Welcome to another edition of Finisher Friday! This is Wreddit_Regal bringing you a relatively short review of a finisher that should have been tailored more to focus on dealing damage.
The modern era of professional wrestling has brought a lot of changes in terms of technical proficiency and range. The big, meaty men who once were taught to only perform power moves have now broken off of this constraint and started to learn other disciplines. This resulted in producing an entirely new breed of fighters who can deal massive amounts of damage while being as agile as their smaller counterparts. Notable characters in this category include the likes of Willie Mack, Brian Cage, Jeff Cobb, Jacob Fatu, Michael Elgin, and one name that most casual fans don't probably see or hear a lot—Chris Dickinson.
A staple of indie promotions like GCW and ROH, and now a recurring name on NJPW Strong, this burly fighting machine is just built different. It's like you maxed out every stat available on your CAW, which resulted in a wrestler who can steamroll his opponents and fly like his muscles don't weigh more than twice my size:
His finisher seems complicated in terms of nomenclature: an arm capture modified gutwrench driver named Brain Eater:
If you'd ask me, that just looks like Road Dogg's Pumphandle Slam plus eye candy (and minus the humping):
For a guy that flips and does Burning Hammers and Death Valley Drivers, having a less exciting move as your finisher sort of destroys the dynamics of hyping the crowd up.
Using my Regal Rating, I would give this finisher a:
8/10 for aesthetics. The setup definitely looks good. The driver itself, however, is average at most.
7/10 for damage. Low elevation and the opponent landing on his back means that this finisher pales in comparison to his signature moves in terms of damage. On the flip side, having strong signatures and a weak finisher means that he doesn't need to rely on this to finish matches; it only serves as a formality to the opponent's impending doom.
And there you have it chaps, my short review of Chris Dickinson's Brain Eater! I could start a short series about simple finishers with complicated setups like this one, but your help is greatly needed in finding these moves. Let us know in the comment section below if you have some suggestions!
*****
Wreddit_Regal is the resident finisher fanatic 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.
