The high-flying moves are among the most exciting and captivating aspects of professional wrestling. These acrobatic displays are constantly developing as wrestlers take new risks and add variations to their move sets. Pro wrestlers from all over the world have made their mark on the business by perfecting their work high in the air.
Diving Attacks
Diving attacks are maneuvers where the attacker uses a traditional move, like a punch or kick, in conjunction with a leap from an elevated area like the top turnbuckle. These can be performed on a downed opponent with something like a fist drop, or to a standing opponent with a move like a dropkick or cross-body block. Other diving attacks include leg drops, knee drops, elbow drops and double stomps. Diving attacks are often done to an opponent outside the ring by jumping over or through the ropes, or off the top turnbuckle.
Sunset Flip
The sunset flip is a classic pro wrestling maneuver that has been adapted to the top rope to create an impressive pinning predicament. The maneuver is executed by leaping over a standing opponent, grabbing a waistlock and rolling straight through so the opponent is lying on his back while the one performing the move is sitting up and still holding the waistlock.
Splash
The splash is an essential high-flying wrestling move made popular by Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, who even performed splashes from the tops of cages during his career. The maneuver is performed by leaping from the top rope and landing chest to chest on a downed opponent. Eddie Guerrero and Rob Van Dam have popularized a variation of the splash where the arms and legs are pulled inward and then spread out before impact. It is called the frog splash. A splash performed with the back of the body on an opponent's chest is called a senton.
Rotations
There are variations of the splash that use rotations to create top-turnbuckle maneuvers unique in their own right. The moonsault is essentially a backflip that ends chest to chest. The 450 splash, as the name implies, is a 450-degree rotation dive that ends in a splash. The shooting star press requires the performer to face the ring, diving out while simultaneously performing a backflip and finishing with a splash on the downed opponent. Corkscrew rotations, which are horizontal spins, can be added to splash variations to create an even more spectacular maneuver.
Hurricanrana
The hurricanrana is a high-flying move popularized in Mexico. The move is performed from the top rope by diving open-legs first toward a standing opponent. The legs are straddled around the opponent's neck, and the momentum is used to pull the opponent forward into a somersault and often into a pinning predicament. If the same move is performed with the opponent seated on the top rope, it is called a frankensteiner, after its creator, Scott Steiner.
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