from technical wrestling.
04:19 Even in his younger years, jumping into his dad's ring to play alongside all those pro athletes,
04:23 nobody ever pretended that he was more than a glorified stuntman.
04:27 And he was great at this, so it distracted crowds for some time from his god-awful fundamentals.
04:32 Since his return in 2016, though, McMahon has been the subject of mockery
04:35 for what are surely the world's worst worked punches.
04:39 As a passionate fan of MMA and trained in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,
04:43 Shane leans too far into wanting to look realistic.
04:46 His swift and incredibly short movements are all clearly inspired by boxing jabs.
04:50 However, this is just not how things are done in wrestling.
04:53 Full arm extension and thrust are the name of the game, and Shane displays neither.
04:57 It's hard enough to take the boss's jumpy upstarts unseriously as a legitimate fighter in his own right,
05:03 but it's the seriousness with which Shane seems to present himself
05:06 - he probably whispers sweet nothings to that best wrestler in the world trophy - every night.
05:10 Number 5 - John Cena's STF
05:13 In a 2020 episode of WWE's Untold series,
05:16 Edge recalled his match with Cena at Unforgiven 2006.
05:19 He tells the story of how Big Match John accidentally choked him
05:22 until he passed out via a nasty combination of STF and ladder.
05:26 Though he laughs it off in a way that pro wrestlers do, since it's just a part of their job,
05:30 it's a harrowing visual and thought.
05:32 And clearly it had an effect on Cena, because ever since that moment,
05:35 his submission hold has gone from being genuinely dangerous to looking absolutely ludicrous.
05:40 To be fair, that is pretty good reason to adapt to Mu, but there has to be a happy medium.
05:44 To give it its full name is to describe it perfectly - the step-over toe-hold face-lock.
05:49 Edgy fans of WWE's ruthless aggression days might lament that the name of Cena's move went from the
05:54 STFU - haha, back to the simple STF - when the PG era rolled around, but in truth,
06:01 it's been more of an ST this whole time.
06:03 When Cena cinches it in, there's no face-lock.
06:06 Not only does this mean Cena isn't putting pressure on his victim's spine,
06:09 which is the point of the full body hold,
06:11 but it's clear to anyone watching that escaping it would need little more than a duck of the head.
06:16 Number 4 - John Cena's Springboard Stunner
06:18 John Cena was a fantastic figurehead for WWE's promotional appeal.
06:22 In the ring, his character is a great role model.
06:25 Outside of wrestling, he's a promising actor and an honourable humanitarian.
06:28 It's a shame that his actual wrestling has always been so limited,
06:31 because everywhere else he succeeds.
06:34 And while Cena is known for, and has largely got by on, his five moves of doom,
06:38 he occasionally adds a sixth.
06:40 Cena's victory over Rusev at WrestleMania 31 is a sour taste many WWE fans remember,
06:45 but there was something else that night that caught everyone off guard.
06:49 In a show of otherwise rarely seen creativity, Cena hit his first springboard stunner
06:54 by running into the ropes, bouncing off of them, and taking his opponent down with a cutter.
06:58 On first viewing, it's kind of cool, because it is so surprising.
07:01 But even occasionally, when it didn't look bad, it still never looked great.
07:05 The momentum of Cena running one way,
07:07 and then suddenly moving towards his opponent backwards made for an awkward sell.
07:11 And most of the time, Cena could never get his hands around his dance partner's head precisely.
07:16 Cena used the springboard stunner for all of about six months in 2015,
07:20 in a period that is fondly remembered as some of his best in-ring work.
07:23 Despite a move that the commentary consistently had to remark as one he never, quote, "got all of".
07:29 Number three, Eva Marie's sliced red.
07:32 Eva Marie's moveset really got more complex than running sentons and back elbows.
07:36 However, in 2015, All Red Everything returned to the company after a hiatus,
07:41 with a surprising new move passed on to her by her trainer, Brian Kendrick.
07:45 Sliced bread number two demonstrated the beauty of fluid wrestling,
07:48 drilled down to one perfect second.
07:50 Kendrick would run almost vertically up the turnbuckles,
07:53 with his opponent in tow, rotating over them and forcing them onto their back.
