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Ever notice that pro wrestling moves pop up in the strangest places?

This is usually prevalent in video games, especially beat 'em ups. In your average beat 'em up, throws are compulsory, yet the throws in most real martial arts (including real wrestling) aren't all that eye-catching. And some martial arts don't have throws at all. So where can the designers find throws that are more interesting? Good ole pro wrasslin'. A nice solid suplex or perfectly executed armbar can help convey untold amounts of badassness to a character as the viewer watches them delivering maximum ouch factor. This might be explained by the Japanese love of pro wrestling.

In general, if a character in a Fighting Game specializes in grapples, most of them will be of this variety.

Of course, in Real Life, such throws usually require the opponent to at least allow it to happen, and most of them require the person being thrown, suplexed, etc., to actually assist in the attempt. This means that these moves would be very easily countered by a resisting target, and would thus be pointless to use in a real combat situation. However, one of the most commonly seen moves, the German Suplex, can be delivered to a struggling/actively resisting opponent, but it is never as clean as you'd think, although some professional wrestlers have demonstrated the strength to perform a "deadlift" (unassisted) German Suplex.

May be part of a Grapple Move or Meteor Move. See also Suplex Finisher and Spinning Piledriver. Contrast Just Hit Him, where throws are inexplicably ineffective.


Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Apparently, a back suplex is great against purse snatchers. Here's proof.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Growing up in a family that are all huge professional wrestling fans Ikki from Air Gear is no stranger to using wrestling moves in most of his fights. Additionally, as a Shout-Out to pro wrestling, Sora Takeuchi's dogs are named Stone, Cold, and Stunner, after pro wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's signature move.
  • In Akame ga Kill!, Bols takes down some Danger Beasts with lariats and suplexes.
  • Angel Beats! has part of an episode dedicated to helping Yui learn how to do a German Suplex. Being about 90lbs soaking wet, she has some trouble lifting Otonashi and smashes him into the ground (in the wrong way) a number of times.
  • During the sword duel between Mary and Seira in Armed Girl's Machiavellism, the latter, seeing she was being overwhelmed and had a concussion after being slammed with Mary's scabbard, throws away her sword and tackles her opponent to take her with wrestling, only to find out the hard way her opponent is the better wrestler. This is actually part of their sword training: they're both trained in historical European swordfighting techniques, and wrestling an opponent into submission was a common occurrence.
  • In Attack on Titan, Eren, in Rogue Titan form, utilizes this a lot in his second fight against Annie, who is the Female Titan, breaking out an assortment of moves ranging from the triangle choke, armbars, and knee bars. Considering that, according to Word of God, his Titan form was based on MMA fighter Yushin Okami, this makes sense.
  • Minami Shimada in the anime of Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts uses several painful-looking wrestling moves on Akihisa whenever he pisses her off (intentionally or not), which happens at least once per episode. Sometime her Stalker with a Crush joins her as well.
  • Between Heaven And Hell introduces Narumi in a moment of Big Sister Instinct, does a Flash Step from one end of the room to the other to put the protagonist in a crossface chickenwing/sleeper hold to "borrow him for a moment" then performs a number of suplexes and rolling cradles all the way from the hallway into her room to make him Twerp Sweat for doing her mother into unconscious and aspiring to doing her underage sister. Bear in mind this is not a Shonen manga or anything even close, it's an H-manga about a tutor trying to have mutual though unallowed sex with his 14-year-old student and having to go through her family first.
  • In Black Clover, the anime extends Asta and Yami's fight against Dante; amongst other things, Yami shoulder-throws Dante (who's at least 3 times his size due to his transformation) so hard that his body is torn to pieces upon landing, leaving Asta flabbergasted at just how strong his captain is. Dante just uses his Body Magic to heal himself and keep fighting.
  • Bleach:
    • Keigo is usually in the receiving end of one of these; he once lampshaded it.
      "How come you stopped me with a lariat?"
    • Vandenreich Sternritter Mask De Masculine uses a lot of wrestling moves like dropkicks, lariats, and elbow drops. Makes sense since he's a Masked Luchador.
  • Buso Renkin: As a master of unarmed combat, Captain Bravo typically uses traditional martial arts when he fights but will include some professional wrestling moves, like an Octopus Stretch and an Argentinean Backbreaker, as they fit with his Large Ham persona.
  • In A Certain Scientific Railgun: Mikoto often punishes Kuroko with a suplex or submission hold. Kuroko herself performs an impressive missile dropkick on poor Touma in the parent series A Certain Magical Index. During the Agitate Halation arc, Touma gets attacked by an angry mob, and counterattacks by mowing them down with several clotheslines.
  • Misae from CLANNAD busts out wrestling moves to punish someone, such as Sunohara and a very close friend of hers.
  • Daily Lives of High School Boys:
  • Joe from Dark Warrior kills a mook with an Argentine backbreaker rack.
  • Digimon Frontier: In one of the most impressive examples, Big Bad Lucemon piledrives one of the heroic Digimon so hard that it blows the moon they are fighting on into little pieces... and said pieces are propelled with enough force to completely destroy two adjacent moons at the same time!
  • In episode 8 of Dog Days, Jaune locks Gaul in a juji-gatame. Gaul manages to counter and lock her in a figure four leglock.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Yamcha uses an elbow drop when fighting Boss Carrot's gangsters.
    • As a boy, Krillin used an elbow drop on a mountain lion that attacked him.
    • Master Roshi considers using a cobra twist or figure four leg lock on Goku but discards the idea on account of Goku's size. He later uses grappling techniques to great effect against Tenshinhan.
    • During the 22nd Tenkaichi, Goku locks Tenshinhan in a Boston Crab and nearly defeats him. He later uses the same move during their fight in the 23rd, but this time Tenshinhan keeps Goku from completing the lock... At which point they engage in a brief contest of grappling techniques.
    • Instead of martial arts, Broly uses moves like lariats and slams.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Lucy's Edolas counterpart regularly puts Edolas-Natsu in holds.
    • In an omake chapter, Natsu's idea of swimming pool horseplay is German-suplexing Lucy (he calls it a "brain-buster").
  • Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu:
    • Kaname gets irritated enough to bust out an "Ocean Cyclone Suplex" on Sousuke. For those who aren't wrestling fans, Kyoko helpfully elaborates on the move's name and purported impressiveness (as well she should - it's Manami Toyota's Finishing Move).
    • Gray performs a German suplex on Gauron's Arm Slave in The Wind Blows at Home part 3.
