The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 Tandem Finishers

The art of tag team wrestling is too often lost on the contemporary wrestling world, when so many teams are thrown together for the sake of giving mid-card acts something to do, or to contrive a reason for upper card talents to set up or prolong a beef. Cohesive tag team gimmicks and outfits are fewer, and so are tandem finishers.

This week, I’m taking a look at some of the best tandem finishers in wrestling history. Note, this list only includes finishers that incorporated both team members either in a single move or in quick succession to each other. Thus, for example, though the Frankensteiner that Scott Steiner used throughout his run with his brother was awesome and an innovative finisher for its time, it does not qualify for this list on account of really only incorporating Scott’s individual offense.

Without further ado, here are the top seven tandem finishers.

#7. The Hardy Boyz’s Twist of Fate into the Swanton Bomb

The Hardy Boyz became a success story in Attitude Era WWF based on excitement and teamwork. Whether it was Poetry In Motion, the Whisper in the Wind, flurries of brawling offense, or a propensity to jump from great height, the brothers Hardy blended athleticism, violence, and tag team timing to produce some of the greatest tag team encounters in wrestling. It’s the reason why, regardless of how high either brother has reached or blossomed as a singles performer, promoters will always still go back to the well and team them together again, and why they may always be best remembered for their contributions to tag team wrestling.

On top of all of this, you have The Hardy Boyz’s signature offensive combination: Matt Hardy connects with Twist of Fate, an innovative and particularly vicious looking hybrid swinging neckbreaker-cutter move that would become believable as a finisher in its own right. Without pausing for a moment, Jeff Hardy follows it up with the Swanton Bomb—a sharply turning senton off the top rope, which was also a totally bankable finisher.

The fast-paced combination of these moves looked chaotic, required precision, and was booked to be devastating—a near perfect assemblage of factors for a great tandem finisher.

#6. The Hart Foundation’s Hart Attack

Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart were, ostensibly, a thrown-together tag team to occupy two young Canadians that the WWF didn’t have plans other plans for. It’s a testament to the talents involved (particularly Hart) and their chemistry that their legacy fits onto most serious fans’ shortlists for greatest tag teams of all time.

There tend to be two schools of thought about the Hart Attack finisher that Hart and Neidhart put together. You can argue it’s a poor man’s Doomsday Device—lower risk, lower spectacle. On the other hand, when Neidhart lifted a man to hip level and Hart hit a running clothesline, it was both fundamentally safer for the victim than The Road Warrior’s finisher and more organically believable as a tandem move that two guys could pull off in a real fight.

Thus the Hart Attack became not only a great finishing maneuver for a great tag team, but also a near-perfect embodiment of Hart’s philosophies toward wrestling offense—emphasizing moves that looked great, were realistic, and never resulted in anyone getting injured.

#5. The Young Bucks’ More Bang For Your Buck

From the most organic and simple of tandem finishers, we progress to perhaps the single least realistically practical move on this countdown, that just the same perfectly embodies the team.

The Young Bucks are the quintessential and elite American indy tag team. They’re undersized, fast, and athletic as hell. Moreover, high spots are woven into their DNA. Thus, More Bang For Your Buck encapsulates so much of what this young twosome thrives on: a rolling fireman’s carry slam into a 450-splash off the top rope, promptly followed by a top-rope moonsault.

This finishing combo is flashy as hell and more than a little contrived. Just the same, it showcases the athleticism of The Young Bucks, and is a believable way for two undersized performers to put down larger foes through a flurry of finisher-level offense.

#4. The Eliminators’ Total Elimination

The team of Perry Saturn and John Kronus tends to get overlooked for never having had a run in truly mainstream, televised wrestling. Just the same, from the USWA, to Japan, to (most notably) ECW, the guys teamed up to form a pretty phenomenal pairing, more or less in the mold of a Road Warriors/Demolition-style team.

The Eliminator’s signature finishing move was Total Elimination—a fast-paced spectacle of a move in which Saturn hit a leg sweep right as Kronus nailed a spinning back kick to completely wipe out the competition. What the move lacked in high flying spectacle or power, it more than made up for in speed and precision—a maneuver that looked killer and that was entirely over as a devastating finisher. Teams like The Ascension and Cade and Murdoch accomplished similar moves, albeit with chopblocks and clotheslines or shoulderblocks instead of kicks, but none have quite captured the spirit of destruction culled by The Eliminators in this move.

#3. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard’s Spike Piledriver

Whether they were wrestling as the vanguard of the Four Horsemen, or as Bobby Heenan’s Brainbusters, Anderson and Blanchard had a tendency to overachieve and attract tag team gold like magnets. Anderson and Blanchard weren’t the only team to use the spike piledriver, but as a pair of technically masterful, grizzled veterans, I don’t know that anyone ever got the move more over.

For the spike piledriver, you take one of wrestling’s most perennially over and legitimately dangerous moves (the piledriver) and add on another man pushing down with all his weight, off the ropes, to more or less double the impact of the move. With Anderson as the power man and Blanchard as the athlete coming off the ropes, few teams have ever produced a better looking or more believably incapicating tandem finisher than this team.

#2. The Dudley Boyz’s 3D

Out of the preposterous angle of journeyman Big Daddy Dudley spreading his seed across the United States to give birth to a diverse array of sons who would make their way to ECW, arose the unlikely tag team of kayfabe brothers Bubba Ray and Devon Dudley. There’s a pretty fair argument to be made that they ended up being the single most successful ECW creation that went on to transcend boundaries to the WWF, TNA, and throughout Japan, accruing an impressive array of tag team gold, enjoying remarkably long run as a team, and generating a pair of unlikely icons.

The 3D—the Dudley/Deadly Death Drop—is a flapjack into a mid-air cutter. The move looks fantastic, is totally buyable as a finisher, and based on the many formations out of which the Dudleys pulled it off, became one of tag team wrestling’s ultimate, organic finishers, requiring so little set up to accomplish. Better yet, the Dudleys wove the maneuver into their memorable propensity for using tables, so often 3Ding opponents’ bodies over tables for a pretty spectacular visual.

#1. The Road Warriors’ Doomsday Device

Over twenty-five years have passed since the truest heyday of The Road Warriors. It’s a testament to not only the team’s longevity, but all the more so how fundamentally special they were that fans still readily remember them as the greatest tag team in history.

From their awesome physiques, to their spiked shoulder pads, to their facepaint, to their mohawks, to their badass promos, The Road Warriors looked and sounded like about the baddest team wrestling had ever seen. And then there was their ringwork. Yes, Animal and Hawk were stiff, and no they didn’t always show the most concern for their opponents’ real-life well-being. Just the same, as a fan, the watching The Road Warriors no-sell and maul their opponents with press slams, power slams, and clothesline galore was always a spectacle to behold.

No spectacle was more impressive than The Doomsday Device. Yes, it was an awesome power move, between Animal holding up someone—and often deceptively large someones—in electric chair position, and Hawk nailing the victim with a clothesline. All the more noteworthy, though, was the sight of Hawk sailing off the top rope, revealing tremendous athleticism to complement the team’s awe-inspiring strength.

The Doomsday Device, like the team that made the move famous, is an iconic and influential piece of tag team wrestling history. For my money, it’s the greatest tag team finisher of all time.

Which finishers would you want to see added to this list? Demolition Decipation? The Steiners’ doomsday bulldog or DDT? DX’s Superkick into the Pedigree? The Motor City Machine Guns’ Made in Detroit? Let us know in the comments section.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.