I gave up on Matanza after the Mil Muertes match. I mean you really saw the difference in caliber of LU’s “big bads” in that match and Mil was just LEAGUES better than Matanza. It was ridiculous (but at least it lead to Mil’s utterly insane fight at Ultima Lucha Dos, so that’s cool).

This is a good post!

I got suspended in high school on three separate occasions for recreating the stunner. In history class in the fall of 2000, we had a faux Gore Vs Bush debate where I played Gore. My debate partner and I decided ahead of time that it would be ended with me taking a stunner in front of the class. It probably wasn’t my…

Did anyone catch Hillary at the Democratic Convention last night? They cut some intro video for her of all the former male presidents followed by breaking glass; I instinctively looked up expecting to see the Texas Rattlesnake slugging Steve-weisers and dropping delegates with stunners

are you fucking kidding me. The video of Trump taking the stunner is literally embedded in the goddamned article above, and he sold it like fucking shit.

I agree with you on the live product experience. It is awesome.

Not gonna check to see if someone else mentioned it, but it’s an awesome finisher because it can be used on anyone with almost no effort, and it’s a safe bump. I’m sure the Undertaker and Yokozuna sure loved finishing a match with tombstone piledriver.

Exactly, plus the stunner has more pracitcal real world applications. You cant Tombstone a friend,neighbor or boss as easily as you could drop a stunner on them. Its why the peoples elbow is a great practical move too, assuming they are knocked out and allow you the 30 seconds to get the crowd going.

In my post above where I say the Stunner was perfect for its time and place, I almost brought up the Figure 4 as an example of a perfect finisher for the territorial era. When you need 30 minutes from your top guy every night, a move that could be realistically milked for 3 minutes, seemed realistically painful, and…

Like attending the theatre, there is a necessary suspension of disbelief required to be a professional wrestling fan. However, just like plays and actors can be attacked for ‘unrealistic’ plots or poor acting, wrestling can be critiqued for offending the established leeway its audience gives it.

This is why I enjoy Lucha Underground. Guys have finishers but they aren’t used in EVERY match. Except Matanza. Fuck Matanza.

And for better or worse, the idea of being able to do your finisher to everyone on the roster really started with the Stunner. Other wrestlers had finishing moves, but Stone Cold’s appeal is so tightly tied to the awesomeness of the Stunner. That is why indie guys who do sitout top rope powerbombs end up with strike…

However the Tombstone has a limitation that the Stunner does not, which is the person performing the move has to be strong enough to invert the other wrestler safely before dropping to the knees. So it’s limited to bigger guys. So you don’t get the comical reversals, you could with the stunner. If Vince had been in…

In some very (way to serious) conversations with friends we all agreed the stunner was the ideal finisher (and the framework for so many that followed, like the Rock Bottom).

The set up was great, allowing just enough time between the boot and the stunner for the entire audience to explode. It was sudden, but not too…

If only this were referenced somewhere, like the article above. Oh, well, I guess it’s lost to time.

Santa sold that stunner better than anyone ever did. Feet off the ground and everything. What a sell.

This is so wrestling nerdy, but the RKO and the Stunner are different moves, not just in set up, but what they are supposed to do to the opponent. The RKO is driving the opponents face into the mat, the stunner is dropping the opponent’s jaw on your shoulder.

Other than that, you are correct. There is no finisher…

The stunner was the perfect move for its time and place. In an era when both WWF and WCW were trying to convince viewers that anything could happen, it was a move that could change the landscape of a feud in a second. In a lot of ways, comparing the finishers of the top stars (Austin vs. Hogan) can be turned into an…

I’m sorry, it appears you took all of this seriously. F-.