RKOs out of nowhere, the move that killed The Streak, and lots of Eddie Guerrero.
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00:00 Hello there my very good friends, Andy here for What Culture Wrestling with a list of
00:04 one of the surest things to pop a massive crowd in all of pro wrestling, the finisher
00:10 counter.
00:11 These things are a nice antidote really to the slew of finisher kickouts that we see
00:16 in this modern era of wrestling.
00:18 It's an alternative way of generating drama that when done precisely and at just the right
00:23 point in a match to get the desired pop, well it's pretty much the equivalent of lighting
00:29 a match and throwing it into a barrel of oil.
00:32 And today we're going to run through some of the very best ones from all of WWE history
00:37 but before you ask, no unfortunately we cannot show you footage.
00:42 So with that in mind, I'm Andy from What Culture and here are the 10 best ever counters
00:47 to WWE finishers.
00:50 Number 10, Edge Spears styles out of the sky, WrestleMania 38.
00:55 The one really cool moment from a match that, being polite, didn't quite live up to astronomical
01:00 expectations came when Edge saw AJ Styles was about to shoot through the sky with his
01:05 phenomenal forearm and decided "hey pal, I'm going to spear you clean out of the air"
01:11 and indeed out of your boots.
01:13 It always helps in situations like this where the person jumping into the move isn't just
01:18 jumping into the move.
01:20 You know what I'm talking about, how many times throughout history have we seen someone
01:23 just conveniently jump off the top rope or springboard into the ring doing absolutely
01:28 nothing just like they're a willing participant in all of this.
01:33 That's the kind of thing that really shatters your immersion and makes you think "ah yeah,
01:37 this whole deal is really coordinated and fake and lame" but when you do it like this,
01:42 when you have a reason to jump in, AJ has the phenomenal forearm.
01:46 Obviously he's going to springboard in for that a lot of the time.
01:49 That's what he was attempting, Edge countered it.
01:52 And just a man jumping into the spear was an attempted move into the spear and I'm
01:57 always going to appreciate stuff like that because let me tell you, I've had enough
02:01 of these pesky wrestlers just jumping into nothing.
02:05 This was great.
02:06 Anyway, what am I saying?
02:07 Number 9, Mr Perfect escapes the stink face from the 7th of March 2002 episode of Heat.
02:14 How do you stop a gigantic ass from entering your face and putting your lights out with
02:19 its flesh and smells and fluids?
02:24 Well you could do a lot worse than what Kurt Hennig did here, wrestling Rikishi on an episode
02:29 of Heat.
02:30 He took his signature towel and he placed it, conveniently, at the last second between
02:36 his face and Rikishi's cakes.
02:38 A genius way to counter a pretty gross move but an effective one throughout Rikishi's
02:43 career.
02:44 And although this didn't lead directly to Perfect winning the match, it did give us
02:48 the all time visual of Rikishi walking away from the corner with the towel shoved up his
02:53 ass.
02:54 Just tremendous stuff across the board and yes, I know strictly the stink face wasn't
02:59 a finisher, it was the Banzai Drop, but how can you omit something like this?
03:03 I mean, look at that towel.
03:05 It's right up there.
03:07 Number 8, a most disastrous kick from the 20th of January 2014 episode of Raw.
03:13 Cody Rhodes has recently returned to WWE and of course the Roman Reigns match has been
03:18 rumoured heavily.
03:19 Cody wants to go for a world title, Roman holds the only world title in the form of
03:23 the Universal Undisputed Intergalactic Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, whatever we're calling, Roman Reigns top prize.
03:30 He's the guy, Cody's gunning for him and when that match happens, you have to imagine
03:34 that Cody is going to want it to go a lot better than this.
03:39 There's a point in this match, Cody ducks a clothesline, he hits the ropes, he's going
03:43 to springboard back with the disaster kick, but instead of hitting it, he gets Superman
03:48 punched to his death.
03:50 And death is exactly how he sold this thing.
03:53 Cody crumpled like a foostie biscuit.
03:56 It's an absolutely tremendous spot and that's why it's on the list.
04:00 Number 7, Eddie rolls through the rock bottom from the 22nd of July 2002 episode of Raw.