  • Miaka, from Fushigi Yuugi, not only uses the Tiger Driver '97 move on some random ruffians, she CALLS THE ATTACK.
  • Futaba regularly uses wrestling moves since he's a member of his school's pro wrestling club. His teammates regularly ambush him with moves.
  • The cast of Gintama seem to have developed a tendency to suplex each other when they're pissed off.
  • In The Girl Who Leapt Through Space, Nerval colony suplexes Leopard.
  • Girls Bravo:
    • Kirie often does lots of wrestling moves to both Yukinari and Fukuyama whenever she thinks they are doing something perverted (which is a lot). Fukuyama actually has her compete in his all girls wrestling tournament because of it.
    • In the final episode, Fukuyama actually uses his beatings to teach a hastily put together Amazon Brigade of alien girls wrestling moves so they can fight their teachers' army of mind controlled girls on the moon.
  • Onizuka from Great Teacher Onizuka actually got his first real teaching job after slamming the vice principal against the floor with a German Suplex. This act of defiance impressed his future boss and showed his love for professional wrestling.
  • Gundam:
  • Takamura uses it as a form of abuse on Ippo in Hajime no Ippo. It's rather fitting for his brutish nature.
  • Misaki Yamamoto from Hatsukoi Limited is a wrestling fan, and when Mamoru moves close to her while she's sleeping, he finds out this fact in a surprising and mildly erotic way.
  • Killua from the 1999 anime of Hunter × Hunter applies a Surfboard Stretch on his best friend Gon when the latter says Killua shouldn't waste his money on buying chocolate.
  • Iczelion: Nagisa wants to be a pro wrestler, and uses wrestling moves in her fights. They're not terribly effective on invading aliens until the end. Director Toshihiro Hirano is apparently a fan - previously, he had cast joshi wrestler Cutey Suzuki as the voice of Iczer-3.
  • In episode 7 of Is This A Zombie?, Seraphim locks Maelstrom in a kimura.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Kakyoin Noriaki, really Rubber Soul, tries to kill a thief with an Argentine backbreaker in Singapore.
  • The protagonist of Kemono Michi is Shibata Genzo, a former pro wrestler under the stage-name "Animal Mask." After being transported to a fantasy world, he proceeds to use his vast repertoire of wrestling manuevers to subdue humans, humanoids, and wild demonic beasts alike. One of his most famous is giving the Princess who summoned him a German Suplex.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
  • In Kill la Kill, Mako punishes her brother Mataro by putting him in several holds and even uses the Muscle Buster on him.
  • In Love Attack, Chiemi's dad was a professional wrestler (and was the top Heel in the country on top of that), so it's not surprising that when he or his daughter get into fights, wrestling moves get broken out. And given his Heel status, dirty moves get thrown in as well.
  • Ken Akamatsu began the shinmeiryuu style in his Verse with Love Hina as a super-powered swordsmanship school. With Negima! Magister Negi Magi, he decided to introduce the Nagewaza branch, a short series in shinmeiryuu grappling techniques. Suddenly a sword style that mostly relies on graceful dashes and acrobatics has Setsuna do a frankensteiner for kicks and coolness. Later, Evangeline beats up Setsuna, putting her in an octopus stretch and a sharpshooter.
  • Sieglinde Jeremiah of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid fights like this in close combat, utilizing arm drags, submission moves, and crater producing power slams to cripple her opponent. It's later revealed that these are actually among the least powerful moves in her skill set, as the actual techniques of the Jeremiahs were meant to rip armies apart with their bare hands, literally.
  • The preferred attacks of Magical Girl Punie Tanaka of Magical Witch Punie-chan are usually armlocks, leglocks, and various excruciatingly joint-snapping Submission grappling techniques.
  • Mutsuki Uehara of Manabi Straight! punishes the student council's adviser with a crippling hold for failing to warn them the school festival was to be cancelled.
  • Nagasumi of My Bride is a Mermaid suplex'd a shark.
  • Lena from My-Otome 0~S.ifr~ pulls of a suplex against M-9 in the last episode, and like the Superman example below, she does it from orbit.
  • Naruto:
    • Killer Bee and the Raikage, particularly the latter, both have attacks that look a lot like pro wrestler moves, and include attacks which are pronounced "Lariat" and "Liger Bomb" (though the latter is actually performed more like another powerbomb variation, the Batista Bomb). He also uses the Von Erich's Iron Claw as punishment against his brother for making him worry.
    • Rock Lee's Initial Lotus, a fancily-named Izuna Drop, can be summed up as a "Spinning Piledriver from Hell".
    • Sasuke's Piledriver is named the Peregrine Falcon Drop.
  • Mio and the Principal from Nichijou, both times Played for Laughs. The latter even German Suplexed a fucking deer!
  • One Piece:
    • Luffy pulls off the mother of all German Suplexes when he fights Oz/Oars with 100 shadows shoved into him, turning him into Nightmare Luffy.
    • Mr. Five gave a pretty massive lariat to Luffy.
    • Señor Pink performs a Suplex on Franky after swimming up a building.
    • Franky takes a page from Señor Pink's book and uses the Franky Southland Suplex and Franosuke Iron Suplex while the General Franky has the General Suplex.
    • Jinbe specializes in Fishman Karate and Fishman Jujutsu. During his fight with Who's Who, he intercepts the latter when he tries to bite Jinbe while lunging at him by blocking his attack, grabbing him by the teeth, throwing him over his shoulder and slamming him against the ground, all of this while he's being pushed by the same attack he's blocking.
  • Sayaka/Number Six does an Argentine Backbreaker in a dream sequence in Pani Poni Dash!.
  • In the one-off Pokémon Mystery Dungeon anime special Explorers of Sky: Beyond Time & Darkness, Grovyle suplexes Dusknoir, not once, but twice. The second time he does it, he drives himself and Dusknoir through the portal to the future, which then vanishes.
  • In Pretty Cure, some Pretty Cures can pull this one off during a fight against a Monster of the Week such as Haruka Haruno/Cure Flora tossing a Zetsuborg with a Giant Swing.
  • Rurouni Kenshin has two characters who use the "Jushiki Muteki-Ryuu" style. One of its cherished techniques, the "Goufubaku", translates to "Mighty Axe Explosion"....and looks remarkably like Hulk Hogan's Axe Bomber lariat.
  • School Rumble:
    • Tenma is a fan.
    • Karen and Lala are amateur wrestlers.
    • Eri has used the Shining Wizard and the Sharpshooter on Harima.
    • Mikoto is familiar with a few submission moves.
  • In Soul Eater, Black Star does a few random submission holds to Hero.
  • One argument between Trigun's Vash the Stampede and Nicholas D. Wolfwood was brought to an end by the judicious application of a Boston Crab.
  • The main character of Violence Jack uses a Vertical Suplex on Mad Saurus in one chapter, and later used a German Suplex to defeat a sumo wrestler, and killed a second with an Argentinian Backbreaker Rack.
  • In You're My Pet, Sumire attacks various baddies with headlocks, piledrivers and suplexes. This is especially amusing as she is otherwise a normal office worker.
  • Yuria 100 Shiki: Shunsuke relies on his amateur wrestling skills to protect himself from Yuria's constant attempts to have sex with him.

