Gabbi Tuft had a very unique finisher during her time with WWE.
Former WWE Superstar Gabbi Tuft recently sat down with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard. When asked about her Burning Hammer finisher in WWE, Tuft told the story of how that came about.
“They were set to kind of debut me again and Arn Anderson’s at the ring,” Gabbi Tuft began. “He’s my producer, and he goes, ‘Hey, Vince wants to know what your finisher is. Do you have one?’ I said, yeah, I got one. And Goldy goes, ‘Well, what is it?’ I kind of explained it to him, and he’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll take it. Are you gonna kill me?’ I’m like, no, you’ll be fine!
“And so I did it, and everybody around the ring was like, oh my god, Goldy, are you okay?! No problem. It was easy. So he’s the one who kind of helped me get into the position I was at when I was actually on Bragging Rights and a couple of other pay-per-views from that point on. But he was so nice. We hadn’t talked really since I transitioned. And he just walks over and sits on the rope like a gentleman and lets me in the ring.
“And I was like, oh, that’s what that’s like, that’s different. I’m not used to that. So to just kind of go along with that and just fall into, you know, who I am now, the fireworks went off in my head. I was like, God, yeah, I need to see what I can do here. So we talked for a little bit and talked to Terrell, his wife, and we’re kind of kicking some ideas around on what it would take to get the ring rust off me.”
Thanks, Trent Beretta!
When asked how she decided to use a Burning Hammer-style finisher in WWE, Tuft revealed the whole thing was Trent Beretta’s idea.
“It was actually Trent Beretta,” Tuft revealed. “When we were in Florida Championship Wrestling in development, I was looking for a finisher, and he’s like, ‘why don’t you do a Burning Hammer?’ And I’m like, ‘What? We can’t. Somebody’s gonna die!’ And he goes, ‘Let’s do something different,’ and the whole thing was Trent’s idea. And he goes, ‘well, just sit-out DDT me.’ Okay, let’s try it.
“And so Trent, we had a crash pad out. We tried it, and we’re like, oh, that’s something. Then Doc Pritchard walks in, and he’s like, What are you guys doing? And he was like, that’s pretty cool. It just happened in five minutes. Fandango was there, and we were all just kind of goofin’. And they’re like, Yeah, you need to use that. Okay.
“So that’s how it came around to that. It’s not the original burning hammer, obviously, because when you drop people on their heads in WWE, they don’t like it. So we needed to modify it slightly. And that’s where the sit-out DDT came from. But yeah, there was little pride in that. And to know that nobody else was doing anything remotely close to that and might have been borrowed from one of the biggest international stars in the business.”
You can check our complete interview with Gabbi Tuft in the embedded video below.
READ MORE: Gabbi Tuft Starts Training, Steps Back Into A Wrestling Ring For The First Time In A Decade
What do you make of Gabbi Tuft’s overall comments? Would you like to see more Burning Hammer-style moves used in WWE? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit WrestleZone with a link to this article for the transcription.
