Jaw Dropping Pinfalls

[Aeon Mathix]

With the wound of Undertaker's streak being broken at the hands of Brock Lesnar earlier this year still fresh in everyone's minds, I got to thinking about other instances in my many years of watching pro wrestling when I sat there stunned and couldn't believe what I just saw.

I think it can be agreed upon that everyone was shocked when the 3 count hit at Wrestlemania XXX. I personally could not speak or move for a couple of minutes. A sureal experience if there has ever been one for me while watching wrestling. It made me reflect on some matches that made me react the same way (maybe a far cry from the streak breaking, but shocking nonetheless).

First up is Jeff Hardy vs Randy Orton at Royal Rumble 2008. This was shocking to me at the time because I was younger and they built this feud up perfectly with Jeff hitting a Whisper in the Wind from the top of the cage to Umaga when Randy Orton blocked him from climbing down. Add in the Swanton from about 30 feet in the air off one of the set pieces to Orton a couple weeks later and Jeff had more momentum than anyone I could ever remember going into this match and I was convinced he was set up to win.

Now the actual shock to me wasn't that he lost, it was HOW he lost. The match ended very sudden with an RKO out of nowhere and Jeff getting beaten clean. I was expecting him to at least kick out for more minutes of action. It was Wrestlemania season and I knew that in my mind it probably would have been a gamble to put the title on Hardy at the time (especially after him getting suspended about a month or so later) but I was convinced nonetheless it was Hardy's time.

Another one I want to add is John Cena vs The Rock at Wrestlemania 28. Holy crap I was more excited for this match then any other one I could ever remember. I flew across the state to watch this with my family as everyone and their mother knew how huge this was. As soon as the match was announced there was not one thought or anything of the sort in my mind that The Rock would win. None. It wasn't even a possibility to me. It was built up as the ultimate crowning achievement for Cena. Suffice to say damn near everyone knew Rock was getting pinned or was going to submit to Cena. This was not the case. If there is a jaw dropping pinfall I can put almost on par with the streak this is it. I was expecting Cena to kick out and it felt like a pretty abrupt way to end the match. I had the same feeling as the streak ending with my jaw on the floor and being motionless. That crowd erupted as well as I am sure the majority of them knew Cena was winning but were really pulling for The Rock as their hero that had returned to save them from "Super Cena". Questionable ending and I still don't understand it to this day even with their rematch a year later, but it wasn't the worst decision ever. Man what a ride that was.

So how about you guys? Any match finishes that just left you wondering what on earth just happened or you couldn't believe what you just witnessed?

 

[Pedigree1]

First jaw dropping pinfall i can remember was Hogan getting Pinned at WM6. Up until that point hogan had never been pinned cleanly. Hogan i thought was going to walk out of the skydome the new IC champ as well as the WWF heavyweight champion... It was a shock to see someone who i cheered and admired get beat at WM..

Not necessarily by the warrior but the fact he got pinned.. That pinfall i still remember like it happened yesterday

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The 3 I remember most all involve Bret Hart... and he lost them... but I remember how innovative and impressive they were, making the opponent look amazing.

First was the final fall in the Survivor Series in 1990, this was memorable for being Taker's debut but arguably more so because this was the night Bret "became a singles star" with a final stand against Ted DiBiase. This mini one on one match was what earmarked Bret for the singles run he took and the finish was the first I'd seen of it's type... Bret catches DiBiase and goes for the pin, only for DiBiase to roll through, grab the tights and get the win. It was a loss for Bret and DiBiase came out looking better on the night... but the long term benefits to Bret were insanely good. One year later, Bret was on a team against Ric Flair and the IC Champion... the next year defending the World title... and it all came from how well that pinfall worked. It was jawdropping at the time cos it REALLY looked like Bret was going to do it, and they had made a storyline of his brother's death 24 hours prior... it was a great match, hard to say DiBiase was an undeserving winner, but it was a real gutkick that Bret came up short, it was arguably the only good match Roddy Piper ever called as an announcer and the real kicker... Bret's dejected F-Bomb and sitting in contemplation... he knew he was losing of course but it was the first time I remember really thinking "this may be fake, but it meant something to him".

