Highlights
- Certain moves in WWE, like the tombstone and Styles Clash, are banned due to their high-risk nature and potential for injury.
- Vince McMahon banned Seth Rollins' Curb Stomp after seeing it on The Today Show, concerned about how it made the World Champion appear.
- Rollins eventually convinced McMahon to bring back the move, now called the Blackout or The Stomp, and it has become an iconic finisher in WWE.
Lots of moves in WWE aren’t allowed for wrestlers to use. Now there could be many reasons for that, and even the level of “banned-ness” depends on the maneuver in question. Certain high-risk moves such as tombstone weren’t for everyone to use, except for special wrestlers like The Undertaker. There were also moves that were banned due to the level of risk they posed such as The Styles Clash. Wrestlers are also stopped from using certain moves temporarily if a high-profile wrestler is currently using it. Seth Rollins’ Curb Stomp was also banned from WWE for years, and it’s become sort of a controversial move.
Why WWE Banned The Curb Stomp
WWE originally banned the move in 2015, and for the next three years, Seth Rollins didn’t use the Curb Stomp. He first started using this move during his NXT days and even won the World Championship using it at WrestleMania 31. Now Rollins had become the top star in WWE. He had one of the best Money in the Bank cash-ins in the history of WWE, and now Seth was going to represent WWE on talk shows as well.
Quite unsurprisingly, Vince McMahon was the one who made this decision to ban the move. He saw a video package on The Today Show where they showed Rollins use this move and McMahon didn’t like how it made the World Champion look like. He called a meeting, and pretty soon after, Curb Stomp was a banned move in WWE. Another concern was that young children could easily copy this finisher, and since it involves directly hitting a wrestler’s head, the concern was understandable as well. A single mishap can seriously injure someone and give them a concussion, especially if we consider that normal kids won’t have access to wrestling rings and will probably perform the move on concrete instead.
When Rollins first stopped using the move all of a sudden, there were reports that it was due to the risk of concussions. But that wasn’t the real reason why WWE banned Rollins’ finisher, The wrestler himself talked about this during an interview and said that he wasn’t happy with the company’s decision either. They wanted him to adopt an aerial move as his finisher, but he denied that. “My mind went to WTF? What are you talking about? You’re out of your mind, come on. His big concern was that kids can do it to each other. I’m like, it’s pro wrestling, it’s every pro wrestling move ever invented. Come on man, this argument is flat. But at the end of the day, he’s the boss, he signs the checks, it’s his deal, so you figure it out.”
Seth Rollins Later Used Triple H's Pedigree
For some time, Rollins did a DDT-like move as his finisher and later started doing Triple H’s Pedigree, which he still sometimes uses to this day. Eventually, WWE did remove the ban on the move three years later in January 2018, and they renamed it to the Blackout and later just The Stomp. This happened on a Monday Night Raw match against Finn Balor. Rollins talked to Vince about bringing this move back after finishing his feud with Triple H, and this time, he agreed as opposed to before. “It just felt like a time to get a new finish. I can go back to the old one and it just took a conversation and me trying to explain it to him in a way that he could understand. Time heals all wounds. So, whatever had wounded him, he was over it. So, he said, ‘Alright, bring it back,’ and here we are.”
Although there were rumors some months after the ban was lifted that WWE had banned the move again, Rollins revealed that it wasn’t the case. He still uses the move as his finisher, and it’s become one of the iconic moves of modern-day wrestling. He’s won a ton of matches using it, and while the concerns that McMahon raised some years back are still there, it seems like people in WWE don’t think of them as big issues anymore. Rollins is still a World Champion, and he’s got more eyes on him now than before, and yet the Curb Stomp remains his finisher. It's become one of the most popular moves in WWE and looks like it's here to stay.
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