John Morrison cleverly made his finishing move cooler and safer.
Since early on in his career, the former ECW Champion has won matches with a top rope move called “Starship Pain”. He has gone on to win multiple titles in his career, including the TNA World Championship, AAA Mega Championship and the WWE Tag Team Championships, in various forms.
The Starship Pain is the finishing move that John Morrison used in his WWE run. He took Rob Van Dam‘s split-legged moonsault, and added extra rotations to create one of the most impressive moves in the WWE.
He used the move to great effect. It was what got Morrison the pin fall victory over Rey Mysterio in 2009, winning him the Intercontinental Championship on Smackdown.
John Morrison spoke with Chris Van Vliet recently on his Insight podcast. He was asked about the origin of the Starship Pain, and proceeded to explain how he came up with the name due to a poem he was writing. When pressed about how he actually invented the move, Morrison revealed it as to lessen the impact on his knees.
“I went through this phrase as John Morrison where I was writing poems, and one of them was called Starship Pain,” he explained.
“My finish originally was the Corkscrew Yang Time Corkscrew off the top. Even in my 20s, it started just taking a lot out of me. Like, that’s a lot of impact on your knees, your elbows. And then, I realized I could hit like RVD’s split leg with a twist. And it looks cool because it’s fast, but if you think about it, you’re basically three-to-four feet lower. That’s much less speed and force in the landing. I came up with it, basically, to save my knees.”
