"Allow me to make amends by... what? BLOATING TO GARGANTUAN SIZE AND SQUASHING YOU LIKE THE INSIGNIFICANT BUG THAT YOU ARE!"
— Sir Raleigh, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
A big or fat character launches themself into the air. On the way down, they use their mass as a weapon, landing on a smaller character who gets Squashed Flat against the big character's bulky belly. This may be preceded by a Shadow of Impending Doom before the big character falls. If the attacker has both the strength and the corpulence to perform this, they are probably Acrofatic. And they'd better have enough sense to never try this on The Spiny, or they risk nasty Inertial Impalement right in the gut.
Often seen in Animation, where bounce and squash can be exaggerated. It is possible in live action, and in Professional Wrestling is most commonly known as a "splash". For a Bouncing Battler, this may be a favorite move.
Compare The Glomp, when a character does this in affection instead of aggression. But if they are massive enough, the one they are hugging may get squashed anyway. The same applies to Sleep Squashing.
Usually overlaps with Ground Pound. Compare Living Crashpad, Butt Sticker, and Ass Kicks You. Contrast Trampoline Tummy.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, when Ed and Al go to Shou Tucker's house to study alchemy, Ed quickly finds the loving affection of a dog named Alexander. Alexander's shadow was the last thing he usually saw before the giant dog ever-so-lovingly crushed him underneath.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- Jessie and James got flattened under a Snorlax's belly in one Pokémon: The Original Series episode. Its trainer woke it up and it ate a pile of thorns, then went back to sleep and rolled on them.
- In Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire, Ash won the battle against Greta the Frontier Brain when his Snorlax flattened her Medicham.
- In Pokémon the Series: Black & White, Cilan captured a fleeing crook by calling out his Crustle (a crab with a massive block of sediment as its "shell") in mid-air, and landing right on the criminal.
- In an episode of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon parodying sports anime, a Snorlax uses Pulverizing Pancake to win a baseball game against Team Rocket. Wobbuffet gets squished flat.
- A rare serious case in Attack on Titan - this move turns the tide of battle when used by the Colossal Titan, allowing the villains to seize their target and escape.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Don Zaloog suffers this against Chazz in their duel: Powered by Ojamuscle, the Ojama King bulks up and leaps into the air above Don Zaloog (who had put himself onto the field). When the King is overhead, he realizes what's about to happen. All that's left of Zaloog is his eyepatch.
- In Naruto, Chouji fights Jiroubo of the Sound Four in the forest outside Konohagakure. Outmatched by Jiroubo, Chouji is thrown hundreds of feet into the air... only to use his Super Multi-Size Technique to grow to giant proportions in mid-air, crushing Jiroubo and a good chunk of forest under him. Cut to Jiroubo activating his level 2 Curse Seal...
- In Eyeshield 21, Kurita, the enormously fat center of the Devil Bats line, once did this to break up a particularly chaotic play during the game against Shinryuuji, crushing half of the players of both teams at the same time with the "Kurita Hammer". The fallout from the chaos resulted in the Devil Bats scoring a miracle touchdown.
- In One Piece, this is how the pirate Machvise fights, sometimes combining it with a Shield Bash. His Devil Fruit power lets him increase his weight by the ton, so it's often very effective. He meets his end when his opponent Hajrudin counters with an uppercut that manages to overpower his maximum weight.
Comic Books
- During the "Reign of the Supermen" arc in the Superman comic titles of 1993, John Henry Irons (Steel) was attacked this way by a henchman of the White Rabbit who had the ability to expand his mass to great proportions. Fortunately, Steel wasn't harmed, and managed to get himself out by giving the henchman painful burns on his stomach with his foot rockets.
- When The Punisher's first battle against The Russian spills over into the apartment of a grossly obese neighbor, Frank wins the fight by distracting the Russian with a hot Pizza Pie in the Face, then pushes said neighbor on top of him while he was writhing on the floor in pain.