04:07 At the peak of his powers, Eddie Guerrero was almost impossibly smooth and it's really
04:12 highlighted when you go back and you look at spots like this one here.
04:16 He counters the rock bottom so fluidly that it almost looks like it's a video game move.
04:22 Rock hoists him up, Eddie pulls him to the mat somehow.
04:26 When they get there, after seizing the arm, Eddie presses his back against Rock's chest
04:31 and gets him down for a pinfall.
04:34 Now this was only a near fall, it didn't end the match in Eddie's favour, but maybe
04:39 it should have.
04:40 I mean, if you're going to close a match on the coolest spot, hard to do better than
04:45 this.
04:46 Just sensational, fluid, seamless technical wrestling from one of the best to ever do
04:51 it.
04:52 Number 6, a tombstone from a moonsault at WrestleMania 25.
04:56 The WrestleMania 25 match between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker is understandably held
05:01 up as one of the greatest in WWE history, outdone only, perhaps, depending on who you
05:06 ask, by the match they had the following year.
05:09 But this one had just one of my favourite and one of the best, I think, finisher counters
05:15 in WWE history.
05:16 And again, it's not strictly a finishing move for Shawn Michaels, particularly in this
05:22 era of his work, but when he goes to the top rope looking for a moonsault, it's because
05:27 he's desperate, it's because he's running out of ideas on how he can put the dead man
05:31 away.
05:32 So he's clearly going to the top rope for the moonsault with ending the match in mind.
05:37 Doesn't come off for him, however, he goes for the moonsault, he lands in a tombstone
05:42 and he gets spiked.
05:43 It's just great, dramatic stuff from two of the best wrestlers in WWE history, two of
05:48 the most important wrestlers in WrestleMania history.
05:53 It's a classic.
05:54 Number 5, the counter that killed the streak.
05:57 This one is a little bit different compared to some of the counters on this list, which
06:00 are just really visually appealing, really smooth, really crisp.
06:04 Just everything is tied together so perfectly and they look perfect.
06:09 That's just absolutely the right word for it.
06:11 This, not so much.
06:13 This was kind of messy.
06:14 It was kind of all over the place, but that's professional wrestling in a nutshell.
06:19 Not everything should be this super coordinated, super smooth exchange.
06:23 You're supposed to be buying into the idea that what you're watching is a fight, a very
06:28 elaborate fight with moves and Irish whips and stuff, but a fight nonetheless.
06:33 So when you have a counter like this, as Brock engineers an F5 from an attempted tombstone
06:39 from The Undertaker, it really enhances that feeling.
06:42 Brock has to struggle, he has to work to get the Deadman in place, and to me that is just
06:48 tremendous stuff.
06:49 The guys are exhausted, they have emptied the tank on each other, they are believably
06:54 not going to be able to perform at full capacity.
06:57 So this little moment of wavering, this little sense of struggle really took this over the
07:03 top and say what you will about the result of this match, but for me this was just really
07:09 awesome.
07:10 Number 4, Eddie Guerrero's F5 escape.
07:13 In which Latino Heat scores one of the biggest, probably the biggest actually, win of his
07:18 WWE career over Brock Lesnar at No Way Out 2004.
07:22 He's up for the F5, you've seen this spot before.
07:25 The World Heavyweight Championship is on the mat, all looks to be doomed for Eddie, until
07:31 he reverses into a swinging tornado DDT thing, onto the belt, hits the top rope, frog splash,
07:37 1, 2, 3, boom, boom, boom, job done.
07:41 Now my favourite thing about this is not just the counter itself, but Taz's call.
07:46 He is incredulous that Eddie Guerrero has cheated to gain this advantage over Brock
07:51 Lesnar.
07:52 And what makes that so great is that yeah he did cheat, but that was Eddie Guerrero.
07:56 This spot really sums up just the charm and the appeal and the charisma and the cunning
08:00 of the man.
08:01 He knew that he was overmatched against Brock, he knew that he was going to have to play
08:04 quite loose with his morals in the ring, which the character was always fond of doing, and
08:09 he did just that.
08:10 It fit him to a T.
08:12 He had to take an extra step to fell this gigantic, terrifying, imposing monster.
08:19 He did it, and it was one of the most cathartic wins in WWE premium live event, I guess, history.
