Welcome to another episode of #FinisherFriday! Today we'll be talking about a finisher that is as crazy as its performer.
I'm sure that all of you have seen those coffin dancing memes on Facebook and other social media platforms. By now, it has replaced the "Directed by Robert B. Weide" endings as the default ending for Darwin Award nomination videos. In essence, it tells us to stay safe, or else we'll be the ones inside the coffin that they are holding.
At first I didn't really like the meme, but it kinda grew on me, especially when someone did a hilarious PSA with it for keeping safe during the current COVID situation (if you haven't watched this yet, please do now):
"Yeah you liked a meme, now where's the finisher?" you might ask. Well, if there's a funny side to coffin dancing, there's also blunders that literally suck the air out of the supposedly joyous occasion, like this one:
Have you seen the connection yet? If not, continue reading.
Darby Allin has made a name for himself as one of the toughest members of the AEW roster in the relatively brutal matches that he has taken part in. Throwing all caution to the wind, he uses all of his body as a means to inflict damage to his opponents, even if it means inflicting pain upon himself too. As he told in an episode of VICELAND's The Wrestlers:
His most notable finisher is the one that summarizes his character inside and outside the squared circle, and that is the Coffin Drop.
Yup, that's basically a trust fall. One in which Darby trusts will hit his opponent. (Well if it didn't hit, he would still be okay with it since he's 50% dead inside anyway).
This is a senton that carries more risk than reward when used inside and outside the ring. One obvious reason is because he turns his back to the opponent, which greatly diminishes the already reduced ability to gauge distance when performing a senton. This causes him to jump at situations in which the opponent can roll over and avoid the impact.
For a detailed discussion about sentons and splashes, check out this article.
Also, with the typical senton, the attacker's main point of impact is either the upper (thoracic) back/ lower (lumbar) back/tailbone (sacrum/coccyx). In Darby's case, he always makes it a point to make contact with his upper back. Notice how he crosses both of his arms towards his chest before flying, and slightly kicks both of his legs upward to keep his arse higher than his back. This, in all intents and purposes, are ways to keep the center of gravity on his thoracic area until it makes contact with his opponent. We can conjecture that this almost always knocks the air out of him everytime he does this.
Add to that his tendency to employ himself as a ragdoll, and you find him doing spots like this:
Ah, what a madlad.
Using my trusty Regal Rating, I'd give this a
9/10 for aesthetics. The sight of a guy going full Evel Knievel doing the wildest stuff in a wrestling match is practically eye candy, so I'd give this move a high score.
6/10 for practicality. Crossing your arms over your chest means that there's no way to protect your head when you miss your target. Turning your back on an opponent makes your distance gauging shit, missing means you just did a back body drop on yourself. It just doesn't seem very practical for me, even if the third argument is removed.
And that's it chaps, my review of the Coffin Drop! Do you see Darby Allin holding AEW gold before this year ends? 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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