- In the original Hellfire Club story arc in X-Men, a villain with the power to alter his density tried doing this to Wolverine. Both of them went through the floor, Wolverine came back up, looking slightly battered and with blood on his claws and said that the other guy wasn't going to to be trying that ever again. This marked the turning point of Wolverine's popularity and reputation as an actual badass.
Comic Strips
- In Zits, a disagreement over taking out the trash is dramatized as a "wrestling match"... where Jeremy's father's heavyset build brings it to this as the pretty much inevitable visual conclusion.
Films — Animation
- In Fantasia, an iconic image from the ballet sequence is a girl (a hippo) leaping into the arms of her lover (a crocodile), only to squash him because she's more than he can handle. Word of God has it that the entire "Dance of the Hours" section is meant to suggest a performance by an amateur ballet company, i.e. it might have funny moments due to the dancers' limited skill, but isn't being played for laughs.
- Kung Fu Panda 2: Done by Po to the Wolf Boss.
- The end of Shrek 2, where Shrek attempts to body-surf the crowd, the crowd runs like hell, and the little dog is left underneath...
- In her draconic debut in Bartok the Magnificent when she finishes her Villain Song The Real Ludmilla and proceeds to divebomb a group of prisoners below while they hold up a stone platform for her to land on.
- In Turning Red, Mei in giant red panda form trips and falls on Carter Murphy-Mayhew. Fortunately, he is completely unhurt by this.
Films — Live-Action
- The Happiness of the Katakuris, a movie about a family-run hotel where every guest who checks in dies in an unexpected way, includes a sumo wrestler who has a heart attack on top of his girlfriend, causing them both to die. He didn't jump on her, though.
- The flashback to the cheerleading tryouts in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, when the fat chick squashes Justin Long's character.
- Attempted by Pound to Lola Bunny in Space Jam, but Bugs pushes her out of the way at the last moment and gets himself crushed instead.
Literature
- In The Berenstain Bears book "The Trouble with Teasing", Milton's favorite wrestling move, called "the pancake" essentially involves falling on top of the opponent. It enables him to win every match.
- In the apocryphal book of 1st Maccabees, Judah Maccabee's brother Eleazar Avaran died by being crushed by the elephant carrying the attacking enemy troops when he went under the creature and killed it to stop them.
- The Lord of the Rings: Sam is in a fight with the Giant Spider Shelob. He proves a tricky opponent, because he is small and quick enough to dodge Shelob's strikes. Frustrated, she decides to throw her whole body down to crush Sam. Shelob gets a painful Inertial Impalement from this mistake.
Pro Wrestling
- Two major acts on the old British professional circuit were the superstar, super-mega-heavyweights, "Big Daddy" and "Giant Haystacks". Both were large imposing men who stood way over six feet and weighed in at around 30-35 stone. (350-400 pounds). Each. Big Daddy's signature play, imitated by Haystacks, was exactly this - the belly flop crush. Billed as deadly enemies, a fight between the two necessitated a specially built ring capable of taking the impact. Big Daddy was billed as a patriotic Yorkshire Englishman and good guy: Haystacks was the baddie, an Irish Traveller who played on prejudices against both the Irish and gypsies (this was the 1970's, the height of the Irish terrorist bombing campaign). The fights were necessarily short, as both wrestlers lacked stamina for long bouts.
- Brodus Clay was also known for using this move, which was referred to as "splat", sometimes done in tandem with Sweet T (Lord Tensai) for the "double splat".
- Ultimate Warrior also used it to cap off his Five Moves of Doom.
- A common move for super-heavyweight wrestlers like King Kong Bundy, 'Crusher' Jerry Blackwell, Kamala, the The One Man Gang, Uncle Elmer (aka Plowboy) and Haystacks Calhoun.
- Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka was famous for his top rope splash finisher, most memorably when he did it from the top of a steel cage (though Gypsy Joe did it before him). Later acts such as Val Venis and Erica Porter would use the move as well. The Usos and his own daughter Tamina Snuka are known for often jumping much higher than needed off the turn buckle.
