What are some moves that you remember wrestlers/tag teams trying out that are not well remembered or didn't catch on as part of their repertoire?

[SPS]

I was watching the Shawn Michaels Unreleased DVD set today and while watching a Rockers match, I saw them attempt a double team STO type manouver that looked awkward to set up and I never had seen them do before.

It made me think, what are moves you've seen talent do that ended up not sticking in their repertoire and are fairly forgotten about?

I also recalled while pondering this, when Raven during his TNA and ROH run in the ealry to mid 00's he started spicing up his moveset by adding in things like an ankle lock and the X-Pac style kicks in the corner ending with a step up kick which after his summer NWA title run seemed to disappear from his moveset.

Anyway, what are some of your memories of forgotten manouvers?

[Richeyedwards]

The diamond head: done once, botched, nearly killed kanemaru, never done again.

[TheDuke]

The Undertaker's Last Ride power bomb. Although I believe it was just mean to replace the tombstone, so when he went back to the Tombstone he no longer needed the Last Ride. Also, I think he stopped using his submission move, hasn't he? The Hells Gate or whatever its called.

[DMJ]

Didn't he use the Hells Gate against Lesnar? 

Also, I know he busted out the Last Ride in his feud with Edge (around 2007 or 08', I think?). I wouldn't be surprised if he also used it on some of his other smaller opponents in those years - CM Punk, Rey, etc. 

Any analysis of his moveset after 2010 would be sketchy just because he only wrestled a handful of times each year from then till today. 

 

Has Seth Rollins used the Pedigree since the feud with Triple H ended? 

[Richeyedwards]

Last taker match I saw was the Shane match, so I don't know after that but I am pretty sure he did the hell's gate in that because I was laughing at how horrible all the grappling was.

He did the last ride in most of his big matches as a near fall but not a finisher Vs the likes of micheals, hhh, punk etc

[NintendoLogic]

That one time Kawada did a moonsault.

[Alucard]

Undertaker definitely always kept the Last Ride as a near fall, often in the spot of 'guy doing 10 punch in corner is shockingly caught in Last Ride position' which was also the finish vs. Mark Henry at Unforgiven 2007.

As mentioned Rollins' pedigree, there was a few weeks in between where he was trying that weird forward DDT/facebuster type move.

Kane's falling powerbomb finish in the early 2000s. Jericho's Breakdown finish in 01/02. Zack Ryder's Zack Attack finish before he just went with the signature Rough Ryder as his finish. Sheamus original High Cross crucifix bomb before settling on the Brogue Kick as his finish.

I'd forgotten about Raven using the ankle lock. A lot of the times when guys that didn't normally do submissions suddenly started using one, it didn't stick, outside of Cena keeping the STF. I think of Lesnar's Brocklock, originally the bearhug he used on Hogan in 02 then the stretch muffler in 03/04 but even now the Kimura seems rare compared to his 2012/2013 matches. Jeff Hardy using "the spine line" in 2004 TNA to combat Jarrett's figure four. Triple H using a sleeper hold to win a couple matches in late 2002.

I feel like there's a lot of recent examples that are slipping my mind.

[SmartMark15]

Rollins tries getting the Rain Trigger/Revolution Knee over as a finisher but it just didn't look good so the Stomp came back to replace it. He still keeps the knee around though.

[SPS]

3 hours ago, Alucard said:

Jeff Hardy using "the spine line" in 2004 TNA to combat Jarrett's figure four.

Never heard of this, what the heck was it?

[SPS]

5 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

That one time Kawada did a moonsault.

Wow when was this?  The Footloose era?

[NintendoLogic]

31 minutes ago, SPS said:

Wow when was this?  The Footloose era?

It's from the 9/30/90 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue match.

https://imgur.com/r/squaredcircle/18RptGN

[sek69]

Cena's springboard Stunner that seemed like it was a matter of time before it went horribly wrong (yet never did). 

[EricR]

Gotta be Berzerker's plancha to an opponent while the opponent was lying on the floor. Nord had to be 300 lb. when he started in WWF and he used this plancha after wins, but only used it for his first 10 matches in WWF, never again for the rest of his run. Sometimes he would make it more of a slingshot kneedrop from ring to floor. Insane spot. 