08:26 Number 3, Randy Orton plucks Evan Bourne right out of the sky from the 12th of July 2010
08:33 episode of Raw.
08:34 This is another one of those counters where often guys coming off the top rope just jump
08:39 into nothing.
08:40 Here, the complete opposite.
08:41 I mean this was so perfectly timed that if it had been performed or even attempted by
08:45 two people less skilled than Matt Sidell, as he's now known and was known before WWE,
08:50 and Randy Orton, it might have ended really poorly and somebody maybe would have gotten
08:55 hurt, but because these guys were so locked in and because these guys were such pros between
09:00 the ropes, it was just sensational.
09:02 Evan Bourne, you've seen the move, you've seen it before.
09:05 I don't need to explain what a shooting star press is, but he comes off the top and just
09:10 at the point where his body is straightening out and he's going to land it and he's
09:13 going to beat Randy Orton and win the match, score one of the biggest wins of his career,
09:17 Randy Orton's off the mat hitting him with an RKO.
09:20 The RKO is perfect for situations like this.
09:22 In fact, I could have populated this whole list from RKO counters if I really wanted
09:26 to, but I picked this one for this particular spot at this high position on the list because
09:31 my goodness, it just doesn't get much better than this.
09:35 But I mean it does get a little bit better.
09:37 I've got two more things on this list, but that aside, this ruled.
09:42 Number two, Seth Rollins gets trapped.
09:45 Money in the Bank 2019.
09:46 I don't think many people would argue with Seth Rollins' Universal title run in 2019
09:52 after beating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania maybe didn't live up to expectations.
09:56 The babyface run didn't quite pan out, but he did have this awesome match with AJ Styles
10:01 for the belt at Money in the Bank 2019 and it was one of the best of the year.
10:06 In WWE, taken over the top by the incredible kick out from this counter.
10:12 Rollins was going for the stomp.
10:14 Now AJ had tried for the Styles Clash a couple of times already, but it didn't work.
10:19 Seth had him scouted.
10:20 That meant that if he was going to hit the Styles Clash and stand a chance of victory,
10:23 he was going to have to be crafty and creative.
10:26 That's exactly what he did here.
10:28 Seth goes up for the stomp.
10:29 AJ goes up too, catches him on his shoulder, obviously puts him down, gets him in position
10:35 for the Styles Clash, hits it, near fall, crowd goes mental.
10:39 Just tremendous stuff.
10:40 Like in terms of how it came together, in terms of the execution, perfect, looked really
10:45 cool, looked really great.
10:46 But also strategically, hadn't been able to hit the move twice before.
10:51 Here's an advantageous situation that I'm so smart in the ring that I've been able to
10:55 work to my benefit.
10:57 Fantastic.
10:58 Just a great match and a great spot.
11:01 And at number one, the ultimate RKO out of nowhere at WrestleMania 31.
11:07 Strong chance that when you first clicked on this video and started making your way
11:11 through the entries, you might have picked this as number one.
11:14 It is the greatest RKO counter ever, if you ask me.
11:17 I think a lot of people would agree with that.
11:19 And yeah, I mean, just go rewatch the clip.
11:23 Look at how this comes together one more time.
11:26 It is so perfect in its positioning, in its execution, in how it gets the crowd fired
11:32 up and the way it sets the tone for a fun night of action.
11:35 It is, of course, Seth Rollins going for the stomp against Randy Orton, getting incredible
11:40 air on the stomp.
11:42 And then Randy pops up, Randy's in place, Randy hits the RKO, he does some snake stuff
11:49 where he gets all fired up afterwards.
11:52 It's an all time crowd popping moment in WWE history.
11:56 And that is why this counter is number one on my list.
12:00 The greatest finisher counter in WWE history, in my opinion.
12:04 But what's your opinion?
12:05 How about you let us know down in the comments section below and click like and click subscribe
12:11 and ring the bell.
12:12 All those nice things that help us to create more content like this.
12:17 Anyway, thanks for joining us today, guys.
12:19 Follow us on Twitter at WhatCultureWWE.
12:21 Follow me at Andy H Murray.
12:23 The H stands for Hey, where was my favorite counter?
12:26 My friends, the answer is leave it in the comments.
12:29 Goodbye.