Wrestlers Who Regret Their Own Moves

A carefully curated moveset is as much a part of a professional wrestler as their entrance music or ring gear. We become familiar with the arsenal of our favorite performers and anticipate the situations where they could best hit that 619, GTS, or Scissor Me Timbers. The best moves become more recognizable than the performers themselves, and are frequently adopted by talents in other companies, passed on to related characters (like Undertaker and Kane's Tombstone Piledriver) or the next generation of wrestlers.

Like anything in life, not every move is perfect for every pro wrestler. Often, a young grappler will be given a move that a veteran booker or agent decides is a better fit for their character. Conversely, a wrestler might have a move they've been doing for years that simply runs its course, or doesn't look great in a different company. Let's take a look at some of these moves that wrestlers came to despise and either modified or eliminated from their day to day repertoire.

The more extreme half of Team Extreme has done (arguably) more damage to himself than he has to his opponents in his matches. The Hardys' style of wrestling, which was groundbreaking when the Hardys exploded onto the scene during WWE's Attitude Era, was incredible, dangerous, and always looked like it would cut their careers short. Still, Jeff and Matt are performing to this day and part of that is due to their realization that some of their moves just aren't worth the damage they incur. Speaking with Colt Cabana on his "The Art of Wrestling" podcast in 2017, Jeff talked about retiring the 450 splash he used in so many of his early matches: "I stopped doing the 450 because I over-rotated and jacked my shoulder up. I thought I broke my collarbone or something, but those days are over, so I'll stick with the Swanton."

Ironically, in an interview Jeff gave to the Canton Repository a year later, he was asked how he'd survived the "death-defying maneuvers" he was known for, and Hardy replied, "The toll has been rough at times. Lately, my lower back has really been bothering me to the point where I haven't been doing the Swanton as much in the live events just to protect it." While Jeff still uses the Swanton, Matt Hardy noted on Twitter that Jeff has altered the move so he protects himself more on impact — a decision that will hopefully help Jeff end his career with a little less pain from that dramatic finisher.

While we're on the subject of how something as low-impact looking as a leg drop can damage you over time, let's take a look at a guy who finished practically every match with one – the immortal Hulk Hogan. Hogan's finisher, usually preceded by a big boot after an Irish whip into the ropes, was as simple as it was effective. While it isn't the most visually arresting move — Hogan himself admits to WWE on Fox that "if somebody used a leg drop for a finish he'd probably have to come off the top of the building to get your opponent to stay down." Still, he insists that "at the time, when I dropped the leg and I beat people, it meant something."

Knowing that, it's a little heartbreaking to learn about the lasting impact that finisher had. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hogan talked about the leg drop and its effects on his body. "Everyone says they wouldn't change anything about their life. If I could change anything, it would be my finisher," Hogan said. He went on to explain his history of back surgeries and injuries that the leg drop was responsible for, and said that with all his talk about his 24-inch pythons he should have used a sleeper hold as a finisher. While the "Python Crush" or "Hollywood Hug" may not seem as dramatic in hindsight, it seems the Hulkster would be enjoying a much more pleasant retirement if he'd employed some variation on a sleeper rather than that leg drop.

Sometimes, a wrestler will retire a move because it has the potential to injure them. Other times, it's because the move was never one they wanted to begin with, or because they genuinely hated doing it. But Jon Moxley, back when he was Dean Ambrose, stopped using his trademark headlock driver because it was "stupid looking."

When he was a part of the Shield in WWE, Dean Ambrose was the "lunatic fringe," and his moves were some of the more brutal looking of the trio. He used a headlock driver as a finisher, but retired it due to issues with height. As the former Ambrose, Jon Moxley, told Fightful in a 2020 interview, "The headlock driver's awesome if you've got the right guy doing it to the right guy. It can be like the nastiest, coolest piledriver looking thing in the world or if the guy's taller than you, which so many of the guys in the WWE were taller than me, it can be just really awkward and stupid looking. I think I gave it to Randy Orton one time, who is someone with a significant height advantage on me, it was just awkward. I was like, 'That's it, I'm switching this up.'" Mox credits trainer Joey Mercury with the idea to switch to the double arm DDT, and so was born Dirty Deeds — or the Paradigm Shift, if you prefer.

Kevin Owens' moveset is constantly changing as he gets older and wiser. One example of this is the elimination of the Steenalizer from his repertoire, and he addressed it in an interview with Fightful. The move, named after his former ring name of Kevin Steen, was simply brutal — it's kind of a package fallaway suplex into the turnbuckle — and Owens himself deemed it too dangerous to keep in his moveset. "I retired that one myself, actually. I had a couple of close calls where, everyone I gave it to was fine, but I felt like it was too close where maybe it wouldn't have been fine."

Another of his finishers simply became too commonplace for Owens, and he dropped that move as well. His pop-up powerbomb was a match-ending maneuver for a while, but, as he told Fightful, "I felt like everybody was doing a powerbomb of some sort, just short of doing pop-up powerbombs. I'm pretty sure I saw some guys do it too ... I was seeing all these people doing powerbombs and I want to stand out with something different." That led Owens to asking "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's permission to use the Stunner, and even though WWE told Owens that it "wasn't the right time for it," when he first proposed the change, eventually KO was given permission to use the move on a regular basis.

Seth Rollins has one of those selections of moves that is difficult to judge. Sure, several of them look cool, but they have also done a lot of damage — breaking John Cena's nose, tearing Finn Balor's shoulder, and nearly sending Sting into retirement. Even with that record, the Ripcord Knee and Buckle Bomb both remain parts of Rollins' arsenal. He has a more tenuous relationship with the Pedigree, the finisher he took from Triple H while under his influence after breaking away from the Shield. 

Rollins started using the Pedigree as a show of respect when he aligned himself with Triple H and The Authority after he turned on his former faction. In time, Rollins and Triple H's relationship soured as so many in pro wrestling do, and Rollins faced his boss at WrestleMania 33. After that victory, Rollins continued using the Pedigree for a while out of spite. In a Facebook Q&A from 2016, Seth said, "every time I deliver a Pedigree, it's me sticking my fist up in the air and telling [Triple H] to stick it up his rear-end." 

While he still occasionally busts the move out, Rollins told the Mirror, "The Pedigree was a part of my life when I was in the Authority and it made sense for the time being, after sealing the deal and beating Triple H with it at WrestleMania, that was a good place to retire it. At the end of the day I want to be my own person, I want to be my own performer, and I want to have a finisher that's synonymous with me and not with my mentor."