When watching professional wrestling, many usually forget to consider the word ‘professional’, and the men and women who put their bodies on the line, for our entertainment are just that. The performers have perfected their craft and are thus able to make the difficult look easy and the rough look smooth.
However, the risks are real, and while pro-wrestling isn’t exactly pure combat, the truth is, there are only so many different ways a human being can be dropped on his or her head without getting injured. Wrestling isn’t ‘real’ per se, but the potential for serious injury most certainly is.
WWE has taken steps to protect its independent contractors, by restricting or outright banning the use of certain moves.
As fans, the dangers are often forgotten, and while we do not wish to see anyone dropped on their neck any time soon, there are a whole raft of manoeuvres, which have been banned, that we’d love to see used in WWE from time to time. Here are eight such banned moves that we’d love to see back.
#8 Burning Hammer
If you’d said that, in 2016, the WWE Universe would see The Brian Kendrick deliver a Burning Hammer to Kota Ibushi in the Cruiserweight tournament that would eventually be won by T.J. Perkins, chances are, you’d have been laughed out of whatever building you found yourself in.
Kendrick wouldn’t have been on anyone’s list of potential Burning Hammer users, but use it he did. It is absolutely criminal that it wasn’t the finish. For those who are unaware, the Burning Hammer is essentially an inverted Death Valley Driver (Attitude Adjustment), where the poor victim taking the move lands directly on their head, as opposed to flat on their back.
The move was one of many innovated by the legendary Kenta Kobashi and was so well protected in Japan, that Kobashi only used the move on seven occasions. Each time, he was victorious.
There should be no-one clamouring for the Burning Hammer to return as a full-time finisher in WWE, but as a WrestleMania-worthy super finisher, it may well be perfect. To put the cat amongst the pigeons, this is exactly how the eventual Roman Reigns/John Cena match should end.
#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.
#6 Kinniku Buster
Samoa Joe’s Muscle Buster is an extremely dangerous move. If you don’t think that's true go ask Tyson Kidd, the man who’s career was as good as ended by it, early last year. While Joe is a true professional and performs the move in a safe manner, 99% of the time, it still involves a whole lot of compacting of an individual, leading to pressure where it isn’t supposed to be applied.
If someone wanted to make the Muscle Buster even more dangerous, the Kinniku Buster would be the result. The set-up for the move is similar to the Muscle Buster, but instead of falling flat on one’s back, the perpetrator of the move falls on his behind or his knees, leaving nowhere for the victim’s neck to go but directly into the shoulder.
It isn’t pretty, and it pretty much guarantees lights out.
The move is rarely seen in actual professional wrestling because of how dangerous it is, originating, in fact, from beyond the realm of non-fiction. The Kinniku Buster is one of the 48 Killer moves of Kinnikuman, the eponymous character of Japan’s premier wrestling comic.
We’d love to see this used as a super finisher for Samoa Joe at some point, although hopefully with safe results.
#5 Canadian Destroyer
The Canadian Destroyer is the indy wrestling move of choice, the most ‘create-a-move’ move in all of professional wrestling. It looks like a move that came about when two individuals were a little tipsy and looked to create something that would pop a crowd, yet be utterly preposterous at the same time.
Even the description of the move is somewhat ridiculous, as the Candian Destroyer is a ‘front-flip piledriver’. Most moves that involve a ‘front-flip’ are ridiculous.
The move was made famous by former TNA X-Division Champion, Petey Williams, and as such is named after the man, and while the name ‘Canadian Destroyer’ becomes a little redundant when used by anybody else, it has sort of stuck due to a lack of better options. The move is used by many wrestlers outside of WWE today, most notably by Adam Cole and Pentagon Jr.
To the best of our knowledge, this move has never been used in WWE. John Cena, of all people, busted out something along the same lines last year, albeit removing the ‘piledriver’ element of it all.
The Canadian Destroyer would work wonderfully as a super finisher for a cruiserweight, someone like Rich Swann, Kalisto or maybe even Neville; that is if WWE remembers he exists.