07:57 It was a move that exemplified the Cruiserweight's agility and finesse.
08:00 Now, credit where credit is due, it's not an easy move to pull off,
08:03 because in order to look good, it requires a lot of confidence and careful footwork.
08:07 These are things Marie rarely managed to demonstrate,
08:10 as it felt like WWE were always shoving her onto TV well before she was ready.
08:14 So, this is very much a case of running, up the ropes in fact, before you can really walk.
08:19 Marie's sliced red had all the flat-footedness of a baby deer,
08:22 and looked like someone climbing a particularly imposing staircase in roller skates.
08:26 It was clear that her opponents were doing most of the work,
08:28 to make sure everyone got out of it safely.
08:31 It's probably not surprising that her next gimmick had her finding excuses to not wrestle,
08:35 and we were all better for it.
08:37 Number two, Billy Kidman's shooting star press.
08:40 The shooting star press might be one of wrestling's most beautiful moves.
08:43 The end-over-end rotating flip from the top rope requires grace and precision to hit perfectly.
08:48 On the one hand, there are those that believe that Billy Kidman was one of the most entertaining acts
08:52 of his time. He was also one of the first men to bust out a shooting star press on TV,
08:56 instantly creating conversation amongst fans.
08:59 And sometimes, it looked incredible. But only sometimes.
09:03 Quite a lot of the time, it looked like Kidman had beef with gravity.
09:06 He barely got any air, his rotations were late, and his landings were sloppy.
09:10 If you can't pull off a move time after time and make it look picture perfect,
09:14 especially in Vince McMahon's clinical sports entertainment world,
09:17 then you should perhaps reconsider it, doubly so, if it has the potential to be dangerous.
09:22 Unlike other entries in this list, Kidman couldn't do his move,
09:26 for more reasons beyond his own inconsistency.
09:29 In an August 2004 episode of Smackdown, Kidman hit one of his worst attempts at the
09:33 shooting star press on Chavo Guerrero, landing wrong and with some serious velocity.
09:37 He drove his knee into Chavo's head, legitimately concussing his opponent.
09:41 As such, the SSP was blacklisted at the company,
09:44 meaning that both Kidman and his tag partner Paul London had to find new signature moves.
09:50 1. Edge's Spear
09:52 It's the job of wrestling announce teams, as much as the in-ring workers themselves, to sell.
09:56 Commentators will tell you how impactful something is supposed to be with how they react to it.
10:01 But without any distractions, and with the right comparisons,
10:04 it's fair to say that Edge's finisher is not as powerful as Michael Cole's frenzied calls of
10:08 Spear implies.
10:10 The Spear has been a signature move for a great number of major stars,
10:14 Roman Reigns and Goldberg among them, in part because it's a simple and understandable technique.
10:19 The attacker throws their entire weight into an airborne tackle,
10:22 taking their opponent down to the mat, and perhaps most importantly,
10:25 knocking the wind out of them by burying their shoulder into their enemy's gut.
10:29 Except Edge doesn't do this, and he never really has.
10:32 He wraps his opponent in an embrace, pushing the flat of his bicep into them.
10:36 Despite being part of some of the company's most re-watched moments,
10:39 Edge's Spear has always more resembled a running hug when properly scrutinised.
10:44 This was exemplified the most during his runs where he assembled a three-man team alongside Rhyno.
10:49 Rhyno's Spear might have gotten a unique title inspired by his namesake,
10:53 but it deserved its own moniker because of just how deadly it looked.
10:56 It didn't even need Joey Styles losing his mind chanting "Gore, Gore, Gore" on commentary,
11:01 although let's face it, it didn't hurt either.
11:04 Now I'm sure I've just upset some superfans of these particular wrestlers,
11:07 but as I say, this is all done in good fun.
11:10 If you are going to go down to those comments either to tell me what for,
11:13 or to give me other examples of wrestlers that couldn't do their own moves,
11:16 make sure to hit like on the way and make sure you go subscribe.
11:19 Head over to WhatCulture.com for more content every day.
11:21 I've been Si for WhatCulture, and have a good week.