[NotJayTabb]

Both HHH and Ziggler had a spell where they used a sleeper as their secondary finisher

[SPS]

9 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

It's from the 9/30/90 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue match.

https://imgur.com/r/squaredcircle/18RptGN

That was cool, can't  believe I've never seen it before. Thanks for the Gif.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

2 hours ago, NotJayTabb said:

Both HHH and Ziggler had a spell where they used a sleeper as their secondary finisher

Feel like Triple H has a few, didn't he try to get over the Indian Deathlock as a viable finisher for a little bit around the same time? I also seem to recall both him and HBK using the crossface for a little while in 2009/10ish as a way of 'reclaiming' it. 

[ragemaster]

HHH had a cool Indian Death lock finisher in WCW, but I don't think he ever busted it out in the WWE.

[brocklock]

2 hours ago, ragemaster said:

HHH had a cool Indian Death lock finisher in WCW, but I don't think he ever busted it out in the WWE.

I don't remember if he won with it, but I remember him using it during a strangely long Sunday Night Heat match he had with Maven around 2003/2004.

I remember Cena doing German Suplexes to combat Brock during their 2014 feud, but I think it was only that time he used them.

[Alucard]

16 hours ago, SPS said:

Never heard of this, what the heck was it?

Basically just an elevated boston crab.

HHH was using the Indian Deathlock in 02-03, I believe JR tried to call it the "H-Hold Indian Deathlock" at one point and it was in his moveset in the games at the time. He also busted it out against Rollins last year. On a side note, every Triple H/Maven match was awesome, really great 'top star vs underdog babyface' formula matchups.

[JRH]

Wasnt there a time in 07-08 when Shawn Michaels was using the crossface? 

[sek69]

11 minutes ago, JRH said:

Wasnt there a time in 07-08 when Shawn Michaels was using the crossface? 

Yeah there was that period where no one was using it after Benoit and then Shawn started using it sporadically as a way to get everyone accustomed to seeing it again. 

[SomethingSavage]

Didn't Triple H use the Indian Deathlock in the Mania match with Booker? I may be misremembering that.

Shawn Michaels doing the Lord's work & "reclaiming" the Crossface for Jesus or whatever certainly was something.

Matt Hardy tried to make that Ice Pick submission a thing. As far as I know, he kept it around in some capacity for a really long time, too.

Eddie Guerrero had that Lasso From El Paso for a short time during the Smackdown Six era.

The Big Show has tried out a truckload of finishes over his tenure. The Choke Slam, the Final Cut, the WMD, and the Cobra Clutch back-breaker (which still remains a personal favorite for me) all spring to mind.

Anyone remember Batista adopting the Ankle Lock back around 2009 when he had the awesome little team with Rey?

And then there was the short time he was using the Rings of Saturn once he became Kanye-style douchebag Batista. I actually didn't mind that & thought it suited him much better. The name, the Batista Bite, was fucking awful though.

I loved it when Chris Hero began to utilize a plethora of Piledriver variations to put people away in PWG. Dude was basically educating the audience that any one of them could end a match. Plus, he's such a deceivingly big guy. So his Tombstone, his Gotch-style, and especially his Jumping Piledriver all looked like instant death.

[DMJ]

Big Show's Cobra-Clutch Backbreaker and that whole initial run in ECW is probably my favorite run of his ever. The matches weren't "good," but there was just something inherently watchable/must-see about Big Show vs. Sabu as a match. Like a Pro Wrestling Illustrated "What If They Fought" column from 96' magically coming to life 10 years later.

The use of the Crossface by HBK and HHH (and I think maybe Punk or Bryan used it too) is one of my favorite "meta"/post-modern spots to analyze. I say post-modern (maybe wrongly?) because I feel like intention takes a backseat to what the viewer's interpretation is.

For example, I think HHH busted out a crossface against Daniel Bryan at WM30. This was years after the Benoit tragedy and the move had been done before. Many viewers probably didn't immediately connect it to WM20 or the idea of Bryan being "the next Benoit," but that's how I interpreted its usage - that whether HHH or Bryan intended it or not, that specific move in that specific context was an almost cathartic moment - that what Benoit represented 10 years earlier was what Bryan represented that night and that it was okay for that desire, passion, even recklessness to exist. To them, it was probably just another spot, but to me, it symbolized so, so much more and was a tremendous statement about not only the dangers of wrestling in a ring, but also the dangers and tragedy of devoting your life to the livelihood of being a wrestler. Almost like Triple H restraining Bryan with the Crippler Crossface was asking him, "Are you sure you want this? Because if you submit to this, submit now, because this is the darkest side of this life. If you fight through this, know what you will be fighting through." 

Again, I could be dead wrong and they didn't even use the move in that match or, if they did, 99.9% of people forgot they did (including the wrestlers involved).