Building Up That Special Meter…

Scott,

On the Stone Cold Network podcast with Heyman, they got on the topic of the weakening of finishers (a topic amongst myself & my wrasslin’ friends, so this hit home) and Heyman made great points about how to bring them back. He used the example of Mark Henry could get a HeadLock over as a finish, as long as it was booked strong and (more importantly, IMO) that if nobody else used it.

There’s tons of classic well established finishes that are now just transition moves, like the DDT or SuperKick, and it’s unrealistic to think that they could book these effectively & exclusively to make them strong again. My question is, in the past, you rarely saw anyone use a DDT when it was Jake’s calling card or the Kick when it was HBK’s. Was this an unwritten rule amongst the boys, or even a written rule from the higher-ups as a conscious effort to make the moves special?

We’ve seen in more recent memory how they can put bans on moves they deem "dangerous". So is there no chance of a philosophy like this returning to finishers, maybe even when Trip takes over? He’s such an old school booker (apparently) that I hope there is a chance.

Its frustrating to watch a guy like Ziggler who you know would be much more effective using the SuperKick as a finish, but having it not nearly being as effective because guys like the Usos use it 10 times a match as a basic strike…

Apologies for the ranting… Thoughts?

​Yes, they definitely used to protect finishes, and it was absolutely a written rule. You did not lift, say, the tombstone without getting in major shit. A lot of it these days comes down to the road agents doing a lousy job of producing the matches, where you’ll get three people doing the same type of finish in three different matches, or even just three people doing tornado DDTs in three different matches because there’s not the level of organization there used to be. ​