    Card Games 

    Comic Books 
  • In Dreamwave's short-lived Transformers comic, wannabe messiah Sunstorm pulls off both a DDT and a Stone Cold Stunner against Jetfire.
  • In The Transformers: Dark Cybertron, after Prowl has the nerve to smirk at the news that he got Rewind killed, Chromedome gives a perfectly justified and very cathartic response: a beatdown that starts with him powerbombing Prowl off a cliff.
  • Naturally, the action in WWE Superstars mostly revolves around the characters using wrestling moves on one another, considering the characters are based off of real-life WWE Superstars.
  • Batman:
    • As described here, in their early stories, Batman and Robin would sometime use wrestling moves with good effect, and have even inflicted a Curb-Stomp Battle on two professional wrestlers. Interestingly, their main hint of wrestling skills is that they rarely get to grapple, as they prefer to strike and they're good enough to maintain the preferred range. In a variation though, Batman and Robin are noted to use "real" shoot wrestling techniques (such as double-leg takedowns), as practiced in Greco-Roman wrestling, collegiate wrestling or MMA, rather than the stylized pro wrestling techniques typical of this.
    • Though it depends on the writer, Bane seems to be more of a brawler than a wrestler. However, his signature Bat-Breaker is indeed a wrestling move. In recent issues, without Venom to give his signature move its crippling and even sometimes lethal effect, Bane has resorted to using other wrestling moves on the caped crusader, such as a modified camel clutch, and even a bridging fisherman's suplex.
  • Justice Society of America: The Crime Syndicate of America tried to ambush the Justice Society on Earth Two while Black Canary was watching television. While Black Canary uses a combination of drugs and judo gain the upper hand, she is nonetheless inspired to pin Superwoman and slap the ground three times.
  • Combat Kelly and his Deadly Dozen: Both 'Hoss' Cosgrove and Jay Little Bear were professional wrestlers before the war and incorporated wrestling moves into their hand-to-hand combat.
  • Spider-Man: Being that he actually spent some time as a pro wrestler, Spider-Man will on occasion break out wrestling moves. For instance, in his first fight with Rhino, he beat him with what was essentially a headscissors takedown.
  • The golden age Wonder Woman often used moves like hammer locks, back drops, head scissor takedowns, double toed leglocks and even variations of the STF. The Post Crisis Wonder Woman used grounded double hammer locks, surfboard stretches and lotus locks to restrain rowdy Human Aliens when her lasso wasn't in reach. Rebirth Wonder Woman is known for body scissors, sleeper holds and having the most wins by "submission" in Themyscira's secret fighting ring. The Post Crisis version of "first" Wonder Girl Donna Troy used variations of the Polish hammer, battering ram and spear tackle.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction; when Thor is prompted to combat, he displays human-like combative moves such as a headlock, pinning an opponent down and throwing it over his head.
  • Vow of Nudity: Walburt is a gladiator who fights exclusively with punches and wrestling moves.
  • Doing It Right This Time: Using her Humongous Mecha, Rei utilizes a German Suplex against an Eldritch Abomination. Shinji, who is staring the fight from far, barely can believe it, and Misato and Ritsuko argue that Rei must have taken it from Final Fantasy VI.
  • In The Legend of Korra fanfic Book Five: Legends, the Cute Bruiser Fumiko often displays some moves, notably an elbow drop she uses at one point, and a full body throw in flashback.
  • Cassie and Sonya's final fight with Kano in Mortal Kombat vs Marvel Universe has Cassie performing a German Suplex and a modified Leg Grab on Kano.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: During the battle for the Element of Magic, Snips and Snails perform a simultaneous clothesline to knock Rainbow Dash down.
  • In Fate/Starry Night, Ritsuka combines the Instant Enhancement effect of his Mystic Code with some of Chiron's pankration to take Medea's Dragon Tooth Warrior crocodile to suplex city, crumbling it into dust.
  • In Fate/Sunny Order, Gilgamesh started suplexing Ritsuka almost immediately after being summoned, apparently as a means of training him. And then there's the naked wrestling matches...
  • Future Tense: Vivio definitely learned some moves with Sieglinde. Not even Deville can stand being thrown from the stratosphere.
  • In Hellsister Trilogy, Supergirl uses some wrestling moves, such like the Grab move she used to hurl her evil duplicate into a star.
  • In Darkish Souls, Solaire of Astora don't shy away from using wrestling moves. Or Suplexing Maneater Mildred.
  • A Force of Four: Even villains use wrestling moves every so often. Demonstrated when U-Ban performed a Backbreaker on Power Girl.
  • Spiders and Magic: Rise of Spider-Mane: Black Cat gives Venom-Luna a spinning DDT in Chapter 54.
  • In The Vampire of Steel, Buffy German Suplexes a Kryptonian vampire into the ground, right where a stake had been previously and strategically placed earlier.
  • In Material Days, Yuuno has a nightmare of Nanoha doing such moves to him.
  • Protoculture Effect provides several examples:
    • Kaidan, in a veritech, grabs a geth fighter in midair and piledrives it.
    • In the Relay War, pilots are noted doing this... including one who did it to Tyune Satarn, destroying both of their fighters.
  • The Fire of Futures Past: Jumba's story essentially becomes a giant destructive wrestling match between Kaiju!626 and Robo-Pleakley, with Stitch and Pleakley actually reenacting the scenes themselves.
  • In Kara of Rokyn, the titular heroine becomes a professional wrestler, and uses her new set of techniques on superhuman opponents such as Faora Hu-Ul.
  • A variety of professional wrestling moves such as the Huricanrana, various submission holds, and even moves like the Frankensteiner and Power Bomb show up from time to time in Still Waters Series.
  • In The Last Daughter, Taylor suplexes Behemoth into a Canadian Island. From outer space.
  • In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Bakugou uses a rolling savate kick to close the distance on Izuku before putting him in a judo-style leg hold in preparation for a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Unfortunately, when your opponent is Kryptonian, this strategy only goes so far.
  • My Huntsman Academia:
    • In addition to specializing on boxing, Toshinori is also a skilled wrestler and judo practitioner, teaching Izuku both during their training sessions together. Izuku applies these during his spar against Weiss, suplexing her to prevent her from using her glyphs.
    • Port is particularly famous for wrestling Grimm to the ground and easily tosses around Katsuki when the latter managed to swallow his pride long enough to ask for tips.
  • Here There Be Monsters: As fighting Mary Marvel, villain Black Beauty uses a headlock she learned watching female wrestling.
    Black Beauty was next, grappling Mary from behind and twisting her into a painful headlock that she'd learned watching women wrestlers on TV.
  • Ready to Rumble: A librarian tried to sabotage Naruto's training by giving him a ninja's notes on why Professional Wrestling has no place on the battlefield and telling him it was a real taijutsu style. Naruto got around the "needs your opponent's co-operation" part by inventing a People Puppets technique, and uses his personal taijutsu style to defeat Zabuza. In the omakes, he dresses up as The Undertaker to face Neji in the chuunin exams.
  • Discord's New Business: Applejack gets herself in a wrestling match against Iron Will.

