Not to pour salt on what are assuredly still open wounds, but Georgia football doesn’t exactly have a sterling track record of closing out opponents.
Think of all the games known simply by the moniker describing Georgia’s late undoing: 5 Yards Short, The Prayer at Jordan-Hare, The Dobbsnail Boot, 2nd-and-26, and that’s an abbreviated list to keep me from ordering two large pizzas and eating my emotions.
If you grew up like I did – loving professional wrestling almost as much as you did college football – you know there’s something Georgia football could borrow from the grapplers of the squared circle: the finishing move.
A finisher is just a wrestler’s signature move, delivered with such expertise and ferocity that their opponent cannot possibly get up off the mat after it is administered.
In that spirit, here are the Top 10 WWE finishing moves for Georgia football, beginning with the Swanton Bomb.
Arian Smith is a gamebreaker, plain and simple. He’s a football player with track speed and he gives Georgia football a vertical threat in the passing game that’s been missing since Mecole Hardman left for the NFL.
Smith is such a blazer, that in addition to playing for Georgia’s football team, he also competed for the Dawgs track team, helping Georgia’s 4×100 relay team post a school record 38.54 relay time at the NCAA outdoor meet.
If things go as Georgia and offensive coordinator Todd Monken have planned, Smith will put the flight in the Dawgs high-flying offense.
What better finishing move for Arian Smith than the Swanton Bomb. Made famous by The Hardy Boyz, the move combines speed and agility off of the top rope with a gymnastics flare to ensure their opponents stay down for the count.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 9: Doomsday Device
The Road Warriors, or alternatively, the Legion of Doom, were one of the most fearsome tag teams in professional wrestling history. Comprised of wrestlers Hawk and Animal, the tandem entered the ring in red and black face paint and adorned with spiked shoulder pads.
Given their “uniforms” and physicality, a hallmark of Kirby Smart’s Georgia football teams, it seemed like a no-brainer for the Road Warriors’ Doomsday Device finishing move to be a part of this list.
And standing at a Goliath-like 6’7 and 285 pounds, tight end Darnell Washington is the perfect player to employ such a devastating finisher.
His elite combination of size and speed gives him the strength to start the move, and the agility to finish it off of the top turnbuckle.
Watching Darnell this season will have Georgia fans repeating the Legion of Doom’s familiar introductory refrain – “Whaaaaaat A Rush!”
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 8: Pedigree
Hunter Hearst Helmsley, popularly known as Triple H, was a magnificent technical wrestler. He knew the ins-and-outs of his trade and used his knowledge in tandem with his physical gifts to become one of the best wrestlers of his generation.
Nobody fits that description better than Kearis Jackson. Not the biggest, or the fastest, he is coming off of a dynamic 2020, when he was Georgia’s leading receiver, punt returner, and kicker returner.
He’s also a leader on the Georgia football team, twice representing the team as a captain in 2020, while also exhibiting leadership in the classroom and the Athens community. He represented UGA at the SEC Leadership Council and also assumed a leadership role in the player-led initiative Dawgs For Pups, to bring internet access to as many students as possible in Clarke County.
Kearis is equipped with a unique pedigree, allowing him to achieve excellence in every aspect of the student-athlete experience.
For his finishing move, HHH employed The Pedigree, which was essentially a horizontal piledriver. It was unique in its setup and positioning, and devastating in its application.
There’s not a more fitting finisher for Kearis than The Pedigree, something that he has in spades.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 7: DDT
Ask 10 people what DDT – the finishing move made famous by Jake “The Snake” Roberts – stands for, and you’ll get 10 different answers.
Regardless of the abbreviation’s meaning, it’s a move that never failed to put Jake The Snake‘s opponents down for the count.
Georgia football’s version of the DDT intends to do the same to opposing offenses. Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, and Channing Tindall anchor the middle of a stingy Dawgs defense that led the SEC in rush defense in 2020, allowing a paltry 72.3 yards per game, and that should continue in 2021 with Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, and Channing Tindall – the “DDT” of Georgia football.
The wrestling world may not be settled on what DDT stands for, but offensive coordinators lying awake at night trying to figure out how to score on Georgia’s Junkyard Dawgs defense will quickly tell you it stands for Davis-Dean-Tindall.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 6: Spear and Jackhammer
Before Bill Goldberg was winning World Heavyweight Championships on his way to being inducted in to the WWE Hall of Fame, he was sacking quarterbacks as a defensive tackle for Georgia football.
His signature finishing move, the Spear and Jackhammer, was a dynamic move that started as a vertical suplex before transitioning into a falling powerslam. Its execution required a mix of strength, power, and balance that few of his contemporaries could mimic.
On the preseason watch list for the 2021 Lou Groza Award following a successful sophomore season, Georgia kicker Jack Podlesny possesses many of those same attributes.
He capped Georgia’s 2020 season with a game-winning 53-yard field goal in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl against Cincinnati, his third field goal of the season good from 50 yards or more.