2nd was Summerslam 92... the match itself was insanely good and this was the match, as before where he stepped up a level and the pinfall was a big part of it... After the clinic Bret went for a simple Sunset Flip, but allowed Davey to step in and press the legs... It was jaw dropping in that it was again never before seen and such a simple finish, but that it also harkened back to Davey's beginnngs as Young David, a gymnastic kid teaming with Big Daddy on World of Sport... before the muscles he used to win matches like that, shockers... to do it on the big stage was a nod to his history and after the superplexes and crazy bumps, that a match ended so quickly, cleanly and simply was a jawdropper... sitting 4 rows it as I was, it looked even better!

The 3rd was Wrestlemania 10 against Owen... A variation of the Summerslam finish for sure, the same principle was applied but this time it showed Bret as being fallible and out thought rather than a reflex like the previous 2... Bret going for the victory roll seemed foolish... Owen caught him out. It was a jaw dropper cos very few actually believed Owen was going to win, with Bret going on to fight for the title later, it seemed a given he would dispatch his brother... We all thought Owen might attack him after or something but to beat him cleanly was more shocking than any beatdown could have been. It was a jaw dropper in that it meant all bets were off for the rest of the night where the title was concerned, a thread that followed with the Luger DQ finish that no one saw coming... WMX was the first time the title match really seemed a toss up since Mania 6 and it all came from that shock pinfall...it was also the first time Bret had been pinned/lost cleanly since Summerslam 92 and his world title push... the loss to Yoko was tainted and many other wins against him from Lawler and Doink etc in 93 were also tainted... 18 months not to lose cleanly is a long time, in the Hogan era...

Arguably the most jawdropping one of all for me was Jericho pinning Triple H to "win" the title on RAW back in 2000. Absolutely no one saw it coming and it was the one time the Lionsault worked for him as a true finish. I remember being home from Uni watching it late and getting yelled at for going mental (it was after midnight here in the UK) that he'd won and it was THAT good a finish... sure it was back round Trip's waist by the end of the night but that's a perfect example of how to use a hot shot angle to elevate someone... Trips took the pinfall and a new star was born...and RAW got perhaps it's most shocking moment of that era.

 

[Wolf Pac]

Randy Orton vs. Chris Benoit at Summerslam 2004.

As soon as Orton countered the Crossface attempt into the RKO and he layed on top of Benoit for the 3, I was left stunned for about a minute or so. It was unbelievable, not only did the RKO come out of nowhere but he beat him cleanly. No one bought Orton as a threat to Benoit or thought he had a chance in hell of winning the belt especially as the build up to the match was weak. Orton had only won his title shot just two weeks before. Going into the PPV, I figured the whole point of putting Orton in the match was just so he could weaken down Benoit for Triple H before Benoit beat him or Triple H ran in at the end to cause a DQ. I should've suspected something when they decided to put Orton vs. Benoit on last instead of JBL vs. Taker but I didn't. They took a big gamble, putting the title on the 24 year old and turning him face the next night.

I'm sure I have a lot more of these moments but this is the only one I can remember right now.

 

[Slash-LN]

Obviously 123 Kid over Razor was a big one that I'm sure no one at all saw coming. That jump started Kid's career which was pretty cool to see.

Ludvig Borga pinning Tatanka with one finger and in the process ending Tatanka's undefeated streak. To this day I'm still bothered by that because they gave Tatanka this great streak and then never did anything constructive with it. Maybe he wasn't as over as they thought he would be. I don't really know but it was a dumb way to end it.

Barry Horowitz over Skip the first time. It never really went anywhere although Horowitz did get a pay per view match out of it so that was nice. I don't think I'll ever forget the "Horowitz wins! Horowitz wins!" call. It was a pretty cool moment that seemingly came out of nowhere.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The most recent one was Brock Lesnar's victory over John Cena at SummerSlam. It wasn't the notion that Cena could lose that was so jaw dropping but, rather, it was that he lost in such a decisive and dominant fashion. In SummerSlam last year, while I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it was jaw dropping, it was certainly a surprise to see John Cena lose clean to Daniel Bryan. Off the top of my head, without counting the nature of Money in the Bank cash ins, I can probably count the number of times John Cena has lost clean on my hands and have a couple of fingers left over. Cena's such a big star at this point in his career that anytime he loses in a 100% straight, clean and decisive fashion is something of a shock.