    Films — Animation 
  • In the first part of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the Mutant Leader executes a perfect reversed German suplex on Batman during their junkyard fight. During their second meeting, Batman repays the favor with a suplex of his own (yet not so picture perfect) and throws in an armbar and a leglock for good measure.
  • Coco: Miguel is shown make-believing that he's a lucha libre wrestler while hanging out with Mamá Coco.
  • In Green Lantern: First Flight, Hal Jordan uses his ring to create a folding chair to smack his opponent with.
  • Wonder Woman uses some of her wrestling moves in both Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and it is awesome.
  • In Monsters, Inc., one member of the CDA performs a Flying Elbow Drop during a group takedown of a suspect.
  • In Raya and the Last Dragon, Namaari uses a headscissors takedown on Raya.
  • The Duloc brawl in Shrek. He leaps into a small horse paddock and pulls off a series of wrestling moves on the attacking Palace Guards, getting progressively more ridiculous. Shrek even poses and cups his ear to the crowd a la Hulk Hogan.
    Onlooker: The chair, give him the chair!!
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Donkey Kong initially dominates his fight with Mario by delivering, amongst other things, a dropkick and an elbow drop.
  • Superman himself pulls off a suplex in Superman: Doomsday against the titular villain and drives him into the ground. From orbit.
    • With a short timeout to punch each other some more on the way down.
    • Doomsday himself used a piledriver on Superman earlier in the fight.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Any movie featuring a wrestler will often feature that wrestler's signature move somewhere in the film.
    • Many films starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson have him use the Rock Bottom, his finisher from his wrestling days, at some point. The most noticeable example is during the fight against the football players at the beginning of The Rundown.
      • However, this was averted in Rock's later films, including Gridiron Gang.
      • He pulls out the Rock Bottom after a long time in Furious 7, and any potential Narm is replaced with pure and concentrated awesome by the fact that he's doing it to Jason Statham.
      • In Hobbs & Shaw, Hobbs (played by Rock) puts Brixton out of commission via a German suplex on solid rock.
    • In Hobbs & Shaw, Roman Reigns gets to employ both his signature spear and the Samoan Drop in the battle against Brixton's men.
    • In The Marine, John Cena chokeslams one of the villains to his death. Unlike with Dwayne Johnson and the Rock Bottom, there's less Narm here because Cena doesn't actually use this move in wrestling, and the camera angle conceals the fact that he's much shorter than wrestlers, like The Undertaker, who do.
    • Roddy Piper used many wrestling moves in his films, the most iconic being the famous fight in They Live!.
    • Gail Kim uses a lot of hurricanranas and headscissors for her role as the assassin Nadia in Royal Kill. Of course the fact that Nadia isn't actually real and just a figment of Adam's imagination might justify it.
    • Trish Stratus gets in a Stratusphere or two in the action film Bounty Hunters.
    • Batista powerbombs someone to death in The Man with the Iron Fists, and is commonly seen fighting like a wrestler in Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly during the prison break. He doesn't powerbomb anyone in the latter movie, but has expressed a desire to do so in a future installment.
    • In actual films about wrestling, this might count as a subversion, lampshade, or Shout-Out to the fans.
    • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin pulled off the mother of all spears against Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables. Stallone must have taken some pointers from Austin, as Sly himself busts out a powerslam against Jean-Claude Van Damme in The Expendables 2.
    • Speaking of Sylvester Stallone and wrestlers in his movies, in Rocky III, Hulk Hogan throws down with him in the boxing vs. wrestling match, where at one point Thunderlips scoop slams Rocky out of the ring. Rocky himself eventually breaks out a vertical suplex on the Hulkster.
    • In the horror/comedy Girls Gone Dead, Jerry Lawler's character kills the serial killer with a piledriver that breaks his neck.
    • Buff Bagwell did the same to a random Mook in schlock film Day of The Warrior.
  • Jaguar Paw delivers a rather nasty spear to Middle Eye in Apocalypto.
  • Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in The A-Team. In the climactic sequence, B.A. Baracus executes a scoop slam on Pike, before dropping him directly on his neck mid-move. Bad Attitude indeed.
  • The main character of Battle Girl, AKA Living Dead in Tokyo Bay is played by joshi wrestler Cutey Suzuki, who fights an enemy Super-Soldier unit made up of fellow joshi wrestlers Devil Masami, Eagle Sawai, Miss A and Shinobu Kandori. Needless to say, wrestling moves are included.
  • In Blade II, Blade executes a perfect vertical suplex on one of the enemy mooks, driving him through the glass floor. Meanwhile, Nomak pulls off a massive flying elbow on Blade in their final throwdown.
  • Urban also appears in The Chronicles of Riddick, in which his character kills a good guy with a brutal over-the-knee backbreaker. Riddick himself, meanwhile, kills a mook by suplexing him onto a stalagmite.
  • Not many of the American moves in evidence, but the gang fight scene in A Clockwork Orange is very much in the manner of a hardcore pro wrestling match... 20 years before the style went mainstream.
  • In Confessions of a Psycho Cat, wrestler Rocco (played by former boxer Jake LaMotta) turns up at Virginia's penthouse and attempts to take her down using wrestling. Which proves to be a bad idea when she is armed with a sword.
  • In Cursed, the main protagonist (geek-recently-turned-werewolf) uses several Narmtastic pro wrestling moves while trying out for the school wrestling team, including a backwards suplex in which his opponent is obviously helping him.
  • Cung Le delivers a German Suplex to a gang member in the movie Dragon Eyes.
  • In Firestorm (1998), Karge is a former professional wrestler. After losing his weapon while fighting Jesse at the trading post, he reverts to wrestling moves in an attempt to finish him off; even providing his own commentary.
  • Donnie Yen (incidentally, the stunt coordinator on Blade II) flawlessly demonstrates how a German Suplex is done in Flash Point during a fight in a Chinese marketplace.
  • Bruce Lee took out Ji Han Jae with a pro wrestling-style backbreaker in Game of Death.
  • Godzilla vs. Kong: Mechagodzilla employs human-like combative strikes including left and right hooks when fighting Godzilla and Kong during the climax. This might be somewhat justified by the fact Mechagodzilla is a machine that was designed to enable a human pilot to combat the Titans and has onboard A.I..
  • Indiana Jones:
    • Indiana Jones attempts a dropkick on a giant Thuggee mook. It did not stick.
    • In The Last Crusade, Indy ends up getting suplexed by a Nazi mook during the tank chase scene. Appropriately enough, the mook uses a German suplex.
  • Even Jet Li got in one during Kiss of the Dragon when he performed a "wrong" i.e. lethal Don't Try This at Home piledriver to a Mook, purposely breaking his neck and killing him.
  • In Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, the Holstein cow Moo Nieu delivers a piledriver to the Chosen One (Steve Oedekerk).
  • The infamous "I think he broke his fucking neck" scene from The Longest Yard comes about when Richard Kiel straight up clotheslines the poor schmuck running back.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • In both Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, Natasha Romanov (as Black Widow) frequently employs the Frankensteiner (headscissors takedown with a backflip) to battle opponents. This is actually based on the real Russian Martial art called Sambo. She just added some American-style moves to complement her high agility.
    • It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but Cap pulls a perfect German suplex on the Winter Soldier during the bridge battle. Cap uses a chokeslam and a sleeper (or rear naked choke, if you prefer Mixed Martial Arts terms) on Winter Soldier during their final battle.
    • In Avengers: Infinity War, to compliment his Good Old Fisticuffs fighting style, Thanos uses a few wrestling moves, like chokeslamming Spider-Man or catching the Hulk in a Gorilla Press, followed by body slamming him. Notably, he’s clearly doing the "wrong"/lethal versions; the people he performs the attacks on only survive due to being superpowered themselves.
    • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ghost German suplexes Hope into a table during one fight.
    • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Norman Osborn / Green Goblin puts Spider-Man through the ringer with a beautiful powerbomb through the floor, followed by a textbook spinebuster crashing down several floors down into the building lobby. During the climactic fight, Peter repays the favor by unleashing a front flip powerbomb on the Goblin.
  • Mission: Impossible Film Series:
  • In Mortal Kombat: The Movie, Sonya uses a sort of frankensteiner to take Kano down before she snaps his neck with her legs. She also clotheslines a mook. In the sequel, she successfully performs a Frankensteiner on Ermac before snapping his neck while standing up.
  • My Cousin Vinny sees a subplot where Vinny's fiancée gets stiffed $200 from a local when she beat him at pool, and after several ensuing confrontations to get the guy to fork over the cash but only if Vinny can take it from him, Vinny finally gets the money from the guy in the ensuing standoff by nailing him with a crossbody block.
  • Pacific Rim: For all their advanced technology, many of the Jaegers' combat styles are based on grappling, holds, and throws. Gipsy Danger even seems to pull off a suplex at one point. This is an important part of the design of the Jaegers in the first place. They needed a weapons platform capable of physically grappling with the kaiju to keep them from just wandering into a city and wrecking stuff while being shot at, especially due to their toxic blood.
  • In Power Rangers, the key moment of the final battle involves the Megazord suplexing Rita's Goldar construct, setting it up for the finishing blow.
  • Bruce Willis breaks out a belly-to-back suplex on Karl Urban during their brutal punch-up in Red (2010).
  • In Resident Evil: Afterlife, Chris Redfield uses a spear on Albert Wesker. However, Wesker has Super-Strength and Nigh-Invulnerability, so it only knocks him back about a foot.
  • Parodied in Scary Movie 3, where Cindy and her boss get into a fight in the background because he won't let her tell the public about the murdering videotape.
  • In The Spy Who Loved Me, James Bond uses a scoop slam on a mook in the Egypt scene.
  • Star Wars: Anakin...er, Darth Vader had better luck during the Duel on Mustafar, as his drop kick knocked Obi-Wan on his ass.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • Universal Soldier: The Return: At one point, Romeo (Goldberg) fights several hospital guards and orderlies, clearly all played by other pro-wrestlers. The moves in question quickly get... theatrical.
  • In The Waterboy the coach is trying to get Adam Sandler's character to play football and asks him to do what his favorite wrestler Captain Insano (played by Real Life pro wrestler Paul "The Giant" Wight (The Big Show) does to the bad guys. He responds with an eye rake. Later in the film, he powerbombs an opponent. He also dropkicks a guy for insulting his mother.
  • The World's End:
  • In Wrath of the Titans, Ares uses a suplex on Perseus. Perseus uses a spear on Ares and then chokes him into near-unconsciousness with a sleeper hold.