#4 Package Piledriver
Sticking with variants of the piledriver, there was a small amount of speculation before Kevin Owens made his WWE debut as to what his finishing move would be.
Would the company allow the former Steen to use his famed Package Piledriver? Or would the Canadian Murder Bear have to look deeper into his arsenal to finish off opponents in the biggest wrestling company in the world?
The speculation proved to be utterly pointless, because Owens wouldn’t be allowed to use the Package Piledriver, relying on the Pop-up Powerbomb instead.
This was inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any less of a shame. You’d be hard pushed to find a wrestler from the independent scene, with a more glowing reputation than the man now known as Kevin Owens. There is an extra caveat in that, despite looking completely brutal, the Package Piledriver may be safer to perform than the traditional variation.
The wrapping up of the opponent’s arms and legs makes it somewhat impossible for them to be spiked head-first into the canvas. While it isn’t surprising that this move is currently banned, it would be no surprise if Owens began using it more consistently in the future.
#3 Randy Orton’s Punt
Sometimes brutality is best shown through simplicity, and Randy Orton’s Punt is the perfect example of this. Professional wrestling is full of complex moves, pieces of artistry that take years to perfect and require impressive athleticism from the two involved in the tango. Sometimes, however, a simple boot to the head will suffice.
If you need to get from A to B, then a straight line is often the quickest route, and nothing puts a man out, like punting them in the temple.
Randy Orton used the punt frequently a few years back, but the PG era has seen the move put back in the cupboard. Though it’s hinted at now and then, it’s not used. The reason for this is simple; the punt is far too simple and far too brutal a move to be used on a PG program.
This is true of another move that will be mentioned shortly, and while older fans may scoff at this as they remember the Attitude Era, banning the Punt makes total sense.
Even so, what is stopping Orton from bringing it out on special occasions? WWE lacks those moves that take things to another level, and the Punt represents a great option for such a thing.
#2 The Curb Stomp
WWE has made itself something of a bed of thorns with this move. It was the finishing move of Seth Rollins, all the way up until he won his first WWE World Championship at WrestleMania 31 before it was banned by management, leaving Rollins to use the Pedigree instead.
People may scoff at Rollins using the Pedigree, but those people would be well served by remembering that terrible fallaway DDT Rollins used in the interim.
Rollins is going to be a huge star for years to come, but video packages are always going to be hampered, by the fact that they can’t show the move that won him his first WWE World Championship. The move was banned for good reasons, as those in charge felt it was too easy to replicate and thus could cause tragic situations on the playground.
But if this had been the problem all along, it was immensely naive of WWE to allow Rollins to use it in in the first place.
The Curb Stomp needs to return, as only by using it, will Rollins be free of the shadow of Triple H and The Authority. That is the logical way for that story to end; Rollins pinning Hunter after hitting him with the move that has been M.I.A for over a year now.
#1 Piledriver
We’ve see a couple of piledriver variations in this article, but sometimes you simply can’t beat the classics. The piledriver has been banned in WWE for a number of years now, with only the Tombstone variation being seen from time to time, and only then by legitimate legends such as The Undertaker and Kane.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, professional wrestlers are just that, professional, and while the major injuries suffered by performers have been grizzly, to say the least, they are also a lot rarer than people realise.
Wrestlers have been paying the price for isolated incidents for years. Always being told what is and isn’t safe, by men and women who aren’t trained in the art-form. When CM Punk busted out the piledriver against John Cena on RAW at the beginning of 2013 the crowd responded with the requisite approval, but there was also a sense of, ‘why is that banned again?’
The move is dangerous, but in theory, every single move in pro wrestling is, Japanese legend, Mitsuharu Misawa, died after taking a belly-to-back suplex, Darren Drozdov was paralysed after a powerbomb and Luther Lindsay died after hitting a Big Splash of his own. The piledriver, when performed correctly, is a staple of professional wrestling and much-missed in WWE.
We’d love to see it removed from the blacklist.
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