Probably the earliest I remember was when Ron Garvin pinned Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on September 25, 1987. The loss was planned because Starrcade would be going head to head against WWF's first Survivor Series ppv on the same night and Crockett wanted a big draw, such as Ric Flair regaining the title. Reportedly, a lot of wrestlers turned it down but Garvin accepted because he was 42 years old and had already been in the business for some 25 years by that time. It would probably be his only opportunity. Even though I was only 7 years old, Garvin just struck me as a shocking guy to take the title from Flair, it just wasn't expected. It turned out to be a huge bust for the company because ratings declined and Garvin's star power simply wasn't there. People saw him as a guy past his prime, who was never remotely the sort of mega star Flair had been and there just simply wasn't any interest in the guy as champion.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Flair vs Garvin was a surprise, although he had been feuding with the Garvin family in some form for nearly 6 months at that point. It had a great feeling to it, similar to Mick Foley in Jan 1999 where you say "Finally he did it!!!!". Problem was no one saw Garvin as a viable long term champ so when Starrcade 87 rolled around and Flair announced he'd retire if he couldn't regain his belt most fans assumed Flair would regain.

WM 6 wasn't a surprise to me....I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time, in JR High, but already watched enough wrestling to predict with fair accuracy the outcomes. Especially in WWE where the booking was very simple and kid friendly most of the time. Hogan was due for a loss, plain & simple.

Orton over Benoit was a mild surpise - Orton really wasn't established enough as a top guy, he was still the junior partner in Evolution, no one saw him yet on par with HHH or Flair, so his, win, which he did on his own without interference, was a surprise. This lead to another "didn't see it coming" moment the next night on RAW with the famous "thumbs down" promo and Orton being kicked to the curb.

Im not sure how anyone except the very young was surprised at the ending of either Cena-Rock match. How could anyone think that the Rock returns after a 10- year absence in his hometown where he played college football and loses to Cena ? Plus, with everyone knowing Rock wasn't committed to any long term WWE plans, how could anyone not see Cena evening the score in the rematch ?

Surprise endings....Sean Waltman over Scott Hall in his debut in WWE. Waltman, playing the 1-2-3 Kid character, was portrayed and looked like your average weekly TV show jobber when he pinned Hall, who was fairly high in the WWE roster by this point.

The Mulkey Brothers Get A WIn: Without a doubt the greatest jobbers of all time, these guys were absolutely pathetic, the poster kids for scrawny wimps, and they were not just beat they were tortured on NWA TV every week by every villain on the roster. They actually developed a cult following due to their totally un-wrestling like physiques and lack of any athletic skills, fueled by sympathy over how badly they got their a$# beat each week. Finally, on an episode of WCW Sat Nite on TBS, with the annual Crockett Cup Tag Team Tournament just one week away, the announcers spent the entire 2 hr broadcast hyping the arrival of a "super team" just in for the tourney, appearing in the show's main event. What we got was two masked wrestlers who appeared very ordinary (probably jobbers themselves) who nonetheless pounded The Mulkeys for several minutes before the one brother, injured on the mat, inadvertently does a school boy trip on the one opponent as he prepares to body slam the other Mulkey, causing him to fall backwards and get pinned. The studio audience popped so loud at finally seeing the hapless brothers win a match the only thing I can compare it to was when Ricky Steamboat made his surprise return in 1989 and pinned Flair in a tag team match (another great surprise pin).

Honky Tonk Man def Steamboat - With so much hype over Steamboat's IC Title win and fued vs Randy Savage and HT's seemingly comedy gimmick that was mired in the mid card, the cowardly Elvis impersonator, this was a shock for me. WWE certainly made the most of HT 's limited skills and appeal with his record breaking length IC Title reign.

