Wrestling: Ranking the top 10 finishing moves in history

4. Spear

Ahh, the spear. What can I say about this banger of a finisher that hasn’t already been said before?

Quite simply, this move never gets old.

Seriously, it’s like the most timeless finisher ever.

You know how the wrestling style keeps evolving over the years? From believable grappling in Bruno Sammartino’s time to showmanship in the Hogan era. From Attitude Era’s brawling to the current day where the style is arguably more diverse than ever before. It’s a hybrid of technical wrestling, high flying, striking, and strong style with hardcore matches mashed in, it’s more physically demanding than it’s ever been.

However, the spear, or a shoulder tackle, is untouchable. It’s as popular and impactful now as it ever was. I guess it’s because of the basic nature of the move, I mean if you might ever want to attack someone,  the first thing you’d want to do is to drive your shoulder into their gut and tackle them to the floor, it’s a basic instinct. It’s also very prevalent in football (American football of course, not soccer).

Also, the fact that anybody can hit it on anybody is a bonus.

Everyone from Johnny Gargano to the Big Show hits the spear. I’m sure it’ll be weird if Gargano ever hits it on the Big Show but you get my point.

Now let’s look at some iconic spears.

Edge’s spear to Jeff Hardy who was dangling from the tag belts and the one through a burning table to Mick Foley.

Roman Reigns’ spear to Rusev after their brawl at Summerslam where both of them were literally in the air for a few moments.

Rhyno’s Gore to Chris Jericho that destroyed the Smackdown stage.

And literally, every single spear Goldberg has ever hit, seriously, he’s the undisputed king of the spear. Although it may have to do with the fact that Goldberg was in the NFL and also that he’s not known to be a safe guy in the ring damn, those spears look like they would legit impale you.

Finally, and maybe this is just me, but “spear” is a very cool and very accurate name.