    Literature 
  • In The Faraway Paladin, William earns his title as "Wyvern Slayer" by front suplexing a wyvern to death after it survives his first spear blow, stunning it long enough he's able to break its neck.
  • The women of the Yoshinaga family in Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas do German Suplexes quite often.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya is a gifted athlete and can apparently perform a perfect dropkick. Just ask the Computer Club President.
  • In Heavy Object, Quenthur and Havia at one point end up escorting a princess's maid. When a group of soldiers who had wronged the princess show up the maid demonstrates her love of wrestling moves on them. This would be funny if not for the maid having been put into Powered Armor to protect her; thanks to that each move splatters the victim.
  • In the Horus Heresy, one of the first battles of the galaxy-spanning civil war was the Burning of Prospero, a tragedy of two loyal sons (though bitter rivals) and their armies fighting to the death. Leman Russ and his legion had been sent to arrest Magnus and legion for their crimes, and orders had been intercepted and altered. The savage and nightmarish battle ended with a personal duel between Leman and Magnus, two genetic demigods, and that ended...with a savage backbreaker.
  • Capt. Anton Zilwicki in Honorverse is a former top-level competitive wrestler with a number of Graeco-Roman championships under his belt, and is (in)famous for being able to disassemble a Super-Soldier limb-from-limb with only a moderate effort, while giving out a scholarly lecture on why the Full Nelson has been on the banned list for millennia.
  • John Hason Kennedy in The Man Who Fell Into The Black Inferno is fond of overhead suplexes and drop kicks.
  • Kureha from Mayo Chiki! does this often to her brother Jiro. This is justified in that their mother is a professional wrestler.
  • Mike Fink in the fifth Bloody Jack novel, Mississippi Jack.
  • In Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?, Asuka tries to attack Izayoi with a Shining Wizard, but Jin ends up receiving it instead.
  • Tanukichi in Shimoneta is repeatedly put in humiliating submission holds by Anna. As a result he becomes experienced enough to dish out some moves of his own.
  • Universal Monsters: During the final battle in book 6, Joe uses a wrestling maneuver Captain Bob had once used against him to lift the Creature off the ground and slam it into the floor.