HBK def Bullldog for IC Title in 1992 was similar - HBK was just starting his push as a singles star and a heel and mostly had been a bottom of the card guy who's big singles moment thus far had been a comedy fued vs Rick Martel. Bulldog had gotten a huge push for his singles career and S-Slam IC Title Win over Brett Hart. Everything pointed to a pretty decent title run by BB but instead he held the belt only a few weeks before losing to Michaels, who he had no storyline with and wasn't considered in the title picture at the time.

Dusty Rhodes last World Title Win: This came at the culmination of a storyline where NWA Champ Flair was taking on the most ambitious title defense schedule yet, back when the Great American Bash was a month long tour of grudge matches, not a one night stand alone PPV event. Flair would defend the belt on every show, against a different contender each night. 13 stars were deemed big enough names to headline vs Flair so almost every one got at least 2 cracks at him (a few, like current rival at the time Ricky Morton got a few more, I think heel Nikita Kolloff may only have gotten one). It worked out to Flair facing 13 guys in roughly 25 matches over 30 days, in a different city each match. Every week he would come on TV and brag about which wrestlers he beat during the past week and then brag about which wrestlers in which cities he would be beating this upcoming week. I had a 6th sense he might lose at some point, although by the time he made it to last few matches I wasn't so sure. Also, I didn't see Dusty as the guy who would unseat him. There were bitter rivals, but Magnum TA was the hottest guy they had (putting over Kolloff in a feud at that time) and Ricky Morton, who I didn't see as legit singles star champ, was still his biggest rival of the moment and was insanely popular as part of The Rock & Roll Express. When Flair made it to the next to last show and was facing Rhodes, who he already beat twice earlier in the month, I didn't expect him to lose. Dusty's win was about as great a "Feel Good" moment as wrestling has ever produced, the arch type family man good guy FINALLY beating the rich snob heel, in a bloody cage match no less. It was expected, it was a great surprise

 

[enviousdominous]

Oh... the... humanity...

[YOUTUBE]LZwGUsFm7_A[/YOUTUBE]

The Japanese fans rioted in the streets after they witnessed their version of Hulk Hogan get absolutely flattened by a debuting gaijin.

I wanted to make a thread in the vein of World Champions who took confusing losses, I'm glad this one was already made. Saves me the trouble of having to brainstorm an intro.

I remember Undertaker, after his second title reign was over, taking a pinfall loss to Kama Mustafa of the reformed Nation of Domination. It wasn't clean by any means, but the only interference was a brief beat down by the Nation members outside the ring. Kama hit Undertaker with what would become the rock bottom, and the ref counted at a fair pace 1-2-3. I was recording both Raw and Nitro on VHS back then, I remember watching it over and over again. Undertaker who would usually just sit up and give a death stare just laid down for the pin.

I recall Rey Mysterio, as World Heavyweight Champion, taking a quick clean beatdown of a loss to Khali. It was in Rey's hometown of San Diego and with his family in the front row. I realize there is a significant size differential when you put those two together, but Rey was pretty over at the time. I at least expected him to get one move in.

 

[Bookerkingston]

I always think of Khali VS Undertaker at Judgement Day 2006. This was back when Khali was a serious threat. Khali was the big freak and maybe you didn't figure he would beat Taker the way he did. I mean there was some slight interference from Davairi, but still. I'm trying to remember the exact details of the match, as far as I remember I think Khali did the chop on Taker. Taker sat up a few seconds later then Khali just walked up and kicked him in the head. Khali put his foot on Taker's chest and the ref went 1-2-3. The whole arena got silent and Taz was on commentary yellin "WHAT THE?!!" and the storyline after that was that Taker had lost his spirit and he was done. This match and story always fascinates me for some reason.

 

[Bythedockofthebay]

Oh... the... humanity...

[YOUTUBE]LZwGUsFm7_A[/YOUTUBE]

The Japanese fans rioted in the streets after they witnessed their version of Hulk Hogan get absolutely flattened by a debuting gaijin.

yes absolutely crazy, insane moment.

Misawa over Jumbo is my favorite surprise pin of all time.

Mikey Whipwreck winning the ECW world title win over Austin and Sandman is an all time great as well rolling up austin and winning the belt was awesome.