Best Moves Ever: The Trailer Hitch

The Figure Four leglock is one of the best submission holds ever, right? Of course it is, dolts. However, that's not to say it can't be tweaked. God's honest truth, I think the Trailer Hitch, or the Figure 8, or whatever you want to call it, is a betterment on the original because it looks more concise, more inescapable. Sure, the Figure Four has the drama and storytelling cache, but every move has a trade-off. Here's Jamie Noble locking that hold onto Chavo Guerrero.

Written by TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Desecrator

I've tried so hard to come up with an actual name for MsChif's finisher that isn't its stage name. Arm wringer leg drape DDT? Or is it more of a Flatliner-type move? Maybe it's an ARMBAR? I don't know. However, it is one of the most unique finishers in all wrestling, and it always looks really cool in execution. Here she is delivering it to Daizee Haze. In other news, we miss you, Daizee.

Written by TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Earthquake Press

Oh man, John Tenta was a hoss before hosses were cool. For the record, a hoss is cool when he or she isn't all lumpy and lumbering and all Hercules Hernandez. Anyway, his hip press was a total badass squishy finisher that had panache too. I miss the big lug.

Written by TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Vaders' Moonsault

No man that size should be able to do a backflip, but Vader's not a mortal man. He's a mountain brought to life by the same Colorado magic that allows Pete Coors to create metal that turns blue when your beer gets cold. He's an alpine ester, brought to life by the intersection of a grizzly bear and HOSS essence, with a little bit of mastodon tusk spray to give him more lift. He is, in essence, a force of nature. The following is his moonsault, which again, defies expectation. Because no being that size should be able to do a backflip.

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: The Mandible Claw

I know technically, the move should be illegal. Then again, in a worked spectacle, worrying about what moves are legal and not legal is like worrying about how Superman is disobeying the physical laws on Earth while he's galavanting about Metropolis. Either way, for a psychological master like Mick Foley in his most demented state, Mankind, wouldn't a paralyzing move such as the Mandible Claw, one that would seem so easy to counter but still nigh impossible, the perfect finish for him? 

Bonus points for after he goofily turned babyface and added Mr. Socko to the fray. I still convulse a little seeing that dirty sweat sock go in people's mouths, which I guess was the point.

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Kudome Valentine

You may know it as the Vertebreaker, the Cop Killa, the Gringo Killer, or even the Kudo Driver. The last one is at least a tribute to the move's innovator. However, that innovator, Megumi Kudo, named it the Kudome Valentine, so that's what I call it. It's one of the most brutal-looking head drops in wrestling, so instantly, you should know I'm a fan of it. Here's a MONTAGE!

- Written by TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Avalanche Victory Roll

I love flash pins and roll up combinations, but I love them even better when they're gussied up and modified to do BIG DAMAGE. 2 Cold Scorpio's WWE run is mostly forgettable (Flash Funk, really?), but it had its moments, including this gussied up, modified victory roll, done off the top rope.

- Written By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Cross Armbreaker

Wristlock. Stepover. Wrenching takedown. Cross armbreaker. The sequence of movement is quite simple, but it never fails to impress me, no matter how many times Alberto del Rio applies his signature submission hold in a wrestling match. I know del Rio probably drew inspiration for using it as a finisher from his MMA days, but the grace with which he applies the hold has done more to inform me of the mat-based side of lucha libre in WWE than anything the company ever did with its Mexican imports.

- Written by TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Coquina Clutch

Sometimes, the best submission moves are the simple ones that look like they mean so, so much harm. Sometimes, all you want a guy to do is choke the life out of the other guy. Sometimes, you just want Samoa Joe to go back to giving zero fucks and mauling dudes like he did in the indies and in his early TNA days. Sometimes, you just can't stop using the word sometimes.

- Written By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: The Perfect Plex

Curt Hennig's Perfect Plex was, well, perfect done on normal guys. You wanna see him do it on the seven-foot tall, 400+ pound Big Show? Of course you do. Of course you do.

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Double Rotation Moonsault

Flippy shit has become a universally pervasive style of move in pro wrestling. Some seem to hate it. I personally welcome anything that can make a match more exciting, and really, I think there are scant few things from a pure spectacle factor that top a dude twisting and turning midair before landing in an impact. There are gainers and flips and rotations and corkscrews and combinations of those moves midair that add to the mystique of each individual maneuver, but I feel like the most difficult move to pull off in theory is the double rotation moonsault. I don't know, I feel like having to generate momentum out of any reverse rotation is way more difficult to control, but here, Ricochet makes it look goddamn easy. Like, WAY TOO EASY.

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Emerald Flowsion

The late, great Mitsuharu Misawa was the fourth in the All-Japan lineage of aces, and much like Rikidozan, Giant Baba, and Jumbo Tsuruta, he met a tragic, premature end to his life. He's known as a god of wrestling moves, and his favorite maneuvers have become iconic on both sides of the ocean. His original every-match finisher was the Tiger Driver, but late in the '90s, he started using this over-the-shoulder belly to belly piledriver called the Emerald Flowsion more and more. Here's a montage, because everything's better as a montage.

Reverse Hurricanrana

The hurricanrana has become a very common move in wrestling nowadays. It's a transition move, a common flip even. However, when the motion is done from sitting at the rear of the neck rather than in the front, the impact takes on a totally different form, a far more brutal one. Here's Matt Sydal (better known as Evan Bourne) performing the cruiserweight-friendly head drop on Matt Classic (who shares quite a lot of physical features with Colt Cabana). Revel in its beautiful destruction.

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Best Moves Ever: Air Bourne

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

I have a special place in my heart for the shooting star press, because it was the first ever "flippy shit" move that I saw. I was amazed by it, even done by a total schlub like Mark Mero. A lot of people do the move now, because hey, proliferation of the propagation and all that. Two guys do it form-perfectly though from where I sit. The first is Paul London. The other guy is a dude whose presence on WWE TV I miss so much, Evan Bourne. Here he is doing it from a makeshift ladder scaffold at the last ever WrestleMania Money in the Bank ladder match against Christian.

Best Moves Ever: The Sharpshooter

By TH of The Wrestling Blog

Some know it as the Scorpion Death Lock. Others as the Sasorigatame. I know it as the Sharpshooter. Why? Because Bret "The Hitman" Hart was way cooler than Sting and Riki Choshu put together. THAT'S WHY.

 It's one of the most iconic submission holds ever for various reasons, both honorable and dubious, and it's also one of the easiest to make look good unless your name is Dwayne Johnson. Anyway, Uncle Bret did it best, but here's maybe the most impressive-looking single application of the move to me by Natalya Neidhart on Melina. This is an example where the credit goes as much to the one taking the move as it does to the giver, because there's no way your average Sharpshooter victim, male, female, or gender-neutral, is flexible enough to make it look that awesome.