- Art Barr of Los Gringos Locos popularized the "frog splash" which was top rope like Jimmy Snuka's but involved jumping still crunched and unfolding in midair before landing (or jacknifing before landing, same visual effect). Eddie Guerrero would take up using the frog splash to honor his memory and several more wrestlers would take it up to honor Eddie's.
- Innovated by Mando Guerrero, the most common form of the moonsault lands this way, at least when done to a downed a opponent. Jack Evans has since done a double rotation "720" moonsault, and Ricochet has been doing double moonsaults regularly.
- Rob Van Dam has the five star frog splash in which he gives his signature thumbs at self taunt in midair before connecting and is noted for often hurting himself because of the nature of it. He also likes a split legged version of the moonsault.
- One of Paul London's spots in tag team matches was to after downing one opponent, to dropkick the shmuck running in to break up the pin and use them as elevation for a moonsault. (A dropsault, if you will.)
- 2 Cold Scorpio introduced the wrestling world to what is now known at the four fifty splash (though some credit Rick Steiner), which involves making two rotations before landing on your belly. Paul London and Justin Gabriel would later introduce it to WWE fans. Some wrestlers such as Yoshitsune and Rich Swann have taking to using an "imploding" 450 splash, which is doing the move backwards.
- Student of the original Rey Misterio, Hayabusa came up with the Phoenix Splash while looking for a new move do in Mexico. It is a corkscrew 450.
- Mikami of Dramatic Dream Team has used a 630° Splash he calls Deep M Impact. Laredo Kid, Jamie de la Combé and Hero Tiger are also among some of the more well known users.
- Jushin Thunder Liger introduced to wrestling what would be known as the shooting star press, named because he got the idea from reading Fist of The North Star, which involves doing a back flip while jumping forward before landing in a pinning position(on your belly). Billy Kidman would invent the most common way the move is used while falling short of imitating him and Evan Bourne is known for jumping higher than average while preforming it.
- Big Van Vader's Vader crush was a running or standing splash and the more powerful Vader Bomb was a pseudo slingshot splash that gained notoriety after it legitimately injured someone. Jack Swagger has also used the Vader Bomb.
- Variations of the splash include belly flopping into an opponent in the corner, the running avalanche or the jumping "stinger splash". Also can belly flop crush an opponent crushed between two wrestlers running or jumping into him from different sides.
- Yutaka Yoshie, typically clocking in at around 330 pounds, deserves special mention because his entire style is based on hitting opponents with his entire big body at once — splashes, sentons, avalanches, the corner hip attack, etc.
Video Games
- Battle Axe has its second boss - a Giant Crab - who can somehow jump, really high. And will use its jumping ability to crush you beneath itself.
- In Diablo III, the Witch Doctor can upgrade the Wall of Zombies spell with Pile On, which causes four fat zombies to crawl out of the ground, climb onto each others shoulders to make a tower, and then throw themselves forward to crash into the hordes of enemies, dealing a huge amount of damage.
- Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance has Red Magnus pull this off as his second unique skill, Giant Body Slam.
- King K. Rool uses a belly flop attack in Donkey Kong Land. It pops up again in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where it's one of his Smash attacks.
- The Gladiator have an Acrofatic Shaolin Monk as a boss who will regularly try to flop on you with his belly. He can move lightning-fast despite his size, and his flop can take away plenty of your health.
- In Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, this is Raleigh's primary form of attack; that is, he inflates himself and bounces around the arena, trying to crush you. To do damage to him, you have to wait until he deflates and whack him.
- The sequels allow you to do this with Murray's "Thunder Flop". Memorably, his entrance in the second game has him use the move to get into a room where Sly is.
- This is one of Big the Cat's moves in Sonic Heroes.
- In Street Fighter X Tekken, Bob uses a belly flop move as a part of his Giga Meteo Super Art. As the game has many girls who are very young and thin
it can be quite the sight to behold doing this to someone who is literally 1/4th of his weight.
- Both Incineroar and King K. Rool (the latter seen in the article image, crushing a poor Pichu) can perform this move in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It's assigned to their down-smash.
