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What's the story?
It's less of a case of New Year, New Start and more New Year, New Finishing Move for WWE Superstar Sonya Deville on SmackDown Live, when she debuted a new devastating manoeuvre to put away Naomi. However, the move itself has left a lot of people watching very confused, and perhaps for good reason.
In case you didn't know...
On SmackDown Live, the two former Absolution stable-mates Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose got one over on Naomi when Mandy provided a distraction at ringside to allow Sonya to hit Naomi with the following move and pick up the win.
However, the move left a lot of people confused because it sort-of looks like Naomi counters whatever Sonya was attempting to do into a vicious DDT. So when Naomi sold the move and Sonya picked up the win with the pinfall a lot of people assumed it must've been a botch.
The heart of the matter
However, that's not necessarily the case, the move Sonya Deville used to dispatch Naomi is the Shouten Kai, a move synonymous with Hirooki Goto from New Japan Pro Wrestling who used it as his finishing move for quite some time. It was also popularised by Matt Morgan under the name 'Hellavator' for western audiences.
Here's Goto performing the move.
As you can see, there are clear differences between Goto's version and Deville's version. Whether Deville has intentionally modified the move to make it slightly different (and in turn, more like she's receiving a DDT) or it just didn't come off exactly right on the night is unclear.
Personally, the camera angle doesn't help, but if you look closely you can see Sonya shift her arm to slam Naomi, but it looks like Naomi doesn't remove her arm from the back of Sonya's head to receive the 'slam' part of the move.
What's next?
I always like it when new moves are used on WWE television as the variety of moves used can be a little repetitive at times, especially when it's a move as awesome as the Shouten Kai. Hopefully, Sonya gets to use it more in the coming weeks.
Do you like the Shouten Kai? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!
