It’s a confusing quirk of modern wrestling that the piledriver is banned but the “neckbreaker” encouraged. Logic would dictate that such a move was incredibly dangerous, one that should be rarely utilised due to its severity; a move so deeply feared by any performer about to be on the receiving end of it.

Yet, neckbreakers are everywhere in wrestling; many wrestlers use variations of this move as part of their regular move-set, while others use them as finishers.

The simplest form of the neckbreaker, the falling neckbreaker, is when the aggressor turns their opponent backwards, aligns their shoulder to the victim’s neck, and falls down. It was once a very rare and match-ending maneuver, but over the past few decades it’s become mundane in its regular form and led to many variations being used creatively by different wrestlers to make it fresh again.

This article will highlight the ten most interesting neckbreaker variations used by wrestlers around the world. These moves are ranked based on how difficult it is to execute them, how impressive they look on camera and in front of an audience, and how dangerous they are vis-à-vis living up to the name ‘neckbreaker’.

So who did it best? Whose take on the neckbreaker has garnered the biggest reaction from the audience?







