Wrestlers changing finishers

[Honeybear Lyder]

For some reason I've always been curious about how wrestlers pick their finishers and why they change it down the line. Triple H for example, he was using the Pedigree in WCW before his jump, then for whatever reason tried the cutter, but of course was told to knock it off by DDP. Then there are guys like Adam Bomb and Hardcore Holly who the management ordered to stop using certain moves as finishers because they wanted to give those moves to other wrestlers.
One I never understood though was Jim Neidhart. He had a running powerslam for a finisher during his first WWF run, but when he came back in 1994, he dropped it after one match and started using the camel clutch instead. One could say it was because of the British Bulldog, who returned to the WWF around the same time, but they were both on the roster in the 80s, using the powerslam, and it was not a problem back then.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Jul 9, 2022 0:47:00 GMT -5 Honeybear Lyder said:

For some reason I've always been curious about how wrestlers pick their finishers and why they change it down the line. Triple H for example, he was using the Pedigree in WCW before his jump, then for whatever reason tried the cutter, but of course was told to knock it off by DDP. Then there are guys like Adam Bomb and Hardcore Holly who the management ordered to stop using certain moves as finishers because they wanted to give those moves to other wrestlers.
One I never understood though was Jim Neidhart. He had a running powerslam for a finisher during his first WWF run, but when he came back in 1994, he dropped it after one match and started using the camel clutch instead. One could say it was because of the British Bulldog, who returned to the WWF around the same time, but they were both on the roster in the 80s, using the powerslam, and it was not a problem back then.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs5_38OtxsM

Here's Trips explaining it.

[Mozenrath]

Foley went from doing the elbow drop from the apron to doing the double arm DDT that he openly admits to stealing from Kenta Kobashi, and also using his version of the piledriver at points during that, too. He'd apparently pitched the mandible claw to Bill Watts, who wasn't keen on it, during his WCW run, bringing the move back around when he became Mankind, where it was frankly a better fit, anyhow.

Keiji Mutoh/The Great Muta began doing the Shining Wizard and his figure four leglock around the time he'd shaved his head. I know his choosing to become much more selective on when to use the moonsault he'd used his whole career came because moonsaults are hell on your knees, and Mutoh's knees were in a sorry state, so it and the shaved head/goatee were both part of a makeover and modernization of his style.

Jericho adopting the "Judas Effect" elbow he uses in AEW came about due to his usual desire to try to stay fresh, along with him acknowledging that variations of the Codebreaker he used near the end of his WWE run had become incredibly common on the indies, and he probably felt the move had gone from relatively novel to thoroughly cheapened.