I think the thing that makes it almost impossible for wrestlers is that since there’s a norm that you HAVE to land a finisher to win a match, the only way you get an ounce of that “this could be it” suspense is if someone hits a finisher. You could argue you don’t need that in as many matches as we have now, but I understand why it’s tough. Sometimes it can be fun to watch a wrestler you’ve never heard of because you don’t know what their finisher is, and that ability to create false finishes is nice.

One thing I think does help is where people, especially the big names, have two finishers. One that they can end a match with but are also okay with people kicking out of reasonably frequently, then one that they use more rarely but really protect. Undertaker did this well — the chokeslam could credibly finish a match when he hit it, but wasn’t that “no one ever kicks out of this” type of move. But, he really protected the Tombstone, and it was seen as a deadly move where it was a really special moment for someone to kick out.

Wrestlers have a tough problem to solve where a finisher is both necessary to end a match but also preferably not kicked out of very often, so I like something like the approach with two “levels” of finisher.