John Cena’s finishing move, The Attitude Adjustment, is considered one of the most famous finishers in wrestling history. Originally called The FU before being renamed Attitude Adjustment, John Cena has been using a variation of the Death Valley driver since early 2003, becoming an integral part of his entire persona. However, the Death Valley driver wasn’t always his finishing move, as John Cena used to do another finish since the beginning of his WWE career.
John Cena adopted the host of Death Valley as a legendary finisher
Whether fans love him or hate him, John Cena is one of the greatest WWE Superstars in history. Someone that many would say is the epitome of a professional wrestler. John Cena looks marketable, exhibits natural charisma and could pull off an exciting match in the ring. To this day, despite being a polarizing figure for much of his career, John Cena remains loved by millions of fans as his popularity helped launch him into Hollywood.
Considering that an effective finisher is essential for a wrestler to stand out from the pack, John Cena was lucky enough to receive a finishing move that helped him outclass him as someone to take seriously. Many wrestlers have used the Death Valley driver move in various ways, but John Cena is most notably associated with that maneuver.
For example, fans still remember the times he performed the AA on two men, like taking Big Show and Edge during a World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 25. Or how about performing the move for the first time against Rikishi in an episode? March 2003? from SmackDown? Considering that John Cena could show the strength of him by executing the Death Valley driver is one of the main reasons why the Attitude Adjustment is one of the most popular wrestling moves of the new millennium.
John Cena’s original finisher was called Protobomb
While John Cena legitimately took advantage of a move that many find appealing, it’s worth noting that the Death Valley driver wasn’t always his finishing move. While he added the Death Valley pilot move as a finalist less than a year after making his main roster debut, his finalist prior to that was known as The Protobomb.
When John Cena began his wrestling career in 1999, he took on the ring name The Prototype as he was supposed to come out as a human-machine person. Regardless of one’s opinion of being called The Prototype, John Cena’s overwhelmingly muscular physique (he used to be a bodybuilder) made him someone who can pull off a machine-like trick.
Because John Cena had the physique of a machine, his finisher was named after his ring name “The Prototype”. The Protobomb, or in a technical sense, the powerbomb spin-out, is not a complicated move but it does require a level of strength to pull off heavy weights. John Cena hitting The Protobomb on heavier wrestlers was able to show fans, at the time, how strong he was, even if some of these people thought his character was outdated.
The Protobomb finisher was still used as one of John Cena’s signature moves.
Although John Cena no longer uses The Protobomb as his finisher, modern fans are probably familiar with it, considering the move later became a signature move. Despite the many changes in John Cena’s character, from The Prototype to “Doctor of Thuganomics” and his current persona, the spin-off powerbomb remained one of John Cena’s most important moves.
Some of WWE’s biggest stars, like Steve Austin and The Rock, have had different finishers when they first came to the company. However, sometimes certain moves are considered more important than others, and it takes time to make those changes. Because of this, it seemed like the spin-out powerbomb was a better fit as a signature move rather than a finisher for John Cena.
In fact, the spin-out powerbomb, or The Protobomb, is one of John Cena’s “Five Fatal Moves”, as he would do it right before hitting his opponent with the Five Knuckle Shuffle. Since having a distinctive move set is essential for a WWE Superstar to stand out from the rest of the roster, it could be argued that John Cena has one of the most recognizable move sets in the wrestling industry, to which contributes its original finisher. that criteria.