    Live-Action TV 
  • You wouldn't expect this in a dinosaur documentary, but in Amazing Dinoworld a mother Deinocheirus during a fight with a tarbosaurus grabs onto it and suplexes it. It must be seen to be believed.
  • Game of Thrones: Brienne is known to use her brute strength to tackle her foes when at a disadvantage. It's how she defeated Loras in a tournament duel (pulling off a picture-perfect spinebuster), and also how one of the Bolton men pursuing Sansa met his end (and she also tackled the man's horse down too).
  • Kamen Rider has this going all the way back to the original, whose repertoire includes the Rider Swing (giant swing), Rider Head Crusher (headscissors), and Rider Tailspin Shoot (airplane spin into fireman's carry drop). Kamen Rider Battride War even gives him an entire alternate moveset themed around throws.
  • Monica Dawson from Heroes does a pretty wicked Tiger Feint kick (the 619, for Mysterio fans out there) to foil what would've been a robbery. Her power is adoptive muscle memory, allowing her to replicate any physical motion she witnesses without having to practice it. She had watched WrestleMania 22 (specifically the Rey Mysterio/Randy Orton/Kurt Angle match for the World Heavyweight Championship) only minutes before the robbery on a nearby TV.
  • Hilariously subverted on Chuck. One episode had "Stone Cold" Steve Austin guest-starring as an enemy spy, who is mentioned to be a specialist in "close quarters combat". Later in the episode, it turns out that he's an expert swordsman.
  • The aforementioned Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson demonstrated a Rock Bottom on Seven-Of-Nine when he guest-starred in the Star Trek: Voyager episode entitled "Tsunkatse".
  • When she made a guest appearance on Dark Angel, Lita does a hurricanrana during her fight scene. In real life, during the filming of the move, the stuntwoman working with Lita failed to hold onto her during the move and dropped her, causing her to land full-force on top of her head. As a result, Lita broke her neck and was out of action for a year and a half.
  • Captain Kirk's distinctive fighting style includes a fair number of pro wrestling moves. For example, he has a very impressive drop-kick. William Shatner has said he based the style on Montreal wrestling he watched when he was a kid.
    • It particularly is evident in ''Space Seed'' when he uses several wrestling moves to fight Khan - who, while genetically engineered to have several times more brute strength and sturdy enough to No-Sell punches and kicks, still weighs the same as a normal human and can be grappled or thrown like anyone else.
    • The Vulcan nerve-pinch is basically a claw hold.
  • The very first episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe sees him powerbomb a guy through a coffee table.
  • Two Phantom Zone escapees in Smallville, Aldar and Titan specialize in these. Then again, they are played by Batista and Kane respectively.
  • Big Wolf on Campus: EVERYBODY fought with pro wrestling moves. Heck, when fighting in groups, the good guys and bad guys would tag themselves in.
  • The main character of Angel likes professional wrestling moves. They usually have the crippling effect they would have when one isn't concerned about the other guy's safety. Even when all but his earliest memories are erased he still uses wrestling moves, even admitting he doesn't know anything about real fighting at this point! Professional wrestling is older than many think but since he grew up in the 1700s, about 100 years before catch, it must be much Older Than They Think in his universe. Either that, or vampires still have muscle memory.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Maybe the above carried over to Buffy as an early Season 5 episode shows her performing a hurricanrana onto a vampire.
    • Buffy uses a Frankensteiner at least once.
    • Giles of all people, once did a front dropkick on a vampire.
  • Charmed (1998): In the Season 3 episode "Wrestling With Demons", the Charmed Ones get into a wrestling match with Scott Steiner, Booker T, and Buff Bagwell.
  • During an Imagine Spot in episode 10 of Gekisou Sentai Carranger, Natsumi (Yellow Racer) has Naoki (Blue Racer) in an Elevated Boston Crab, a.k.a. Walls of Jericho.
    • It's also quite common for Sentai warriors to whip out a wrestling move in battles against Mooks, even if they're not wrestlers (excepting Domon/Time Yellow, who used to be a wrestler thus some 'bear hugs' are excusable). Kijima Futoshi/Goggle Yellow once used an Atomic Drop.
    • Don Dogoier of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger fame uses these a lot, in episode 13 and 43 he uses a Figure-Four Leg-Lock note  and a Hurricanranna respectively.
    • Iwasaki Ryuji of Tokumei Sentai Go Busters once used a German Suplex to take down an enemy Megaroid.
      • And also deployed a cross armbreaker on Copyroid to disable its camera arm (and its copying abilities).
  • In Fuller House, DJ (despite professing to not be a wrestling fan) went into Mama Bear mode when seeing her kids run afoul with real pro wrestlers and fought them off with hip-tosses.
  • In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, gladiators will occasionally bust out wrestling moves if forced to fight unarmed.
  • In Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, Servo handed out the occasional scoop slam and German suplex to megaviruses.
  • Red King in the various Ultra Series, starting with Ultraman. Nearly half of his physical attacks look like something you'd see in Wrestling.
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Will can often be seen busting out the wrestling moves when fighting with Carlton or Jazz. He seems to prefer Hulk Hogan-style elbow drops.
  • One of the most outlandish examples of the trope: in the Alatriste TV series, Francisco de Quevedo can be seen chokeslamming a mook off a staircase during a swordfight. Yes, that Francisco de Quevedo, and yes, in a swordfight. He is badass enough to do it.
  • Sting had a guest spot as the antagonist Grangus in a later episode of Walker, Texas Ranger and performed his Scorpion Death Drop on Walker. Sting Scorpion Death Dropped Chuck Norris!
  • Frank Castle has been known to body slam opponents in both Daredevil and The Punisher. It's probably the "nicest" mode of attack he has.
  • In The Mandalorian, Mandalorian Koska Reeves hit a jetpack-assisted dropkick and an assisted tornado DDT in her two appearances. Considering who plays her this is also an Actor Allusion.
  • What We Do in the Shadows: During his fight with Nandor, Guillermo does an impressive Frog Splash off Nandor's coffin (although he shouts "PLANCHA!" as a Shout-Out to lucha libre).
  • Janda Kembang: Unamused at another of Seli's diss towards her, Neneng climbs up a chair and performs elbow drop on her, which Seli later compares to WWE SmackDown.