- In Paper Mario, this is one of Sushie's attacks (appropriately called 'Belly Flop').
- This is Bo' Rai Cho's Fatality in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. He belly flops twice for added measure.
- In The King of Fighters, Chang Koehan is fond of this move, often done as his Limit Break.
- The incredibly muscular Dwarf in Dragon's Crown can crush enemies with a belly flop attack.
- A more indirect attack of this manner is seen with the Snack Basket ability in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. After fattening up, Luigi gets hurled into the air by Mario before slamming down on the ground to make a shockwave that barrels through ground-based enemies.
- One of Mike Haggar's hypers in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is this, with added bonus points of generating an explosion on impact.
- Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back: Starting from this game, Crash has a Ground Pound performed in the style of an aerial flop. And it works, despite his rather slender build in comparison to most fictional characters who attempt this.
- In Hyrule Warriors:
- The Moblins perform this as a primary attack. This move also exposes their weak point gauge.
- In terms of playable characters, Zant has this as his automatic Focus Spirit finisher, which he amplifies by growing huge mid-jump.
- Some Blazing Moves in Def Jam: Fight for NY involve this, and typically are the signature of fatter characters like Bone Crusher. Subverted in that they can be performed by even the thinnest player characters with the move available, and in all of them, the attacker lands chest-first.
- In the Tekken series, the Jack robots (and the first Kuma) have an attack-throw called Hell Press where they spring forward and used their weight to squash their opponent into the ground, which could be followed up with one of several attacks depending on which character had performed it.
- Salt and Sanctuary: The Bloodless Prince will use these to close any distance you try to put between you and him. Being a massive golem that barely fits in the screen, he pulls it off so well that staying close is actually the better option; he punches and kicks hard, but at least you can dodge those. The bellyflop hits almost the entire arena at once.
- In Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Belly Flop is one of Kabuto's learnable attacks: highly damaging and with a huge area of effect.
- Bug: The final boss Queen Cadavra, attempts this on the titular Bug, which is easily avoidable. It's also the only attack of hers that leaves herself open on the platform for Bug to sting her fat butt.
- The Sleeping Dogs from Spyro the Dragon (1998) use this as their main attack, waking up, jumping and landing on Spyro. The Beasts in Alpine Ridge belly flop on Spyro as well. The crystal bears in Crystal Islands also do this to Spyro if you get too close to them in Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
- Gulp from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! tries to jump on Spyro to crush him under his weight during the fight against him.
- Some breeds of King Slime in the Dragon Quest series can use a body attack to smother their victims underneath their weight, sometimes ending in a One-Hit Kill.
- Earthquake in Samurai Shodown has a few such moves. Given how enormously fat he is, they're unsurprisingly devastating.
- In Genji: the monstrous sumoka-like Ogres in chapter 3 will react to Kamui by taking a Sumo pose, leaping high offscreen and then falling belly-first on the hero, promtping the Action Command to dodge the slam and hit them with a deadly attack.
- “Pulverizing Pancake” is a Z-move in Pokémon Sun and Moon that has this, with a Professional Wrestling like jump animation.
- The Man-eater Boar from Bloodborne will often rear up, slam back down, and roll over your character, smushing them flat.
- Peppino from Pizza Tower does a Ground Pound attack with belly landing first.
Western Animation
- Accidentally done by Bigmouth in The Smurfs (1981) episode "Bigmouth Smurf" when he was made to believe that he was a giant Smurf, though fortunately the only victims were Smurf houses.
- The Life and Times of Juniper Lee In a wrestling match that's already a Humiliation Conga, the monster Juniper is fighting lands on her, casually getting up and peeling her Squashed Flat form off its stomach and tossing her aside.
- The Cleveland Show episode "Buried Pleasure" has Kendra crushing Jill this way.
- This seemed to be the Signature Move of Sumoto, a gigantic Sumo gladiator from the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Smackback".
- The obese ninja Tubbimura does this on Raimundo in his debut episode of Xiaolin Showdown, with the bonus that he's apparently malleable enough that he flattens and molds around Rai's body before rebounding.