And, not to state the obvious, but, his name is Jack. He has an absolute hammer for a right leg. Jack. Hammer. Come on. It’s perfect.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 5: Spinebuster
Before the nWo, before D-Generation X, before The Corporation, there was The Four Horseman – the greatest pro rasslin’ stable there ever was and ever will be.
Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Ole Anderson, and Arn Anderson made up the illustrious stable. And the muscle in the group, “The Enforcer”, was Double-A, Arn Anderson. The Enforcer finished his opponents with a move full of power and fury, the spinebuster.
Adam Anderson, Georgia football’s very own Double-A, is absolutely The Enforcer on the Dawgs 2021 defense. On the 2021 preseason watch list for The Butkus Award, Double-A is coming off a junior season where he had a career-high 6.5 sacks.
Opposing quarterbacks beware, Georgia football’s Enforcer has his eyes set on reaching double-digit spinebusting sacks this season.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 4: Sweet Chin Music
Shawn Michaels grew up in Texas loving two things, professional wrestling and football. He turned the tenacity and toughness he learned on the gridiron in the Lone Star State in to a WWE Hall of Fame wrestling career punctuated by his no holds barred, throw caution to the wind style.
Dreaded by his opponents, The Heartbreak Kid’s finishing move was a super kick to the chin. Aptly named “Sweet Chin Music”, it sent his opponents to the ground for a resounding 1-2-3.
Wide receivers and tight ends throughout the Southeastern Conference are keenly aware that when you see Lewis Cine of Georgia football lined up in the defensive backfield, you better buckle your chinstrap.
He flies around from sideline to sideline with a fury similar to HBK’s in-ring energy, and once lined up in his sights, opponents know he’s coming to lay the wood.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No.3: Figure-4
Is there a more versatile, electric athlete on Georgia football’s roster than James Cook? He can beat you running the football, he can beat you catching passes out of the backfield, he can line up and return kicks if needed.
And he does it all with style and swag.
If we’re talking rasslin’ and we’re talking swag, there’s only one name that comes to mind, and that’s the stylin’, profilin’, limousine ridin’, jet flyin’, kiss-stealin’, wheelin’ and dealin’ son of a gun – Ric Flair. (WOOOOOOO!!)
Flair finished off his opponents with his famous figure four leg-lock, a submission move that left other wrestlers pounding the mat for mercy.
Given his diverse set of athletic gifts and his senior seasoning, Georgia football’s #4 figures to have Georgia’s foes doing the same.
Also, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if every time James Cook scores a touchdown or converts a first down this season, the Georgia faithful were to serenade with Two Claps and a Ric Flair.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 2: Tombstone Piledriver
“I’m your huckleberry.” That is the line made famous by Doc Holliday, portrayed by Val Kilmer, in the hit movie Tombstone.
Georgia football fans have noted on multiple occasions that JT Daniels, the California quarterback full of moxie, bears a striking resemblance to Kilmer’s Holliday.
During his storied WWE career, The Undertaker struck fear into the hearts of his opponents from the time the lights dimmed and the harrowing bell tolled signifying his entrance into the ring until he ended the match by applying his signature tombstone piledriver finishing move.
In his four-game audition to close the 2020 season, JT Daniels showed he possesses a knack for finishing, leading the Dawgs to thrilling 4th quarter wins against Mississippi State and Cincinnati.
Given his Hollywood doppelganger and his penchant for putting the proverbial nail in his opponent’s coffin, the tombstone felt like the only finishing move befitting of JT.
Georgia football-WWE Finishers No. 1: Stone Cold Stunner
One’s a Texas Rattlesnake. One’s a Bainbridge Bulldog. Both are fiery competitors with a natural comfort on a microphone, so much so, they’ve each been known to casually let an expletive or two fly.
Stone Cold Steve Austin turned the wrestling world upside down, with a brash swagger that endeared him to millions of wrestling fans around the world.
He was notorious for flipping the crowd and his competitors the bird, drinking celebratory “Steveweisers” two-at-a-time, creating one of the most memorable slogans in the history of wrestling – Austin 3:16.
Following his win at King of the Ring in 1996 over Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Austin cut a promo. He said, in reference to Roberts, “You talk about your Psalms, you talk about your John 3:16, well Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your a**.”
Austin employed a finishing move that mimicked his barking bravado, the Stone Cold Stunner. The stunner started with a kick to the midsection followed by a swift transition into a jawbreaker.
Much like Steve Austin did to the wrestling world, Kirby Smart took over as head coach of his alma mater in December 2015 and he’s spent six years flipping Georgia football on its head.
He’s shifted the culture from one that “hoped” to compete for championships, to one that now routinely does.
Heading into the 2021 season, Coach Smart has a roster in places that is as deep as it is talented. All of the pieces are in place for a transcendent season.
When all the dust has settled, and the championship trophy is hoisted in Indianapolis on January 10, 2022, there’s a distinct possibility that it will be Kirby Smart and Georgia football holding it.
Maybe he’ll grab the mic with a sideways grin and proclaim, “You talk about your Clemson, you talk about your Alabama, well Smart 3:16 says Georgia just whipped their . . .”