    Music Videos 
  • In the Snoop Dogg video Knocc Down, one of the fighters delivers a rather nasty swinging neckbreaker on his opponent.

    Mythology & Religion 

    Print Media 

    Roleplay 
  • Darwin's Soldiers, Alfred, piledrives a guard during a raid on a Dragonstorm facility. The guard is killed in the process.
  • Survival of the Fittest:
    • Darnell Butler tends to use this, especially since he is actually a member of the school wrestling team. During version three's Pregame tournament, he defeated one opponent (Paul Smith) with a series of German Suplexes and power bombs, essentially using one of King's chain throws.
    • Also The Riz and Bryan Calvert dropkicking people off a cliff and a hotel block, respectively. This was also done in v1, where terrorist Angelina Kaige killed Lyndi Thibodeaux with a dropkick to the face.

    Tabletop Games 
  • All Flesh Must Be Eaten features an expansion, Zombie Smackdown, centred around this trope, in an alternate universe in which pro wrestling is an effective fighting style and semi-sentient zombies are used in the ring - dozens and dozens of manoeuvres and improvised weapons are covered, as well as new advantages such as "Baby Face", "Heel", "Testicular Fortitude" and "Heat". Notably, this is not crossed over with Pro Wrestling Is Real - the in-ring action is still explicitly staged, with special rules to reflect this.
  • In just about every edition of Champions, the generic superhero martial arts skill includes a Throw maneuver. What's more, any character who can grab an opponent (even with the baseline non-martial Grab maneuver, although that's harder to pull off than just throwing a plain old punch) can follow it up with a throw if they like; it's built right into the move by default.
  • Averted in GURPS, Professional Wrestling uses the Wrestling Art skill, which is not very effective for combat.
    • However, a few wrestling moves are available as combat techniques, including elbow/knee drops, drop kicks, backbreakers, and even piledrivers. While risky and difficult to perform, successful use can be devastating to the opponent
  • Deadlands contains a ton of "fightin' maneuvers" in its extended rulebooks. Several of them are based off of pro wrestling, including a piledriver and the freaking Stone Cold Stunner.
  • A Brawler-build fighter in the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons can and often will be played like this.
  • During a regular Dungeons & Dragons game, someone made a half-orc monk. Sick to death of the anime-esque martial art master monks, this player decided he would make his little orc a Masked Luchador instead. And so, LOS TIBURON, SHARK OF THE LAND was born. As a wrestler, he focused solely on grappling his opponents, and apparently grappled a bear at some point, but that's not the fun part. The fun part is when, near the end of the campaign, he wrestled a dragon which took off into the air with him on its back, at which point he declared his intention to "pin". The entire table fell silent, and he elaborated that he will attempt to pin the dragon's wings behind its back. He succeeds the roll, sending both of them crashing to the ground, killing the dragon by way of its neck snapping upon impact. His party was so awed that they had their fighter ring his shield like a bell and their bard declare him the winner as if it was a real wrestling match, despite the fact the rest of them were typical Dungeons & Dragons characters with no knowledge of the sport.

    Web Animation 

    Web Videos 
  • Occasionally used as food preparation techniques on Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time.
    "BODY SLAM THE SAUSAGE!"
  • Vaguely Recalling JoJo:
    • Magician's Combo, where Magician's Red does a suplex to hold the opponent in place and Avdol does a karate chop to the face.
    • Kakyoin does a coconut backbreaker to Hol Horse during his attempt of avenging Avdol after learning that Rubber Soul did the same to a pickpocket.

