The 8-Ball 07.19.12: Top 8 Suplexes

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 8-Ball. I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and we are back with another top eight list from the world of professional wrestling.

When it comes to a category of wrestling moves, there is none that I enjoy more than the suplex. I grew up on the likes of the Steiner Brothers, Taz, and many more who had perfected the suplex, and my love of the move only grew when I discovered puroresu and, moreover, joshi puroresu, where many of the suplexes that I loved in the United States were innovated and where many more variations yet to be imported waited to be discovered.

So, this week, I bring to you my Top 8 Suplexes. By way of disclaimer, I want to note that I am talking about types of suplex generally, not a particular example of a suplex. For example, you will see entries like “German suplex” not “Chris Benoit’s German suplex on Kurt Angle from Royal Rumble 2003.”

And let’s go . . .

Perhaps no suplex has become more closely associated with one performer in the United States than the fisherman suplex has with Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig. More commonly known as the Perfectplex, it was perhaps the most strongly put over finisher in the WWF of the late 1980s and early 1990s, an era where just about everybody’s finisher was heavily protected. It was a great move to have heavily protected, too, because it is incredibly visually impressive, with taking your opponent over requiring a good deal of strength and balance and then the bridge requiring another, unrelated form of strength. Everybody loves this move . . . except for when John Cena allegedly does it, though his version is more of a vertically suplex in which he gently caresses his opponent’s leg to pay lip service to the fact that it’s supposed to be a fisherman suplex.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to rank individual occurrences of suplexes, but the ¾ nelson suplex was virtually unheard of in the United States until one incident, namely William Regal MURDERING Rob Van Dam with the hold at Wrestlemania XVIII. Since then, though it has rarely been repeated in the big leagues, it has become a favorite on the independent scene, with El Generico using his own spin on the move from time-to-time. It also has a following in Japan, where it is alternately known as the Tiger Suplex ’85 and the Myst Crash. It is not hard to see why the move is so beloved, as, when done properly, it looks as though your opponent has been dropped flat on the back of his head. Unfortunately, there is a very real possibility that, if done improperly, the move will actually drop your opponent flat on the back of his head, which I’m told is supposed to be avoided in wrestling.

As far as I know, this is a move that almost nobody has used on a consistent basis. It pops up from time-to-time in the matches of random, lighter weight wrestlers, but I have yet to see a guy who has made it one of his signatures. In a way, that’s a shame for me, because the inverted superplex, in which the guy taking the move is flipped head-over-heels off the top rope and forced to land on his belly, is one of my personal favorite suplexes. I think part of the appeal is that, no matter how much we try to suspend our disbelief as we watch wrestling, we know on some level that it is fake and also know, moreover, that, one of the reasons wrestlers land on their backs more often than not is that it is one of the safer and less painful ways to land. Thus, anytime a wrestler falls in a different position, particularly from a great height, it allows us to suspend or disbelief more because we know that it’s not the norm. Well, that’s my theory, anyway.

The overhead belly-to-belly is another incredibly visually impressive suplex, and there are actually three wrestlers in the modern era who have done it and been able to do it damn well, though each has put his own twist on the maneuver. Many wrestling fans associate the move with Scott Steiner, whose version of the maneuver employs raw power, with some wrestlers who I have heard give shoot interviews comment that, regardless of whether you wanted to actually take Steiner’s belly-to-belly, he was going to make sure that you took it, cooperation or not. Kurt Angle, who came along later, also regularly did the overhead belly-to-belly, though his version depended more on finesse and the cooperation of his opponents. However, my absolute favorite overhead belly-to-belly was dished out by Owen Hart. Owen, when he wrestled as a junior heavyweight in Japan or against lighter weight wrestlers in the U.S. (particularly the 1-2-3 Kid), designed a spot in which he would whip his opponent into the ropes and, as the opponent was rebounding was rebounding, “throw” him into an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. It always looked brilliant, and, though a lot of the moved depended on Owen’s opponent jumping, the King of Harts still had a lot of involvement in terms of setting the move up and timing it properly.

This is another suplex that is almost exclusively associated with one wrestler. The Chaos Theory German suplex is the sole property of U.K. independent wrestler Doug Williams, who first came on to my radar as a result of his work with Ring of Honor in 2002. Even back then, he was employing the Chaos Theory, and, despite the fact that I have seen it on and off for a decade, I never get tired of it. Normally I am not a fan of adding unnecessary flips or rotations to already-devastating moves like the German suplex, but for some reason the Chaos Theory is a move in which the extra motion actually serves to make it look more devastating and not simply more flashy, particularly when his opponent is quick and coordinated enough to really run with him as part of the setup. My only hope is that, because the move has been so unique to Williams for so long, that somebody will actually pick it up and keep it alive when he retires.

Japan’s Manami Toyota would be on my short list of greatest in-ring performers of all time, male or female. She would definitely be top twenty, if not higher than that. One of the big points of her appeal is the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, one of the most vaunted weapons in her arsenal. Imagine being placed on your opponent’s shoulders and having your arms trapped so that you cannot escape. Then, out of nowhere, your opponent immediately and sharply falls backwards so that you are flattened against the mat and the wind is knocked out of you. Not only does your opponent drop you in this heinous manner, but she also manages to fall into a bridge, so you are immediately pinned with no chance of kicking out. Granted, there are some imitators who have tried the Ocean Cyclone and made it look slow or clunky, but Toyota’s original is still a thing of beauty.

There’s a fair amount of personal bias here, because it was seeing a dragon suplex in a WCW match in the 1990s that took my breath away and really made me see the suplex as something more than Tully Blanchard’s slingshot variation or the British Bulldog’s delayed vertical drop. For those not aware, the dragon suplex is essentially a German suplex but done from a full nelson position as opposed to a waistlock position. That one simple change makes the move look all the more devastating, as the positioning of the arms of the man delivering the move creates more of an illusion that the wrestler taking the move is landing on his head as opposed to his shoulders or back. It’s a brutal one . . . and I remember always being disappointed when a guy did the less impressive (in my mind) tiger suplex as opposed to the dragon version.

You knew this had to be number one. More than any other maneuver, THIS is the move that defined one of the greatest eras a promotion has ever had in professional wrestling, namely All Japan Pro Wrestling from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. Virtually every major player was dishing out some form of this move, virtually all of them looked awesome, and virtually nobody in the crowd got tired of it, no matter how many of them were used. The move’s legacy extends on to this day, as it is still not an uncommon hold to see the heavyweights of puroresu bust out, particularly current GHC Heavyweight Champion Takeshi Morishima. Long live the backdrop suplex.

That’s it for this week’s 8-Ball. If you can’t get enough of Ryan, follow him on Twitter here.