#7 Vertebreaker
A move not too dissimilar to the Burning Hammer and subsequently banned for the same reason is the Vertebreaker. A back-to-back double underhook piledriver, the move was used in WWE by The Hurricane, before management put the kibosh on it.
Watching the move being performed, it is easy to see why it is banned. That much pressure and force applied to the back of a human neck is uncomfortable to watch, let alone face.
Still, it is one of those moves that just screams ‘match over’, and professional wrestling always needs such moves. The move is also rare enough to guarantee a huge response from the crowd, another much-missed aspect of WWE programming.
After AJ Styles had used the move on Seth Rollins at a live event, it was rumoured that it would return to frequent TV, but it never did.
One of the issues with the move is the difficulty of pulling it off for smaller guys. The Hurricane himself has said that he wasn’t too angry at it being banned, as there weren’t too many guys on the roster he could do it to. Still, as the WWE roster is more athletic than ever, it may well be time for the Vertebreaker to return.