    Western Animation 
  • Megas XLR: Coop has a giant robot. He also happens to like pro-wrestling. Put two and two together, well, we have the makings of something completely awesome.
  • Wonder Woman used wrestling moves occasionally on Justice League Unlimited. Her best was probably the time she German suplexed Mongul hard enough to leave a crater. A mind-controlled Wonder Woman straight-up powerbombs Vixen after the latter attempts to tackle her while using the strength and weight of an elephant. Yes friends, Wonder Woman just powerbombed an elephant! Not just Wonder Woman, either. Solomon Grundy gives Superman a standard vertical suplex in "The Terror Beyond". In "The Cat and the Canary" Atomic Skull gives Wildcat a cage-assisted back suplex, then upon recovering, Wildcat, a trained boxer and martial artist, responds with a pro-wrestling style clothesline. A few other pro-wrestling moves show up throughout the series as well by various characters.
  • South Park:
    • Eric Cartman has demonstrated ability in sumo and grappling.
    • When Stuart McCormick and Gerald Broflovski get in a little "friendly disagreement", Kenny's dad performs a high-angle elbow drop on Kyle`s dad.
  • Rath from Ben 10: Alien Force, seen here with such classics as Polaris Pile Driver and Antarian Armbar. Fourarm is also fond of grapples, and even Way Big has gotten in on the action once or twice!
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: While fighting Obi-Wan in "Kidnapped", Darts at one point hoists Obi-Wan high over his head and then slams him down onto the floor.
  • In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Dale puts his evil clone in a Boston crab.
  • Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness: "Has-been Hero" has both Po and Quan the Unkillable use pro wrestling moves, including a vertical suplex and the Stone Cold Stunner.
  • The Boondocks:
    • Riley Freeman does a moonsault off a couch and follows up with a Boston Crab.
    • In "Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch" Robert recalls Lionel Richie being hit by his (ex-)wife with a leg drop and locks in the Sharpshooter on him.
  • An example from the sixties: Benny the Ball from Top Cat demonstrates what he would do to some guy using a garbage can as a model. He performs an airplane spin and is readying to do "the ol` bodyslam" (He names the move!), but he loses his balance, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • In Generator Rex, Hunter Cain, who was voiced by John Cena in his first appearance, used Cena's Attitude Adjustment on Rex.
  • During the finale of The Legend of Korra, Korra attacks Kuvira with an airbending enhanced dropkick.
  • In the hour-long Rugrats special "Runaway Reptar", the titular Kaiju lands a suplex on his robot doppelganger.
  • The Loud House: Both Lynn and Lana. Lynn has a lucha libre mask and a persona (Lunatic Lynn) especially for when she's wrestling, while Lana is known to wrestle alligators. Lincoln also (unsuccessfully) turned to wrestling as a way to get Lynn out of his room in "Space Invader".
  • Hilda: In episode 9, Frida reveals early in the episode that she has the Sparrow Scouts’ wrestling badge, hence why she easily defeats David. It seemingly becomes a Chekhov's Gun when during the climax it’s revealed disputes with ghosts are always settled with a wrestling match, however, Frida ends up losing the fight.
  • The Transformers:

    Real Life 
  • How do you stop a receiver who won't go down? Philadelphia Eagles safety Brian Dawkins' answer was the German Suplex. Most awesome tackle ever.
    • Years later in Super Bowl LII, New England Patriots wide receiver Brandin Cooks attempts to leap over Eagles safety Rodney McLeod for a first down toward the Eagles' end zone, but McLeod catches him in midair and pulls out a freaking Spinebuster to stop him short.
  • Rolando McClain performed a tackle on Rams receiver Danny Amendola that may have made the Rock proud. Granted, unlike Dawkins, McClain got flagged for it. It also got a bit of Lampshade Hanging from the color commentator.
  • The best way to block a guy is with a chokeslam. No wonder so many wrestlers were ex-football players.
  • The sport of Mixed Martial Arts allows a wide range of wrestling moves to be used in actual athletic competition, creating some spectacular matches. This six-minute compilation provides a number of examples. In Japan, many pro wrestlers compete in both staged "show wrestling" and legitimate "shoot wrestling" in which they put their skills to work in actual MMA-style fights. Of course, part of that is the fact that pro wrestling grew out of amateur wrestling, especially Greco-Roman and Catch Wrestling. In amateur wrestling, the suplex is pronounced suplay—a nice bonus for anyone who remembers Gordon Solie. Mixed Martial Arts itself owes a lot of its existence to pro wrestling, or rather "shoot wrestling", developed by Karl Gotch.
    • There are several highlight reels of fighters overcoming submission holds by lifting their opponents and delivering a bodyslam, powerbomb, or some variant of a suplex. This frequently ends the fight, because they are in effect dropping their opponents on their heads, sometimes at horrific angles, which could be considered worse than a straight-up knockout punch. Rampage Jackson, who powerbombed Ricardo Arona after being put in a triangle hold, would likely be the most famous example.
  • Martial arts coming from ancient jujutsu have some techniques that genuinely resemble theatrical wrestling moves. Judo's tawara gaeshi resembles a gutwrench suplex, while tomoe nage is a monkey flip with stretched legs. Certain aiki-jujutsu schools also feature a throw that is basically an Argentine neckbreaker done without dropping down.
  • Defied when mixed martial artist Ta'Darius Thomas was disqualified in an amateur bout after hitting an opponent with a moonsault, the ruling being that showing off to such an extent was unsportsmanlike.
  • The infamous effect of doing a piledriver on a little girl as her brother learned the hard way how much damage (read: death) the move can do. This quickly prompted the WWE to hammer in the old saying, Don't Try This at Home.
  • Abraham Lincoln invented the chokeslam.
  • Picking a fight with Casey Heynes is a very bad idea. After getting shoved and receiving a few blows to the face, Casey grabbed hold of his bully Ritchard Gale around the waist, lifted him so his head faced the floor, then delivered a wicked body slam!
  • During the diplomatic meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold between France and Britain, Henry VIII challenged Francis I to a wrestling match... And the king of France accepted, and it's said he brutally defeated his challenger. Why did Henry challenge him? Because he could.
  • On May 24, 2017, the day before the Montana special election to fill a vacant Congressional seat, Republican candidate Greg Gianforte took umbrage with an "aggressive reporter", reportedly chokeslamming him in retaliation.
  • One man named Klodian Elqeni in Albania seemingly decided the best way to stop a violent, out-of-control driver that risked running over several people was to dropkick him through the window.
  • When a group of friends hanging out at a local swimming hole noticed what appeared to be an alligator stalking one of them, they reasonably freaked out and tried to get out of the water as quickly as possible. One heroic man, noticing the "alligator" closing in on one of his buddies and not being deterred by the rocks thrown at it, decided to take matters into his own hands and elbow drop the pursuing critter to save his friend. It turned out to be a prank, as the "gator" was just an RC boat with a plastic facade taped to it, but it can definitely be said that a friend who will RKO a fucking alligator for you is a True Companion indeed.
  • Many self-defense instructions have noted that it is not uncommon to see seemingly-average people use wrestling techniques in a fight. The reason being is that nearly every high school in America has a wrestling team, so a large number of people have a least a small amount of experience.

 
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Wrestling with emotions

In "Fighting Jealousy," a guy, well, fights the personification of jealousy. To everyone else, he appears to be fighting himself.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

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