Welcome to another edition of #FinisherFriday! This is Wreddit_Regal bringing you a relatively short review of another weird but effective finisher.
Sure there were many unusual character gimmicks of the '90s, but none got in the level of "cartoon-character-laying-traps-to-chumps-with-booby-traps" like Doink the Clown did. Wrestlers, in-ring staff, even the audience felt his wrath in the form of cruel but mostly harmless practical jokes, all for the sake of entertaining himself.
But despite these quirks, Doink proved to be a hit with the casual wrestling fans from that period until now; many independent wrestling organizations have wrestlers who are clad in Doink gear to work matches, either to pay homage to him or just to garner some chuckles from fans.
As a good guy, Doink's finisher is a top-rope seated senton called the Whoopie Cushion (a discount Banzai Drop if you'd ask me):
But when playing the bad guy, he'd switch over to a very primitive submission maneuver called the Stump Puller:
Yeah, I'd skip immediately to my Regal Rating and segue to the review.
5/10 for aesthetics. No step-by-step needed on this one, you just have to put the opponent's foot above their head. We know clowns can be very aesthetic with their balloon figures, but Doink really didn't give a crap about making his submission look good on live TV. If Tekken existed on his active years, he could've copied Marshall Law's jumping leg stretch throw, which can also double as a pinfall manoeuvre (and be none the wiser):
10/10 for effectiveness and practicality. As one Wredditor said (hence the inspiration for this article), this really looks like that one move you tried out with your friends, and ended up being the one that hurt most. In reality, that's the essence of most submission techniques: to manipulate the opponent's body is such an uncomfortable way that they are forced to tap out as a result. Heck, some weird looking submissions eventually make their way into the mainstream MMA scene from time to time:
Almost any wrestler who does not employ flippy stuff on their arsenal would immediately submit upon having their limbs stretched out like novice ballerinas and gymnasts. This is where the unconventional Doink wisdom comes to play: he prioritized the ease of execution and damage dealt over the move's general appearance. In his time where people were scrambling to find cool ways to incapacitate someone in the ring, he had the guts and common sense to simply pull a leg (pun intended) and get the submission victory.
And that's about it chaps, my short review of the Stump Puller. Did you like Doink as a face or as a heel? Let us know in the comment section below!
*****
Wreddit_Regal is the resident sports kinesiologist of Reddit's wrestling forum, r/squaredcircle. From the most basic of punches to the most intricate double-team maneuvers, he can explain them within the realm of human anatomy and physics, because when doing absolutely nothing wrestling-related, he also happens to work as an operating room nurse.
: The Stump Puller){kind=link}