Welcome to another edition of #FinisherFriday! This is Wreddit_Regal bringing you my take on probably the most savage non-top-rope finisher to grace the squared circle.
What's the greatest backbreaker that you've seen in your entire life? Was it Cedric Alexander's Lumbar Check?
Was it Tommaso Ciampa's Project Ciampa?
Or was it Roderick Strong's End of Heartache?
As aesthetically sound as these finishers are, none could hold a candle to a backbreaker that emanates hellish strength and plain brutality from its performer. What I'm talking about is none other than Bane's move that broke Batman's back:
"But that's in comic books or movies; there's no way in hell that move could be brought over to professional wrestling!" you might say. For a long time, I thought so too, until a certain someone actually did the unthinkable and started to make it his main match-ender.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Stu Grayson's Knightfall, formerly known as the Banebreaker or GTC (Go to Chiropractor):
Just look at that maniacal laugh, and the lifeless body of Sonny Kiss. It's more than enough to tell us that this move is the holy grail of backbreakers.
Let's dissect the move and make a step-by-step tutorial of it:
- The performer starts with the opponent in the classic torture rack position
- From here, he lifts the opponent off of his shoulders and drops him
- As the opponent starts to fall down, the performer resumes his hold of the opponent's left inner thigh and neck with his right and left hand respectively
- The performer kneels down with the left knee, and forces the opponent down to his bent right knee
This move is leagues above the three aforementioned finishers in terms of damage, and it's because of two things:
1. Stu Grayson's knee is in a fixed position. The Lumbar Check/Lung Blower/End of Heartache where the performers has the performer raise both of his legs to a 90-degree angle, and bend at the knee. This means that the shin down to the foot is "floating" and movable. A movable point of impact decreases the accuracy and may displace the opponent upon landing (dissipating most of the damage), if the performer's legs and knees can't hold the entire weight of the opponent crashing down. Kneeling on one knee eliminates that problem, ensuring that the opponent suffers roughly the same fate as Rey Mysterio being strapped on a stretcher and swung to the corner ringpost.
2. Stu Grayson pulls the opponent down. When performing the three backbreakers, the performer must release the opponent, as they need to lie down and get into position. This means that they are relying on the opponent's own mass (and the force of gravity) to produce the needed kinetic force for damage. Now notice on the GIF how Stu Grayson actually uses both of his hands to force Sonny Kiss down, and guide his whole body so that accuracy is pin-point. With that, the usual equation now becomes:
opponent's mass + gravity + performer's pulling force
And the answer is always PAIN.
The simplest analogy I could think of is dropping an egg on the floor versus throwing an egg to the floor. Both may break the egg, but we all know what method turns the egg to mush:
And that's it chaps, Stu Grayson's 'Knightfall' analyzed! Do you know of any backbreaker that can top this one? Let us know in the comment section below!
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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.
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